Danganronpa Kirigiri Volume 1 Chapter 7 Part5 Part5

Chapter 7: Daily Life

"Aren't you happy?"

"I am."

"Then c'mon, show me a smile! Why don't we take a photo to commemorate the occasion?"

"I was taught to restrain my emotions as much as possible," said Kirigiri, looking away and sliding her card back into her notebook. "And I've thought of a better idea. An idea to get us closer to the Victims' Catharsis Committee."

"Ehhh?! You're sure busy thinking about your next move even during a celebration."

"You were the only one celebrating."

"W-Well, yeah, but..."

"Bring me to the room with the detectives' files."

"Right, right, as you wish, milady." I walked past the counter to open the door on the far side.

There was much more to see in here. It was a forest of detectives. With the high-vaulted ceiling, the lines of bookshelves looked almost like trees. Only, instead of dense green foliage, they were full of detectives' profiles. Roughly 65,500 detectives blocked off even the light from the windows, making it dim where we stood.

The bookshelves bore plates indicating the DSC numbers. Visitors could consult these to find the detective they were looking for. There were, in fact, several visitors other than the two of us. From divorce issues to lost dogs, murders to international affairs, all sorts of problems plagued the people gathered here.

"So what was your idea?"

"I realized something upon rising in the ranks. It has to do with the relations.h.i.+p between the difficulty of the case solved and the number of ranks achieved."

"Yeah... And?"

"We can use the Sirius Observatory case that we were both involved in as a reference point."

"Mm-hm."

"Have you still not realized?"

"Ummm..." I hummed, crossing my arms.

"The Sirius Observatory case was carried out using tricks prepared by the Victims' Catharsis Committee. Upon taking care of it, I rose two ranks. But, fortunately or unfortunately... that was due to the fact that I stumbled upon a 'case of fixed difficulty, guaranteed to raise rank if solved' by chance. On the other hand, you never encountered such a case until now, and thus you went up only a single rank over the course of three years."

"They do say that stumbling upon cases is the mark of a great detective, but..."

"From that, my conclusion is... among high-ranked detectives, perhaps there are those who have accepted a Duel Noir before. Particularly those who are highly ranked but were registered relatively recently."

"Ohhh, I get it!"

"There may even be detectives who have taken care of not just one or two Duels Noirs, but many more."

"There are! There have to be! Was that what Asakura-san was trying to tell us?"

"Let's look for detectives of interest."

Kirigiri moved through the bookcases, looking up at the DSC number plates. She went straight towards the 000 shelf. Namely, the bookshelf for the Triple Zero Cla.s.s, All - All - Rank 0. It was the furthest bookshelf from the entrance, small, and looking almost like a throne, or perhaps storage for a secret treasure. It held three files.

"This is just hearsay, but apparently there used to be four Triple Zero detectives, before one of them was deleted from the registry. No one knows why," I whispered to Kirigiri.

Kirigiri silently picked up one of the files. The papers were kept in a high-quality leather binder. A name and DSC number was written on the spine.

Gekka Ryuuzouji – DSC #000

The three zeroes were sparkling.

She opened the file to the first page, which was the standard Detective Library form résumé. The headshot looked younger than I had imagined. Cooler, too. He didn't look frail and bookish, but more of a romantic lead who looked good with masculine slicked-back hair and a beard. Judging by his date of birth, he was currently 42 years old.

"He's solved a tremendous number of cases, hasn't he?"

Of all the three Triple Zero Cla.s.s files, this one had the most pages.

"I'm pretty sure this guy is the armchair detective they call the Armchair Earl. He doesn't waste his time going to the scene of the crime or investigating personally, so he can solve this many cases just from his desk."

"Hmmm. Quite a reckless detective."

"You can't talk about a Triple Zero detective that way!" I rebuked.

"I'm sorry," Kirigiri apologized, meekly.

"That's right. You can't forget to show respect."

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