Asi Hell - Capítulo 65
"That's exactly right."
"So it's hard to believe there's no connection. Kyogoku-do, your argument lacks persuasiveness."
"That's exactly what I was about to say. If they were completely identical, that would be one thing, but to claim a relationship based solely on similarity is truly unconvincing. To call someone the same based on mere similarity makes you nothing more than a monkey!"
"Weren't they originally monkeys?"
"Natsukizu said."
"This guy is just a man who looks like a monkey, but he's not a monkey. He just looks like one."
Why do you have to worry about so much?
"Don't get the wrong idea. The so-called similarity means that they are not the same. Listen carefully. In the case of Lake Sagami, the feet were put in an iron box, and the hands were bare and hanging on the ground. In addition, other parts such as the waist were also found. But later, all that was found were the hands and feet, and they were all wrapped in silk and put in a wooden box."
"But it's just that the boxes are made of different materials. The concepts are the same, so it's not normal."
"Really? The Sagami Lake case involved throwing the objects into the lake, while the others were tightly embedded in the gaps. Are these two concepts really the same? Furthermore, only the Sagami Lake case involved transport by vehicle—no, by truck. Only this case used a truck; the others were all moved by tram."
"How do you know that's the case? It's true that, apart from Lake Sagami, the others are all located in urban areas with convenient transportation and high population density. But you can also get to Lake Sagami by train, and it's not like you can't drive to the other places."
"Nine times out of ten, the incidents at Lake Sagami involve people driving trucks there."
"So why?"
"The right hand was found on the streets of Koshu, and in the mountains no less. No matter how depraved a criminal is, they wouldn't discard something like this right in the middle of a national highway; it must have fallen off during transport. I suspect that initially both hands were placed together in an iron box, and the waist was found in the same way. Hands, feet, and waist—there should have been three boxes. Originally, these three boxes should have been solemnly submerged at the bottom of the lake, finding eternal rest. That is to say, the intentional move to Lake Sagami was to perform a water burial ceremony for these hands, feet, and waist placed in iron coffins."
Kyogoku-do stared at us intently.
"But—just as the prisoner was about to put the iron box into the water, he realized that the box was missing its hand part. He must have panicked then. If he continued to dawdle, he would definitely attract attention, so he threw the foot and waist parts into the water first and rushed to retrieve the box. That's why the foot part of the box was thrown into the lake near the shore. If it had been thrown into the middle of the lake, it would have been discovered much later. But even though he was in a hurry, the box was run over by the lumberyard owner first. The prisoner retrieved the iron box and his left hand, and when he reached the top of Da Chui Shui Mountain to retrieve his right hand, he happened to run into the lumberyard owner, who was in a complete mess. He couldn't very well say to him, 'Oh, this is what I dropped, please give it back,' so the prisoner had no choice but to go back."
"So, he took the left hand back with him?"
Bird Mouth said. Aoki muttered to himself:
"No wonder I couldn't find it no matter how hard I looked."
But I still can't accept it.
"But—is it really possible for it to fall during transport?"
"Of course, because the lock on the truck's cargo bed is broken."
"Huh?"
Because Kyogoku-do said it so decisively, it seems that no one except me noticed. However, he was indeed certain of it.
The topic quickly returned to the original issue.
"The case at Lake Sagami is not quite the same as an attempt to cover up a crime or deliberately throw things around to disrupt the investigation. There was no treatment or strategy being devised; it had a ritualistic feel to it. It was a kind of water burial. In short, it was very different from how the dismemberment case was handled later. Although there was no intention to hide the body afterward, it didn't seem like an attempt to bury it either. It felt like they just filled in whatever space they could."
"—Yes, it just makes it seem like the prisoners are playing around."
Aoki seemed to sense something.
"It wasn't exactly like playing around, but it was probably an impulsive way of handling things. In short, it's completely different from the Sagami Lake case; these are two different incidents."
Are you trying to say that putting them all in the same box was just a coincidence?
"No. I guess one side has many iron boxes and the other side has many wooden boxes. They couldn't have been specially made for storing corpses, could they?"
