Chapter 17: Thought Is a Trap, Knowledge Is Poison
"Good grief~"
Kira Yoshikage swept his gaze across the crowd, his expression utterly calm.
From the explosion, to people being injured, to the entire venue falling into complete chaos, he had been nothing but a pure bystander from beginning to end, watching everything unfold with absolute calm and making no attempt to help any strangers.
As for helping Kitagawa Marin, that was because she had paid him, after all—and she still owed him the balance.
Kitagawa Marin and Yuibihama Yui stared at everything happening before them, finding it difficult to accept for a moment. Only Miura Yumiko remained relatively composed. She pulled them closer to Kira Yoshikage and asked softly:
"Kira-kun, what should we do now? Should we run?"
Kira Yoshikage watched the crowd surging frantically toward the exits and replied calmly:
"Wait."
Although most people would instinctively run toward the exits in a situation like this, that was not the right thing to do.
In such chaos, a packed crowd could easily trigger even more serious secondary accidents, such as a stampede. Besides, the criminal who had planted the bombs might still be inside the venue, waiting until the crowd was at its densest before throwing more bombs into it.
But most people would not think of that. The moment the bomb exploded, their minds would reduce the situation to something simple—
The venue meant danger, while leaving the venue meant safety.
By comparison, finding a safe place to hide was the better choice.
It would avoid both the secondary accidents caused by the crowd and the danger of being hit by another explosion.
Of course, staying behind carried risks as well.
For example, if the criminal was still inside the venue, they might very well run into each other.
In that case, hiding inside the venue would actually be the most dangerous option.
But Kira Yoshikage clearly had no concerns in that regard.
"Kira-kun, the criminal... The criminal might still be here..."
Kitagawa Marin's voice trembled slightly.
Kira Yoshikage asked:
"Why do you say that?"
"Because..."
Kitagawa Marin's face was a little pale. She lightly pursed her lips and said:
"When he gave me the bomb, he was running toward the Exhibition Hall..."
Kira Yoshikage immediately understood. The bomber had disguised the bomb as a Frog Plush and given it to a visitor who had come to the Exhibition Hall. But it was noon now, and most visitors would choose to leave the Exhibition Hall and have lunch at Restaurant Street outside.
Therefore, most of the visitors who had received Frog Plushes were moving toward the exits. Knowing that the bomb was about to explode, the bomber naturally would not approach the exit where the bombs were, lest he be caught in the blast.
So he could only run deeper into the venue!
"What did he look like?"
Kira Yoshikage swept his eyes across the crowd one person at a time and asked at the same time.
"He was wearing a Frog Mascot costume, so I couldn't see his face. But he was a little taller than me, probably around one meter seventy..."
Kitagawa Marin tried hard to recall the bomber's appearance, but he had been wearing a bodysuit, making it extremely difficult to obtain any useful clues.
For Kira Yoshikage, however, that was already enough.
His gaze began rapidly sweeping over the crowd, picking out those who were around one meter seventy tall.
Obviously, there was another reason the criminal had run into the venue—
He needed to hurry and take off the mascot costume he was wearing.
The furry mascot costume had been useful for throwing people off guard when he handed out the bombs, making the recipients lower their guard.
But once the explosion happened, anyone wearing a Frog Mascot costume would become the prime suspect.
That was why he had to remove the costume and use the opportunity to blend into the crowd and escape.
Right.
Miura Yumiko and the others were also doing their best to observe the passing crowd, trying to pick out the criminal.
But how easy was that?
There were tens of thousands of visitors inside the venue, and they did not even know what the other man looked like. Trying to find him in that vast sea of people was no different from searching for a needle in a haystack. It was practically impossible.
Kira Yoshikage had originally thought the same, until his gaze locked onto a young man wearing a baseball cap—
He was around one meter seventy tall, and unlike the more or less frightened expressions on everyone else's faces, his expression was somewhat gloomy.
Yet when his gaze swept over the victims lying in pools of blood, a pleased and cruel smile unconsciously appeared at the corners of his mouth. That expression of delight was like an artist enjoying his own masterpiece.
Kira Yoshikage watched him silently as Pink Panther quietly appeared.
Bang!
Before the pleased smile at the corners of the young man's mouth had time to fade, his body was sent flying by an invisible force!
The gazes of Kitagawa Marin and the other two were drawn to the sudden scene, but they did not see what had attacked him. They only saw someone fly out of the crowd and slam into a wall. Along with the dull impact came what sounded like the crisp snap of breaking bones, sending chills down their spines.
Everyone was shocked by the young man's sudden flight, but few noticed the black tattoo on the back of his hand. It was shaped like a sewn-shut eye, surrounded by a black ring. Numerous black lines radiated outward from the ring in a regular pattern, making it look like a pitch-black sun.
"Eye of Foolishness?"
The moment Kira Yoshikage saw the tattoo, he immediately connected everything—the attack had been planned by the Anti-Intellectual Cult.
The Anti-Intellectual Cult was an extremist religious organization that had risen in recent years.
The organization was widely distributed throughout the world, and its symbol was a sewn-shut eye.
Within the Anti-Intellectual Cult, it was called the Eye of Foolishness, or the All-Black Eye.
This also corresponded to the ideology the Anti-Intellectual Cult had always preached: thought was a trap, and knowledge was poison.
They advocated burning all books and eliminating every place that provided education, so people would live by relying only on instinct and the experience passed down by their parents.
At first, the Anti-Intellectual Cult had merely handed out flyers and recruited people on the streets.
