“It’s no good. She’s not picking up.” Toko shook her head a little and put her phone back in her pocket. She’d called Myu-Pom, but she hadn’t picked up, it seemed. It did seem like she was definitely able to make the call, though.
I’d watched carefully as Toko called Myu-Pom. The very fact that we could use a phone was proof that we weren’t dead. There was no way a ghost could use a phone, right?
“I’m going to Miyuu’s house,” Toko said.
“Do you know where she lives?” Sarai had been clearly worried about Myu-Pom since her name had first come up. Maybe he was a secret Myu-Pom fan?
Was he after one of my Basara Girls? Maybe he just looked serious and he was actually an asshole. That was the problem with college kids. Wait, what the hell was I thinking about?
“Do you want to come with me?” Toko asked.
“No,” Sarai replied. “I don’t have any reason to go.”
The way he said it pissed me off, but at least Myu-Pom wasn’t in danger anymore, so it was okay.
Toko ended the conversation and quickly left Blue Moon. I was worried about Myu-Pom as well. But even if I went with Toko, I’d have no idea what to say to Myu-Pom. There was no way a NEET God like me could cheer up a teenage girl instead of just making her feel worse. If I got a list of choices like in an H-Game, maybe I could do it, but otherwise, no way.
As I sat there indecisively, Sarai stood up and put on his jacket, too.
“Y-You’re leaving?”
“I need to know whether I’m dead or alive,” he said.
“So you’re going to look for your corpse? Wait... That sounds kinda cool. ‘I’m going to look for my own corpse... baby.’ Heheh. I’m using that in the article.”
Sarai didn’t respond.
He wanted solid proof no matter what. I guess that’s what you’d expect from a science type. There was no way he’d find his own body, though. He was definitely alive.
“Gamon, I need you to finish decoding that list as fast as you can. I want to match it with the list of 256 incident victims.”
“Um, okay...”
God, he was so pushy. It’s not like I was his slave.
I watched Sarai leave and then turned back to my laptop. The article was still in the outline stage. I needed to fill it with more things to attract a reader’s attention...
“Proving whether you’re alive or dead, huh?” I kept saying it, but there was no way we’d ever find our own corpses. My body was right here. If I confirmed that something wasn’t there, was that proof I was alive? I decided to just turn my focus back to my article. I would start by gathering information I could use on the 256 incident.
At least, that was the plan. When I searched Yahoo! News, I found information on the Enmeiji incident mixed in with the articles on the 256 incident. That article had a bunch of comments, too.
“Murder Victim Stuffed into Box at Enmeiji; Victim Was High School Girl from Mitaka City”
The police announced today that, after examining DNA evidence and the victim’s belongings, the girl whose body was found partially stuffed inside a box on the grounds of Enmeiji temple was Chizu Kawabata, a resident of Mitaka city.
Kawabata had gone home from school with a friend on the 26th of the previous month, but went missing shortly after the two said goodbye.
The body was badly damaged, and the cause and time of death are both unknown. An autopsy revealed DNA belonging to someone other than Kawabata in the box, which the police are treating as an important clue.
There are also multiple witness reports from just after the box containing Kawabata was discovered, and the police are following those leads as well.