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VIDEO: Watanagashi-hen | TIP 13: After the Festival
BGM: Silence
SFX: Crickets
In the silence, many of the staff members' eyes shifted back and forth between the clock and their telephones, counting the seconds in that stifled atmosphere.
Kumagaya-kun burst in with a young guy trailing behind him.
"Ooishi-san, I've got the autopsy results! The court physician just got here!! I'm ready to go, sir!! I'll head straight for Gifu!!"
"Could they have been... dismembered...?!"
"Nope. Cooked to a nice, light brown."
He spoke in sportive tones, but the meaning behind his words was heavy.
...The staff gave a collective sigh.
"All the way? Head to toe...?"
"Completely blackened, it seems. Probably smells terrible, too. What a shame it is to be Gifu-san."
Cooked, with no possessions. Then, discarded outside the prefecture...
At worst, it would have taken a week for the body to be identified.
...The fact that they'd sniffed it out tonight was huge.
“...Sorry! Could someone go buy me two or so boxes of strong cigarettes?"
The young guy answered in affirmation and darted out into the hallway.
"Then why not bury them, or sink them into the Sea of Japan, or Lake Biwa, or somewhere like that?"
"...Why, though? ...Hasn't the pattern so far been one person dies, and another disappears?"
"Kuma-chan, the corpse was inside an oil drum, unrestrained, and cooked. They probably burned them after strangling them. They knew it would be found."
"So what you mean is... from the beginning, they didn't want a person to disappear this year?"
"Not so much that as they just aren't related. The person didn't disappear—in fact, whoever did it seems to have wanted to make a show of it."
"You mean... it could be a warning?"
"That might have been the case had it happened in town. ...If they'd messed up, taking the victim far away and burning them alive wouldn't have been noticed. If they meant it as a warning, they should have done it closer to Hinamizawa.”
“...They wanted to emphasize the fact that they killed the victim, but instead of doing it somewhere for dramatic effect, they did it outside the prefecture. Did they want to emphasize it or hide it? ......Boy, I do wonder what Oyashiro-sama is up to this year~"
SFX: Telephone
"Ooishi-san! It's Komiyama!! They have it! The dental clinic in Okinomiya fixed the wisdom tooth three years ago!!"
"What about the records?!"
"Complete with X-rays!"
"Well... I feel bad for waking up the dentist before dawn. Kuma-chan, get out there as soon as you get the records from Komiyama-kun."
"Will do!!"
"Ooishi-san, my apologies for my lateness. What's the situation?!"
"Hmm... Well, it's just getting good, you see. We're all getting fired up! Waa~o♪!!"