Chapter 133 – Episode 17. Island Village and Murder and the Daughter of the Abyss
“Now we have to fend for ourselves. Looking at the situation, I think there is a high probability that there is a culprit among us…”
Professor Koga Honmura opened his mouth to everyone. Since the inn was located a little far from the village, there was no possibility that the villagers had killed him. There is no reason to kill tourists who help the village economy. She had never seen any villagers inside the inn.
“Everyone, please give an alibi about what you were doing about an hour and thirty minutes ago, that is, about fifteen minutes after you came to this inn.”
Professor Koga Honmura said, looking around at everyone. In the end, what mattered was the alibi. If we find out what the man named Morisuke was doing an hour and thirty minutes before he died, we will be able to easily identify the culprit.
“I’ll start with the suggestion. I was checking the schedule here in my room with Wano-kun.”
“Yes, I was checking the schedule for Chooten Island’s investigation with the professor. “We went to the bathroom once in a while, but we didn’t have enough time to commit murder.”
Professor Koga Honmura and Haruto Wano had alibis. Next, Saori Hijitani, a plain woman, opened her mouth. She felt a little embarrassed.
“As soon as Mr. Uchidate entered the room, he immediately went out and there was no one to testify to my alibi, but I was in the room the whole time! Really!”
Saori Hijitani maintained her own innocence. She actually said she was only in the room, but she had no way of proving it.
“Miss Hijitani, we will move on to the next person, so please wait. “Where did Miss Uchidate go immediately?”
“I was a bit seasick and wanted to get some fresh air, so I decided to pack up my luggage later and head out of the inn right away. As I was leaving the inn, Ryuta Taira, who was here, told me he was taking a bike ride around the island, so we went for a ride together.”
Kanimi Uchidate also mentioned me as an alibi. I also nodded at those words.
“Just like Mr. Uchidate said, I took a bike ride around the village. “It rained in the middle, so I came back a little early.”
“Are you going to drive right away?”
“No, I’ve cleaned up my things a bit, so maybe fifteen minutes? “We left about a little later.”
I answered Haruto Wano’s question obediently. Ah, if you think about it that way, I am also included as a suspect. I think it would roughly overlap with the time of the murder by about a minute, and the time determined by Haruto Wano might not be 100% accurate, so if we look at the time of the murder generously, Kanimi Uchidate and I would have had no alibi before we left to go around the village.
“Of course we didn’t commit murder, but at that time, my granddaughter and I were finishing preparing lunch together.”
“Yes. “I was making lunch with her grandmother.”
Her grandmother, the innkeeper, and Konoka Hamahata proved each other’s alibis.
“I was alone in the room too, and I’m not really the culprit!”
Atsuhiro Kimura waved his hand and strongly appealed that it was not him. Looking at his expression, he seemed really upset.
“We heard we had a guest today, so we came to help.”
“It came around after lunch, probably after the murder case.”
The two workers looked at each other and said. I heard that they came here much after the murder, so they were naturally excluded from the list of suspects.
Hmm, first of all, are there four people including me who don’t have an alibi? It’s a bit embarrassing, isn’t it?
“There are a total of four people without alibis. What should we do?”
“We are not the police, so we cannot arrest them… “How about we split into two groups and decide to travel together?”
I think I’ll be included in those two groups before I know it… It’s a hassle to carry around people. Also, since it was related to the Daughter of the Abyss, it was even more difficult to know what would happen.
“I was not part of the original group, and it was my first time seeing the person who was killed, so I have no enmity with him. That means there is no reason to kill. “I’m planning to visit the shrine for a while, but there’s no reason to go with you when you’re treated like a murderer.”
“We were planning to go to the shrine anyway, so let’s go together when we go to the shrine. I heard you said that since you are in a special room, you have a waitress to wait on you, so wouldn’t it be okay to have a waitress, except for gentlemen? “The waitress will tell you your alibi.”
Instead of urging me, the professor calmed me down. There was no need to stop me until the end, so I decided to join him when we went to the shrine. Well, even if those people suffered harm because of the Daughter of the Abyss’ daily actions, it wasn’t my fault.
If you think about it, he was a terrible professor. When I saw that one of the students had died and that he was going to the shrine, it seemed like he was planning on continuing the investigation until the end. In fact, it felt like they preferred that the police not come because of the weather. Of course, this is my personal feeling.
“Now that we’ve said anything, let’s go to the shrine.”
Everyone nodded at what the professor said. Yes, I thought it would be a good idea to quickly look around the shrine and then come down and relax in the private open-air bath.
We decided to meet at the entrance of the inn in fifteen minutes. I guess that means gathering the necessary things and gathering. I returned to my room and opened the sliding door connecting the open-air bath and the room. Countless raindrops were falling on the surface of the open-air hot spring, creating countless concentric circles. Seeing this makes me want to have a bowl of makgeolli with pajeon… I was hungry, probably because I just ate lunch for one person. Even if I have to pay extra for dinner, I have to ask for more.
But the rain is pouring down so heavily, is this okay? I didn’t prepare anything like an umbrella… Should I go up in the rain? .
Smart!
While I was thinking about the rain, someone knocked on the door. When I asked them to come in, Haruto Wano came in with dark circles and a gloomy expression. In his hand was something made of transparent plastic.
“I brought a raincoat because I didn’t think I would have an umbrella or a raincoat.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“It belongs to the dead Morisuke, so it will fit well.”
