"Welcome!

Would you like a hot dog?"

"Our shaved ice is the best you've ever tasted!

You can have it with strawberry syrup, melon syrup, or Hawaiian blue syrup!"

"Try our takoyaki roulette!

The winner's packed with a ton of mustard!"

There are a great many booths at this year's Watanagashi festival.

Anything can become a festival if there are vendors selling food and music for Bon dances, I thought.

It's still June, but it had been extremely hot the past few days, almost as if it's already summer.

When you have a June festival with Bon dance music under this kind of weather, the only thing that's missing to make it a perfect summer festival is fireworks.

"Bzzt, bzzzt!

This is Kumagai.

Ooishi-san, can you hear me? Over."

I heard a voice coming from my portable radio.

...With this earphone, it looks a little like I'm secretly listening to the horse races while on duty.

"This is Ooishi.

I can hear you loud and clear."

"The town councilors gave us a lot of food.

...We have oden, yakisoba, pork belly stew,

and... umm,

some barley tea."

"Na ha ha!

Do you mean the barley tea we can drink on duty

or the one we can't drink on duty?"

"Eh, well...

...Ah ha ha ha."

"If it's a canned drink, I'll take it.

If it's in a cup, don't worry about it."

"Roger that.

...Ah, and all the members of the town council are here to say hi.

We have the mayor and the head the Sonozaki family, too..."

"...What, that old bag Oryou is there?

Can you tell her that I'm patrolling right now and don't know when I'll be back?"

"...Well, I don't think I can do that for you, sir... She knows you have a portable radio, so she told me to call you and to bring you back here. She looks really mad..."

"Na ha ha ha!

I'm sure it'll be a stroke that kills her.

Roger that. Tell her with extreme courtesy that I'll be back soon.

Please."

...Oh well. I guess I'll have to go back

and mingle with the locals.

All of a sudden, a group of kids came running towards me from behind.

After a quick look at them... I noticed that they were the granddaughter of the old bag and her friends.

They occupied a corner of the shooting gallery stall, making a lot of noise.

Mion Sonozaki.

...When acting her age, she's a cute, normal girl.

But do I ever hate it when she acts like a member of the Sonozaki family.

She'll be the boss of the Okinomiya yakuza territory in 10 or 20 years, just you wait and see.

...And while I was thinking things like that...

I noticed that Mion wasn't the one taking leadership of her group this time. It was the boy.

That boy... I know him. He just moved here recently.

The boy from the Maebara mansion.

Keiichi Maebara-kun, was it?

I heard that the Maebara family is from the city, and they're supposedly very rich, too.

...But he doesn't flaunt his family's wealth, and he has a good reputation because of that.

Even though he just moved here, he's already adjusted to his new school, and he's popular with his classmates, too.

Everyone in the village seems to like him as well.

He's very interesting to watch, as a person of many moods.

Boys of his age sure have a lot of energy.

Ah, to be young again.

"Hey, you're up next, Rena!!

You're lucky it's your turn!"

"Rena, are you okay?

Are you feeling sick?"

"...Ahaha, I'm sorry.

I guess I have to pass on taking a shot."

"......Okay, you should take a break for a bit."

"So!

That would make it my turn, no?!

Victory shall be mine!!"

...It looked like only four of them were having a good time. The girl called Rena seemed outside of that circle of smiles.

Her name is Rena Ryuugu.

What was her real name...?

I couldn't remember, but I can check when I get back to the station.

Rena is only a nickname.

I believe she moved here a year before Maebara-kun did.

Her mother divorced her father, or something like that.

She's a strong girl who does all the housework by herself.

She's a very modest girl, I'm told, which is rare in this era.

Unlike Maebara-kun, it seemed like she hadn't really opened up to her friends just yet.

They had looked like a group of five, but there's distance between her and the others. It's a little sad, you know.

Maebara-kun has become a part of the village... but Rena is still by herself.

...Well, that's just how it looks to me.

"Bzz!

Ooishi-san, the chief and the section manager are here.

Please come back as soon as possible!"

"Roger that!

...I can't believe the chief came all the way here just to say hi to the locals.

I guess he's very dedicated to community service, eh?"

"Ah......

This is Takasugi.

Ooishi-san,

can you hear me?

Do you copy? Over!"

"Yes, yes, I hear you.

I'm on my way back right now.

I'll be there in a minute."

If I don't hurry up, even the chief might end up calling me.

I ran back to the headquarters tent.

"Ooishi-san, Dr. Irie is here."

"Oh, thank you so much for coming!

So, what do you think, Dr. Irie?"

Ooishi entered the cordoned-off area.

In there, people from forensics were taking pictures of the corpse from various angles.

Irie was squatting down next to the dead body of Jirou Tomitake.

...When he stood up, he looked pale.

".........I can't believe it."

"...I know. I can't believe it either.

As far as I see... he clawed out his throat

with his bare hands.

This isn't a normal way to go.

