April second.

It was another fine day. I forgot to mention that Kyoko, that one hell of a detective woman who came here the other day, had been visiting me on a regular basis in the mornings. That's why I have this sort of habit of waking up somewhat early even when it's still spring break.

Simply put, there were just minor follow-ups on the murder case, nothing too significant. Just like Aka, today she also made mention of a new prowler-like case springing up in this side of the country, so she really told me to be vigilant and give her a call whenever related information comes up."

"Who would get in love with that sharp-tongued woman anyway?"

Just like last time, I figured men who are masochistic are the only demographic who'd love that. As for the rest of us including me, we're like cats with fur tailing up in anxiety.

Anyway, it's ten o'clock in the morning. Kyoko recently visited here earlier, and I had nothing to do until later.

"Hold on a second."

I walked out of my room then went downstairs. Around the premise of the apartment here, there's a wall where the mailboxes of each room are, and are conveniently laid out the way the rooms look from the front. I looked for my mailbox and it was filled, but padlocked for some reason. Cleverly, your room key is the one of two keys—the other being the postman's key—who can unlock it.

I did so then opened it, got its contents, left the padlock in the mailbox and closed it. I walked back to my room and locked the door.

"What do we have here?"

I settled down on the table and placed the contents in front. It was an A4-sized envelope reinforced in cork material. I bet Portuguese people would be proud by now. From the rear of the envelope were obviously the delivery details thingamajigs.

"Oh of course."

It was everything, no wait—something I asked from Sayre.

So I slid all of the contents out of the envelope, revealing cleanly stapled A4 sheets of paper with a texture feeling like it was printed out of a LaserJet printer. And to my surprise, there's one flash drive and a SmartCard with a chip and a familiar neon teal-color finish. It's not to be confused with my debit card as that one has my name and the cardholder company etched in there. This SmartCard is completely neon teal in color front-to-back except the chip in place.

Now that's what I call a negotiation.

But I slid them all back to the envelope.

"I'll check on it later."

I grabbed it and stashed it very deep into my closet. It's about the most secret place I ever had. I mean things getting stolen around these parts is out of the question, but this is just to be on the safe side of things.

What worries me is the manner this envelope got to my place. At first, you might be tempted to think that she opted for a priority snail mail service, but the contents are questionable, plus that's way snappy than the world's fastest priority shipping.

I shrugged, "Maybe she has done things her way."

I realized.

That's how she is.

I stumbled across my shelves of books and decided to spend some time reading light novels. I picked one of the two still-wrapped latest volumes of A Witch's Last Tour. Yeah, they're still wrapped in plastic even though I bought these a month prior. I went back to my futon which I didn't wrap and folded it neatly yet, laid down, and read for the remainder of the time.

Two chapters later, I stopped.

"I wonder what does Miko think of this part when Mogu casted tha—"

Oh right, Miko isn't here anymore. That line didn't age well even for a second.

I was pumped and all from the start then I quickly lost my motivation. I don't like reading, but I love reading light novels, so I typically take a break midway through the book. This time, I stopped at just two-eighths of the book. Did Gossen's Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility just come into play?

Sigh. I just bookmarked where I stopped and placed the light novel back on the shelf.

"What now?"

I did have adequate sleep, so I don't think waking up early is a consequence of plain tiredness.

In fact, I feel like this is another level of tiredness. I feel somewhat mentally tired and draining—if that's the right term so to speak. I don't know, I don't feel like doing anything alleviating or something that would ease my mind.

I decided to play HeroTom. By the way, I haven't played that game since the day I went out for Miko's birthday. I realized that you would be greeted with a returnee reward if you went offline for seven days straight, and I did. Okay, I got some more currency to get me a higher chance in gacha roll hell when a new character that I like pops out in the coming updates.

Before I did anything in the game, I went to the main menu. Obviously, I stopped exactly last week, so I'm still level forty.

"Let's see..."