Oh, it looks like a man named Morisuke died, so there was some spare room in his raincoat. The man named Morisuke was a little taller than usual, but he was quite big and chubby, so he wore a large raincoat that seemed to fit me well.
“Who do you think the culprit is?”
Haruto Wano suddenly asks who the culprit is. Are you trying to scare me or are you asking because you know I’m not the culprit?
“So you’re asking this because you know I’m not the culprit?”
“As Taira said earlier, this is our first time meeting him and there is no reason to kill him. And crucially, because the wound on Morisuke’s head did not feel like it had been hit from above, but rather at a close to a right angle, a person taller than Morisuke cannot be the culprit. At least Taira, who is taller than Morisuke, will not be the culprit.”
Even though it was a minor, the major seemed different. You can infer the height of the criminal from the shape of the wound. However, since I only saw the person named Morris Ke lying down and lying in the coffin, I don’t remember his exact height…
“Is Mr. Morisuke the biggest in your group?”
“Yes, he was big and the tallest. The person himself was gentle, but…”
“Then why didn’t you reveal the location of the murder earlier?”
“To catch the criminal off guard. He had a lot of suspects, so he wanted to let them think that his chances of getting caught would be lower. “First of all, let me apologize for that.”
Haruto Wano bowed his head politely. I couldn’t say anything when he bowed his head like this, so I just said I would understand and received a transparent plastic raincoat.
“I have a question. Are you all close friends at Kwandong University?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve only been with Professor Koga Honmura for one semester because my professor was appointed to an overseas university… I heard that Morisuke and Atsuhiro also worked under another professor two years ago, but that professor passed away due to some kind of problem and went to work under Professor Koga Honmura. “The two female students are undergraduate students taking the liberal arts class I teach, and they said they were very interested in folklore, so I brought them here to experience them and act as assistants.”
Oh, I see. None of the people in the group seemed to be very close friends. Well, if you look at the reaction when Morisuke died, everyone was shocked, but no one was sad.
“Time is up. “Let’s leave first.”
“Yes.”
I nodded at Haruto Wano’s words, put on my raincoat and headed toward the entrance of the inn. Everyone was waiting for us, sheltering from the rain, under the roof at the entrance.
“Tyra, you’re also wearing a raincoat.”
Atsuhiro Kimura looked at me and asked. Haruto Wano, I gave you Morisuke’s raincoat. Everyone was silent for a moment and nodded. I think it was because I had nothing to say when the name of the dead person came up.
“Morisuke would also like us to complete the investigation. “I think Morisuke and I are going to investigate together and let’s do our best.”
Everyone nodded their heads gravely at Professor Honmura Koga’s words and set off for the shrine. Although the distance to the shrine was not long in a straight line, it took quite a bit of time because it was built close to the top of the mountain.
In the meantime, I had to keep listening to Too Much Talker Professor Koga Honmura. Since it is Chooten Island, most of the stories were about the unique customs of Chooten Island. It was surprisingly fun, and a few unusual customs caught my eye.
“When a woman from Choo Ten Island dies when her husband dies, she returns to her original castle. “She hasn’t researched it in depth yet, so she doesn’t know the exact reason, but it’s a custom.”
“Each person on Chooten Island prepares their own coffin, and when they die, they put the body in the prepared coffin and bury it in the ground. After 48 days, they take it out again, burn it, put the ashes in a box, and bury it in the family grave behind the house. Since it is a small island, if the entire coffin is buried, there will be a shortage of land later. So, if you go behind the house, you can see a tombstone with names written all over it.”
“The sea goddess served on Chooten Island was treated as an evil deity on Hachijo Island, the island next to her. According to the records of Hachijo Island, a document was discovered a few years ago that states that an island 200 ri (approximately 80 kilometers) to the west worships the evil god.”
This was an interesting story, but the rest was either peripheral or went too deep into the major, so it didn’t interest me. After walking for a while, Professor Koga Honmura pointed to a place.
“Look. Torii is also special, isn’t it? “It’s not that there are no black torii, but it’s hard to see a torii that’s pitch black like this.”
As Professor Koga Honmura said, a torii gate that was completely black and looked rather ominous was standing in front of the shrine. As we passed through the torii and entered the shrine, near the entrance, a dog that appeared to be a Shiba Inu mix was tied to a leash, looking at us indifferently from inside the dog house. Normally, he would bark when a stranger came, but it was surprising to see him look at him with indifferent eyes, as if he had no interest at all.
“Are you here?”
“Yes, this is Koga Honmura who contacted me earlier.”
A woman wearing a shrine maiden uniform came towards us holding an umbrella, accompanied by a mysterious voice. She wore the commonly known white top and red bottom shaman uniform, but strangely, she had something similar to a jar on her face.
“Please understand that the reason we cannot show our faces is because there is a tradition that we do not look at the dirty things of the world until the ancestral rites.”
You could wear a mask or an eyepatch, but it’s unusual that you’re wearing a jar that looks like an octopus jar.
——–
Suspect list photo
When I made it, it was too big so I rotated it.
I spent 2 hours making this. The problem isn’t anything else, most of the models don’t have grandmothers in them. No matter how many times I type in the grandmother’s prompt, if there is no data on the grandmother, only a bunch of white-haired beauties appear, so it’s time to find a model who supports the grandmother. I’ve heard this so much haha. So if you look closely, only the grandmother’s drawing style is very different haha.
Example of not supporting your grandmother
Since the granddaughter is pretty, I’ll say it’s a photo of the grandmother when she was young haha.
