>>7606
We all smell the fire again...

Yes, I remember this part well.

There's not much reason to go over this again in detail.

Gohda, Rosa, Ange, Maria, and Manon leave via the window in the lobby.

Jessica and Ruon leave via the main exit.

Rudolf, Battler, and I go upstairs.

Rudolf then dies in my guest room, and Battler confronts me there as well.

Naturally, given the red... if Rudolf died on the second floor, and the only people there when he died were the three of us...

...There's only one person I could suspect to be the killer at this point.

>>7607
I think I have my final theory prepared.

Erika must be waiting for me to return. She's probably ready to fight me again, expecting to crush me without mercy, and torture me all over again.

But I've learned this time. There's only one howdunnit that needs to be solved, but now that I have a strong case for the whodunnit... this shouldn't be too bad after all.

I'm only uncertain about the whydunnit. Taking one last look at those who died, it would be George's parents, then Jessica's parents, then Battler's parents... with Genji there as well.

Is this the work of a single culprit? It's very possible. But I have no doubt that multiple motives are crossing paths here, and the result is something that makes no sense when first looked at.

The final hint that anon gave me. It makes more sense now, but am I really thinking of the correct interpretation? Well, no matter.

This is the best I can do before I reclaim this gameboard. I'm ready.

"It looks like you are as ready as you will ever be..."

Ozaki appears beside you and holds out a small crystal ball.

"That is the third and last piece of this world. When you are ready to go, break it, and you will be sent back to where Erika is."

>>7609
I break the crystal ball.

>>7610
The ball shatters and the already warped environment twists and turns into a black void.

------

>>7611
-----

[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov5Q8XOF4D0 ]

Crack... Snap...

The sound of bones breaking... you can hear it all around you. Slowly, one at a time, you can feel it. First your arms, then legs, get slowly jammed back together.
Red hot blood floor The skin binding the limbs sears as they fuse. However it doesn't hurt.

No... That is wrong: you won't allow it to hurt. There is no more time to feel pain, there is only one option ahead of you.

Erika is smirking from across the room you have now returned to. The red stains of your body is no more, and you have completely healed.
"You know," Erika says, "after the first time, a revival like this gets old. I was almost expecting a golden sword with it as well.
Well, it is not like it matters, I see you brought the last piece, and all you have are feeble theories to protect it!"

Erika rushes at you, her scythe emerging from thin air.

"Let us finish this!"

Sixth Howdunit!

>>7612
"That's right, Erika, I'm back! But this time I've developed a solid theory as a base! So here it comes!!!"

Seventh theory. Battler killed Rudolf. He stabbed him on the second floor while I was distracted. Rudolf stumbled over to the guest room, lied down, and the final blow came from the burning building itself! Battler culprit theory!!!

>>7613
"Solid theory my ass!

The only wound that effected Rudolf's death was the one he received inside guestroom #4. Rudolf was not stabbed in the hallway! "

Erika's scythe cuts up your blue instantly.

>>7614
You haven't denied my seventh theory entirely.

Perhaps the light hanging from the ceiling fell onto Rudolf, killing him? That's the fatal wound he received in Guest Room #4, from the building itself!

>>7615
If that had happened you would have found the light near Rudolf.

>>7616
Returning to my sixth theory. The culprit tampered with the thermostat in my room earlier. This is what caused the fire. Then as Rudolf entered the room through the hole in the wall, a trap activated, causing the mechanical noise that I heard. The thud was Rudolf's body falling. There was no need for the culprit to even be in the guesthouse, if they were at all! And the evidence for this trap? The bed itself! The weapon was thrust into Rudolf from inside the bed! The culprit had probably set it up as a trap to kill me as I slept, but it hit Rudolf instead! The blood splatter dripping from the wall and circumference of the bed could only be created from an object thrust into Rudolf from below!

>>7617
"It has already been stated all clues must be PRESENTED!
To what type of trap are you REFERRING? Has it even been hinted why such a trap would even exist THERE?"

>>7618
When I was trying to sleep, I had to find a comfortable spot! Why would the rest of the bed be uncomfortable? Furthermore, I doubt everything was planned in advance for my arrival! This guest room must have been intended for someone else, perhaps Rosa! It's likely that the culprit set a trap in my bed for the person who was supposed to sleep there before I arrived! Hence why it was so hard to sleep that night! And the trap is heat-sensitive, so on a cold night like the one I was sleeping on, it didn't work, but during the fire it did! It's all in the thermostat!

