Saikyou Series Volume 3 s4Chapter 3

Battle of Wits with the Digital Detective - Chapter 3 Japanese: Aikawa Jun no Shippai, Miss/ion 4: Digital Tantei to no ChiekurabeFrom Jinrui Saikyou no Tokimeki by Nisio Isin

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“Wha… Did something explode!?”

Kandou had maintained an air of cool composure—or rather, cool derision—all morning, but even she couldn’t help being surprised by the flash of light and sound. Nevertheless, Sasa was unable to laugh at her loss of composure.

That was because, as far as losses of composure were concerned, Sasa was just about equally affected.

What happened?

What on Earth just happened?

“Ahahahahahahahah!”

With neither hesitation nor reservation, the third woman present, Jun Aikawa, broke into a roar of laughter at Kandou's—and perhaps Sasa's—consternation.

“Actually, you know. That wasn’t just an explosion, it was a detonation. Someone blew up the underground backup power generator and the electricity cables behind the mansion.”

“S-someone…?”

“Looks like this whole area will be out of power for at least forty-eight hours. They also detonated explosives on the mountain road to cause a landslide, so you can’t go down to the foot of the mountain to get more batteries… That laptop of yours will have to rely on the battery you have right now.”

“!”

Kandou seemed to have finally understood the situation, and had managed to recover from her shock.

“W-was this your doing!?”

“Oh, I wonder… Well, I mean, I suppose I can say that this is all totally unrelated to the contest. Which is just to see if your program can properly deduce that I’m the murderer. Right, Sasaki?”

“Y-yes…”

Sasa reflexively confirmed the question, but it wasn’t as though she had come as Jun Aikawa’s ally. She was simply a neutral observer.

And yet, Sasa had been completely taken in.

Why?

Just what did her friend do?

“B-but… what have you…”

“Well, it’s like, the primary weakness of your digital detective. It’s digital, so if there’s no power, it’s totally useless.”

“……!”

So that was the purpose of these… detonations.

She must have made the preparations yesterday. Jun Aikawa certainly had a deep relationship, in various ways, with the Akagami family; all of this could have been easily arranged…

Sasa could readily imagine Jun Aikawa cheerfully, or perhaps excitedly, planting explosives around her friend’s house in the middle of the night, and it made her head hurt.

I really should have given up, she thought.

I should have disobeyed the order, even if it meant I got fired.

“D-did you think this would stop Model SH-43? Such an underhanded play?” Kandou glared fiercely at Jun Aikawa. “I’m sorry to tell you, but the battery in this laptop will last at least forty-eight hours. Even if it runs out, there are backup computers in the broadcasting van—”

“I know, I know. Those explosions were just my way of saying hello.”

Jun Aikawa sounded like she was having quite some fun.

She was acting like a total villain.

“If I really wanted to use explosives to decide the contest, I’d blow up the broadcasting van. That said, though, the only reason I didn’t was because if I blew up the van, all your henchmen would get blown to bits too.”

It’s not like I want to kill anyone, Jun Aikawa said cheekily—after all, she was about to act the part of the murderer.

Looking over, Sasa saw that the smoke rising from behind the mansion was dissipating rapidly. Apparently, the explosive had been set up in such a way as to prevent the spread of fire without needing to be extinguished.

It was certainly not the act of someone who wanted to start a forest fire.

“Well, I mean, if I actually was a criminal plotting a crime, then I’d definitely do something like this to antagonize your digital detective. In the old novels, they’d cut the phone lines a lot, but nowadays you’ve got to destroy all the power sources. Plus… yeah, you’d probably have to take a hammer or something and smash all the cell phones…”

That’s how you could recreate Arashi no Sansou.

Jun Aikawa turned away from Kandou and Sasa and began walking toward the mansion. It really felt like in place of a greeting, she had thrown a preemptive punch.

“……”

Regardless of how reckless she had been with the explosives, the simple fact was that Jun Aikawa loved both theatricality and gunpowder.

A more pragmatic interpretation of her actions might be that she had aimed to jam communications by immersing the mansion in powerful electromagnetic waves.

Perhaps she intended to deal with electronics by using electronics of her own… The detective might be electronic, but it would certainly be unreasonable to expect the criminal to stick to analogue.

As much as the mobile phone had eliminated the Arashi no Sansou scenario, the device could also be utilized in the execution of a crime.

Had she wanted to, Jun Aikawa could probably have decided the contest right then and there…

“Hmph. She’s even wilder than the rumors say. She’s reckless… or maybe more like a child throwing a tantrum when she doesn’t get what she wants. As if she couldn’t beat a level in a game, so she pulled out the power cord.”

Kandou did not appear to have pondered Jun Aikawa’s actions very far, and simply thought of them as “recklessness”.

Well, that is what anyone would think.

Sasa had simply looked favorably on Jun Aikawa’s actions because she was her friend.

As she spoke, Kandou turned off the laptop she was holding and folded it shut, ostensibly to conserve power.

“However, precisely because she represents such an old-fashioned generation, she is quite fitting to be Model SH-43’s first opponent.”

…Naturally.

Naturally, in forty-eight hours Taeka Kandou would be forced to retract her statement—rather, she would declare the exact opposite.

That is:

I could have chosen any great criminal mastermind as my enemy, but the one person I should not have made an enemy of is Jun Aikawa.