Most likely, it was the cause of some drug or something."

"......Are you saying he was a drug addict?"

"Who knows?

I guess it's going to be my job to find that out."

"...Ooishi-san,

what's with this two-by-four?"

"Maybe... he was swinging it around?

Then he threw it away, and had more fun clawing at his throat, I guess."

"...Why was he swinging a piece of lumber around?"

"He probably did it in self-defense.

...Did you notice there are several external injuries on his body?"

"...Yes. I can see some bruises."

"The easiest explanation I can think of... is that he was attacked by someone on his way home to Okinomiya from the festival.

He was seized by the culprit, given a shot of some kind of dangerous drug, went crazy, and died."

"...I've never heard of any drug that can make people claw out their throats."

"I'm not a specialist... but many drug addicts injure themselves when they're in a terminal condition.

Well, I'm sure the old man in forensics will take care of the investigation."

"Excuse me, Ooishi-san!

We found a bicycle believed to belong to Jirou Tomitake about a hundred meters away from here."

"Oh, that's great. Thanks for the find.

Any other clues?"

"Not yet.

They're investigating it right now."

"So, that means...

the place where the bicycle was found is most likely the place he was attacked.

...And then he ran away from the suspect and ended up here...

...hnnnn."

Ooishi frowned, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Irie was looking at the miserable corpse of Tomitake, and he kept saying the same thing over and over.

"............It's impossible.

.........It's just impossible."

"...Doctor, it happened, so it was possible, okay?

Try to think flexibly.

...Although, I get that you don't really see something like this every day, despite being a doctor.

...Anyway, thanks for your cooperation.

You can go home now.

We called you here for emergency medical care, but it looks like it was a waste of a trip. Sorry."

Ooishi stuck his head out of the blue tent and asks, "can anybody give him a ride home?"

Irie gasped all of a sudden as he turned to Ooishi.

"What about... Takano-san?

What happened to Takano-san?!"

"What?

Oh, your nurse?"

"I think she was with him.

Is she okay?!"

"...Do you know her phone number?"

"Of course."

"Kuma-chan.

Get her phone number from Dr. Irie and make someone at the station call her house."

"Understood!

Doctor, can I have the number?"

"Yes, um, here it is."

Kumagai got the phone number from Irie, repeated it back, and then dashed away from the blue tarps.

"Doctor.

...Takano-san and Tomitake-san were close friends, right?"

"Yes."

"...Have you heard about any troubles between them?"

"No.

......Not even once.

They were very close."

"Well, I hope she's okay.

...In the worst case, she could be dead, or she could be the culprit.

...Nn, I see. Nurses have access to dangerous drugs..."

"...We don't have anything like that in my clinic. Even if we did, we'd be extra careful with them.

There's no way Takano-san could smuggle out a drug from my clinic..."

"But it's easier for nurses to do it than for regular people, right?"

"Like I said, I've never heard of a drug like that, and I don't have anything like that in my clinic...!"

"Ooishi-san, she isn't at home.

The standby unit says they're going to go to her house to check.

Doctor, can you give me her address?"

"Kuma-chan,

can you also check if the police headquarters has found any unidentified female bodies tonight?

...Maybe we should check the other prefectures, too.

Tell the section manager if he can call the headquarters in the nearby prefectures and ask if they have any unidentified female bodies."

"Yes sir!"

".........Are you saying that Takano-san

might also be dead...?"

"Well, nfu fu, I don't know.

I don't know if she's dead, or if she's the culprit.

Of course, it's possible she's not involved at all.

She might just be getting drunk in a bar somewhere."

"...It's unbelievable...

Who does things like this...?"

"Well, it's unbelievable to me, too.

This fits with the rest of the mysterious deaths in Hinamizawa.

...It's been five years now.

That would make this the fifth curse of Oyashiro-sama.

...Damn it. I've got to get whoever's behind it this year for sure...!

I really want to put an end to these cases before I retire."

Ooishi hates 'the curse of Oyashiro-sama'. It had been leading him around by the nose for five consecutive years.

...The victim of the first year, the manager of the dam construction site, was his friend.

Despite his desire to avenge his friend, the mystery had only deepened, and one case followed another year after year.

Ooishi would be retiring next March.

...As a retiree, he'd be able to ask about the progress of the investigation, but he wouldn't be able to take the initiative anymore.

In other words... this year was his last chance for revenge.

.........Would he have to put his head in the lion's mouth to capture the culprit?

Ooishi quietly clenched his fist.

I believe.

I believe that this maze has an exit.

"Maze" is a very convenient word.

A maze always has an exit.

You don't call it a maze if it doesn't have one.

I know I'm on the right path towards the exit of this maze. I used to miss these minor divergences, but now I don't miss anything. I don't make any mistakes.

This time I could feel a response that was different than all the other times.

I'm sure I can finally get to the exit of this maze.

But

............

no matter which path I choose to come to this point,

Jirou Tomitake always

dies.