>>7619
There was no trap inside the bed!

>>7620
Alright, so the bed is uncomfortable regardless! When Battler and I were fighting, my pen fell into a broken floorboard! This is the floorboard that Rudolf stepped on which activated a heat-sensitive and pressure-sensitive trap!

>>7621
There are no traps in the floor!

>>7622
There was a trap in the table! A trap in the phone!

>>7623
This has gotten quite ASININE. You are no longer THEORIZING.
Where is your EVIDENCE?

>>7624
The hammer I had was stolen. I also had nails with me! This hints that someone was able to make a trap!

>>7625
"That is irrelevant to this MYSTERY!"

""To what type of trap are you REFERRING? Has it even been hinted why such a trap would even exist THERE?""

>>7626
The mechanical sound activated after I pulled my magnets out! Proving that there was a trap set there, and that Rudolf was killed by it!

>>7627
Your magnets have nothing to do with this murder.

>>7628
The mechanical noise made the crunching sound. The only other thing in this entire story to make a crunching sound was whatever Manon was messing with in the mansion's servant room. Later on she probably went to the guesthouse's servant room, bringing whatever it was that made that sound with her. Whether or not it was the phone or the iron I'm not sure, but that's probably what started the fire in the first place too!

>>7629
Nothing used for a trap was brought into the room!

>>7630
I never said it was brought to the guest room. The trap was below the guest room, in the servant room.

>>7631
No.

>>7632
The iron didn't need to be brought anywhere for it to work. There was a utility room right there, in the guesthouse already. She just used the iron there.

>>7633
An iron was not used.

>>7634
Who cares. The rooms are stated to be identical, which means that whatever was used in one would be used in the other.

>>7635
Nothing from the utility room was used to kill Rudolf.

It was an ironing board!

>>7638
Has it even been hinted why such a trap would even exist THERE?

>>7639
In the blueprints for the mansion there was a hidden room! And the blueprints for the guesthouse was made from the same blueprints as the mansion! Therefore there was a hidden room in the guesthouse too!

>>7640
Er, not a hidden room, I misquoted the text.

But there were plans in the blueprints for something, which included an ironing board in the wall.

>>7641
These rules are too lenient.

Correct. There was a trap set up to kill Kinjo using the ironing board inside of the wall. Because of the cold it was frozen and it didn't work, thus only waking him up.
Only when the fire lit, it was then set off by the melting of the ice. Rudolf happened to be in the way at that time.

"Well then, to think you would get this far...
You have already exceeded the number of 'penalty marks' needed to lose. A single mistake here and it's over.

It is time to truly finish this.

Let us hear it... WHO IS THE CULPRIT?

>>7643
The core of this mystery lies in the events of 1986, events I wasn't around for! So let's start with those!

George was egged on by Battler to propose to Yasu. He got carried away, scared Yasu, and she killed him! She wanted to be with Battler, not George! After all, Jessica said Battler would be much better than him! But Battler liked Ruon instead. That's right, Battler wasn't upset because he loved Yasu, but because he liked Ruon. Yasu then killed Ruon and switched places with her, to be with Battler! So Ruon is Yasu! And when Battler saw that Yasu had died, he felt enormous guilt for not being nicer to her!

Ruon/Yasu then told what had happened to Kinzo. He decided it would be best if he went to the hidden mansion, pretending to have died. After all, he hated everyone but George, who died. Genji then faked Kinzo's death. Ruon/Yasu then became Kinzo's only means of contact between the two mansions. This was hinted at because it was said that Genji "buried" Yasu in the hidden mansion!

However the family conferences never happened again, and Ruon eventually came to dislike Battler. Originally she was sent out to bring Battler to the island, but she wanted to try and leave without him, using my arrival as an excuse! Of course, I foiled her plans without even realizing it.

When I arrived and saw the portrait of Kinzo, two things stuck out to me. First, the eyes seemed to follow me, and second, it would strike nightmares in the hearts of children! Obviously Kinzo was hiding inside the portrait, and obviously this is what caused me to have that dream when I went to sleep that night!

The six victims all have something in common: They are Kinzo's children and spouses! The exception is Genji, Kinzo's best servant. However, he probably wouldn't mind dying for his master either way. Genji was also apparently working on a new epitaph, so this hints that it was Kinzo's idea to have another epitaph to solve to become the head!

