ch101-ch120 · 106-ch106
Chapter 106: Excerpts from the Umemoto Incident Summary Site
Excerpts from the Umemoto Incident summary site.
(A summary of the incident as seen from the general public)
Wednesday, June 15th, 4 AM: the police receive a report that nine bodies, dead under mysterious circumstances, have been discovered in the Adventurer's Association HQ dungeon.
The bodies, along with luggage found near the scene believed to belong to the victims, are handed over to the police who rush to the site.
At the same time, they are informed that 'Kaori-chan,' who had been accompanying the nine, is missing.
Interviews are conducted with the Quadruple-Rank adventurer party 'Blue Ocean,' the first to discover the bodies, at the Association HQ's surface facility.
According to the testimony of 【Sword Saint】 Hoshino Chiharu, there was only one culprit. The other four back her account, and the Association concurs.
5 AM: the Adventurer's Association decides to close the HQ dungeon.
At the same time, the search for 'Kaori-chan' begins.
(The police suspected Blue Ocean too at this point, but the Association, wary of souring its relationship with Quadruple-Rank adventurers, put Blue Ocean on the search anyway—a gesture to say "we don't suspect you." Uehara Asuka sat out, citing MP recovery.)
A camera is discovered among the evidence handed over.
Furthermore, something believed to be part of a human body—belonging to someone other than the nine—is found in the luggage.
(It would later be determined to be 'Kaori-chan's, but at this point nobody knows whose it is.)
Analysis of the camera footage reveals the camera's owner to be the man called 'Umemoto' within it.
The latest video on it confirms the nine murdering 'Umemoto.'
(Everyone who watched the footage at this point believed 'Umemoto' was dead, or already beyond saving.)
The footage cuts off after 'Umemoto' is killed, right as one of the nine picks up the camera.
Afterward, all nine are believed to have been killed by someone unknown.
While verifying 'Umemoto's movements before his supposed death, it comes to light that 'Umemoto' left HQ after his death.
Tracking of the individual begins, factoring in the possibilities that someone is impersonating 'Umemoto,' or that the person who died was someone else entirely.
At this point it is revealed that 'Umemoto' and four of the nine dead were formerly in the same party.
The gathered information shows they were on strikingly bad terms.
There is a report that 'Umemoto' himself has returned home.
It is decided to bring 'Umemoto' in for questioning as a key person of interest.
11 AM: 'Umemoto' flees.
(The police had let their guard down at this moment. Their reasoning: an adventurer's just an ordinary person once they leave the dungeon. But a man who has spent five years trading lives inside dungeons can hardly be called an "ordinary person." What's more, 'Umemoto' had been suffering from what's called "the side effects of rapid level-ups"—symptoms severe enough to disrupt daily life—ever since changing to the high-rank job 【Berserker】. His brain and body, it is believed, misjudged how much to hold back and unleashed more than normal strength. Witnesses say he jumped clean over a fence more than two meters tall.)
12:30 PM: 'Umemoto' is formally identified as the suspect in the murder of the nine. A wanted notice goes out, and the story breaks nationwide simultaneously.
Only at this point do the police request the Adventurer's Association's cooperation for the first time.
The Adventurer's Association regards 'Kaori-chan' as the culprit, having been told by the police that 'Umemoto' was dead.
This comes to them completely out of the blue.
The Association's dungeon entry/exit records reveal that 'Umemoto' has fled into the Chiba Dungeon.
The Chiba Dungeon is closed.
Evacuation of civilians inside the dungeon begins.
Triple-Rank adventurers across the entire Kanto region are summoned as well, and begin moving to the Chiba branch.
The police, having no department capable of operating inside dungeons, request SDF cooperation but are told the matter is under consideration; there is no further contact from them until the culprit is secured.
1 PM: a rescue operation for the adventurers inside the Chiba Dungeon is carried out by dungeon staff.
There are reports that the SDF is cooperating with the operation.
1:30 PM: Quadruple-Rank adventurer Uehara Asuka arrives at the Chiba Dungeon.
Triple-Rank adventurers from other branches begin to gather as well.
2 PM: audio analysis of the evidence camera reveals, from the nine's own conversations, that 'Kaori-chan' had already been murdered by them—and the possibility of five further victims comes to light.
6:55 PM: the remaining four members of Blue Ocean, the 【Saint】, and the Triple-Rank adventurers who had been conducting the search at the HQ dungeon arrive at the Chiba Dungeon.
7 PM: the Chiba branch reports the culprit secured.
The 【Saint】 administers treatment to 'Umemoto'; he briefly regains consciousness, but then begins to suffer in agony and loses consciousness again.
Emergency transport.
It will only come to light days later: when he killed the nine, Umemoto had been struck by a dungeon-derived poison attack.
The poison is deemed untreatable, but on the surface, while it causes constant pain, his life is said to be in no danger.
Interviews are also conducted with the Chiba branch staff who secured the culprit and carried him to the surface, revealing that 'Umemoto' had gone on a rampage in the Chiba Dungeon as well.
A party had been attacked in the Floor 14 camp area—there were injuries, but no deaths, reportedly.
Staff rushed to the scene, and 'Umemoto' was secured.
From the following day, questioning of 'Umemoto' under painkillers begins.
Since the incident, the poison 'Umemoto' is believed to have received from the nine has made daily life extremely difficult for him, and he now spends the better part of each day in bed.
The truthfulness of testimony taken under strong painkillers, from a man who can hold a proper conversation for only about an hour a day, is uncertain—and there is almost no evidence to corroborate it.
At the same time, the homes of the nine dead are searched on suspicion of 'Kaori-chan's murder.
From the home of one of them, body parts belonging to five different people are discovered.
(This one is not a member of 'Umemoto's former party, but a member of the other party.)
The five are women believed to have died in accidents in the dungeon—every one of them died while in the company of these nine.
(Nearly a hundred people a year die on Triple-Rank promotion requests, and the Adventurer's Association had treated every one of those deaths as accidents. All of those accidents were re-investigated in the days that followed.)
Days later, the nine are referred to prosecutors on paper—suspects posthumous—on suspicion of murdering these six women.
Just past noon, the party believed to have been attacked returns under SDF escort.
(In reality, Association staff and other adventurer parties had joined the escort as well.)
One member, injured, is taken straight to the hospital from there.
The adventurer party allegedly attacked later withdraws its criminal complaint.
In this affair, the Self-Defense Forces come to be praised for joining the rescue operation in the name of saving lives.
Conversely, a heavy weight of responsibility bears down on the Adventurer's Association for having let the nine's misdeeds go unchecked.
The police, too, come under public fire—for failing to coordinate with the Adventurer's Association and the SDF, and for letting 'Umemoto' slip away.