Part 33: Kitchen 3
Hooray! We're out!June, relieved, collapsed onto the floor.
Move!Santa shoved past Junpei and ran straight to the grill, which he immediately grabbed.
He proceeded to kick the grill in a futile but amusing fit of rage.
But...where was Lotus?
It took Junpei only a moment to find her... She was sitting on the counter, idly scratching her chest.
[Music: Who is Zero?]
With a great yawn, Lotus lowered herself off of the counter.
Junpei clenched his teeth and walked toward her.
What...were you doing...?
What do you mean, what was I doing? I was waiting.
We were gonna die! Oh yeah? But you didn't, so everything worked out all right, didn't it? What the hell...
Just kidding! It might not look like it, but I was really worried. Don't gimme that crap!
If you died, then I'd be stuck here, and I'd die too. See? ... I did all I could. I even looked around to see if there was anything I could use to pry open the door. But I couldn't find anything. So all I could do was wait.
It was true that there wasn't much she could have done, but something about her tone...
Junpei gritted his teeth.
Fine.
But there's one thing I have to ask you. What's that?
Wh-What?! You think I closed the door on you?
I told you before, if you die, then I die too!She was right, and Junpei knew it. Without them, she'd be in very serious trouble.
It seemed that an accident was the only explanation for the door's closure.
please disregard how laziness, or negligence, can be attempted murder - junpei doesn't know that apparently
Junpei swallowed his anger, and did his best to apologize.
[Music: Silence]
Well. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I doubted you. Hmm? Oh. Yes, well, that's all right. As long as you understand.Lotus looked away and twirled her hair between her fingertips.
His vengeance against the grill complete, Santa swaggered back toward Junpei and Lotus.
Hey! No more screwin' around you two! Break time's over. Especially for you, lady. You've just been
How rude! I was plenty busy! Yeah, yeah, how about you put all that
[Music: Ternary Game]
Well, that was a fairly lengthy side-segment. It appears to have not been planned by Lotus, at least, but if you hadn't noticed that pork we grabbed seemed to be somewhat optional. I wonder, then, if we skipped it... could we go back and get it?
Let's go and find out.
Oh, I was just thinking I'd check and see if we missed anything in the freezer.
Why would we have missed anything?
Yeah...yeah, I guess you're right. I don't need to go back there.Doesn't look like it, but then again we do have that pork already. This may be why; I guess we'll find out when we get a chance to at some later date.
For now, Lotus should look at our hard meat.
Hey...what's that? It looks like there's a piece of paper inside it...
If you try to pull it out, it might tear.
Something warm? Something....warm... 
I think I know just the guy. We already know exactly where to find the grill too so let's just skip right there.
This should work perfectly.
Jumpy...
...Huh?Guess we should actually get the pork out. That might help!
Hey, what are you doing!? What are you going to do if the paper burns!?
We just gotta keep an eye on it, and the paper'll be fine. (Well, they can argue all they want. I'm gonna keep an eye on this pork...)...
Jumpy, be careful. (Sweet of her to care, but I know what I'm--)
See...? I told you. Hey, what the hell are you doing? Hurry up and take the paper out-- It's not coming out.
So are we going to have to cut the meat? Yeah, looks that way.Well, rather conveniently I know just the thing.
I didn't expect this to come in handy, but here we are.
I don't think we'll be able to use it while it's like this.The knife seemed important, Junpei thought, but it wasn't going to be much use the way it was.
[Music: Silence]
It's futile. Futile...? You know... A waste, useless, pointless... Oh... Um... Any particular reason you wanted to bring that up? Oh, no reason, really...
She wasn't making much sense...
Junpei tried rephrasing his question.
Why were you thinking about Futility?At last, she answered.
The Titanic? Yep. [Music: Riddle and Puzzle]
Have you ever heard the story that the sinking of the Titanic was predicted?
Actually, uh,
No, I haven't... What is it? In 1892, 14 years before the Titanic sank a novel was published.
Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan is a real book (so naturally this is another theory that people did believe). I own a copy, but, uh, I've never actually read it. I should get around to that sometime. I can't say whether or not it's a good read, but apparently it does involve the main character getting into a fight with a polar bear.
