Kibe entered the tavern. As he did he saw a few people inside. He saw Jörg sitting down with another man, the man was wearing a black vest with a red trench coat. He had shades on and some sort of wig on his head. It was blonde. Kibe looked to see they were playing a quick game of twenty-one. His eyes then moved over towards the stairs in the tavern, there he saw two other people. One of them was a women, she had short hair, looked like it had a bit of a purple hue to it. She had two pouches filled with knives. Her face was covered with a black cloth that covered her mouth. Her eyes were a dark color, hard to see from afar for the average person, but it was brown. She had ninja like gear on her, yet her clothing also seemed a bit futuristic as well.
She had a another young man beside her. He seemed more skittish though, he had glasses on, he wore cargo pants and a big jacket. He had a backpack on. Black hair. He was not too taller than Kibe was. Kibe walked over to them, figured he should start at some point trying to get familiar with these people. When he got close, the ninja girl stepped forward and revealed a kunai. Her movement was quick and efficient. No sign of wasted movement. There was no doubt that if he and her got into a confrontation that she would be trouble.
"Not another step!" The girl violently said. Kibe stopped and looked at her hand to her face. She was focused on him, following his eyes and body movement. Thats when the young man put his arm between them, "come on Suzu, theres no need for that." Said the young man. Suzu scoffed as her eyes momentarily went to the young man.
"This isn't some sort of get together, these people are all bloodhounds, they'll kill you when the chance comes.
I won't let your immaturity stop me from keeping you safe Jin ." Suzue said. Jin smiled as he looked at her. "I'm sure its alright, there's nothing wrong right now. No danger just yet." Jin said. Thats when they'd hear a loud slam across the room. Suzue immediately turned around and postioned herself in front of Jin as Kibe just turned his head.
"FUCK! YOU PIECE OF SHIT! I KNOW YOU'RE CHEATING!" shouted the blonde man. Jörg didn't say anything but chuckle. It was the blonde man, he had slamned his hands on the table. They watched as the blonde man got up and walked away into the bathroom of the tavern. Jörg collected the money they had bet on.
"Such foolishness." Suzue thought. Usuda looked at Kibe, he could tell from watching him that he was a guy who seemed to be in control of himself. His expression made it feel that way at least. "So what are you doing here? Not to sound judgmental, but needing to protect someone and joining a dangerous game like this seem to conflict." Kibe asked. Suzue looked at him with an annoyed expression. Usuda scratched his head.
"Well, we're actually here for the fact I need to collect some data. I need to-"
"Quiet Usuda, you do not know this babo." Suzue said, Kibe looked at her for a moment before looking back to Usuda."Sorry about her, she's my bodyguard. A little...not so social sorry hehe. I hope we didn't get off ona bad foot by that." Usuda said.
"Not at all." Kibe said as he looked at Usuda began to get out a high tech phone like device. He then began to type in it. "What is that?" Kibe asked.
"Oh this? This is a High-grade data analysis and formating device. a HDAF so to speak." Usuda said. Suzue looked away with her hand on her short katana. Kibe looked at her and then to Usuda again. "So its like a place where you put down what information you collect, and then you put it through there and the device breaks it down into comprehensive and small pieces.
Easy to understand." Kibe said. Usuda fixed his glasses as he smiled.
"Impressive, are you a man of the intellectual branch?" He asked. Kibe nodded. "Thats interesting. I must write that down. What uh, what's your opinion on mathematics?" Usuda asked.
"Mmmm, Calculus is by far the most prominent form of analyzing data surrounding cause and effect. Its worth in the medical, physics world can't be underestimated.
As for Arithmetics, one of the oldest types of mathematical analysis, it does from the greeks afterall, arithmos. The excellent study of numbers. Though personally mathematics are folly and fall under redundancy when compared to anything remotely related to philosophy or psychology." Kibe said
"That may be true, but those don't have anything to do with numbers or mathematics." Usuda said
"Sure they do, what is philosophy, if not the subconscious to numbers themselves. And psychology the deeper unconscious." Kibe said. Usuda looked at him and gave a wide impressed smile. "Unconscious of numbers, fascinating. Isn't that fascinating Suzue?" Usuda said as he put what Kibe said through his HDAF. Suzue just scoffed as she crossed her arms. Kibe looked at her and then to Usuda again.
"How exactly does that thing work? In specifics I mean." Kibe asked "Well the thing is-"
Thats when suddenly a static sound could be heard, everyone looked around. Kibe stood calm, Suzue guarded Usuda and put her hand on one of her katanas, while Usuda hid behind her and Jörg stood up putting his long leather coat on. Thats when in the ceiling a TV would come down. Everyone looked at it and saw the cartoon character from before appear.
"Welcone everyone, this exercise will be done to test your reading and observation abilities.
The tavern has been locked down." Said the cartoon character. Everyone looked to see as bars then came down over the doors and windows. Kibe watched as he walked over to them. Her could hear a small humming coming from them. "Electricity." Kibe thought as he grabbed one of the bars.
"Each set of bars will be pumped with about 12,000 volts of electricity. A.C.
One touch and you will turn into a human candle." Said the cartoon character, Kibe then slowly let go of the bar, he then looked up and noticed his hair was very, very frizzy. Kibe walked away and back to the group as he attempted to fix his hair.
