"The Witch is really amazing. Consider this my plea to her: if she intends to keep committing crimes, please have her do something humans absolutely cannot do. Make me believe there is a nineteenth person—no, make me believe that Witches truly exist."
"...Heehee, okay. I'll tell her when I see her."
Damn it. Even Lin Yan himself felt he was being absurd. He had only just believed that a nineteenth person existed, then denied it; once he believed there were only eighteen of them, he denied that too.
He clearly wished for someone besides the eighteen of them to exist, yet he could not be certain that a nineteenth person existed. In other words, there were clearly more than just Lin Yan and the other eighteen, yet fewer than nineteen. The number of people in this mansion was 19×18—in other words, it could not be expressed as an integer. But it was impossible for the number of people to have a decimal fraction. The number of people ought to be expressed only in whole numbers.
Yet the current situation was 19×18. There really was a decimal fraction smaller than one.
That was only natural.
Because the nineteenth person was an invisible existence.
So they could not be seen in a headcount that could only be expressed with whole numbers.
This Witch could not be seen. Beatrice had no body, so she was invisible.
Did the nineteenth person exist? Did the Witch exist? 19×18—the Witch existed within that ×.
October 5, 19:00
Sun. 5th October 1986
The living room.
After Eva and Hideyoshi left, the awkward atmosphere still lingered.
An atmosphere had spread through the living room where thinking about who the culprit was meant suspecting someone else. Discussing the murders had become almost taboo.
So no one mentioned the murders