At ten o'clock in the morning, joint search headquarters.

When Ryusuke Higashino and the others arrived here, Professor Natsume was already waiting here. He was still in the same position as last time. There was already a lot of information on the table, which looked a bit messy.

When he saw Higashino and others coming here, Professor Natsume greeted them with a smile with a somewhat pale face. Although it was the first time he met Yusuke Godai, he guessed that this person should be No. 4.

When Godai learned that Golem was discovered by Professor Natsume, he was surprised and expressed his gratitude, "You really helped me a lot!"

"It's good if I can help. At least it proves that my work still has some meaning..."

Professor Natsume is still carrying out the excavation work at Mount Kuro. Because this ruins caused the death of dozens of his students, he also vowed from the bottom of his heart: Even if it takes the rest of his broken life, even if it costs his life,

We must investigate everything about Kurodake and the Super Ancient Times! Otherwise, we will be sorry for the students who died because of this.

"There is only one reason why I want to invite you to meet this time..." the professor said, finding a photo from a pile of information on the table to show to several people. The photo showed a restored stone tablet.

"New discovery?"

"No, actually it was discovered a long time ago, probably before the first excavation of Mount Kurang. It was only recently deciphered that these are stone tablets scattered around the ruins of Mount Kurang. It took a long time to find them all, but still

There’s a lot of content loss.”

Professor Natsume once again rummaged through the information and found a few pages, which were the result of interpretation of the super-ancient characters on the stone tablet and modern Japanese. The professor looked at the content above and explained: "The content on this stone tablet is this: The coffin of darkness is also

Just like the huge coffin of light, we must protect it, and we must not forget the coffin of darkness..."

Godai thought about the meaning of this sentence and made a guess: "The coffin of darkness...could it mean that the coffin of No. 0 Daguaba is hidden under the coffin of the great warrior Kuuga and cannot be forgotten?"

Then Professor Natsume clearly denied this view: "No, Daguaba was sealed in the soil and was pressed on top by the coffin of the super ancient warrior Rick. So I changed the angle slightly and changed the word 'coffin' to annotation

The word "room" means a lot of characters. This word can mean a room in one of the compartments of the building, or it can mean a building with only one room without dividing the interior. The word "coffin" comes from the word "room".

Derived from the text.”

Due to the logical thinking of a detective, Ichijo Kaoru understood Professor Natsume's meaning almost instantly, "...In this case, the huge coffin of light is interpreted as the ruins of Mt. Kuro, and in addition to the ruins of Mt. Kuro, there are

Is it possible that there are other small ruins that sealed Gulangi..."

"That's why I'm here." Professor Natsume nodded, looked at Higashino Ryusuke and said, "Because we got such a result, and also found a suspicious place east of Mount Kuro, but there seemed to be something inside

The messy signs of damage make it impossible for us to deduce, so we want to ask Mr. Higashino for confirmation."

"The Coffin of Darkness does exist." Under the gaze of everyone, Ryusuke Higashino said these words in a serious manner.

He combined the content of Kuuga's official novel he had read before traveling with some information in Rick's memory, organized his thoughts and said: "The so-called Coffin of Darkness is indeed another place as you have inferred.

The small ruins are also called the original Hill of Humiliation among the Gurungi clan."

"Actually, my belt was inherited just like the fifth generation, but it was only in the super ancient period. The senior who first wore this belt fell into darkness during the battle with Gurungi, and ultimately died as a result.

As a price, a part of Gulungi was sealed, and the place where he sealed Gulungi is now the Coffin of Darkness."

"But..." Ryusuke pondered as he stated. According to Professor Natsume, there are signs of damage to the ruins of the Dark Coffin. Has the guy inside recovered?

But it stands to reason that the Grunch in the Coffin of Darkness should not have been resurrected at this time. He remembered that TV Rida Cuba would cleanse all the Grunch at the end of the Kikilu game, and those weak ones who could not participate in the game

They were all massacred. If the guys from the Coffin of Darkness woke up during this period, how could they escape the great purge of Daguaba?

But now it seems that they do have the possibility of waking up early... Is it because they no longer have the suppression of their own belt? Or are they awakened by the Rose Girl?

He frowned and thought, and asked again: "Professor Natsume, are you sure it has been destroyed?"

"There are three ruins with ground cracks."

Okay, so it seems that he has indeed woken up.

Ryusuke Higashino spread his hands and said solemnly: "Mr. Ichijo, I think we may have a few more enemies."

…

One o'clock in the afternoon.

Lunch was prepared in the canteen of the joint search headquarters. It has to be said that as a canteen specially provided for police officers fighting on the front line, the food here is pretty good, much better than the ordinary big pot rice canteen.

And because of yesterday’s meeting and the joint operation against No. 44, the members of the Joint Investigation Headquarters all welcomed Ryusuke and Godai. Ryusuke also met Shota Asama who was working overtime here. When he wanted to go up to say hello, he saw Shota.

He looked at him with unfamiliar eyes, as if he didn't recognize himself.

Higashino Ryusuke felt a little strange, but thinking about it, it seemed that there was a reason to avoid suspicion. He couldn't let others know that he was staying at his house on the 1st, so he didn't pay too much attention to it.

