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In the process of visiting every room in Atelier House, of the two noteworthy events, the first was our encounter and e change with young Hakui—it was my fault Kyouko-san's false premise was seen through, but looking at the result, she succeeded in her questioning, and with no choice but to touch up on the case, we were able to speak on deep matter we couldn't discuss elsewhere, so while the root of the problem still remained, you could say it wasn't a serious error.

Yet the mystery of the binder she revealed there still had no answer—even as we went around hearing out Atelier House residents after that, we never reached any conclusion. The 'they were all real' theory Kyouko-san proposed was plausible, as things stood, but as we listened to the stories—the insults directed at Wakui from the residents, I couldn't think of him as the sort of old man who would set up such a mischievous surprise.

It was more natural to think the large order served a different purpose—as Kyouko-san had done, at the present time, we could only place that question on the shelf.

And so, let me reflect on the other noteworthy event—it happened in the late game of our rounds around Atelier House. Despite our trouble with Hakui-kun at an early stage, by that time, I had grown accustomed to walking around and visiting the unfamiliar painters' eggs in turn—but there, Kyouko-san and I made an unexpected discovery.

Come to think of it, I postponed talking about it, but in Kyouko-san's visits to the rooms of Atelier House, why instead of bottom up, she changed to encompass it from top to bottom was something I immediately understood without her having to explain it—once you understood it, it was blatantly obvious, and this might become a depiction of my own dullness, but considering how we were asking around every resident in this high-rise building, using an elevator was truly inefficient.

With the inspection over, I was relieved to find out we wouldn't have to heave ourselves up and down the stairs—but using an elevator to move just one floor was, to be blunt, a waste of time. Even more so if there was only one elevator—when time was of the essence, we had no time to wait for the elevator’s arrival all carefree.

In that case, the question of why the assault on Atelier House began from the top instead of the bottom, in short was a decision between climbing up floor by floor and taking the elevator down at the end, or starting by riding the elevator to the top, and taking the stairs down floor by floor—naturally, with stamina in mind, it was only natural for one to choose descending over climbing.

Her choice to start from the top floor was unlucky in that we encountered Hakui-kun—who lived near the top—quite early, but whichever way it went, it was only a matter of sooner or later—say we were to put some rest between floors, but climbing thirty flights of stairs would still be harsh.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that it was terribly reasonable for Kyouko-san to ride the elevator to the top floor. If the elevator coincidentally happened to be on the floor, it might be fine to use it, but Kyoukos-san didn't have to the time to confirm the elevator's present location each and every time, so we didn't even try it.

That being the case, we used the emergency stairs to move between every floor in the building, sparing the roof—but in regards to that, if you'd let me give my opinion, as a former security guard, I felt there was something off about this complex's interior.

When I cam by on Wakui-san's invitation the day before, I confirmed a surveillance camera in the entrance way with the auto lock, so he was tentatively keeping secure—or so I thought, but once I was actually inside, there wasn't any such security system stationed on any ceilings.

As a modern housing complex, I had no choice but to say his awareness was low—if I had been shown this first, then I'd be able to see where he was coming from when he told me he needed a security guard for his final work.

However, as we had heard from one of the residents, this building wasn't legally a housing complex, but a private residence—whether wide-angle cameras were installed on the ceiling or not was all for Wakui to decide. In that case, how should I see the absence of cameras?

… In the case of stores and such, maintaining security cameras was surprisingly tiresome, and a considerable expense—to contain unneeded expenditures, it was plausible to reduce the number of cameras. You don't see a burglar every day, is the thought process.

With only one elevator in a thirty-two-story high-rise complex, and even that elevator didn't have buttons on both sides; for an owner, the aging old Wakui could be a bit lacking in the spirit of removing obstacles, and I couldn't think of this place as one built taking ease of living and convenience into consideration, so perhaps the absence of cameras was an extension of that.

But there were other ways of thinking about it—cases where the one in charge wanted to keep the shop's insides a black box, purposely not recording any footage. Meaning, a situation where illegal extreme labor was being carried out inside—the footage would be left as evidence of their own crime, so the thought process was to avoid any form of records.

Unless I asked a specialist, I couldn't determine where Atelier House stood legally—but if it did have a side similar to forced labor, then perhaps leaving as few reels as possible was the landlord's deliberate intent, I ended up suspecting.

Of course, this was an address where only those aspiring to be artists lived, so to preserve the 'trade secrets' of the creators, there were no security cameras stationed inside, maybe I should take it simply—

Well, no matter his intentions, or lack thereof, say he was just cutting costs, but what was certain, at the very least, was that when the police barged in later, identifying the culprit who stabbed Wakui from police footage would prove to be quite difficult—in visiting all houses, that alone was the most I could say using my life experience.

When we got to that area, Kyouko-san was an investigation professional after all—and from here on, I'll be mentioning the second noteworthy event—unrelated to hearing out Atelier House's residents, we did make one discovery. You could call it the only clue-like clue we found since detective work began—it happened around the middle of our visits.

When we had finished going around the eighteenth floor and were about to move on to the seventeenth—generally one to seize the initiative, Kyouko-san would take the lead, but in accordance with general manners, only when descending the stairs, I would stand in front of her. It was there,

"Stay!"