"The rules for this exercise are simple there are 4 keys within this building. 4 that are in one of the 10 rooms here. You must use your observation skills and deduction to find the keys.
Working together is essential here, as each key will be vastly different than the other. You have 45 minutes.
Oh and be careful, not all rooms, are just rooms." Said the cartoon character before a countdown appeared on the screen. Usuda then put down all that he heard. Kibe's eyes looked at him and then to Jörg who walked over to them.
"Well then. A hell of zing isn't it? Quack puzzles and presses of time. Reminds me of my time in Oztwin. It was a town filled with people who were on drugs. We had to evict them all cause of it." Jörg said. "Did you?" Usuda asked curiously.
"No, we shot them. Firing squad." Jörg chuckled. Usuda shuddered uncomfortably before he then ran through everything on the exercise into his HDAF. Jörg looked at him and then to Kibe who was just standing there for a moment.
"Alright guys I think we can use my HDAF to calculate exactly where these keys will be!" Usuda said nervously confident. Jörg then would immediately shut that down though.
"HDAF What now? Did you juzt have a stutter?" Jörg asked. "W-What? No, my HDAF device allows me to deduct and formulate reasons when I put in certain data and information. It requires a narrative first, and then I can add in clues, theories and reasons to which then the machine will funnel all of that into results and parts of data we can use." Usuda said. Jörg looked at him completely confused while Suzue just stared at Jörg and Kibe. Who both didn't have much of a response to what Usuda had said.
"So you have zome sort of "detective" device? Is thiz supposed to improve problem-zwolving?" Jörg asked.
"Yes actually, you see with the more data I collect. The more the device learns and can put things together. Its very-"
"Stille." Jörg said, gesturing for Usuda to be quiet. Yet he didn't understand. Usuda looked at Suzue and Kibe for answers, but the two didn't respond.
"Um, but it-"
"Reißverschluss zu." Jörg said a little aggressively. Usuda backed away a bit, worried and scared. Jörg fixed his coat and then looked to Kibe before he walked up the stairs to the second floor of the tavern. "I wouldn't go snooping just yet." Kibe said. Jörg looked at him. "And why is that?" He asked.
"When was the last time you saw that man you played with?" Kibe asked. Usuda's face then became overwhelmed with shock as he looked to the HDAF device and saw that it had finished rendering and analyzing everything. He then looked down at the question box. He looked at Kibe with a side eye before he then typed into the box.
"Why don't we check every room?" Usuda typed and in under no more than 30 seconds. The HDAF device responded.
"Some of the rooms are booby-trapped." Said the HDAF device, Usuda then looked at Kibe and Jörg. "Hey, my device is telling me that some of the rooms are booby-trapped." Usuda said. Kibe and Jörg looked at one another as they then walked to the bathroom door. Jörg opened it and looked around to see it was very normal looking one. Kibe and them walked inside, Kibe's eyes watching and observing the tiles on the floor. He looked at the handles of the sinks and doors for any substances or signs of tampering, but nothing.
"Hey Nori, take a look at this." Said Jörg, Kibe turned and looked over to see blood in the third to last stall. Suzue peeked inside while Usuda waited outside. "Whats it look like in-"
"Quiet." Suzue said, Usuda covered his mouth. Jörg then kicked the door open and saw the blonde man from before, he was sitting down on the toilet, his body partially slumped over. His entire jaw and top of his head were nearly blown off. Kibe and Jörg looked at him studying the body.
"A boom boom straight through the arse, nothing good about zat. Where uh, where did it come from though?" Jörg asked. Kibe looked at the body of the man, he saw as he noticed the way he was shot. Kibe noticed those holes were exit bullet wounds. He saw around the stall and looked to see shotgun shells on the floor. He bent down and picked one of them up. It was covered in large amounts of blood. "What do you zee?" Asked Jörg.
"There are shells scattered across the floor, he was clearly shot by a shotgun, but the wounds on his body are exit wounds. The blood around him looks to be a pool. Which means he hasn't moved from this spot. He died here." Kibe said as he got up.
"He could have been shot from above." Jörg said. Kibe looked up at the ceiling. It wasn't a ceiling with removable plates or one that looked thin either. Plus no bullet holes exiting the bathroom, only entering the room above.
"No, not a chance. That leaves only one thing." Kibe said as he looked back to the man. "What?" Jörg asked. Kibe walked over and then used his foot to flush the toilet which then immediately afterwards.
BOOM!
A shotgun round would go off right from inside the toilet shooting up through the blonde man's body. Jörg watched with awe as a wide smile crossed his face with Kibe looking in curiosity and mild suprise.
"Wow, nice catch Nori." Jörg said. Kibe nodded.
"Zoooo the geek puppy was correct. There are infac booby-trapped rooms here. Well hidden too." Jörg said. "Now, all we need to do is go to the next plausible room to search." Kibe said.
"So which one do we search next then?" Jörg asked.
"Mmmm, maybe we can ask our tech-savy companion." Kibe said as Jörg sighed as the two walked over to the door where Suzue was protecting Usuda. He looked from around her and at Kibe and Jörg.
"Hey, we're going to need to need your help." Kibe said. As Usuda grew a smile on his face.