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"No! You're going to investigate the house with me!"
Kouzou-san issued the order, trying to keep Takahiro's will under his direct control. But—
"I refuse. In a situation like this, I can't just keep listening only to your orders, Father."
Takahiro-san stuck to his independence and rebellious phase, calmly discarding yesterday's loyal-dog posture.
Kouzou-san's open mouth, his tongue trembling in a reptilian-like performance, emphasized his inability to close it. The Saka couple could only stare, wide-eyed at the young master's sudden growth. Touka, too, had her eyes wide at her brother's attitude, while Akane offered an ambiguous "Oh ho?"
The Takahiro-san in question maintained neutrality towards everyone and closed his eyelids again.
"What happened to you? You're acting strange today," Kouzou-san voiced a greasy objection to his son's growth.
"Who knows. I don't really understand it myself."
In response, Takahiro-san simply brushed it off with what could only be described as a light, Japanese-style flavoring.

From my objective standpoint, it was difficult to feel much sense of incongruity.
What's so strange about a person changing?
When the environment changes, the psyche transforms too.
It seemed the master of the house was still unaware that the mansion had already taken ten steps into abnormality.

And so, without making any effort to restore the collapsed harmony, each person began their own activities as they saw fit.
I was about to tell Fushimi it was like after-school club activities, but her serious expression stopped me.
Kiyoshi-san and Kouzou-san, after taking a short break, were rushing around the mansion trying to find an escape route.
But a brute-force escape is probably difficult. If it weren't, the culprit wouldn't have been satisfied just destroying the entrance. They must have aimed to kill everyone within a single night so that no one could escape. That would solve all their problems. If that wasn't the case, then it must not have been a problem from the culprit's perspective.

Yuna had announced she was returning to her room, so it was decided that her door would be locked from the outside after she entered. As agreed, Yuna stood by as the remaining eight of us locked the door. After witnessing it, she designated me as the person to hold the key. I accepted the key to participate in this little game of trust and locked Yuna in, with her consent.
"Why him? Is that really okay?" Kouzou-san criticized his daughter's choice emotionally, without thinking, but Yuna brushed it off with an expression that seemed to be aiming for bewitching beauty and had already set sail for distant seas.

Takahiro-san, true to his rebellious declaration, shut himself in his room and entrusted the key to Akane. Natane-san began preparing a meal, while Touka and Akane left the dining room together.
And Fushimi and I are currently wandering the mansion, wondering if there might be some bread or an onigiri lying around.
That's a lie, though.

Ever since Keiko-san's body was discovered, Fushimi hasn't left my side. In fact, she's crushing my sleeve in her grip, clinging to me. I speculate it's either because she's terrified by the nearby corpse, or because she selected me to use as a wall-slash-decoy in case we're targeted by the handgun.
Since I neglected to prepare my sheriff badge this time, it's doubtful I'd survive a gunfight myself. Therefore, even if the contents of my head are mostly lies, I'll acknowledge Fushimi's anxiety and leave this little charade alone for now.

What are we, who can't even hope for an eventful journey like that, actually doing? Just wandering around aimlessly. Mayu is a constant source of worry, a reason for my skin to crawl. As a way to endure it, I'm operating the restless soles of my feet, trying to release the urge to jump around. When will I ever be able to return to her side?

Based on the trends so far, the empty rooms contain absolutely none of the kinds of items I'm looking for. Indignant at the sloppy treasure chest placement – a thought I dismissed as fictional – I decided exploring characterless spaces was a waste of time and stopped. I changed my policy: I would wait, persevering through hardship (or so I planned), for an opportunity to search the rooms occupied by the residents. Because of this, time degraded from a competitor to just an annoying bastard. Anyway, I was bored. There was no clear demarcation point when things would happen, no visible means or date for resolution. For me, whose sensitivity towards death is wrapped in jellied filth and blood and isn't working properly, it felt like being given a job that just involved shaking a bundle of blank paper. Mayu should take priority over this murder case.

That said, I can't be so carefree as to indulge in a nap in my room to relieve the boredom. Since Keiko-san, the one who treated us as guests, is dead, there's essentially no one left in the mansion who sees any value in us. In such a situation, if our room were locked, the probability of a "lost key incident" being reported isn't low. Outside of nighttime sleeping hours, we should adhere to the policy of avoiding being locked up as much as possible.