I went through my friend list, and saw one in particular—well they are the only one in my friend list anyway:

Tomochiie

Lvl. 47

○ Last online Today

Shocking.

So she played the entire night as well? Well granted, it can be taken to ways: either she played it just now or has still been playing non-stop.

I know there's a chat in-game, but even I felt wary of reaching out that way. It would be too out of place.

....

That even intensified this mentally tiring feeling going all over my body.

I have no idea about what I'm feeling right now. If you'd come down to me and ask me "How are you doing?" I'd reply with an okay. But that can even go many ways. Either I said okay that I'm really okay, or okay that I'm not really okay. A simple white lie. A white lie so that you wouldn't place a huge worry on others on something you're not entirely certain if it's really taking a toll on your life. That's my situation right now.

While I'm here doing my daily quests in-game. There's one big thought stuck on my mind right now.

Tomo Omoe.

Embarrassing to say, but it's my girlfriend.

How has she been doing for the past week?

Is she alright?

Did she miss me?

How are things going in her place?

Did I do something wrong?

What did I do to deserve this treatment?

I know I trust her.

I know that by Aka's words, she's probably taking her time grieving just like the rest of us.

Maybe that's the reason why.

Maybe that's why she's distancing away not only from me, but from Ala-chan.

Perhaps there are problems she's facing that I'm not aware of.

But she should've told me about it, at least.

Is she purposely avoiding me then?

I'm pretty sure I'm in the clear of any problems that would be used against me.

I know for a fact that I'll confront her when I have any problems.

But why is it that I'm afraid of confronting her in any means, like in-game, or a simple chat or call?

Because she said it herself: she'll listen.

But this is a problem.

Yet she chose not to listen.

That's something, not just anything to ignore about.

I don't know if she felt like she was loved a month into our relationship.

I don't know if I felt like I am loved.

But I'll ask myself again, do I trust her?

Is it okay to really tell her that I don't feel loved, or am unsure if I am loved?

What will she do next when I tell her that?

Will she hibernate away from me again? Hurt? Betrayed?

Said on a red blurred screen while I somehow finished all my daily quests till the last drop.

Sigh. "I guess it isn't really time to slack off as if it's nothing."

My mind's really kicking off like a violent storm sweeping my brain cells at Mach speed.

I did one last ditch effort to turn in my daily quests and receive the daily rewards, then I closed my laptop for the time being.

I'm really an overthinker, huh? I wonder if I can pull off today in a sweep.

⁂

"Seriously, what am I doing with my life?"

There's no time to be feeling emotionally carried away, that's just a prime textbook example of diminishing returns. I worked so hard to get a nice apartment to live in and food to eat, yet I'm using all of that just to be crying on spilt milk—even though I wasn't sure if the milk was spilt or not.

I went back to my closet to get that A4 cork envelope from Sayre and sat back on the table. Taking out once again the bulky A4 sheets of paper that were stapled, the flash drive, and a SmartCard by who knows what purpose it serves.

"Here goes nothing."

This is my first time that I'll be taking a look at these documents from Sayre that I'm not sure if it's worth a shot.

I flipped the bulk A4 sheets which were pretty heavy. It turns out to be documents that have an extent that it might be really confidential and classified information from the government. You know this country, it's all about privacy and confidentiality, especially anything in the realm of the government.

The first bulk seems to be consolidated yet raw information coming from the Investigative Departments of both Ruruteru and Merumeru, which it aligns by the fact that Kyoko said it one time that this is a joint investigative operandi. Not only that, it contains legal and classified documents from the National Police and the Technology and Telecommunications Bureau of the country.

I chuckled, "The same old Sayre, aye?"

It's true when she says "she knows everything, not just anything." There's no denying that. She can harness everything, offline or online, published on the surface or on the deep web, plain or hidden identity—everything. It's out of the question how she's doing all of these, but let's just say it'll remain out of the question. Though you can answer me being investigative at a case like this which is out of the question (or character): that's not my forte. It's probably fate that got me pumping to do this stressful work.

