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Review responses:

cherry-tree-of-life - But you'll soon figure why those irrelevant people even participated in the first place! Lync's connection to the case will be revealed in the NEXT chapter. This chapter features a bit more investigation & also some personal issues.

Sugar Spice Rush - Better late than never?/?/? And yes, I did! "YOU DIE" is so informative yet out of context in the most perfect way possible. There are so many stereotypes & warnings about first-year college students—it's unbelievable, but I won't mention any of them! Just because the game is over doesn't mean the investigation ends there as well.

MagicxMusicxMelody - I guess spoilers don't matter now, so no—Shiori has nothing to do with this treasure hunt. There will be more suspicious activity coming soon!

CookieDecor22 - So far, Alice has been able to afford the entire dinner bill on several occasions, but I agree that it's not fair for her to pay the entire bill this time (not that splitting the bill would be any better). Dan as a mystery novelist would be bizarre but not impossible.

pretty-on-point - Exactly! You leave, YOU DIE (adapted from another review). This case isn't as creepy as I expected, but no one can resist a good murder mystery! I never planned to have Shiori to take revenge for anything in this case, but maybe in the next (final) one.


Chapter 11: Choose Your Own Aftermath

xXx

Shun knocked on Alice's office door and asked, "Do you want me to let Dan inside? He's here with important information."

"The door's unlocked. You can both come in."

After the visitors took their seats, the brunet placed an orange folder on Alice's desk. "Did you know that Mister Big deleted his GeoFinding account last night? Thank goodness I found his IP address."

"Account deleted? That's very suspicious." The assistant professor flipped through the papers in the orange folder. "And you're saying that Mister Big could've been any of these people? There are at least twenty pages with fifty names per page."

"Unfortunately, he used public Wi-Fi, so any of these people who used the same IP address could be him. Your name's in there too."

Alice flipped to the exact page where Dan highlighted her name. "Wait a minute... This is our campus internet's IP address!"

"And I still remember that even outsiders can use our Wi-Fi because there's a guest login option."

The raven-haired secretary opened his notepad again. "Coincidentally, all three people who died aren't currently affiliated with BIU, whereas the rest of us are either active employees or students here. For sure, we didn't kill Lync because the six of us were together the whole time since 4:30 PM, from the ice cream shop and the shrine to the vacation rental and discovering Lync's body later."

"Shun has a point, and speaking of vacation rental... Aren't these booked online? Did you find any credit card information, Dan?"

"Unfortunately again, Mister Big used reloadable prepaid cards, which are more difficult and time-consuming to trace than typical credit and debit cards."

"That definitely suggests premeditated murder."

"But in addition to the vacation rental that you went to, Mister Big also booked two additional houses. When do you want to check them out?"

"Tomorrow will be better because I won't have classes."

"Alright, I'll text you the addresses once I find where I wrote them down. Later!"

The raven-haired secretary closed the door and returned to his seat. "I have a bad feeling that my mom's disappearance might be related to the treasure hunt."

"How so? We always thought she disappeared while hiking leisurely."

"I initially thought that Ace and Lync might've killed Mira and later killed my mom so that they could keep the treasure to themselves. But now Lync is dead, and Ace doesn't actually care about finding treasure. What are we supposed to work with now?"

"Even if Ace forced himself to participate and even talk about the past, it wouldn't change the fact that dead people will never come back. I didn't even know that Mira passed away until we asked him a few days ago. I can only imagine how devastating that was. Anyway, I still believe that Shiori-san is still alive somewhere—"

Shun moved closer to Alice and enveloped her in a hug. "I'm just amazed at how you're still so optimistic about her whereabouts, yet you still manage to multitask between lecturing classes, working on the anthology, helping Dan with solving cases—"

"Shiori-san will always be one of my important role models. No matter where she is, I'm determined to hold up the Department of Folklore the way she would've done it. If finding her again means that you get your normal life back, then I'm more than dedicated to keep searching."

"I'm not sure if I want to go back Wardington..."

"Don't say that." The assistant professor let go and pointed to her calendar. "Tomorrow works for you, right?"

"I'm free tomorrow." He grabbed and held her pointing hand on impulse, and the pair froze until he finally let go and apologized. "Sorry. Just let me know where and what time to meet up."

"I will." After Shun returned to his work desk, the redhead closed the door and flexed her hand. I can't force him to stay, but I can't force him to go back either. I just wish the truth would be unveiled sooner than later.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Dan led Alice and Shun with him to visit each of the vacation rental houses that Mister Big had booked online. "Welcome to 7970 Delphinus Street, which is the first rental house booked. Let's check this place out!"

