- Target
- Hear Fireclaw finish telling the story of the first time she met Earfish.
- You are
- In this chapter, “I” am Fireclaw.
- Clue
- Character cards: Earfish 、 Dead Elephant 。If you took the “Black Box” route, you will recognize a sentence. Theme song: Listen on NetEase Cloud Music 。
I
When the tavern rose in the rain, I remembered the first day I met Earfish.
It was raining that day too.
That place was called Dead Elephant . An old elephant was looked at by the Green Eye before it died, and its body became a place. The rain there is dark red, smells of blood, and never stops. A red sea lies in the distance.
I went there to find something.
I was looking for the Green Eye. But I am a cat, and cats are red-green color-blind. I have never seen green in my life.
“What are you doing here?” a very large bear standing in the rain asks me.
“Looking for the Green Eye.”
“You cannot see green. You cannot find something green.”
“…I have no choice,” I say. “My husband is missing. I cannot find my daughter either. There are three children at home, staying with my sister.”
The bear’s eyes are blue-green. I cannot see it, but I know—many people say so.
He does not answer immediately. Rain runs down his damaged ear and into the scars on his body.
I suddenly notice something: his nose does not move at all when he speaks.
Hint 1 · Direction
This bear is Earfish. He has his own character card.
Hint 2 · Method
Earfish’s character card has a section called “Hearing and Respiratory System.”
Hint 3 · Almost the answer
The body part is in his name.
The bear looks at me without speaking.
“Do you breathe through your ears?”
“Yes,” he says. “You noticed.”
“You are Earfish.”
“How embarrassing.”
I have asked about him. They say he can travel through time and space, but cannot change facts already written down.
“When will the rain here stop?” I ask.
/ Sometimes people ask a question whose answer is obvious /
/ Not for the answer, but simply to find someone to talk to /
“I do not know,” Earfish says. “I have lived a long time and never thought about it.”
II
I pull a dagger from my chest and press the end of its handle.
It is called 【Break】【Slash】. When it leaves me, the blade slides from the handle; its length depends on how much I miss it. It extends very far now.
“Cutting Dead Elephant does not mean death ceases to exist.” Earfish watches the approaching red sea. “You cannot cut it.”
“I know.”
I throw the handle into the sea and start counting.
〖Earfish, you know too much. Perhaps you have become numb.〗
“Who are you talking to?” Earfish pauses. I pause too.
“…I do not know.”
A dull thud. The handle lands back at my feet. Things thrown here always return.
I pick it up and hand it to Earfish.
“Earfish, please. Take this dagger. And if you see my daughter—give her a message.”
“Go ahead.”
Hint 1 · Direction
This sentence is not in this chapter. It was recorded in a box on another story line.
Hint 2 · Method
Go to the “Black Box” route. It is in the gray cockpit recorder, within the spectrum of the rain.
Hint 3 · Almost the answer
See 0xA1_3 Decoding ’s final puzzle. Two lines, four characters each: weather, and three meals a day.
I open my mouth, but have not thought of the words yet.
“When the rain stops, go home and eat.”
Earfish nods. “Okay.”
“You do not ask who she is?”
“No need,” he says. “I will meet her.”
The rain continues.
【What Fireclaw does not know: the “daughter” she remembers is not her daughter.】
【She carries another person’s memories. A detective entrusted himself to something else before dying. He had a daughter who loved drawing and painted the sky green as a child. Those memories fell into Dead Elephant, and into her.】
【Earfish knows. So he does not ask.】
And I lived once again.
III
The cloak opens its eyes.
It lies on a sofa, wrapped in a layer of star net. The rain outside has eased.
“Awake?” Earfish asks. “Are you all right?”
“ Doing okay ……”
A-Mao sits at the bar; the dagger in her chest is gone.
The cloak stares into Earfish’s eyes for one fifty-thousandth of a second. Then it understands something.
“Give me 【Break】【Slash】,” it says.
/ Hey! It is wrapped in the star net I just learned! / The sofa nearly jumps.
“The star net can be rebuilt, no problem.” Earfish smiles. “Come on, cloak. It has landed.”
The tavern lands.
Letter · A letter hanging on the tavern wall
H-1027 Nohara Aoi
Before I could say “that’s it”
Often we do not know how to express ourselves politely.
When we finally can express ourselves politely,
we discover how far apart we are.
To keep the symbols from being obvious, we choose to hide our true selves.
And only then
the flower
falls
do we realize
that many things have already passed
long ago, like letters,
leaving us full of regret,
weeping bitterly.
Case file 06 “Dead Elephant” complete. Back to the case files →