Which is why the two of us are taking a walk on the first floor. We're avoiding the basement, as our fullness meters are precariously low.
Honestly, sticking together as a group of nine would increase the concentration of safety and peace. However, that's an ideal form that only works if there's an awareness that all nine people are on equal footing. Saddled with servants and unwanted guests, it was definitely not a plan that would ever be adopted.

And I don't think the residents of this mansion are aiming for a resolution where everyone is rescued. It was transparent in the dining room that they've altered the test's scoring system with their own rules: it's 100 points if only oneself and those they "recognize as being around them" survive. Points won't be deducted even if another two or three become corpses.

Still, people moving around the mansion naturally formed pairs. If one partner ends up as a corpse, the survivor can be exposed as the culprit. That's the objective advantage of moving in pairs. And subjectively speaking, if attacked by a *different* culprit, unless a handgun is involved, it becomes possible to escape by sacrificing one's partner. It seemed safe to declare that individuals determined to act out of a spirit of self-sacrifice, buying escape distance for their partner, were absolutely non-existent in the Ooe household.

Furthermore, moving around alone is rejected without question. It would sanction free action that might involve scheming to obtain the handgun. That's why being confined to one's room is part of the agreement.
Since these rules were arranged to respect a self-centered viewpoint, they were moderately comfortable for me.

"How many days until your family gets back from their trip?"
She's not a child, not crying, and female in the first place, but I try making conversation with Fushimi, who has become attached to me like a paperweight appendix. Standing stock-still in the middle of the hall, my neck and eyes were searching for where to broaden my horizons next (sarcastically speaking), so I decided to utilize my mouth's downtime.
"Four days, I think."
"Hmm?"
Instead of her notebook, she answers with her voice and a hand holding up four fingers. She seems quite shaken.
"Where did they go?"
Only then does Fushimi finally bring her notebook into play.
"Spain."
"Heh, paella, huh." It was a comment so lacking in information it sounded incredibly basic. But I couldn't exactly ask brightly, "Surely they didn't go to play dodgeball, did they?"
Fushimi ignores my banter like water off a duck's back, tightening her grip on my arm.
"When my family... comes back..."
"Will they... notice us, I wonder?"
She looks to me for an answer to the hope she found amidst her pessimism. I personally judge that unless some record of our visit to this house remains somewhere, linking the Fushimi family, who didn't socialize with neighbors, and the Ooe family is a difficult hurdle. So I played it safe with, "I hope so."

To keep her from drifting further into dreams, I signal resuming our movement by adjusting my body's direction. This time, I decide to go straight ahead. Since Fushimi's nerve seemed to be wavering, corpse viewing seemed difficult, but it should be okay if she covers her eyes.
"By the way, this hall used to be a sleeping spot exclusively for drunks."
It became so because it was near the entrance, and because the gentlemen who stayed for free desired it. Explaining the past to the young lady observing this microcosm of society, I proceeded into the present.

Without stopping to peek into empty rooms, we walked straight ahead. Fushimi's feet almost got tangled once, but since no suggestions like "Let's escape," "Let's go home," or "Let's go back" landed in the metaphorical suggestion box, our plan wasn't overturned.
We walked to the dead end and I turned my head left and right. To the right dead end, a safe. To the left dead end, living humans. ...Oh?

Near the window we had all peered through this morning, Touka was standing. She was vaguely gazing outside the window, her hands resting on the iron bars. At her feet lay Akane. Bored, perhaps? Lying on the carpet.
Touka noticed us, and while showing clear wariness, she offered a dry laugh.
"Well, well, Mr. Yellow Economic Monkey."
"Don't mix stereotypes," I retorted. Besides, I'm not economic at all. Just a humble high school student, monthly allowance: zero yen.

Hearing the exchange, Akane sat up using her abs. Brushing off her back and bottom, she did a little stretch and stood up as if spring-loaded.
"Are you big sisters out right now too?"
Akane, who looked sixteen, smiled innocently like a twelve-year-old. But, "out"? Since we were pointlessly window-gazing (shopping excluded) in someone else's house, I wouldn't mind being categorized under the act of "going out." But Akane and Touka shouldn't fit that category. Fushimi flipped through her notebook, diligently trying to investigate the mystery. But she didn't have the composure for that right now.
Seeing our confusion, Touka stepped in to assist with her family member's words.
"My big sis thinks her own room is 'home,' and once she leaves it, she considers herself 'outside'."
"...She lives on a small Earth, doesn't she."
Which means, outside the mansion must correspond to outer space. Dogs and old people walking in the neighborhood are comets, streetlights are suns, school is Planet of the Apes. Setting aside the fact that my metaphors are wrong, Akane, conversely, started to seem like a big shot with a surprisingly rich breadth of perception.