He opened the front door and let his friends inside first. "It's not much different from the rental house that my group visited," the redhead commented. "The floorplan, furniture, decorations, and styling are mostly the same. Maybe this is a backup location in case we wandered extremely off track, or the other houses got flooded."

The raven-haired secretary opened the blinds of the living room's largest window. "This unobstructed view of the bay will make this house worth more on the housing market. What exactly are we looking for here?"

"Honestly, there's nothing to see here. Dan, what's our next location?"

"Let's go to the rental house that you two went to." After a few minutes of walking, the trio arrived at their destination. "The formal address is 1807 Aquarius Avenue."

Alice immediately approached the bookshelf and pulled out the laminated card that Baron had previously found. "This hint is useless now since the treasure hunt is over, but we never got to scan the code because we left early to find Lync."

"Try scanning it now."

"Sure... Oh, never mind. I'm getting a 404 error."

Dan suddenly searched through all his pockets frantically. "Sorry guys. I might've left my phone in the first house."

"Do you want me to walk back with you?" Shun offered.

"Nah, I remember the way back. Stay with Alice instead."

After Dan left, the raven-haired secretary approached the redhead and said, "Sorry about what happened in your office yesterday."

"Are you referring to the surprise hug and holding my hand?"

"Yeah... that."

The redhead laughed it off and walked around to examine the other rooms. "Don't worry about it. I know it's almost been a whole year since Shiori-san disappeared, but we'll find her. You couldn't help but worry that her disappearance might be related to this treasure-hunting murder case. And if I'm not mistaken..." She walked back to Shun and whispered, "I'm the only person you've confided in about everything related to your mother."

"Because... you studied under her leadership, and I felt that I could trust you since day one."

"I'm definitely honored. Now let's see where Dan is." Alice called the brunet, who eventually answered after five rings. "You picked up! That means you found your phone! Are you ready to visit the third and final rental house? Shun and I finished looking around the second house already."

"Yeah, I'll be there soon!"

Surprised to hear her friend's voice echo behind her, the assistant professor turned around and looked out the bathroom window to see Dan in the bathroom of another house. "Shun, come look at this."

"Wait... how is it possible that he's right there?"

The pair watched silently as the brunet faced his location's bathroom mirror while staring into his phone. "The killer went great lengths to mislead us into thinking that the victim died from supernatural causes, but I already figured out... Figured out the truth? Figured out who did it? That sounds off. Let me try again... But I already figured out—"

"—that you're clearly lying about coming back soon," the redhead interrupted, making the police officer jump back. "Are you surprised to see that Shun and I are only a window's distance away from you?"

"Are you sure you two are still at 1807 Aquarius Avenue? Because this house is—"

"7970 Delphinus Street?" the raven-haired secretary replied. "We remembered each address. Alice and I haven't left yet."

"Wow... so it's the two of you against one of me, huh? Fine, be like that... although you two look pretty cool leaning against the walls with crossed arms while yelling at me." That sentence prompted Shun and Alice to relax their own arms and stand straight again. Dan quickly returned to the second house to lead his two friends to the third and final location, which was a ten-minute walk away. "This address is 6655 Aquarius Avenue. The second and third houses may be on the same street, but who knew that the two ends of the street block were so far apart?"

"Don't forget that the first house and second house are on different streets yet are literally back-to-back because the streets are parallel to each other," Shun added.

"See, if I wasn't imitating Alice in the first house's bathroom, then you never would've figured that out."

"No one can imitate Alice because she's one of a kind."

Dan was desperately trying to hold in his laughter, while Alice giggled softly before entering the house and examining all the rooms. "The interior design is just like the other two rental houses. At least this house's bathroom window doesn't directly face another house's bathroom window. That was quite an interesting yet awkward scene at—aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!"

"Be careful!" The raven-haired secretary ran over quickly and caught the assistant professor. He looked down at her confused face and asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm... fine... thanks..." After taking a seat on the sofa, the redhead watched Shun pick up a laminated card off the floor. "I must've slipped on that. Is it one of Mister Big's QR codes?"

"It has the game logo, but this isn't a QR code." On the card were two numbers, each with several digits after the decimal point. "There aren't any units or symbols to indicate what the numbers stand for."

"That's because these are latitude and longitude coordinates written in decimal degrees format..." Alice entered the numbers into her phone's GPS app. "...and they lead us to the rock quarry."

"That's where Billy found Annie's body, and Sid's body floated into the water nearby after several hours," Dan recalled. "Mister Big is obviously playing favorites here. Whoever came to this rental house got such an easy hint, whereas you guys kept traveling to several stops in between before the final location... which you couldn't even go to because Lync went missing."

