Three hours later... Battler finally manages to escape from the family conference. He's admirative of Rosa, who slipped out around 1:00 AM by pretending to check on Maria. In the guesthouse's lobby, he finds the remains of a small party, with only Gohda (as bartender), Dr Nanjo and Erika still around. (I wonder if they've been talking about anything plot-relevant. Erika said she didn't peep a word about that, but what about the slightly inebriated Dr Nanjo ?) Anyway, everyone calls it a night.
While stumbling to his bed in the darkened cousins' bedroom, Battler reminisces about his father's parting words. Rudolf wants to talk to him the next day about his birth... even though he risks getting killed for it. (Oh oh, I like where this is going. Way to connect two previously unrelated threads.) Then Battler falls asleep, and I'm getting an awful feeling : he didn't have a good look at the room, right ?
But for now, let's go back to Natsuhi's inner monologue with Beato & co. She reminisces about 19 years ago, when she wasn't able to bear a child and Grampa was getting impatient. He poured some big money into the Fukuin orphanage, ostentatiously to help orphans inserted in society after learning the servant trade ; then one day he and Kumasawa came with a baby in tow, ordering Natsuhi to raise it as her and Krauss's own child. Natsuhi was obviously revulsed, and made two wishes : finally getting pregnant (and she would give birth to Jessica one year later), and getting rid of this baby...
Three days later, the servant to which the baby had been given in care for the afternoon walked off a cliff, and they both died (or so it seems). Beato assuages Natsuhi's guilt by claiming to have been the one luring the servant to her death. If someone wants revenge, it'll be against a witch ! (The scariest part ? When Grampa learned the news, he just laughed.)
And now the reveal of who has been phoning Natsuhi. Wait... Lambdadelta ? Seriously ? Back to the "Natsuhi is bonkers" theory, then. Switch to outside the gameboard, with quite a boring conversation between Lambdadelta, Bernkastel, her pawn Erika, Battler and the comatose Beato. It ends up with Battler vowing to take the game back... but haven't we been through this already ? Let's get on with the show, please.
October 6th, 1986, the second day, around 7 AM... Battler is woken up by the alarm bell on George's watch, and stumbles to switch on the light... Oh, dear. George, Jessica, Maria and Rosa laid in their beds, with their deep wounds in their necks. Oh, and there's a big red magic circle on the wall. Interestingly, as some of the parents start to show up and react, Hideyoshi appears to still be alive. Hum...
Erika shows up, and it's obvious that she's delighted that a new mystery has emerged. Will they please let her enter and do her job as detective ? Battler is disgusted by her aplomb... and then he's hit by the red text claiming that the detective has authority to investigate. Special rule, agreed upon by the human side. Perfectly legit.
And so Erika starts investigating...
Er... Not what I was expecting. I hoped there would be some sort of token explanation for Erika playing detective instead of just Mary Sue-ing her way through, but no. A bit underwhelming. Just like the reveal that Lambdadelta is behind the phone calls. Which I suppose is the point : Bernkastel & Lambdadelta are tearing through Beato's game with absolutely no respect for it.
Not a really fun installment, then (though we do get a bit more information about past events). I have higher hopes for Erika's investigation, as I'm a big sucker for the mystery genre. We shall see...