The story was about a big cruise ship colliding with an iceberg and sinking. Of course, if that was the only similarity, there wouldn't be any reason to mention it...
It wasn't though...
...Size, displacement, maximum speed, number of passengers and crew, the number of lifeboats. Even the location of the accident itself, and the cause, and the location of the damage...
It was almost as if he'd seen the whole thing happen.
There's a reason for this, which I would hope would be obvious. Of course, that's the real book. Whether or not the same applies for the version June's talking about?
... But that's not all.
...Well, this is awkward. Fortunately, June's going to mention stuff about Stead that is different to the mummy from before. That helps at least.
Both of them before the accident. One in 1886, and one in 1892.
In one, 2 ships collided, and many of the passengers died because there weren't enough lifeboats. In the other, a ship collided with an iceberg, and sank.This is also true. On 22 March 1886, Stead had a small article published called "How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid-Atlantic." In it, the unnamed boat collided with another leading to a large amount of victims due to a lack of boats. The 1892 one ("From the Old World to the New") is a bit different to June's very short glossing over the facts, as it involves a boat called the Majestic, a clairvoyant on board and avoiding the disaster. By the psychic "sensing" that a different ship hit an iceberg instead. So it's kinda right, but not.
Hmm... I dunno. I mean, I'll give you that it seems a little weird, but... I'm pretty sure it wasn't too uncommon for 
Right. I knew you'd say that. ? But...what if Stead had some sort of special powers...?
What? Automatic writing? Wait, are you... Are you talking about that thing where
And then they write a bunch of stuff without knowing what they're writing? Yes.
Okay, so let's say--hypothetically--that automatic writing isn't a total load. These guys still couldn't have predicted the sinking of the Titanic. When this Stead dude wrote his thing nobody had died on the Titanic yet. So if automatic writing is about being possessed by spirits of dead people...
That's not it. What's not it? Stead wasn't possessed by a spirit.
... ...
Yup, as you might remember he also died. His body was never recovered, so he's still down there. Well, as much as he can be at this point.
...20 years before it happened.[Music: Silence]
Junpei smiled uncomfortably.
Huh...? But...Her voice trailed off, and she glanced at the floor, troubled.
*Tap* *Tap*
Junpei tapped June gently on the shoulder and awkwardly reached around her to pick up the knife from the box.
[Music: Ternary Game]
Well, that was...kind of out of nowhere. Let's just get the hell out of here now that we can.
I know I'm just repeating myself, but this is really a "Futility" moment. That blade is so rusty...
If we're going to cut anything, we probably have to sharpen the knife.Cut things, you say? I wonder what Santa and Lotus think about this.
I doubt you'll be able to cut anything as long as it's like that.
If you want to cut anything, you'll need to sharpen it.Eh, I'm sure it's fine as is. That meat is probably super soft by now, and it's not like we were planning on eating it afterwards anyway.
This'll work out alright.
I should be able to use this knife to cut it. It's not working. This knife is too dull. Well, that's probably because it's all rusty. If we had something you could sharpen the knife with...Alright, alright. I'll find something to remove the rust from this knife. Somehow.
There's not much left in the room, but there is this thing. It could be useful. I guess.
Are you an idiot?! If you do that, then we'll never get out of here! Oh... Yeah, I guess that would be bad, huh. This whetstone's only gonna be useful if I need to sharpen something.I can't think of anything that'd need sharpening. Nope. What makes you think I wo- oh, I know. Maybe we could sharpen June's nails and have her cut the pork like that.
Good job, Jumpy! I'm sure it'll be really useful! How is it going to be useful...? You could use it to sharpen a knife or something! Sharpen a knife, huh?A... knife...?
The blade of the knife is getting sharper by the second. I should be able to cut something pretty good with this.
Of course! I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner.
Did you sharpen it, Jumpy? Yup. Now we can use it to cut something soft.Something... soft? I can't think of much that matches that description. Except maybe Santa and Lotus.
....Er, I mean maybe they have ideas for what we could use it on.