But these sisters – the hard and soft aspects of their personalities are clearly divided. As expected, if the older sister is absorbed in Fabre's Book of Insects, the younger is drawn to the History of Labor Management; if the younger is a believer in love affairs, the older is drawn to blood, sweat, and tears – that's just how things are. But. (That's a lie). Well, it's not entirely wrong for personalities to become polar opposites by serving as negative examples for each other.
How was my family? They were just a bunch who went their own way too much and were hard to understand, like strangers. Putting my own issues aside, it was a den of eccentrics. (That's a lie).

"So, what are you doing here?"
"Nothing really..." Touka said, acting cagey and looking away.
Though, even without asking again, any action other than viewing Keiko-san, displayed amidst the natural scenery, was probably impossible.
But is that corpse Ooe Keiko, or the *former* Ooe Keiko? This distinction changes for each person depending on their perception, so there's no need for me to definitively state it. But one thing bothers me: how would Mayu perceive it if *I* died? If she kept insisting I was Mii-kun even then, and her heart necrotized further due to the death of her idol, wouldn't my conscience's remorse set a terrible new record? That wouldn't be just oversleeping, but dying twice! So many lies, it's troubling. (That's a lie, though).

Akane ran barefoot across the carpet and stopped in front of Fushimi. Fushimi, having low interpersonal skills, subtly pulled back, confronting Akane, who exuded a confident "Nihihi" laugh.
"I've been wondering since yesterday!" Saying this, Akane put her hand flat on top of her own head. Then she moved that hand horizontally towards Fushimi, careful not to move it up or down. The side of her hand lightly brushed the hair on top of Fushimi's head but passed through without stopping.
"See? You're bigger than me!" she declared triumphantly. Since this girl apparently has the trait of understanding things in reverse, she just immersed herself in a feeling of superiority by chiding Fushimi, who wasn't as tall as her. Normally, Fushimi would surely go "Hmph!" or flip open her notebook, but now she just seemed bewildered by Akane, her eyes wavering. Even if I spoke up, Fushimi probably couldn't mentally create the option of 'playing with Akane'.

My eyes met Touka's, who had been watching their little acorn game.
"My big sis wasn't always a reverse-person like that, you know." A light defense of her sister, tinged with melancholy. And it was uncertain if the wind blowing in from the window had also loosened her lips regarding herself, something she had been hesitant to speak about.
"I was thinking about why we can be so sure *that thing* is dead," she said, belatedly answering my earlier question.
"Hmm. So you think Keiko-san is actually alive?" And calling her 'that thing', huh.
Touka shook her head, then tilted it slightly.
"For example, what if that corpse is someone completely different, and Mom's still hiding somewhere in the mansion, targeting us... or something."
"Setting aside the order of events, thinking that way is the most natural response in this situation."
"Why is it natural?" Touka found fault with her own reasoning. I gave up on offering the bitter advice that "youngsters aren't familiar with books" and being treated like an old man – that's my purpose in life for old age, after all – and instead prodded from another angle: "Still, you're quite unperturbed for a girl whose mother just died, aren't you?"
Like playfully poking the flank of her heart.
*Mu!* Wrinkles formed between her brows, her eyes becoming half-lidded.
"It can't be helped, can it? It's not like I'm sad or anything."
Touka confessed her feelings in a flat, detached tone, as if something in her spirit was missing.
"Someone close to me definitely died, but... how do I put it... it feels like there's still some kind of tangible *presence* left around me. Like a big lump, something a bit warm, is right nearby. I can't touch it, but my sense of touch – something in my head reproduces it, and it's frustrating. That means, it's not really sad. Just frustrating."
Gesturing with her hands, Touka struggled to share her hallucination with others. Midway through, pushed by the doubt of whether she'd chosen the wrong person to confide in, she stared intently at me.
"You... do you get that kind of thing?"
"Who knows. Maybe that kind of feeling doesn't sprout unless you're a blood relative?"
*Then how was it with my family?* a single grain of conscience, starved for nutrition, drooled.

