Ayanokouji’s Guide to Using Tools at Butei High - Chapter 8

Someone once said that when encountering a scene that cannot be explained by common sense, it is just like encountering a fire: when escaping, you must never use the elevator.

The act of rushing into a safe localized zone out of desperation is, in such a situation, more akin to throwing oneself into a state of distressed isolation and helplessness.

While moving toward the emergency stairs, I put on my earpiece and began listening to the sounds inside Room 703, while simultaneously staying alert to my surroundings. However, shortly after leaving my door, I could feel that my muscles remained in a relaxed state, indicating that the other party had not truly noticed my existence.

When I say my ‘muscles remained in a relaxed state,’ I am not suggesting that I possess some magical, unique ability to sense my surroundings with my bodily organs. Most people in this world have this ability; the only difference lies in whether or not they have trained it.

At the University Hospitals of Geneva in Switzerland, Alan Pegna once organized a research study using the visual cortex as an entry point. His findings showed that even without looking at someone, something, or some scene directly, the amygdala active inside the brain causes people to perceive a subtle feeling of being watched.

This proves that even outside the field of vision, the unconscious visual system can monitor threats.

To use a simple example: some people, while walking down the street, occasionally feel that someone is following them; when they look back, they indeed find someone tailing them surreptitiously.

Therefore, I do not have any superpowers; I can simply feel clearly that no one is following or watching me. Thus, I turned back around, walked directly into the Room 701 that I had booked, faced the partition wall shared with Room 703, and listened to the sounds inside.

Logically, there should have been no one in that room.

By no one, I mean no one who was expected to return.

After the woman met with the black-haired man, they took all the weapons with them and left the room, as if the place was merely a meeting point rather than the hideout they needed for their planning.

Having met and checked their equipment, they no longer needed to stay there.

Consequently, the room was currently empty, but because they left outside of normal checkout hours—or perhaps because they didn’t care for normal procedures—the room was not currently in a checked-out status.

Now, there were at least three possibilities for someone appearing in the room.

First: they discovered the camera I intentionally left in the room and were waiting to catch a turtle in a jar, lurking silently inside to find out who did it. The reason I did it intentionally, reflecting on it afterward, was because I felt a bit bored; I simply wanted to see the efforts they would make to catch the perpetrator.

Inexplicably, I wanted to experience a game of cat and mouse.

Second: they didn’t notice my camera. After they left, their opposition followed clues to their room to try and find the slightest trace.

Third: they didn’t notice my camera. After leaving, for some reason, they returned to their room.

Because other unexpected circumstances must be considered, there are many possible answers. This is why it was necessary to listen carefully to the movements in Room 703; I needed clues.

In truth, normally speaking, while I hold curiosity toward this city, it is merely the mindset of sampling a new thing and stopping once I’ve had a taste. Gaining a slight understanding of the internal laws of Magic Circuits and Magic would be enough for me.

After all, I didn’t come to this city to pursue a truth like whether magic really exists in this world. Paying attention to the spiritually abundant Fuyuki City was merely adding a few elements of seasoning to the predictably dull days, much like how a food lover notices local delicacies while on a business trip; ultimately, it’s just a way to spice up work.

I originally thought that by placing a camera to monitor the subjects I suspected—that pair of man and woman who seemed to be a couple—I could obtain some deeper and more detailed intelligence from them. But judging by the sounds of someone rummaging through things coming from the next room, it seemed it wasn’t either of those two.

I was listening intently when, at that moment, the sound in my earpiece suddenly cut out. I subconsciously looked down and realized it was a call from Tanizaki that had interrupted the audio of the monitoring software on my phone.

I didn’t pay it any mind.

Because, in fact, I don’t particularly like answering the phone, so I installed a voice bot software on my device. Anyone calling for the first time will never succeed; the voice bot will reply for me, saying “I am currently on a busy line.”

This kind of voice bot helps me filter out many boring, pointless, and uninteresting calls. If there is a true emergency, they will call a second time immediately or leave a text message; if it isn’t urgent, they naturally won’t call again. As for the matter of replying, I wait until I have time to decide whether or not to call back.

Thus, I waited as per my routine for Tanizaki to naturally hang up, but Tanizaki hung up quickly and called again in less than two seconds. So, I counted to five and answered the phone.

“Tanizaki-kun, what’s wrong?”

Tanizaki’s voice rang out, sounding extremely panicked.

Because he was flustered, he spoke very quickly, as if someone were chasing him down.

“Ah! Ayanokouji, thank goodness!! You just happened to answer!”

“Something big happened, really!! There was a problem with the cake you bought! Less than a minute after Ranpo-san finished eating it, he collapsed. No matter how I call him, I can’t wake him up, and I don’t know what’s wrong! I’m calling an ambulance to the Municipal Hospital now, we’ll be going there for an examination soon.”

“I’m keeping the cake to send it for testing, hoping to find out what kind of poison it is.”

“I see that Ranpo-san’s complexion is ruddy; it feels like cyanide poisoning, but there’s no smell of bitter almonds.”

Normally, the complexion of a poisoning victim will be abnormal—perhaps dark purple, perhaps turning blue, or perhaps pale. People suffering from cyanide poisoning or carbon monoxide poisoning have hemoglobin that loses its oxygen-carrying capacity, to the point where the skin appears cherry-red.

Because of this ruddy complexion, people nearby are often misled and don’t take the victim’s condition seriously.

While Tanizaki was speaking, I was actually thinking about explaining that cyanide isn’t instantly fatal in a single breath. Their toxicity is exaggerated in films and novels; after all, those are released to a general audience, and directors and authors cannot publicly teach people the correct way to harm others.

But I felt explaining this was meaningless; I am not the host of a science popularization program. Furthermore, Tanizaki called to remind me ‘where they would be going later’ and not ‘to touch the cake’—these key matters. He was also in a hurry to finish speaking and prepare to hang up.

Before he hung up, I raised my voice and said: “It’s fine.”

“Eh?”

“He just took my sleeping pills; he’s sleeping right now.”

“Eh??”

Tanizaki now had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

“When did Ranpo-san take your sleeping pills? I didn’t even know, how do you know?”

It was a very simple matter.

“I knew he would definitely steal some cake, so I put them in the cake intentionally.”

Tanizaki repeated monosyllables like “Ah,” “Eh,” and “This” back and forth, which was enough to see the inner conflict and confusion he felt. Finally, it resolved into a single confirmation—

“So, Ranpo-san is just sleeping?”

“Yes, just tuck him in with a blanket and it’ll be fine.”

I planned to hang up after saying that.

Tanizaki hurriedly stopped me, carefully weighing his words before asking: “How did you know Ranpo-san would eat the cake? Why did you put sleeping pills in the cake? Do you dislike Ranpo-san that much?”

“If I really wanted to pull a mean prank on him, I would have put laxatives in the cake instead of just letting him sleep peacefully. Besides, what I did was very obvious. If he weren’t so greedy, or rather, if he hadn’t intentionally provoked me by insisting on eating the cake, he wouldn’t have eaten it.”

I paused and said.

“It was all his choice.”

Tanizaki was silent for quite a long time. When I pulled the phone away to check if I was still on the call, he suddenly blurted out a sentence.

“I feel like… Ayanokouji, you seem to understand Ranpo-san very well? Is that just my imagination?”

“Well,” I wasn’t sure how to phrase it, “I only understand a little bit about him.”

Just a little bit, a few sentences would cover it.

There is still room for improvement.