Kyouko-san curtly declared—a command like that surprised me, but as a result, my body froze up, and I succeeded in stopping; all's well that end's well.

"What is it, Kyouko-san?"

"My apologies. Please pull back that half-raised foot—"

Kyouko-san said, circumventing me, as she lowered herself onto the landing—no, the word lowered was too tepid, like a middle school student, she leapt down the stairs.

She's way too hoyden—I didn't have time to think before she turned around, crouched down, and drew her face close to the step I was about to step down on. Making sure I didn't tread my giant shoe on her face, I went back a step just in case—but rather than that, "Oyagiri-san, come look at this," Kyouko-san invited me in.

"Right here."

I leaned down over the stairs, looked at the spot Kyouko-san pointed out—and noticed

A small, red 'circle' that was there.

It was so small I might overlook it, but as if someone spilled red paint when going up or down the stairs—no, could it be that wasn't paint…?

"Is it… blood?"

"I can't say for certain. But the possibility exists."

Kyouko-san said as she moved herself, looking—inspecting the bloodstain (?) from various angles.

"Judging by the color, it's not an old one—of course, supposing that's blood and not paint."

"Well, we're in Atelier House after all. I can't deny the possibility someone spilled paint while they were moving—but in the case this really is blood, there are two possibilities that come to mind. One, that this is Wakui-san's blood—the other, that this blood has no relation to the incident."

She was surprisingly collected. I almost latched onto it as a new clue, but certainly, it was a bloodstain where so many people lived, and as we had no means to conduct a blood test, it was effectively impossible for us to identify who it belonged to.

"Is it unthinkable this was the culprit's blood? Perhaps they got into a scuffle with Wakui-san, and at the time, the culprit was injured as well…"

"I can't refute that, but from what I could see of the crime scene, I can't think they such an intense scuffle—if the culprit was bleeding, I thought the blood spots would have been spread a little wider across the scene."

Kyouko-san staid as she stood. It seems she resigned, any further inspection was meaningless—she was quick to decide that.

"However, this is sufficient to set up an estimate that the culprit used these stairs—meaning, when committing the offense, they were bathed in the blood spurt, and some of it dripped here."

"Well… rather than set up, that's the easiest to imagine."

While I did immediately connect this spot to Wakui-san's blood, in essence, it was a little hard to imagine an old man stabbed in the abdomen came all the way here, left a blood stain, and returned underground. If I tried a pseudo-Kyouko-san round robin deduction, perhaps this was the real crime scene, and he simply descended the stairs, but with his abdomen pierced so deep, I didn't think that was possible.

"The elevator was in under inspection and unusable, after all. Is it possible the culprit used these stairs to return to their room?"

I said as a flash hit me—no, a flash was an exaggeration. That was also something obvious, and I simply obviously noticed it—but if after the crime, the culprit used these stairs to go to their room, the fact a trace was here would inevitably mean the culprit's room was on the eighteenth floor or higher. Otherwise, there would be no reason a bloodstain would remain around the landing from the seventeenth to eighteenth floor—in which case, this was a large find.

If it wasn't all thirty-two floors, but only eighteen to thirty-two, a simple calculation whittled the possible suspects by more than half—but,

"Yes, in the case this blood belongs to Wakui-san, it might be fine to think of it like that."

In contrast to my excitement, Kyouko-san played it calm.

"But even if this isn't blood, the possibility it is irrelevant blood is considerably high, so it is too early to make any conclusions."

"… You're right."

To tell the truth, at the time, I had a light hope by narrowing the suspects, we could cut out the process of visiting floors seventeen to two, but even with Kyouko-san's priority on speed, it seems she wouldn't be that dishonest.

"Of course, none of the people we've heard out to this point seemed to be injured, but—well, there's no way of knowing what's under their clothes."

"And another thing, there is a possibility this is the culprit's diversionary camouflage."

"Diversionary camouflage…? So you mean the culprit really does live below the seventeenth floor, but they purposely climbed here, and purposely left a bloodstain…? To make it seem like the culprit was a resident of floor eighteen and up?"

"Yes, that is what I mean."

… Is that possible?

If you thought it out that far, the round-robin deductions would never end… and while the sharp-sighted Kyouko-san found it, just as I almost carelessly tread on it, first off, if you used the stairs normally, you wouldn't notice such a small blood spot… it was too plain for diversionary measures. If she wanted to call it that, wouldn't they have at least left some blood a bit more conspicuously?

"Yes, I think so too—the line of this being a diversionary measure is faint. But perhaps it was meant to have us think precisely that—to not make it look diversionary is the first rule of diversions."

With those words, Kyouko-san moved to the side of the landing—it seemed like she was making a path for me to go down first, as we had done to that point.

At the same time, it indicated there was no change in her policy to hear out the residents seventeen and down as she had done before—well, apart from confirming the suspects' identities, we were also probing out who was painting the real picture old Wakui would adorn with his final frame, so whatever the case, the questioning would continue…

Yet be that as it may, while it may have been a misunderstanding, with my tensions momentarily cut by the notion we wouldn't have to go around anymore, as a result, the residents after that came with an even greater sense of wasted effort—

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