I scanned through the stapled and bulk A4 papers, in the case of Miko Miura.

I'm known to be illogical at reading, but the first that I've gone through is the items that were on the scene. This is my only reference since Kyoko didn't emphasize much on the scene. Either that or I didn't have the balls to ask. I can somewhat remember what was inside her condominium on that day, but the reports state that minimal anomalies were observed. Nothing was missing nor introduced to the scene. The wrap that's in Ala-chan's gift box was used to strangulate the victim, and was cleverly hung up in one of those hanging dome lights on her condominium, specifically the light just above the glass round table where we were most of the time. The rest of what's inside her condominium remained intact, even the kitchen, which I was surprised by.

"Hm, but what about Miko herself?"

She has been strangled, so there has to be a direct contact between her and the killer. Reports conclude that the victim's smartphone had been missing from her pockets, which I did expect. Of course, her smartphone was later found on a random part of the building—sheesh the killer sure knows how to be responsible. Telecommunication side of things, the calls made during that time period were anomalous in terms of geography. There's no real way to pinpoint coordinates, but given that you can approximate the distance between your headset and a cell tower is one. Janky, but still useful data.

I'm very confident that the voice on that call was definitely Miko and not someone else.

Other than that, there's nothing much new or eye-candy information. The remaining pages on this piece of bulk align with what Kyoko disclosed to me last Sunday. There might have been new little tidbits of information here and there, but I'm surprised my inferences to the case have been eerily correct so far.

"On to the Investigative Department..."

Obviously from the name itself, most of the alibi relations are going to be found here. Kyoko's explanation about it to me was watery and summarized at best, but here it's detailed like I wanted it to be. From the introduction of the report, it's obvious that the prime suspects are the attendees of the party—us three, obviously. What irks me is that all of us, the prime suspects, have an alibi, which again is even more suspecting than the suspects themselves.

Obviously, Ala-chan's detailed alibi matches with what I have in mind since I'm pretty sure I carried the drunkard all the way home, and who would go out after that fiasco? So she's in the clear.

Tomo's alibi is a brute in the haystack. She had a timestamp for everything, from when she left the apartment, boarded the bus, unloaded at the bus, parted ways with us, to getting home. Of course, she can't timestamp when she sleeps, so she still estimated it. It still matches what I've heard from Kyoko though.

And of course, me, which I have a vague and approximate-timed alibi. Though I have been vouched by Ala-chan since she was with me most of the time, it's just a frosting on top of the cake. So if you were to compare, I have the weakest alibi of us three objectively speaking.

But even then, it's hard to raise suspicion on any of the prime suspects.

But I know I'm not the killer.

That's our alibi, at least for now.

The only reasonable hypothesis of all of that was there was outside intervention.

As for Ms. Miura who witnessed the scene first, she did arrive at the room at six o'clock sharp. As such, she has disclosed that she didn't answer the phone that morning, which is expected of her to be awake at the time. Upon her arrival at the lobby, responding at the intercom was no dice. Ms. Miura did, however, use the keycard that was given to her by Miko to scan at the elevator in the lobby to get there—as a last resort.

"The initial finding of the case concludes that Miko Miura died of vascular compression and hypoxia as a result of strangulation by the killer. The victim's death is to be estimated around eleven p.m, twenty-sixth, until four a.m., twenty-seventh. No concrete causes nor connections have been determined as of late, thereby the investigation continues." I mumbled on the concluding pages of the document.

That's that for the paperworks. I still have yet to uncover what's inside of this flash drive. I turned on my laptop again, and plugged it into one of the USB ports.

This drive needs to be formatted or initialized.

At first, I panicked and thought that I needed to do that. But I figured why would Sayre give me something that's not functional? That's so not like her. Also, wiping off this flash drive and recovering data is out of the question. It might be doable with a hard drive since it's magnetic storage and most people don't zero-out the data that has been on it. But this is flash storage we're talking about, it's either go big or go home.