“I see—if Kubo was the regular customer who ordered a large number of wooden boxes from Mihako-no-Kami last year, then of course he owns a large number of wooden boxes.”
Torikochi seems to be gradually accepting Kyogoku-do's explanation, but I still can't agree. I can't believe it so easily.
"But—why would Kubo do something like this? What was his motive? And what is his relationship with Terada Heibei? You just said that the Mihako no Kamitachi was merely a tool created for this purpose, what does that mean?"
"Don't ask so many questions at once. It's foolish to try to pinpoint a motive for this kind of crime. Besides, the connection to the Mikoto is just my imagination. As I just said, what Kubo said is just a hypothesis with some leads at the moment—"
"Kyogoku, what are you hiding?"
Suddenly, Xia Mujin asked in a rarely sharp tone.
"That man has seen Kanako, right? Is he really unrelated to the Kanako incident?"
So it seems that Natsukizu's reason for questioning Kubo at the coffee shop was because he believed Kubo knew Kanako.
Kyogoku-do shook his head again, making a disgusted expression.
Continue:
"Sigh, I can't believe I've made such an annoying friend. Anyway—to put it mildly, Kanako was his motive—but the Kanako incident has no direct connection to Kubo."
"I don't understand at all. Kyogoku, I don't understand hints, so let's get straight to the point!"
Natsume did not back down.
"Forget it, announcing it now will only complicate matters further. Let's put this aside for now. Sekiguchi!"
After giving his ambiguous explanation, Kyogoku-do suddenly turned his attention to me.
"You're a literary figure, so you have a keen sense for this kind of thing. After hearing Kubo's summary of <The Garden of Collectors>, what are your thoughts?"
I don't know how to answer this question if you suddenly ask me this. I haven't read it, and besides, when Kyogoku-do mentioned the book just now, he presented it as circumstantial evidence of a connection between Mihako-no-Kami and Kubo, which means I have absolutely no thoughts on it.
"There's really not much to say based on just the synopsis. I can't comment without having read it."
That's an excessively pretentious way of feigning ignorance.
However, Kyogoku-do agreed, saying, "That makes sense."
"For example, the work and the author are different, and it's not a good thing if the author's image influences the appreciation of the work. On the contrary, to some extent, readers can infer the author's image from the work by discerning the author's nature, and this is also unavoidable. Of course, novels are fictional, so it's impossible to directly write the author's ideology, but the author's preferences and ideological background will inevitably be revealed. The more skillful a person is, the better they can conceal this, while the worse a person is, the easier it is for the author's expression to be revealed in their work. Based on my reading experience, Kubo Shunko belongs to the poor category in this regard."
"Do you mean, for example, that the characters and the author cannot be completely separated?"
"I didn't intend to make such an immature critique. Of course, this argument is reasonable in a certain sense, but even if it seems so, it could be a deliberate arrangement by the author. At this point, the reader is completely trapped by the author's design, so judging merit or demerit based on this is indeed too arbitrary. However, Kubo's case is simpler—"
Kyogoku-do took out the layout manuscript of Kubo's new work that I had left here from the paper bag.
"His works are almost all diaries."
"Huh?"
"He seems to have a tendency to write novels directly about things around him. Of course, the settings or names will be changed."
"Really? I really don't think so. Although I've only read <The Girl in the Box>—that award-winning work just now features cultivators and priests, all sorts of things that wouldn't appear in everyday life, right? Besides, it's a fantasy novel, so it's hard to believe it has any sense of realism. Of course, there might be several instances of undigested ideologies in the novel, but we have no way of confirming whether they are truly his own ideologies. Even if you think so, maybe, as you just said, he wrote it that way after careful calculation, which would mean you've completely fallen into the author's trap."
"Yes, Sekiguchi, you're right. That's what I thought at first too."
Isn't that so?
"Hmm, it seems that's not the case. The reason his works can be considered fantasy literature is because his understanding of the world is just that feeling, not because he deliberately created fantasy. For him, that is reality."
Kyogoku-do showed me the layout manuscript.
"How could that be—you must have some basis for saying such a thing, right? If you're just saying it based on impressions, then I'm very disappointed."