Giving up on my dull-sensed self, Touka's hands lost their strength. Then, perhaps to avoid worsening the impression of her seemingly heartless attitude, she offered simple information geared towards dense people.
"I'm not actually connected, you know."
"To what?" I responded, making it easy for her words to connect.
"Blood. That person wasn't my birth mother."
"Hohoh."
"I'm the child Natane gave birth to. But since I was raised in the Ooe house, I was told I was an Ooe daughter starting from around before I turned nine or ten. I was taught to treat Natane like a servant."
Touka recited her values expressionlessly. Natane had called her "Touka Ojou-sama" this morning, too. It must be a hierarchical relationship thoroughly cultivated between parent and child.
"So your father is Kiyoshi-san?"
"Probably. Somehow, I don't really have much interest in my father."
Touka altered her expression, gazing at me with a look feigning ignorance and purity, devoid of intellect and caution.
"So, having revealed my background this far, I wanted to try asking an outsider this at least once."
"Hm?"
"Isn't my family... strange somehow?"
It must be a question the seemingly hard-to-please girl had growing interest in, enough to press an untrustworthy stranger about it. For a question, the ending tone was strangely high-pitched.
"Mom and Dad stopped my older brother and sisters from going to school, saying it has a bad influence. But on TV, everyone goes, right? And we don't go outside unless there's a proper reason like shopping or work, so it feels like the house is my only place. But in books and stuff, it's totally different, it's all contradictory..."
Touka rattled off questions, creating waves of words. Well, they're a family that needs to suspect each other. If that *weren't* strange, I feel like Japan would be ruined.

Now, I'm not enough of an Education Committee member to stick my neck into someone else's family education, so I'd like to just play it safe here. But the chance to gain the dignity of an elder feels hard to pass up. That's a lie, though.
With the rough expectation that maybe she'd help me at least *shed* a false accusation if Kouzou pinned one on me later, I tried to look cool.
"It's strange, but that's Ooe Touka's normal, right?"
Therefore, specifically denying it just fuels deviation. If you really don't like your current self, decorating the surface rather than fixing the foundation lets you live more easily.
......Hmm, maybe I should have said that last part aloud. Sounds like an easy way to obfuscate.
Touka, as if offended by having her thoughts peered into, scratched her face and bangs. Her dejection seeped out, like her overall color had faded.
"Yeah, that's right. That's what's strange," she said, shoulders slumping, breathing a sigh of disappointment.
"......Hm, well, if staying in this mansion is agony, then go outside. If going outside involves great effort, then I think you should just continue your shut-in life while agonizing over it. People who can live without forcing themselves will probably obtain general happiness. Personally, I'd like to cheer for your happiness as if it's someone else's problem. When I talk to you, somehow, you remind me of my little sister."
I added some simple advice. Although, I had the exact same impression sprout when talking to Ikeda Anzu, so this time too it's probably just a cheap, watery, crude emotion.
I have a "Famicon" (Family Complex), after all. That's not entirely a lie.

At the opinion of someone whose progressiveness was doubtful, Touka's eyeballs and eyelids busily tried to project sharpness, closing or losing their sparkle. Her reaction was concentrated around her eyes; there was no easy-to-understand verbal comment.
"...Talking made me hungry," she said, pressing her stomach over her clothes, trying to cover up her dejection.
"Ah, me too, me too!"
Akane, in the middle of her one-sided pushing match with Fushimi, must have been listening to about half the conversation, as she agreed with Touka. Fushimi, perhaps because she was thin, being pushed without resistance, also joined the topic and pressed her stomach slightly.

Without exception, my own stomach-bug was starting to bang chopsticks on the table. Contrary to the situation, my physical condition seemed to be striving towards normalization. Is my contrary body being influenced by my inherent personality?
"...Or not?"
Maybe it's just that this kind of environment is where I can remain healthy.
Body and mind.
......But still.