Speaking of which, he only recently learned that although Shota is a member of the Investigation Headquarters, he is not a combatant, but works in the intelligence department, so once there is any unconfirmed news, their group will always be the first to get busy.

Even on a normal day, he always has to pay attention to whether there is any unconfirmed news. Because of this, he always works overtime and is too busy to stop.

After Professor Natsume obtained the valuable information about the ultra-ancient times, he rushed back to Nagano non-stop, as if he would not give up until he exhausted himself to death.

After that, Ryusuke and Godai drove their respective motorcycles back to polepole.

When passing a traffic light along the way, they stopped and waited for the red light to end. There were many people gathered on the bus stop not far away. There were no seats available, so others had to stand aside and wait.

Then an old woman came there. It was obviously hard work for the old woman with inconvenient legs and feet to stand and wait, so a mother took her daughter out of the seat and gave up her seat with a smile.

old woman.

When Godai saw this scene, he couldn't help but smile on his face. He exclaimed happily: "It's great, everyone can laugh happily!"

However, Ryusuke suddenly noticed a familiar figure on the street. He called to Godai beside him and said, "Godai, look, isn't that Nana?"

"Oh? Really, why is Nana here? Has the audition ended?"

On the empty street, Asahina Nana was walking alone pushing her bicycle with her head lowered, looking depressed.

When the green light came on, Ryusuke and Godai set off together, approaching Nana.

Ten minutes later, in a nearby park, the two parked the motorcycle and found a lawn with the worried Nana to sit down. Next to them, someone was operating a stall selling octopus balls on a cart.

"I...didn't attend the final audition."

When Godai and Ryusuke asked about the results of the audition, Nana clenched her fists tightly and said this in a very aggrieved voice.

There were tears in her eyes, but her expression was full of hatred, "Brother Godai, brother Ryusuke... have you ever had the idea of ​​killing others?"

"Huh? Why do you suddenly have such an idea?" Godai looked at her in surprise, and then said sincerely: "But if you want to kill someone, everyone will have that kind of moment. This is human nature."

"Me too, but if killing someone doesn't bring anything but harms the innocent people around you, then don't do it."

Ryusuke looked at Nana in front of him like a little sister who had been bullied by others, so he paused and asked softly: "Nana, what happened?"

Nana lowered her head and took a deep breath, then stood up with red eyes and looked at the scenery in the park and said: "My teacher and I used to come here often. When I made a stupid mistake, the teacher would bring me here to scold me.

, and then we sat on the lawn eating octopus balls while listening to the teacher tell stories about the failures of our youth..."

"That's it."

"So even though the teacher was gone, I thought I had to pass the audition for the teacher's sake, but the last question... was to show a scene where someone I care about was killed by an unidentified life form in front of my eyes, so I naturally thought of it.

Teacher. Although I know in my heart that I need to practice hard, I can't do it... I feel useless... but..."

When she talked about what she was angry about, Nana's nose became sour, but her tears still fell, and she said even more choked up: "...But, the girl who stayed with me for the audition said: Your teacher was killed by an unidentified life form.

, you can take it out and use it!..."

Godai pursed his lips and said with a complicated look: "That is indeed too much."

Ryusuke on the side also frowned, "Not only that, the person who asked that question is also the same. He is just as outrageous as the guy who said such things."

Nana squatted on the ground again and burst into tears: "After she finished speaking, my mind went blank. Although I didn't do anything at the time, I became very angry when I thought about it.

She looked at Godai with tears in her eyes: "She already said that, so it's okay for me to beat her up!"

"...There is no problem if you think like this. After all, we are human beings and we all have feelings. So, I think you should go."

Godai looked at Nana with an encouraging smile, "But if I use my fists to solve the problem, my mood will become very bad. I think the most important thing is to let the other party realize their mistakes... although I still don't want to

You go and hit people, but if you can only communicate with your fists..."

Godai looked at his fist and secretly decided that if he could only protect the smiles of others with his fist, then this responsibility would be his...

Seeing this, Ryusuke curled his lips. As expected, Godai wanted to take the responsibility alone.

"That's good." Ryusuke stretched out his hand to Nana, "Let's go together. If it's necessary to take action, then we'll help you vent your anger!"

Seeing Ryusuke's serious expression, Nana was stunned for a while and then burst into laughter. She cried and laughed and stamped her feet, "Hey Ryusuke, you are going too far. Two grown men are really going to bully one of them."

I would be embarrassed if I were a little girl..."

After successfully making Nana laugh, Godai breathed a sigh of relief and gave Ryusuke a thumbs up calmly.

Although the anger still exists, Nana is much more relaxed now.

Of course, a man must keep his word. In the afternoon, Ryusuke Higashino and Godai actually accompanied Nana to the audition location. They watched Nana arrive at the door not far away.

Until a girl in white clothes walked out of it, Nana went up and held her shoulders, breathing heavily, and the other fist hanging by her side shook. The girl did not resist, but hugged her with her arms.

He looked at her apologetically.

Nana still knew something about the girl in front of her. Her family was a single-parent family. Her father left the family when she was young because he had an affair with another woman, so the girl spent her childhood living in poverty with her mother.

However, she still has a mother. If it brings harm to innocent people...

Nana bit her lip and struggled internally several times, but finally loosened her fist and looked forward.

"I have something to tell you."

…
To be continued...