After getting in contact with Mr. Misawa, we decided to meet up with all five of us once.
It seems that Mr. Daigo, Koya, and Mr. Ikezawa were also investigating something separately.
“Mr. Kageno. We’ve gathered some information about the monster in question.”
Mr. Daigo showed me his tablet. Then, he opened a file and showed it to me.
“This is… the Grave Guardian… It’s almost identical to the monster that appeared in the stream.”
I looked through the material Mr. Daigo prepared. This was a site run by a government-sanctioned expert organization that collects and analyzes data from dungeon streams.
According to the information, this monster, the Grave Guardian, is said to collect human relics.
It is a monster that is obsessed with the relics of people who have died in dungeons. If someone tries to take these relics, the monster will attack.
While the monster is usually calm, for some reason, it has a habit of being obsessed with other people’s relics.
“I see… But why is the Grave Guardian guarding the treasure chest generated inside the dungeon?”
“Ei-tom-kun, we discussed this and came to one conclusion. That treasure chest wasn’t generated inside the dungeon, but rather, someone must have left it there.”
Koya answered my question. When I thought about it that way, it made more sense.
“There might be some truth to that theory. Actually, there’s something Shiba-san noticed about the music coming from that treasure chest. It seems to hide a secret message on purpose.”
“A hidden message? What’s that?”
It seems Mr. Ikezawa hadn’t noticed either. Well, it’s impressive that Shiba-san did.
“There are parts of the music where the notes are slightly off. If you extract those parts, it forms something like Morse code.”
“Shiba-kun, did you manage to decode it?”
“No, I’m not exactly familiar with Morse code. Without a decoding chart, I can’t say much. But I did manage to extract a part of it using symbols.”
Shiba-san showed Mr. Daigo a piece of paper with the code. Mr. Daigo looked at it with interest.
“I see. Someone placed the treasure chest in the dungeon. And that someone is already dead. That’s why the Grave Guardian is guarding the chest. This message may have been left by someone who died in the dungeon.”
“Mr. Daigo, the client I mentioned earlier seems to want to know the content of this message. So much so that they are willing to pay any price for it.”
“Hmm… So, there’s some important message that needed to be encrypted. Let’s try decoding it. Kaito-kun, help me out.”
“Okay.”
Mr. Daigo and Mr. Ikezawa were attempting to decode the Morse code. Well, nowadays, you could probably find such decoding online.
“So, Koya, have you identified who placed this treasure chest?”
“No, it seems the chest was placed a long time ago. We even went back to the streams from a year ago, but couldn’t identify anything.”
“I see…”
There is a massive amount of data from dungeon streams. Even if you extract data from a specific dungeon, it’s hard to know exactly who did what and when.
If we could at least identify the date the chest was placed, we might have been able to figure out who set it up.
“Ei-tom-kun, what do you plan to do about this treasure chest? Should we try solving the mystery of the chest ourselves?”
“Well, I have a bad feeling that it’s going to lead to something unpleasant…”
I still don’t fully trust Mr. Misawa.
“The client is afraid that a specific person might decode the message. While we don’t know who that person is, since they won’t give us the details, I can’t trust the client either.”
I understand what Shiba-san is saying. It would have been better if they had given us more information.
Well, if they can’t share any information, I can only guess there’s something shady going on.
“Alright, I’ve finished decoding it. I’ll read it aloud.”
‘This is a message meant for the path ahead. I hide all of my things there.’
“The message ends here.”
The message that Mr. Daigo read aloud made me feel a sense of discomfort.
Hmm…? What is it? Something feels off.
Uh… the client’s name is… Misawa Mitsuru? Is this message addressed to her?
“Most likely, the person who left this message was trying to entrust something to someone named Michiru.”
Mr. Daigo, who read aloud the code, shared his thoughts. I had no objections to this.
“I vaguely remember that the client, Mr. Misawa, had that name. She must have realized that this message was directed at her.”
Am I starting to agree with Shiba-san? But something is still bothering me. However, I’m not exactly recalling things perfectly, so I feel some sort of unease.
“Michiru… I feel like I’ve heard that name before.”
It’s understandable that Koya would think that. It’s just a coincidence, but for me, this name feels familiar too.
Well, it’s not really important right now. What’s more pressing is that I want to know what the rest of the message says.
“Uh… Kageno-san. To find out the rest of this message, we’ll need to open the treasure chest, right?”
“That’s right, Ikezawa-san. However, we can’t open it ourselves. Mr. Misawa is probably monitoring our actions. She’s definitely watching our streams.”
In order to enter a dungeon, we have to stream for the purpose of gathering information. That’s the rule in this country.
If Mr. Misawa finds out that we opened the treasure chest, things will get complicated. How can we handle this situation without causing trouble?
“Well, then, we’ll have to get someone else to open it. Is there anyone who could help with that?”
Ikezawa-san seems troubled. But we have one person in mind who could be useful for this.
“How about asking Makita Jin-san? If we just have him open the chest without taking it with him, it won’t turn into too risky of a stream.”
Well, I’m not sure if he’ll listen to me, though.
With that, I decided to contact Makita-san.
When I called Makita-san, he answered right away.
“Hello, what’s up?”
“Makita-san, actually, I have a request…”
I explained the situation to Makita-san. He listened to me, but…
“Hmm, I see. Well, to be honest, it feels like I’m being used here, and I’m not really into it.”
It seemed like he was about to refuse.
“Kageno-san. Please put it on speaker mode.”
At Shiba-san’s prompt, I switched to speaker mode.
“Jin-san. I’m asking you too. We really need your help.”
“The voice I hear is from Shiba-nii! Hmm, well, if Nii-chan’s asking, I can’t refuse.”
Even though I was getting the feeling that he might refuse my request, as soon as he heard Shiba-san’s voice, he was on board.
Well, Shiba-san probably made him respect his strength, so it’s no surprise. I never managed to make Makita-san respect me like that.
“Thank you. This really helps, Jin-san.”
“Alright, if I’m doing this, I’ll go right away. I’ll dive into the dungeon now. I’m going to open the treasure chest, so make sure you’re listening carefully.”
Once he agreed, things moved quickly. If this wild dog joins our team, I guess I won’t be able to pair him up with anyone except Shiba-san.
With that, Makita-san’s stream began.
Although Makita-san had collaborated with Shadow Stars, he wasn’t an official member. So, he should be outside of Mr. Misawa’s watch.
Even if it’s found out that Makita-san opened the treasure chest, it won’t cause any backlash toward him. After all, he’s not a part of Shadow Stars.
I’ll try to decode the message as quickly as possible. Maybe I’ll learn something from it.