I unplugged the flash drive and left it as is.

Then I figured.

"What's this SmartCard for?" I held it up in my hand.

A neon-teal colored card that's the size of a credit card with a chip. Nothing is written on it. The only design it has is this flashy teal color front and back. I'm pretty sure this isn't a master bank account because money isn't everything, I'm told.

. . . .

"Gotcha."

I skimmed through the ports of my laptop left and right, and found a narrow yet long opening. There wasn't any icon nor symbol to indicate what it was. Childish as I am, I tried to insert the SmartCard there.

It actually fits. The card sticks out though, not completely flushed on the chassis.

No output for the user. But I didn't give up.

Of all the possibilities and ways of inserting this SmartCard there, I tried the one last position which is similar to inserting a credit card in an ATM; the chip faced up and aligned to the left. Surprisingly, the port emitted a green light, but there was no output on-screen.

"Seriously, this is just like what I've worked for back in Nevada!"

Like a kid inserting shapes in one of those toys, I tried to insert the flash drive again, and it appeared in the list of drives. It's cool to see that the icon has a padlock in it. It has no drive name, and doesn't disclose the drive space, indicating that it's encrypted.

Wait, is all that there is to it?

If it came from the mail, surely it could've been compromised in the process, and anyone can crack open the contents of this flash drive easily if they know what the SmartCard is for. Again, SmartCard readers aren't really commercially available in the wild, but there's still a fair market share for that.

But what if, just what if, that's all there is to it?

I double-clicked the directory of the flash drive in great suspense.

. . . .

I chuckled, "Oh, Sayre. You always impress me."

I was greeted by a prompt written in Java asking me for a sixteen-digit number.

I overthought about it. Sayre really knows how to crack people up when they thought they know there's a backdoor.

I lied, she's the real Miss Debugger and Miss Programmer. You don't mess up with her in that league.

Anyway, I tried to calm down, "Sixteen digits? Where the hell can I find that?" It's an uncommon string of numbers. Four, six, or eight digits are much more common to deduce. I figured it out in just a moment.

I went for my wallet in my pockets, then busted out my debit card. Stupid as I may sound, I inputted my card number onto the prompt.

Worked or not, the window shrinked with the same prompt, except that the label for the text field just says "CV." Curriculum Vitae? It has a little box on the right that says I can upload a word or spreadsheet document. No, I inputted the security code of my debit card.

Suspenseful as it gets, I finally pressed the Enter key. It took its precious time while the green light on the SmartCard port (assuming it is) is flashing, and the system is not responding.

. . . .

The directory for the flash drive has been loaded.

As a future Information Technologist, it's like being so overly happy with a Hello World program.

How did I know that the sixteen digits needed is my card number? I almost gave up, but I realized my debit card looks exactly the same as the SmartCard Sayre had given to me. The only difference is that my debit card has my name, number, and bank company etched on the front, while on the back reveals the CV code and my affixed signature.

Sayre always has a little polish to her everything. Anything you receive from her is everything extraordinary. I checked the encryption method of the flash drive—since it's so hard to get into it—and the system returned it with "Unknown." I know for a fact that Sayre would brutally encrypt the bits out of this flash drive, so that means the encryption she used is light years ahead from the AES-256 standard!

"I love Sayre for that."

If anything, she should be awarded a Going for the Extra Mile award.

But wait, does that mean my laptop is a bonafide card reader, like the ones you find in cashiers around malls or groceries? That would be funny, I thought.

Anyway, I looked through the directory of the flash drive. It has the digitized PDF version of the bulk of A4 papers I've just skimmed through. What I was mystified about however is the sight of this TS folder.

"Eh?"

Now this is something I don't know.

The only abbreviation I know is a Video Transport Stream, which is more encrypted out of the box without any intervention.