"You have a point." Alice crossed her legs and stared at the laminated card. "Did Annie or Sid or even both of them come here and find this hint? Why did Mister Big separate different participants by providing different hints? Why did he put so much money and effort into using three different vacation rental houses?"

Shun took a seat next to the redhead and added, "You might be right about him planning this entire event just to kill people."

"But we still haven't figured out his motive." Alice shook her head and stood up in preparation to leave. "Dan, can you find everything available about Annie Edwards and Sid Arkale? Those two were the only people who seemingly didn't know any of the other participants or even anything about Stoica's legacy."

"I'll let you know immediately when I find something."

The brunet left first to return to the police station, while Alice and Shun walked around before returning to campus. "What made you think of asking Dan to check those two people's backgrounds?"

"I find it hard to believe that those two simply killed each other while fighting over pirate treasure, which is only a single ring with no other known valuables. Ace mentioned that Mister Big paid him and Lync to participate for publicity purposes, so I can't comprehend why Lync was so serious about looking for treasure. But if Mister Big's primary victims were Annie and Sid, then Shiori-san's disappearance may not have anything to do with pirate treasure at all. I doubt those two ever crossed paths with her before, given that they had no reaction when we introduced ourselves as BIU students and employees."

"So, we're back to square one?"

"I won't know until I solve this case..."

-x-x-x-x-x-

On the next day in the assistant professor's office, Dan presented valuable information to Alice and Shun. "You were right about running background checks on Annie and Sid. There is a connection between them, and it's actually still under investigation."

"Did they know each other from a long time ago already?"

"No, it's actually more recent than that. Do you remember the jewelry theft case at Bayview Expo Center last year?"

"I vaguely recall... The police suspected that a chauffeur stole the jewels from the jewelry fair. What about it?"

"It turns out that the auction house that Annie worked for had reserved the entire Bayview Expo Center for the jewelry fair that day, and Sid was one of many expo center employees to be assigned to work that day. The police were hot on the chauffeur's trail until he escaped. An anonymous tipster told the police that the chauffeur parked his car near Sangokoi Strait and ran up the hill with a bulky cloth bag."

"Which then led to the police blocking off a five-kilometer radius from Sangokoi Strait for the manhunt, but the chauffeur unexpectedly slipped and fell down the hill to his death. Now I remember!"

"But the stolen jewels were nowhere nearby when his body was discovered."

"Maybe he buried the jewels somewhere already?" Shun suggested.

"That's what the police thought too, but how did an ordinary chauffeur like him know how, when, and where to steal the jewels? Isn't security supposed to prevent mishaps like this?"

Alice shook her head. "Never dismiss the possibility of accomplices."

"The police cleared everyone working that day, but I don't think they did a thorough job. The accomplices would need to be extremely familiar with the operations that day to relay precise information to the chauffeur to steal the jewels, which jewels are probably still hidden within that five-kilometer radius somewhere. Also, check this out." He pulled up some photos on his tablet. "Several employees took photos together that day. This guy with silver hair is Shadow Prove, who was the chauffeur and primary suspect until he died. Next to him are Annie and Sid. I don't know who the others are."

The raven-haired secretary swiped through the photos until he saw a closeup photo of Shadow and other people. "Doesn't this chauffeur's ring resemble the one that Mister Big was holding in the game promo video?"

"Shadow wore that ring in every single jewelry fair photo, but it wasn't on him when the police discovered his body."

"Maybe it fell off when he was burying the jewels somewhere."

"That means... the stolen jewels would be near where his ring is!"

Alice leaned back against her chair and interlocked her fingers. "I was right about Annie and Sid knowing nothing about Stoica's poem based on their reaction to Mister Big's first hint at the restaurant. But how did they know to submit 'Sangokoi' as the answer to enter the treasure hunt in the first place?"

"The only reasonable explanation is that they're the accomplices working with Shadow that day," Shun concluded.

"My goodness... All this time, we thought the ring belonged to Stoica, but Annie and Sid knew all along that it belonged to their accomplice. They joined this treasure hunt to find where Shadow buried the stolen jewels. No wonder Mister Big made it loud and clear that he would put this ring back in its original location."

"So he purposely hosted this treasure hunt to lure the accomplices out of hiding?" the brunet asked. "That's his motive?"

"It's possible. Shun, remember when Ace said that Mira found the ring but didn't immediately provide the location because it was already too late in the day to go exploring? Then Mira coincidentally was murdered later that night. Now that Dan has provided this valuable information, everything's making sense now. This game and the three murders have nothing to do with ancient pirate treasure at all. Everything was about modern-day stolen jewelry."

