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Nanana’s Buried Treasure Volume 3 Chapter 6.5

“TRANSLATOR:Foxsunes/EDITOR TheNix”

  ｢If the branching points till here had been marked with a small sign. They are at places which are extremely hard to find. ｣

Yuu recalled Isshin squatting and searching for something at the first branching point. 

  ｢Is that like the sign for the shortest route that Ikusaba-senpai marked? ｣

  ｢It can’t be, I don’t think so. No matter how hard it is to find, he wouldn’t leave a sign for something like that. In a situation like this it would give a hint to your rivals. And this ruin’s route is simple so one can simply memorize it.｣

  ｢So who put those?｣

  ｢That’s the main point. I wonder who could have done something basic like this. That’s why I’m searching places other than the branching points with precision so that I don’t miss anything. There’s always a possibility that there might be something.｣

  ｢But even if you find such a sign in a ruin, going after it without thinking much about it seems a bit…..｣

  ｢It isn’t like I’m doing it on a whim, I had been considering about the possibility of there being something like this in this ruin before I came here.｣

  ｢You had thought about this before you came here?｣

  ｢Do you remember about the time when we had a meeting in the cafe with Tensai-kun and others? There was something that had been bothering me since then and I had inferred that the answer to that was hidden somewhere in the ruin. That’s why I was checking the ruin everywhere and that’s how I found this sign.｣

  ｢Is that why you let those two go first? To follow the sign?｣

  ｢Our primary objective is to clear the ruin and obtain the Nanana collection and most of all, to get the Nanana collection before Ikusaba-san does. I wouldn’t back away from hardships in order to do that.｣

  ｢But you had other objective too, am I right?｣

Isshin nodded.

  ｢If I could find the thing that I had hypothesized about then it would be a great help to us in finding the Nanana collections in rest of the ruins.｣

Isshin smiled but after listening to everything he had said, Yuu was still unable to grasp what he meant. 

They moved sluggishly and after a long journey they reached the fourth branching point. Isshin put his hand on the wall, crouched down and looked around. After a while he found a small x sign that was marked on the wall near the floor.They followed the sign and started moving slowly towards the room inspecting the passage carefully and at last they reached the fourth room. This room was different from the rest of the rooms that they had passed. 

  ｢Seems like it is a dead end.｣

There wasn’t a passage leading out of the room and it only had a weird stone pillar at the center. Yuu entered the room and started looking around while keeping her pace steady. 

  ｢Yuu, stop.｣

Yuu stopped after hearing Isshin. 

  ｢What’s the matter, Isshin-sama?｣

  ｢There’s a cellphone near your foot.｣

Yuu looked down and found  a cellphone, she would have stepped on it if she had kept going…. Wait, something isn’t right. 

  ｢I haven’t dropped my phone. No, this isn’t my phone to begin with.｣

  ｢It isn’t mine either.｣

Then who could have dropped this? Yuu tried to pick it up but she noticed something and looked away. And then she fell on her backside. 

  ｢….I..I..Isshin-sama!!｣

Isshin placed his hand on her trembling shoulder and smiled gently. 

  ｢Are you fine?｣

  ｢It’s quite unexpected, I didn’t think you weren’t good with things like this.｣

  ｢No, I’m used to seeing blood but it’s my first time being in a situation like this…..｣

  There was a great amount of blood spill on one corner of the room, it was all over wall and the floor.｣

Yuu gulped looking at that. 

  ｢I took a look at that stone pillar over there and it seems like that’s the switch to activate the trap and after surviving or clearing whatever is asked we can move on to the next passage. ｣

  ｢S..so, w..what about this blood?｣

  ｢It’s most likely from someone trying to clear the trap but failing.｣

  ｢W..what could have happened to that person?｣

Isshin didn’t answer.

  ｢The trap in this room seems dangerous so we should take the other route but before that we need to take the phone and that bag over there.｣

Isshin decided it calmly and picked up the phone and put it in his pocket. He lifted up the bag but because it was shredded some things started falling out. A hand mirror and comb among other things fell out, so it can be assumed that the bag belonged to a girl. Isshin took the wallet from the things that had fallen out of the bag. Yuu looked at Isshin picking up the wallet and pondered why the bag had been torn up like that.

No, it can’t be, only the bag and the phone are here but there’s a lot of dry blood in front of Yuu’s eyes. But then the body is nowhere to be seen so it is plausible that she isn’t dead. 

But Yuu knew deep down that the person who bled there had died. 

The corpse was nowhere to be seen and there wasn’t any concrete proof. It was like intuition but someone had died here without a doubt. The atmosphere of this room was enough to make her sure of her intuition. 

Her throat made a gulping sound. Isshin placed his hand again on her trembling shoulder. 

  ｢You don’t need to push yourself too hard, you can tell me whenever you feel scared, I won’t stop you from going out. ｣

She stopped trembling after hearing his kind words. 

  ｢You jest, I’ll go with you, Isshin-sama.｣

Ibara Yuu thought about why she was here, the reason was simple. It was all to win Isshin’s love. For that she would even put her life on the line, she isn’t scared of it and she isn’t afraid. For the girl named Ibara Yuu, love of someone she likes is worth that much. The Vice President of the adventure club isn’t into the Nanana collection. The only things she’s into is money and the guy she likes. 

***

I heard President Yuiga’s voice from the passage when I was looking at Tensai who was crouching down and  staring at the treasure box. 

  ｢Did I make you wait?｣

I looked at the passage. 

  ｢No, thank you.｣

  ｢What kind of situation are we in?｣

President Yuiga and Ibara-senpai started walking towards us. 

  ｢We found the treasure box but it seems like it has been locked with a puzzle so Tensai is currently deciphering it.｣

  ｢I see…..a puzzle. It is something that fits this ruin.｣

The supersleuth Ikkyuu Tensai is muttering something, she is busy  trying to solve the eight by eight puzzle and it seems like she is completely immersed in her own world since she hasn’t noticed that president Yuiga and Ibara-senpai are here. 

  ｢So, Yama. What are you doing? Don’t tell me that you are just standing idly by.｣

I could do nothing but smile bitterly at Ibara-senpai’s sarcasm who was standing behind president Yuiga. 

  ｢To be honest, I have no idea how to solve it. The picture is so complex that we don’t even know what it will look like when it’s complete. I don’t know if it’s a hint or not but there are eight pieces in this puzzle that are fixed so we tried making the picture relying on those fixed pieces, we moved other pieces near the fixed pieces and it seems like some sort of picture is forming but it doesn’t seem right. ｣

  ｢I see, it seems like it is a picture puzzle with a high difficulty level.｣

  ｢I looked around the room to see if there was a picture that shows the end product but I couldn’t find any clue. I didn’t have anything else to do so I started cheering for Tensai but she got angry and told me to shut up.｣

  ｢The hell are you doing?｣

  ｢Leaving that aside, aren’t you a bit pale, Ibara-senpai?｣

  ｢…..It’s just your imagination.｣

She looked away, her facial expression seemed bitter. I wonder if something bad happened. 

  ｢Were you guys late due to the traps?｣

  ｢Yah, we were avoiding ones that seemed difficult and challenging the easy looking ones. Were you guys able to reach here fast?｣

  ｢No, but most of the trap rooms leading here had been cleared already.｣

  ｢Had been cleared? By whom?｣

  ｢By me.｣

We looked at the source of the voice since it was none of us four and our eyes widened in surprise. 

  ｢Ikusaba-san.｣

  ｢Hey, shitty glasses.｣

Ikusaba Hiiyo was standing there.