“In other words…he didn’t buy that invisible mantle to obtain information, but the opposite…he had that mantle first before doing such a thing…”
Kirito sighed and then leaned his back on the chair.
“…In the past, any MMO would have some sort of «Hiding» skill, and it’s rare to see those who don’t have it. But…I feel that the invisibility in VRMMO can be used to do a lot of bad things. At least it should be banned from being used on the streets…you need to feedback this to Zaskar, Sinon.”
As the topic was suddenly shifted to her, Shino could only hurriedly answer,
“Y, you go submit it…but, that means that the mantle was the reason that gave birth to «Death Gun».”
The last part of those words were obviously said to Kikuoka. The bespectacled civil servant nodded his head and then turned his eyes to look at the tablet PC again. After seeing his kind smile, Shino suddenly had a strange feeling, but that didn’t matter now, so Shino didn’t say her next thought. Kikuoka continued talking as the sunset shone on the table surface.
“…I guess you can put it like that. Shoichi immediately memorized the personal information on instinct and wrote it down after he logged out. At this moment, he didn’t really have some detailed plan to go about with this crime, but being able to get real information on players made him happy. After that, he would spend many hours in the presidential estate and wait for players to appear and write their real addresses down. Finally, he got a total of 16 real player names and addresses. Among them…Asada Shino-san, yours was included.”
“…”
Shino nodded. Since it started before September, that would be before the 2nd BoB tournament. There were about 500 players who registered. Even if only half of them inputed their real names and addresses so as to get the model gun, it wouldn’t be impossible to steal 16 players’ real life information.
Kikuoka continued to explain,
“On a certain day in October, the younger Kyouji indicated to Shoichi that he had a problem with his character development. At that time, he seemed to have said angrily that ‘it was because of the fake information «Zekushiido» spread’, and Shoichi remembered that he had Zekushiido’s real name and address and told it to Kyouji.”
That’s right. It was likely at that moment that the wall between Kyouji’s imagination and the real world started to break apart.
“Shoichi indicated that it wasn’t a plan one person came up with.”
Kikuoka’s calm voice slid into Shino’s ears.
“It’s said that as the two of them were discussing about how to handle Zekushiido’s personal information, the plan to create «Death Gun» started to take shape. However, Shoichi mentioned that they were just joking around in the beginning. Shooting in the game and killing a player in real life…this sounded easy, but there were a few difficulties in reality. After days of discussion, they slowly started to overcome one obstacle after another. And the biggest obstacle they faced was the master key that could break electronic locks and the way to inject drugs…”
“A General Hospital should have a legal master key to open a patient’s house when there’s an emergency. I guess their father’s hospital…”
After hearing it from Kirito, Kikuoka looked like he was blowing a silent whistle as he curled his lips.
“As expected of Kirito. Actually, the government was promoting keyless sensor door locks to add control to personal residences that may not be easy to get broken in…but that’s classified information. Anyway, the two of them worked hard to steal the unlock mechanism, the high pressure syringe and Succinylcholine from their father’s hospital. According to Shoichi, carrying out this plan itself was like a game. He said that this was completely the same as gathering intel on targets in SAO, preparing their equipment and launching raids. It’s said that he even told the police who was taking his statement ‘aren’t you the same?’. It seemed that he meant that the game was about going about and talking to NPCs everywhere, collecting information, catching the bountied criminal and hand him over to collect money, and that what the police was doing wasn’t any different.”
“I think that you better not trust his words fully.”
The moment Kirito suddenly said these words, Kikuoka frowned and asked,
“Really?”
“Un. Maybe that Shoichi may have some part of him which really felt that way, but as «Red-Eyed XaXa», even though he kept telling people around him that this was just a game, he knew that players will really die and had such an addiction to killing. To him, whether it’s the virtual world or the real world, only things that were beneficial to him were real. The sense of reality was wearing thin on him…this may be the dark side of VRMMOs.”
“Un. Then…how about your reality?”
Shino thought that Kirito would give a mischievous smile that he would normally gave the moment he heard Kikuoka’s question. However, he gave an abnormally serious look as he stared up at a certain spot in the air.
“…It’s true that I left a part of myself in that world. Right now, my personal worth had decreased.”
“Don’t you want it back?”
“Please don’t ask that, will you? That’s my personal privacy.”
This time, Kirito really gave a wry laugh, and then glanced at Shino.
“—As for that, what do you think, Sinon?”
“Err…”
Having being asked that all of a sudden, Shino couldn’t help but feel somewhat troubled. She turned her thoughts into words, which she wasn’t really familiar with, but she still finally tried to express her own thoughts.
“Well…Kirito, what you said just now was different from what you said before.”
“Eh…?”
“You once said that ‘there wasn’t any virtual world’. And said that wherever the person was in was reality. Even though there’re many VRMMO games, a gamer won’t be divided after going to every world, right? Right now, I’m…”
Shino stretched her right hand out and touched Kirito’s left wrist with her fingertip.
“This world is the real world. Even if this is a virtual world that’s created from AmuSphere, it’s still a real world to me…that’s how I think it should be.”