But as time passed, their behavior gradually crossed the line, eventually evolving into outright terrorist attacks.
They bombed schools, bombed libraries, and even bombed television stations and government buildings!
In the past year alone, at least a hundred schools had been targeted in bombing attacks by the Anti-Intellectual Cult. Even the teachers at those schools had received death threats from the Anti-Intellectual Cult.
It was precisely because of the Anti-Intellectual Cult's terrorist attacks that tens of thousands of students had been unable to continue their studies and had been forced to transfer to schools in other regions.
Kira Yoshikage was one of them.
He had originally been able to attend a public school, but now he could only attend an expensive private school.
It was all thanks to the Anti-Intellectual Cult.
Regardless of what the Anti-Intellectual Cult's objective was, they were terrorists all the same, secretly plotting one terrorist attack after another.
And the Anti-Intellectual Cult's actions were, without a doubt, destroying the peaceful life Kira Yoshikage had worked so hard to maintain.
Chapter 18: Today Was Another Peaceful Day
"Kira-kun."
The sudden turn of events startled Kitagawa Marin, and she instinctively looked toward Kira Yoshikage.
Kira Yoshikage withdrew his gaze and said calmly, as if he had seen nothing:
"We should go. Keep up."
The man's spine had been broken by Killer Queen, so he would spend the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair.
For now, all he could do was sprawl on the ground and suffer as he waited for the police to arrive.
Once the police discovered the Eye of Foolishness symbol on the back of his hand, they would know he was part of the Anti-Intellectual Cult. They would then be able to deduce that the Anti-Intellectual Cult had planned the attack, and perhaps even follow the leads to catch his fellow Anti-Intellectual Cult members through him.
And even if Japan's police were incompetent, they were certainly already on their way.
The police could handle the cleanup.
Hearing the calmness in Kira Yoshikage's voice, Kitagawa Marin felt inexplicably reassured and obediently nodded.
By now, not many people remained inside the venue, but the exits were still completely blocked.
Even so, Kira Yoshikage forcibly carved a path through the crowd and led Kitagawa Marin and the other two out of the Exhibition Hall, bringing them to the plaza outside.
Looking at the people fleeing in all directions across the plaza, Yuibihama Yui was at a loss:
"Where should we go now?"
Kira Yoshikage kept his eyes fixed on the people passing by and said:
"Leave this place first. Take the roads. Don't go to the subway station."
Just like the Exhibition Hall, the subway was packed with people, so there was still a chance of a stampede. Besides, after the explosion at the Exhibition Hall, the nearby subway station might not still be operating.
By comparison, the spacious roads were safer. They might even run into the police there.
Moreover, in Kira Yoshikage's view, the bomber had most likely arrived by subway—
There were no security checks on Japan's subway system. So even if the bomber had openly carried a whole bag of bombs onto the subway and brought them to the Exhibition Hall, no one would have searched him. Given how deranged the man was, since he had been able to "hand out" timed bombs at the Exhibition Hall, it was entirely possible that he had planted bombs in advance at the subway station.
If that was true, no one inside the subway station might survive.
As for the three girls, after nearly being killed by a bomb, they now had blind faith in Kira Yoshikage. Even if Kira Yoshikage told them to return to the Exhibition Hall, they would follow him despite their fear. Leaving by the road sounded fairly reliable by comparison.
Amid the piercing sirens, a police car with red and blue emergency lights mounted on its roof sped past.
However, just as Kira Yoshikage had expected, the police did not try to check whether the criminal was among the pedestrians. It was not that they did not want to; they could not.
There had been hundreds of thousands of visitors at the Exhibition Hall, while all the police in Tokyo combined numbered only forty thousand. It was completely unrealistic to detain everyone present and search them at the venue. All they could do was hurry to the scene, seal it off, and investigate.
Watching the police cars speed down the road, Kira Yoshikage stopped.
"Kitagawa-san."
"Ah, I'm here."
Kitagawa Marin, who had been somewhat dazed, came back to herself at once and nervously raised her head.
Kira Yoshikage stared intently into the girl's eyes and said calmly:
"Don't tell anyone about what happened today."
"Okay."
Kitagawa Marin hesitated, then asked softly:
"Kira-kun, can you tell me why?"
Kira Yoshikage withdrew his gaze from the girl and said in a toneless voice:
"Because it would make things very troublesome, and I hate trouble."
"I understand."
Kitagawa Marin was silent for a while before nodding solemnly.
"I'll keep it a secret. I won't tell anyone."
She was not stupid. Kira Yoshikage had clearly never even touched the Frog Plush, yet he had been able to identify the bomb hidden inside it at a glance. Even though the bomb had exploded right in front of her, it had not injured her. None of this could have been a coincidence. Perhaps Kira Yoshikage possessed some kind of special ability.
It might have been the sort of supernatural power that often appeared in fantasy novels, or it might have been something else.
Kitagawa Marin was curious, but she understood even more clearly that if not for Kira Yoshikage, she would already have been a mangled corpse. Therefore, what she needed to do was not investigate his secret, but keep it for him.
"I'll keep it a secret too," Miura Yumiko immediately added.
"I-I'll do the same," Yuibihama Yui said nervously and softly.
Kira Yoshikage withdrew his gaze from the girls and glanced at the security guards maintaining order.
The police should discover the Anti-Intellectual Cult member at the Exhibition Hall without incident, and their attention would be drawn to him as well.
As for ordinary bystanders like them, they would certainly be overlooked.
Good. Today was another peaceful day.
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