I found myself defending Kubo without even realizing it. I had absolutely no reason to defend him.
Kyogoku-do said, "Hmm, that's true," scratching his chin.
He seemed to be hiding something; he would scratch his chin whenever he felt troubled.
"Since I haven't investigated at all, I don't know the nature of Kubo's relationship with Terada Heibei. Even if Kubo is definitely involved in the birth of Mihakka no Kami, why this young man of about twenty years old would have such a huge influence on Heibei remains a mystery. I've considered some hypotheses, but they're all just theoretical and pointless to discuss, so I'll leave them at that. However, regarding Mihakka no Kami, if Kubo really is the mastermind, his reason for creating Mihakka no Kami is—"
What is it?
"Hmm, if I were to say it describes the mindset of the protagonist in <The Collector's Garden>, do you understand what that means?"
"You mean collecting other people's misfortunes? That's hard to believe. So, for Kubo, that register is a collection?"
"Is it a bit of a stretch?"
"Of course. It's hard to imagine that this argument could come from the mouth of Chuzenji Akihiko."
"Is that so? Then let's not discuss this further."
Why did I obediently back down? I had expected him to launch a scathing rebuttal, so now I feel a little disappointed. Kyogoku-do opened *The Girl in the Box* instead of refuting, saying:
"Motivation—well, that's it."
What do you mean by that?
"Um."
His attitude was very indecisive again. I thought he had returned to his usual level, but it seems I was wrong.
"Well, this new book contains a passage describing dismembering a corpse and stuffing it into a box, right?"
Kyogoku-do said, as if he had just remembered.
"Huh? Is there such a direct scene? We can't let this go. Because the matter of putting it in a box hasn't been made public. And—if, as Mr. Chuzenji said, this man named Kubo only wrote the actual events into a novel—."
Aoki's reaction was very sensitive, which is to be expected.
I find it hard to accept; I can't believe this is something Kyogoku-do would do. It just feels so...despicable.
"Hey, Kyogoku-do! This is really unfair. Leaving no clear reason, just vague and ambiguous messages that invite speculation, and then saying these things—anyone would find Kubo suspicious. Novels are fiction. Don't you hate the stupid thing of confusing fiction with reality when you attack it? If killing someone in a story makes someone a murderer, then all detective novelists are mass murderers!"
"Yes, that's right, you're absolutely right. But I'm not saying this based on such a thoughtless reason. Besides, he wrote these things into his work as if they happened in a dream, without saying that they actually happened. It's just a dream."
Dream
"What, so that's how it is, but—"
Under Kyogoku-do's skillful manipulation, which approached the core while deliberately avoiding the key points, Aoki now has doubts about Kubo.
"And, Aoki, he wrote this work between August 30th and September 10th. I guess the first event hadn't happened yet when he started writing it."
Aoki counted on his fingers.
“But the earliest was August 30th—ah, that doesn’t count, right? So—the next one to be discovered was, let me think, September 6th, so…”
"This is just my imagination. If Kubo really was the culprit, he started the crime after the work was already finished. Assuming the crime was committed on September 5th, it would only have taken five days from commissioning the manuscript to completion, which is not impossible for Kubo Shunko, who is known for his fast writing."
So Kubo is known for his rapid writing speed? I didn't know that.
"This work gave me a great deal of insight. Let me state upfront that I am not reading this work based on the preconceived notion that Kubo is the perpetrator, but rather the opposite. Before reading this work, my impression of Kubo was simply that of a mysterious man. As I just mentioned in my opening remarks, it would be wrong of me to misinterpret the work if I were influenced by the preconceived notion that the author is the perpetrator of the dismemberment case, but it was after reading this work that I began to have doubts about him."
"So you interpret this work as—a record of the process before he began his killing spree?"
"If he really is a criminal, wouldn't it be unnatural if there were no psychological projections in the work?"
Aoki asked:
"Is the reason the scene from just now?"
"No, that's just a side effect. For example, the protagonist of this novel has an unusual aversion to crevices. He has a strange quirk that he wants to stuff any crevices he sees."