Kirito widened his eyes and stared at Shino for a while, which made Shino embarrassed. Then, he showed a smile that didn’t have any mischief in it.
“…I see. You’re right.”
After saying that, Kirito turned to look at Kikuoka and said,
“You better take down what Sinon just said. That may be the one truth in this entire incident.”
“—Don’t kid around with me.”
Shino’s right fist tapped Kirito’s shoulder gently before turning forward. At this moment, Kikuoka was staring at Shino for some reason, and may have felt awkward as he moved his eyes to his empty cake plate.
“Un, you’re right. And Shoichi’s condition—was completely different from Asada-san. It ended up as the place he wasn’t at being his reality altogether…”
“That guy continued to repeat the words ‘it’s not over yet’. Maybe that guy still hasn’t completely returned from Aincrad…the aim of this ‘created new world’ that Akihito Kayaba created—maybe it can be realized once that floating city completely collapses…”
“Don’t say such scary things. His death still has lots of mysteries behind it…but it has nothing to do with this. Let’s summarize this…Shoichi had no psychological barrier at the planning stage when he wanted to get into the target’s house and inject the drug. At that time, the first victim was «Zekushiido»…Shigemura Tamotsu, and the one who killed him was Shoichi. At around 11pm on the 9th of November, he used the unlocking mechanism to open the target’s room and entered it. About 11:30pm, he used the high pressure syringe on Shigemura who wore the AmuSphere as he was taking part in the «MMO Stream» interview, and got injected in the lower jaw. The drug he used was called Suxamethonium Chloride, also known as Succinylcholine, a muscle relaxant, and the victi
m Shigemura’s breathing and heartbeat stopped and died. In other words, the one who shot Zekushiido in GGO was the younger brother Kyouji…”
On hearing Kyouji’s name, Shino’s shoulders shuddered. On the night two days ago, as Kyouji was all over her, he did mention Zekushiido, and that vengeful voice rang in her ears.
Because of the false information Zekushiido spreaded around that caused a mistake in Kyouji’s stat allocation, he wasn’t able to get the title of «the strongest»—even though «Yamikaze» was a super AGI-type was really strong, which would have denied Kyouji’s thoughts—but his hatred for Zekushiido was far stronger than the upperclassmen in the real world who tormented and bullied him.
No—I was wrong…at that time, to Kyouji, the real world was already…
“The second victim was Usujio Tarako, and Shoichi was the one who killed him in the real world. The method was almost completely the same. They chose 7 people as targets, and the common condition amongst these targets were that they all lived in Tokyo and have the old-model lock that wouldn’t leave any records of being opened, or where there were spare keys near the door…”
“It would have taken quite some time for time to gather this much information.”
After hearing Kirito say that in amazement, Kikuoka’s face tensed up and nodded his head.
“It should have taken a lot of time and effort. But—after taking the lives of two, it seemed that nobody believed the legend of «Death Gun».”
“Unn…everyone just felt that it was just stupid report—I was one of them.”
Shino muttered, and Kikuoka agreed with her view completely.
“Yeah. Kirito-kun and I considered all sorts of possibilities, but in the end, all we could conclude was that ‘this was just a rumor’. However, our guess was already wrong…”
“If…if we could have noticed the truth a day earlier, we could have protected the lives of those two players who entered the finals…”
After hearing the anguished words from Kirito, Shino lowered her head and said to him,
“—But you saved me.”
“No, I didn’t help at all. That was all about your own strength.”
Shino glanced at Kirito, and had the thought that she hadn’t thanked him properly yet, but at this moment, Kikuoka said again,
“If it wasn’t for you two’s hard work, the 7 people on the namelist would have been killed by them before the situation got attention, so you two don’t have to be so hard on yourselves.”
“It’s not that…it’s just that I’m very unhappy that the ratings of VRMMO will become worse again.”
“These sprouts that were grown by «The Seed» aren’t so weak that they’ll wilt because of this. Right now, these countless sprouts are gathering to become a towering giant tree that can match the World Tree. Really, I don’t know which guy did this!”
“…You know. You better continue talking.”
Kirito coughed dryly and prompted Kikuoka to continue,
“Un…however, I guess you should know what happened next. Both of them found that the threat of Death Gun didn’t spread much and felt really angry, and so decided to come up with an even scarier plot. The brothers decided to come up with a killer plot of 3 people in the 3rd tournament to decide the strongest, commonly called the Bullet of Bullets finals. And the players that became their targets were…«Pale Rider», «Garret» and «Sinon»…which is you, Asada-san.”
“…”
On hearing that, Shino nodded her head. Shino knew of the 4th casualty, Garret. He was a trendy guy who wielded an old fashioned Winchester rifle. Shino remembered the cowboy cap that could be considered his trademark and prayed for him silently deep inside. At that moment, she suddenly noticed something and said,
“Ah…speaking of which, this may just be a coincidence…”
“What is it?”
“The 7 targets may have a common point. Including me, everyone of them weren’t of the AGI-type.”
“Oh…? What does that mean…?”
“Shinkawa-kun…no, Kyouji only added his AGI stat, so he was stuck in the game. I guess…he should have some complicated feelings towards other types…like those who stack up on STR.”
