Who are you?

Part 8

It was nighttime, and Shiori was waiting outside Yuki's house. She knew he was sleeping from the patterns of his breathing right outside his window. But still, she wanted to wait 5 more minutes before going in.

When she was sure, he was deep asleep. She went to the study room window. She purposefully jammed the lock that day in a way she could easily get in. She jumped in and lit a candle. No need to risk outsiders getting suspicious due to a light in the room, while loud snoring could be heard.

She first did a small take of the room. Everything seemed to be where they were during the day. It was a good sign. Yuki hasn't moved anything. She walked to the desk and set the candle in the small candle holder.

She skimmed through the papers on the desk first. It was all things he talked about during the day. Of course, there were a lot more details, but she didn't care much about them.

She was sure she had seen some maps of the lake when Yuki was showing the journals to her. That was what she was looking for.

It was going to be a long night.

Finally, she found it. It took her four hours to go through everything related to the room, but she had a clear picture now.

The reason the lake was not mentioned was its history. For the last 100 years, there have been a series of mysterious disappearances in the village. It was a rare occurrence for the residents to go missing, but that was not it.

A century ago, a man kept mentioning hearing strange noises in the woods. Then, one day, he went into the woods and didn't come back. People searched high and low for him, only to find his clothes washed up on the shore of the lake.

The clothing was intact, so the possibility of animal attacks was thrown off. They chalked it up to a bandit attack and left it at that. However, it was only the beginning.

Every once in a while, they would find clothing on the shore, and after a while, it became clear that it was clothing from merchants and others who visited the village.

It was rarely people from the village, but there was always clothing. About once a month, but sometimes sooner or later. They tried to find whoever did it, but they yielded no result. So they just started warning villagers off the lake. Trying their best to avoid any mention of it.

It was also better since unaware travelers would be the target. Whatever or whoever is behind the attacks only picked the villagers as targets when there was a lack of outsiders.

So they kept their mouths shut and did their best to attract travelers and to cover up anything that came up ashore.

Shiori wanted to say what she had learned was unbelievable, but the reality was that it was not. As a medic, she understood the desire to survive better than many. The villagers were powerless and afraid.

They were also uneducated. They believed what happened to them was the work of a monster or a higher being. They were powerless to stop it, so they did their best to survive.

Better outsiders than people they knew. It was the same mentality everyone had. No matter who you asked, they would always choose the person they knew over someone they didn't.

Of course, there could be ethical debates about the values of those lives and what should be done, but humans are emotional creatures. You couldn't expect them to always act based on logic.

In fact, when they did, it would be more scary.

So Shiori could understand what they did and accept it. It all comes to her now. She had a duty to save lives, and if solving this case would do so, she would do it.