EPILOGUE 1 : Tea Party
But wait, Erika has thus far only dispelled the Witch's Illusion in the 5th game. Time to hack it away in all the former games too ! All of it will be based around Natsuhi being the main culprit, of course.
- It appears the Stakes were actually fakes "made in USA" in the 60s, and bought for an arm and a leg by Grampa. Ouch.
... Or maybe not, since it appears most of this will happen off-screen. Oh, well. Anyway, after a bit of talk about how the witches will execute Beato's accomplices ("at least one of them should be quartered !"), Bernkastel congratulates Erika for her work, and elevates her to the temporary rank of "Witch of Truth" until it's over and done with. As a perk, she even gets a portrait to replace Beatrice's (why is the stuffing of the chair behind her coming out ?).
By the way, Bernkastel and Lambdadelta completely drop any pretense of being rivals (the Les Yay is heavier than ever).
Surprisingly, the games will still be continuing, with this time Erika at the helm. She's already found a title for the 6th : Checkmate of the Golden Witch.
And, er, that's it.
EPILOGUE 2 : ????
Battler's body is still pinned by Dlanor's sword on the cathedral's floor. Everyone else has left, and he is himself pretty dead. Well, as dead as possible in this world, which just means that he's lost the will to think.
Suddenly, footsteps ! It's Emotionless!Beato ! Well, at least now she can move by herself ; and when she checks Battler's lifeless form, she even murmurs "You liar..." Of course, with Battler banished from the games, she has no more reason to exist...
Somehow, the "dead" Battler has a flashback to his conversation with Dlanor (as Virgilia and emotionless!Beato watched). Apparently, there was a large chunk we were not shown back then. Basically, Battler and Dlanor went meta, as he complained that Knox's principles are needlessly constrictive. Why should secret passages be blindly forbidden ? It's no better than those fantasy explanations !
But Dlanor explained that Knox's principles were actually a crutch for reasoning. Basically, they say that the mystery is solvable with all the clues presented, and the solution won't come completely out of left field. They allow the readers to think, with the reassurance that it won't be pointless.
Note that Knox's principles are a double-edged sword. While the limit the kind of theories that the readers can make, they also force the writer to include clues that make the mystery solvable. (Most of them have a caveat that they can be bypassed with enough foreshadowing.)
And isn't that what Beato has been doing all along ? By using the red truth, she gave tons of clues to Battler, defying him to solve the mystery... Acknowledging that there is a solution, and that he can prove that she isn't a witch ? (Dlanor and Virgilia agree that Beato is a very interesting child...)
During all this, there's a running metaphor comparing the mystery novel to love between inexperienced young people. Each of them unwilling to proceed before the other has acknowledged their love first... (Yep, the term "Tsundere" is openly used.)
By the way, noone in this conversation is willing to confirm whether Beato's games do indeed abide by Knox's principles. Virgilia will just indicate that Beato wanted Battler to solve them, and included what she thought were enough clues for him to do so. Of course, that's no guarantee that Battler will be able to solve it... But it's a start, and should be enough to make him start thinking. And while Knox's principles might not be applicable to these games, they should at least be of some help to put him in the right frame of mind.
Somehow, this flashback has allowed Battler to gather enough Heroic Resolve to start thinking again. It's too late, but then he now has all the time he wants to do it, doesn't he ? For some reason, he materializes inside the tea room where he played the games with Beato (but all alone, of course).
So, let's examine each of the 10 principles, one by one :
- [1] The culprit must be someone mentioned early in the story. So, it must be one of the 18. Let's not worry about the mastermind showing up later (like that kid from 19 years ago in the 5th game), they must have been among the protagonists of the 1st game.
- [2] Magic can't be used as a detective technique. Which can be interpreted as "no crime was committed through magic". Earlier, Battler often gave up when scenes of magical battles were described... But what he should have done is question the witnesses' truthfulness.
- [8] The mystery can't be solved with clues that aren't presented. So there must be clues that make it solvable.
- [6] It can't be solved by accident. So it should be solvable without just accusing at random.
... Now that he thinks about it, the games have been littered with hints of who, how and why the crimes were done. He just needs to put it all together. It really looks like Beato has been adjusting down the difficulty and provided more hint in each game starting with the second, doesn't it ? With Virgilia and Ronove showing up to help him... And them finally having the climactic battle she desired at the end of the 4th.
And now Battler wakes up, with Beato at his side. "You idiot..." Er, except that Beato crumbles, what with having been killed a while ago... But from her remains, Battler finds a golden sparkle... And then he's finally found the truth. He painfully removes the red sword that had traversed him, and with the mixture of his blood and the red sparkle, transforms it into a golden sword. Now he's ready to fight ! (Too bad it happened after Beato died, but eh.)
Bernkastel, Lambdadelta and Erika are all surprised by this turn of events (Dlanor, being her usual awesome self, just indicates she didn't think it'd happen this SOON). Lambdadelta recognizes that Battler has now reached the rank of witch ("Endless Sorcerer"), wielder of the red truth... and allows a retrial.
While he can't deny Erika's theory of Natsuhi being the culprit frontally, he can present an alternate theory that is just as valid ! Bring it on !
And we cut here, as it's getting late and I want my full brainpower to process Battler's theory. (I've gone slightly ahead, and it promises to be a doozy.)
Just a note, though. So far, the TIPS had been pretty worthless : colour descriptions of the court Dlanor belongs to, and her two weapons. Here we got a fourth one, with a recap of the Decalogue of Knox's Principles. And what is blindingly obvious is that the 5th is just "not included" (sic). Looking up on Wikipedia, it should be "No chinaman must figure in the story". So Yeah.