“Hmm…”
Kikuoka immediately couldn’t say anything and could only look at the screen of the tablet PC.
“What you meant is that…his motive was always from the game…now the prosecutors will have some difficulties cross-checking him…but will it really become like this…”
Kikuoka seemed to be in disbelief as he continued to shake his head. At this moment, Kirito lamented,
“No…I feel that it’s really possible. To MMO players, the character stats are absolute values. I know of some people who were in a joking mood as they nudged their friends hands while they were adjusting this stats, causing the friends to accidentally add an extra point, and then both of them would quarrel and start killing each other in the game over it for months…of course, these were all in games.”
Shino could also understand why such a thing happened. However, Kikuoka merely widened his eyes and then shook his head.
“Looks like the prosecutors, lawyers, judges and attorneys need to have some experience of diving into VRMMOs. No—it’s about time we set some laws related to them…un, but that’s not what we have to worry about. Err…where were we?”
He glanced at the tablet PC and then nodded his head.
“That’s right, we talked about how they chose 3 people as targets. However—unlike the last two killings, there was a huge problem with the execution of the plan in the BoB finals. As «Death Gun» in the game and the person outside the game couldn’t contact each other, it would be difficult for both parties to shoot at the same time. Finally, this problem was barely solved with the live telecast from outside the game, but…”
“It’s still difficult to execute it, right? And there’s movement.”
Kirito interrupted with a scowl on his face and continued,
“I missed this and thought that there were only 2 Death Guns…”
“I, I see. They seemed to have chosen trio nearest to their house…like how Pale Rider lived in Omori, Ota, and Garret was living in Kawasaki, Musashi Kosugi, which weren’t too far away. But the Bunkyo, Yushima area Asada-san lived in was rather far. Also, Kyouji, who always wanted to be Death Gun, was insistent on being the one killing in the real world. Shoichi had a bike, but Kyouji didn’t have a license—so Shoichi invited a new partner into the plan. Un…that person’s name is called Kanemoto Atsushi, 19 years old now, an old acquaintance of Shoichi—or rather…”
Kikuoka glanced at Kirito.
“His guild partner during SAO. His character name was…«Junie Black» Have you heard of…”
“Yes.”
Kirito looked down and nodded his head.
“He was XaXa’s partner in «Laughing Coffin», a player who used a poison dagger. At that time, both of them attacked a few players and killed them…damn it…if I had known…I should have…”
Before he could say it, Shino quickly reached her right hand out to grab Kirito’s left hand. At the same time, she looked into Kirito’s eyes and slowly shook her head.
Kirito immediately knew what she meant.
Kirito immediately looked like a baby who was crying and smiling, showing that he knew, but that expression immediately disappeared and became that usual poker face. At this moment, Shino moved her fingers away from his icy hand and turned forward. Kikuoka, who had been staring at them from the opposite side, continued with his explanation,
“…There was no mention of whether this Junie Black—also known as Kanemoto—was involved in this plan in Shoichi’s testimony. To Shoichi, Kanemoto seemed to be a person who’s really hard to understand at times…”
“Why don’t you just ask that Kanemoto?”
Kirito’s reply was as simple as ever, but Kikuoka shook his head.
“We haven’t caught him yet.”
“Eh…”
/> “Shinkawa Kyouji was arrested in Asada-san’s apartment, and 40 minutes later, his brother Shoichi was arrested in his own house. Then, the police followed Shoichi’s testimony and arrived at the apartment in Ota where Kanemoto was at, but there was no one inside the room. That apartment was still under surveillance, but there’s still no news that we caught Kanemoto yet.”
“…Can we confirm that he was the one who killed «Pale Rider» and «Garret» in the finals?”
“I guess it should be him. Shoichi did mention that he handed the same drug syringes to him and Kyouji. We didn’t find those weapons, but we found hair that matched Kanemoto’s DNA in the victims houses.”
“Syringes…”
Shino couldn’t help but feel a chill after thinking of the name that made her remember about this term that would remind her of the drug name. Kyouji’s voice ‘this is the real Death Gun’ when he placed the syringe at her neck continued to echo in her mind.
Kirito seemed to have the same thoughts as Shino as he looked and said,
“Were the drug’s use finished after killing the other two targets?”
But Kikuoka shook his head to deny this.
“No…a small syringe of Succinylcholine would be fatal enough, but for added security, Shoichi gave him three drug syringes, so he may still have one left. That was why the police insisted on protecting you people until morning from Monday on, especially Asada-san who may still be in danger.”
“…You’re saying that Junie Black may continue to hurt Sinon…?”
“No, that’s just for added precaution. The police felt that it wasn’t necessary too. As their Death Gun plot collapsed, there wouldn’t be any benefit to attack Asada-san. Besides, Kanemoto and Asada-san had no reasons to harm each other or personal grudge. Right now, the automatic identification camera network in the center of Tokyo had started its trial, so I guess he won’t be able to run away for long.”
“What’s that…?”
“It’s commonly called the S2 system. The computer will automatically analyze the faces of all the people the camera sees and then look for the fugitive…un, the details are classified.”