However, Rudolf's death is odd. The trap was not intended for him, but for me... Or maybe someone else? Who would have stayed in my room that night? Rosa? The last of Kinzo's children who wasn't killed, but was meant to be killed!

I did suspect Battler for a while, but there is a problem. He has an alibi for both Krauss's and Natsuhi's deaths. In fact, everyone does! Genji and Rudolf couldn't have killed Natsuhi because they both died themselves! Anyone else would have been seen leaving the parlor, and of course seen re-entering the parlor! This means that the only one who could have killed Natsuhi was someone outside the parlor: Kinzo!

I also wanted to say George may not have died, but his head was cut off by you, Erika! Proving that he really did die!

In any case, Kinzo is the culprit! He planted the trap in my room to kill Rosa, he went into Eva's room at night to kill her and her husband... And, thinking about it, must have given Manon the letter to get Krauss and Natsuhi to leave the parlor. He then killed Kyrie and Genji, but was unable to kill any more, as we had all holed up in the guesthouse! So he set the fire and went in hiding once again!

In short, his motive was to purge the family of that generation of Ushiromiyas. Eva and Hideyoshi wanted to bring the case to light, Krauss and Natsuhi had embezzled his money, Rudolf and Kyrie had raised an idiot, and Rosa had no husband to take care of her C-sectioned child! Genji could have been killed for a number of reasons, perhaps he was defecting, or maybe he was just killed to throw people off? And the main accomplice, Ruon, was working with Kinzo so that she could be with Battler, who seemed to have learned from his ways and isn't really that bad of a person after all!

>>7645
Erika vanishes and you feel a tear at your chest. Blood splatters, flying through the air and landing all over the floor. You feel your bowls slide out of your body and splash to the ground. Erika is standing there, right in front of you grinning ear to ear.

George was never egged on to propose to Yasu.
Battler doesn't like Ruon in that way.
Ruon truly mistook you for Battler at the docks.
The trap that killed Rudolf was originally intended for you.
Maria is born of a woman.

Yasu is dead.
Yasu is not Ruon. Ruon is not Yasu.

Ruon is not an accomplice!

KINZO IS DEAD!

KINZO IS NOT THE CULPRIT!!!

With one final swing Erika brings her scythe over top her head and brings it down upon yours.

=====

gj kinjo-tan

Kinjo has lost

As specified by the rules I shall bestow upon him a subtitle for his 'username', if you can call it that.

Kinjo, your new title is:

Witch-Doctor Kinjo-tan: who has abused over a thousand children

It will remain like that unless on the off chance a challenge of equal stature is proposed in the future and you redeem yourself.

Good Game.

So do you plan on revealing the solution? I'm totally stumped on how anyone could have killed Krauss and Natsuhi...I'm thinking that there must be some unknown person on the island who was killed somehow before everyone gathered at the guesthouse, but I can't find clues for it in the text anywhere...

This was a great game, by the way, both of you! This has to be one of the best fan gameboards I've ever read. <Good> job, Ozaki-san!

>>7654
>>7655

I have to agree with RIKA-Beatrice there, even with all the howdunnits solved, I can't make a fitting theory for the who and whydunnits.
This truly was a great gameboard.

It's a shame Kinjo forgot to check some of the primordials red though, to have come up with this silly theory.
Well, who am I to say that even though I don't even have a theory ?

>>7655
>>7656
Thank you, and yes I will reveal the answer.

With the way the game ended, I've decided it will be best to reveal the answer in a different fashion. To elaborate; early near the start of this game's progression, Kinjo informed me he would convert this into a visual novel fan-game once it was done(i.e. like his "When the Seacats Cry").

It seems the most fitting this way because I can have the game end how I intended(if Kinjo had beat Erika and went back to the gameboard etc). This should be a good way to reveal the answer along with some epic grand finales.
After all, we already have all the images, music, and script needed to convert it.

So, if anyone is dying to know the answer you'll have to wait until then.

I see. I greatly look forward to it.

Of course, in the mean time, I will continue my search for the truth. Nipa~

>>7657
Good game, Ozaki.

After telling me the answer it really is a well-crafted gameboard. I wish I had done better before the Meta-World section but I guess I'm just not cut out for being a detective.

See you next time, when the seacats cry.