Regarding food, we should probably restrain ourselves from licking our lips or slurping drool in anticipation.
"Heeeeelp meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Not satisfied with just the eardrums, a roar that seemed like it would playfully shake even the semicircular canals briefly livened up the mansion.
When that occurred, I and Fushimi, joined by Touka and Akane, were on our way to the dining room.
Passing under the grandfather clock, facing the entrance in the hall, from the left corridor – the one leading towards Keiko-san's room and the basement – an a cappella performance that seemed likely to carry a beastly stench echoed.
"Heeeeelp! Meeeeeee!"
Whether it was the second call or the second movement, I don't know, but the line flew out again, with corrections made to the pronunciation's emphasis.
Figuring that if he had the leeway to shout that much, no danger was particularly imminent, I went to observe. Fushimi was intimidated by the voice itself, but she didn't object to me being lured by curiosity.

In the corridor, Saka Kiyoshi was plastered against the iron bars of a window installed like a cage, sending out an earnest message to the outside world. The conductor was Ooe Kouzou, standing there with folded arms, looking somewhat agitated.
Anticipating the arrival of noon, they had apparently tried changing the direction of their efforts.
"Someone! Anyone! We're iiiin trouuuuuble!"
Kiyoshi-san's rescue request signal – a loud voice very unbecoming of him. It seemed he'd been given discretion over the wording. Since there was no listener, its essence settled into being a monologue annoying to the neighbors.
Kouzou, noticing us standing there blankly, gave a high-handed order: "You guys do it too!"
Based on common sense, since Fushimi and I have no master-servant relationship and aren't involved, it should be perfectly fine for us to ignore him completely. Besides, Touka, who doesn't have a *true* parent-child relationship with Kouzou, was looking off in the wrong direction as if observing her father's performance. ......Huh, wait, but if her ears were working, she'd be aware of the full scope of the activity, right?

[...]
So, only Akane, whose curiosity took precedence, lined up shoulder-to-shoulder saying "Okay, okay, here goes!" and puffed up her lungs and cheeks with air. And then, not an explosion, but an accidental discharge.
"Kiiiiiiiiiiyaaaaaaaa####(&~~EW!"
A shriek like the tilted wing of a low-flying plane tearing through a metal plate on the ground. Her overwhelming lung capacity sustained the quality and quantity of the pointless screech at length without dropping.
Receiving that noise up close, not just Kouzou but even Kiyoshi prioritized protecting their ears over their task. My hand also jumped in a physiological reaction to cover my ear, but my left arm was still being held by Fushimi even now, so it remained asleep, enjoying her body heat. Thus, my eardrum couldn't escape a direct hit, and the corner of my eye twitched.

Meanwhile, Touka remained unfazed even by her sister's strange cry and was gazing fixedly at me. Following her gaze was a statement delivered without strain.
"Somehow, it still doesn't feel real."
Even without the accompanying action of shouting loudly, Touka's words were processed by my ears on a separate track from Akane's and reached my brain.
"What doesn't?" My line should be understandable from my lip movements, so I didn't raise my voice.
"Us... if things go on like this, are we all going to die? Like Mom, without even needing to be killed?"
*Flinch.* Fushimi's shoulder reacted pitifully. Damn you, Ooe Touka! Tormenting small animals unconsciously!
"Of course, we'll die. Living things, everything does, eventually." I tried to obscure a direct look at reality with a common saying. "Though there are individual differences in how soon."
However, Touka was a creature that slipped through my expectations.
"So that's how it is."
"Eh?"
The young lady, her eyes sparkling, coolly leaped over my dumbfounded reaction and declared:
"So humans really do have things like lifespans, just like other living things."
Touka was impressed. She was admiring. She was deeply moved.
Without finding even a sliver of fear in this biological reality, she blinked over and over.

[...]
I, and probably Fushimi too, witnessing firsthand the distortion in the Ooe family's education caused by their isolation, felt a faint sense of personal danger grow.

Well then, past 1 PM. Time for lunch, long awaited by someone, something, or that thing.
...
On the dining table sat one plate of vegetable stir-fry, light on the meat, and six rice bowls in which small amounts of white rice were enshrined. Plus well water drawn from the tap, completing the strictly limited color palette.
Fushimi, silent in distress.
"...Slurp, slurp." Me, currently sucking up water. Since there are no chopsticks, I can only drink it properly.
In front of Fushimi and me, no rice bowls were provided at all. Food is supplied without distinction even to the prim-faced Takahiro-san, who has entered his late-blooming rebellious phase. But the message is: there's no food for freeloaders. As if to say, *"We cannot treat life so carelessly as to offer precious food to the likes of you."*