"Do you want me to tell my coworkers your theory about Shadow's accomplices? He, Annie, and Side are all dead now."

"I don't see why not, but you probably can't close the case until you recover the stolen jewels."

"That too... I'll talk to Chan about it. Even a little bit of progress is better than none."

After the raven-haired secretary closed the door behind Dan, he snapped his fingers in realization. "I just remembered something. Are there photos of Sid's dead body online?"

"You mean the publicly released photos from police and news media?" Alice began searching for keywords online. "Here's a photo of Sid's body washed onto the shore, if that's a good enough view for you."

"That's perfect." After staring at the photo, Shun pointed at the victim's shoes. "Look at the shoelaces on his combat boots. They're tied into 'bunny ears', which is commonly used on typical sneakers or running shoes. That's not how his shoelaces were tied at the restaurant."

"I'm surprised that you noticed." After searching more on the internet, the redhead found a video from some online community. "Look at this. Sid posted a video demonstrating how to properly tie shoelaces on combat boots according to USA Army dress code standards."

"What a long video title..." Once the video finished playing, the raven-haired secretary pointed to Sid's shoes. "See how his shoelaces are perfectly taut and tucked away? He doesn't seem like the type to suddenly change the way he ties his shoes."

"I'm still trying to figure out how Mister Big managed to separate Lync, Annie, and Sid from the rest of us at the beach. We all scanned the same QR code that was hiding in the tree branches. And remember the laminated card with the map coordinates from the third rental house? Could there be other cards with different QR codes out there somewhere? Can one QR code yield different information?"

"Allow me to explain. Quick-response codes themselves are generated from specific URLs, so there's no way that one QR code can have different outputs. It's like X and Y in algebra."

"Then is it possible to change the content displayed on the website? Because the QR code I scanned at the second rental house gave me a 404 error."

"That requires checking the server itself to see if the website has been modified with... which I can probably do from my laptop using developer tools interface and my IT knowledge." Shun brought his laptop inside and entered every URL that the pair scanned during the treasure hunt. Twenty minutes later, he shook his head. "None of the pages have been tampered with. At most, there was only a time limit for each website to be active."

"What about the QR code that gave me a 404 error?"

"Can't help you there. That website doesn't exist to begin with."

"Which means... Mister Big wanted us to be stuck at that house and not move on. We know his targets were Annie and Sid—maybe even Lync—but what did the rest of us ever do to him?"

"Maybe he just didn't want us in the way of—"

Suddenly, loud screaming echoed from next door. "Soon, you made the whole map shift off the presentation slide!"

"Baron, we wouldn't have this issue if we used my touchscreen laptop instead!"

The raven-haired secretary stood up and walked over to the break room. "Hey guys! I can hear you from my work desk. What's going on?"

"Shun, you be the judge!" Soon pleaded. "Baron was supposed to create a detailed map of Bayview labeled with its different districts and key locations for an upcoming presentation, but he refuses to move on unless the district borders are 'perfect'."

"Let me take a look." He sat down and used the mauve-haired student's laptop. "Baron, you're creating unnecessary work for yourself. Your map template is already very detailed. Why don't you print a copy, write all the important information neatly by hand, and scan it back into your laptop as a JPG file? That's how I used to submit some lab reports back then when my spreadsheet software wouldn't cooperate with me."

"That might actually work! I never would've thought that doing things by hand might be faster than using technology."

Unbeknownst to the trio, Alice was leaning against the wall in the hallway outside and heard everything. She stared into her pocket watch and whispered to herself. "The killer went to great lengths to mislead us into thinking that Annie and Sid killed each other, but I already figured out how the killer independently staged each murder and framed the other victim."


Me: Here we go again! Alice figured out whodunit, but I left it at a cliffhanger! The chapter title is based on "Choose Your Own Adventure", but I changed "adventure" to "aftermath" because stupid decisions make stupid outcomes... There's no fun in that (or death).

Dan: I might as well quit my job if Alice can solve cases better than me.

Runo: Don't quit! Do you know how difficult it is to train new law enforcement officers? None of you would be able to solve anything without sharing information with each other.

Soon: Her point is valid.

Shun: Or maybe become a full-time mystery novelist instead, if you insist on resigning.

Dan: Would you like to be my editor, then?!

Me: Oh god... Stop talking & don't give them any more crazy ideas! Next chapter will feature Alice revealing a HUGE plot twist in the case, a small unsolved puzzle related to the case, & a very brief introduction to a side task (side quest?) before the final arc!


𝄞 aespa - "Whiplash" 𝄞