No one knew what Kurobe Nanaka was feeling at this moment.
Ah...
I...
I killed someone...!
Carrying a sniper rifle on her back, the black-haired girl, sporting twin high ponytails under a black safari hat, felt her pupils constrict violently.
She looked down at her own pale, trembling palm. A pistol, still emitting the residual warmth of gunpowder, lay in the center of her hand.
The body of the girl named "Sawatari Koko" lay limp on the ground before her, a terrifying bloody hole appearing in the center of the corpse's forehead.
Why kill...
Why did I do this?
That's right, she was just acting in self-defense!
It was clearly Sawatari Koko who wanted to make a move on her first!
Recalling the scuffle with Sawatari Koko in the bathroom just moments ago, Kurobe Nanaka comforted herself with this reason.
No, Koko was live-streaming just now. The others must have certainly heard the gunshot through the stream—
I have to hide the corpse quickly; I can't let them suspect me!
The girl tried her best to remain calm. In this Incinerator Room located on the underground level, she attempted to lift the corpse of the girl before her.
Sawatari Koko...
Ah...
The body is so heavy.
It was clearly different from her seemingly petite physique when she was alive; the weight of Sawatari Koko's corpse exceeded Kurobe Nanaka's imagination.
This weight... I won't make it in time. I simply cannot move her away from the scene in time!
In the immediate aftermath of accidentally killing Sawatari Koko, Nanaka had thought about using rope and old clothes from the Incinerator Room to make a simple stretcher.
The Incinerator Room had a secret passage leading to the second-floor Art Studio that only she knew about. As long as she transported Sawatari Koko's body via the stretcher, she could move it to the Central Courtyard to dump the body.
Thereby muddying the waters and causing suspicion to fall on more people.
But now, Nanaka suddenly realized that she couldn't move Sawatari Koko's body at all.
She dragged Sawatari Koko by the shoulder, but even using all her strength, she could only drag her a few steps.
In the end, effectively burying her head in the sand, she pushed the body into the incinerator and closed the lid, as if this could deceive herself into believing others wouldn't find out.
But how could it not be found?
There is no time...
There is no choice!
Kurobe Nanaka heard the sound of hurried footsteps echoing from the bathroom floor above the Incinerator Room.
If she didn't act faster, it would only be a matter of time before the others found the Incinerator Room.
After all, she herself had been forcefully pushed down the garbage chute leading to the Incinerator Room by Sawatari Koko.
The trapdoor there was even broken due to her own struggle and resistance.
The others would definitely come to check the incinerator on the underground floor unless she killed them all again.
[It will be discovered, it will be discovered, it will be discovered...]
[Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!]
The Magic of [Hallucination] was already running wild, and chaotic information poured into her brain incessantly from her surroundings.
Kurobe Nanaka knew deeply that she had to make a choice immediately.
Should she try to cover it up, only to make it more obvious, or openly admit her crime?
What on earth should she do?
Reason told Nanaka that she should admit her crime.
But...
There were clearly so many things she hadn't had time to do yet, and the truth about her relatives hadn't been brought to light.
She didn't want it to end like this... Ah...
"Creak——"
"Nanaka?"
"Why are you here?"
Unfortunately, time would not stop flowing because of Kurobe Nanaka's hesitation. When the door to the Incinerator Room was pushed open, Nanaka knew everything was over.
She turned her head mechanically to look at the girls walking into the room one by one: Shito Arisa, Sakuraba Emma, and also Saeki Miria...
"Tsk, looks like we arrived quite early. The culprit hasn't even had time to leave the scene!" The grey-haired girl with inner highlights, wearing a mask and a hood and looking like a delinquent, sneered.
Shito Arisa, who was originally taking a walk in the first-floor Central Courtyard, was the first to hear the gunshot.
Judging by the direction of the sound, she almost immediately locked onto the underground as the target location, but she didn't expect to meet other people hurriedly coming down from the second floor on her way there.
"Now we can even skip the step of self-defense during the trial. Kurobe, you did this, right!"
"I...!"
Under the gaze of the crowd, Kurobe Nanaka trembled all over. The pistol in her hand, still emitting white smoke and a strong smell of gunpowder, fell to the ground with a clatter.
She couldn't argue even if she had a hundred mouths, or perhaps there was no need for a [Rebuttal] anymore.
In this situation, the possibility of washing away the charges was better than nothing, although Kurobe Nanaka was also prepared to face judgment.
"Miss Nanaka..."
"Why would you do such a thing..."
The girl named Saeki Miria had an incredibly complex expression on her face. She really couldn't imagine Kurobe Nanaka killing Sawatari Koko.
Could it be that even Nanaka couldn't suppress her own Witch transformation anymore?
"I confess."
No quibbling, and no nonsense.
Raising her hand to press down the brim of her hat, Kurobe Nanaka spat out these two words as if relieved of a heavy burden.
She couldn't help but think that this might be the most boring Magical Girl Witch Trial ever.
Almost everyone had witnessed the scene of her murdering Koko, and she herself had accepted the execution she was about to face.
Fine, just let her be released from this sooner.
"Sherri, slow down! ..."
"Ehehe, just let the Great Detective Sherri solve this new murder case!"
Tachibana Sherri, who ran into the Incinerator Room in high spirits, and Tono Hanna, who trotted closely behind holding her skirt, appeared in everyone's field of view.
But after noticing the atmosphere in the room and Kurobe Nanaka's appearance of having all hopes dashed to ash,
The detective girl scratched her head awkwardly, feeling that she seemed a bit superfluous:
"...Eh, could it be that the culprit has already confessed?"
"Annoying fly-woman, no one wants to listen to your retarded reasoning that isn't even as good as a three-year-old's this time."
Shito Arisa clicked her tongue and walked towards the incinerator whose lid wasn't even closed properly, preparing to open it and check the condition of Sawatari Koko's corpse.
The traces were simply too obvious.
"Since things have come to this, let's hurry up and move Sawatari's body out first."
"That bluffing idiot streamer girl, I knew she would get into trouble sooner or later! ..."
Muttering in an annoyed tone, Shito Arisa opened the incinerator lid.
"...Hm?"
But the moment the lid was lifted, she froze.
She abruptly turned around to look at Kurobe Nanaka, her brows furrowed, and suddenly leaned forward to grab her by the collar:
"Kurobe, what the hell are you playing at?!"
"Where is Sawatari Koko? Where is her corpse???"
C... Corpse?
Facing this unprovoked scolding from Shito Arisa, Kurobe Nanaka didn't understand what the other party meant for a moment.
"I put Koko's corpse in the incinerator, just now..."
"Huh?!"
But when her gaze followed Shito Arisa's back to look at the incinerator with the opened lid,
In that empty incinerator, where could the corpse that originally belonged to Sawatari Koko, which she had exhausted all her strength to push in, be seen?
Kurobe Nanaka's originally rampaging [Hallucination] Magic suddenly subsided, and the manic Witch Factors abruptly calmed down.
This completely contradicted the future she foresaw where Sawatari Koko's corpse was found by everyone and she was convicted, as if a huge joke had been played on everyone—
The corpse...
Where did it go?
____
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