No one! Hmmm. You could probably cut something soft with that.Y'know, I appreciate that they can't just come out and tell you the answer but these vague hints are giving me all the wrong ideas.
Hey, Junpei, I thought you had something you could cut meat with, didn't you?Might help if I could stop putting things away again after randomly shoving them in people's faces.
Yes! I cut the pork! Awesome, Junpei. Now we can cut out the paper.
Damnit! They're just screwing around! Junpei, do you know what C and F stands for?
...
...I have an idea, but first I wanna see what June thinks. Best to get everyone's input for something like this.
...Right, well never mind then. The way I see it, this is clearly a code of some kind. The issue, of course, being that the C and the F are the clues we need to decipher it. So, let's head on over to the one spot where we can dash out a numerical value for this thing.
Maybe if we put in the right number it'll open the oven door. Junpei, maybe the note you found earlier... Yeah. I know.Lotus gives us a bit of a tutorial here on how to use the keypad (namely the C and E buttons), but we've done one of these before so I'll skip here.
"C + 10 + F," right? Well, the 10 is self-explanatory but the C and F are bit more complicated. I would assume either the freezing or boiling point of water in both Celsius and Fahrenheit but I appear to have put the freezing and... condensation (okay, yeah, it's a stretch but shush) points instead with both in fahrenheit.
Unsurprisingly, my goof did not accidentally solve the puzzle.
Do you think the note we found in the pork wasn't a hint? "C + 10 + F" There aren't any letters on the input device... Hmm... Maybe if we can find a way to convert letters to numbers...
Maybe they've got something to do with it.
What voucher? There was no voucher. Let's just try the numerical values of those letters. And maybe the 10 is an I and an O. So maybe, 3 + (9*15) + 6. So, 144.
Spoilers: this doesn't work either.
He said there were some letters on it....Alright, fine. I guess we should go and at least look.
This is probably it.
(There's a voucher at the end of the counter.)
It says "Appetizer 9, Meat dish 10, Soup A, Seafood dish F" on the voucher. And the plates on the table are... "9 Appetizer, 16 Meat, 10 Soup, 15 Seafood".
And hexadecimal is...? It's a number system that goes 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10, 11...
The base-10 equivalents for hexadecimal numbers would go like this:
...And 10 = 16 The 10 becomes 16 in base-10. I know it sounds strange, but you can think 
(A = 10, B = 11, C = 12, D = 13, E = 14, F = 15, 10 = 16, and so on. I think I get it.)Good thing Junpei does, because I sure as hell don't. Maybe a second explanation will help!
Yeah, maybe. Junpei, do you remember what I told you about hexadecimal code earlier? Yeah, course I do. All right then, here's a little quiz for you. What would 9 + F be in base-10?
That's right. Good job, you're a fast learner.Oh, okay. I've got it now.
This is totally the right answer!
Maybe if you just enter it like it said in the hint. Aaaaaah shut up! Just shut up!Okay, let's try this again and... fuck, this is harder than it sounds!
"C + 10 + F" There aren't any letters on the input device, though. What does that mean...?
If we convert it to base-10...Oh, I see! In that case, it's 12 + 10 + 15 which is 37. I am so pro at this!
...Wait, dammit that's wrong to.
Well, if you look at the voucher, and the number of plates, then F = 15. Then what about 10?
Well, then that would mean that 10 is actually a 1 and a 0 in hexidecimal. Yes. Then that means... 1 and 0 in hexadecimal is actually 16 in base-10. Then what about C? C is... Well... A is 10 and B is 11 so... F = 15 and 10 = 16
Oh! That's where I went wrong. I got C and 10 wrong. It's 31 + C and C is, uh, 3! It's 34!
...Damn, that's not working either? I think Zero's puzzle is busted or somethimg.
F = 15, right!? 10 is 16! Do you know what 15 + 16 is!?
Then we already know what F + 10 is, right?! Just add C to it! A = 10, B = 11...what's C?!This last one just loops ad infinitum, so I guess we should probably get it right now.
C + 10 + F = 12 + 16 + 15 = 43.
And, of course, that is actually correct.
(Well, I guess that went well.)
Since we got it right, it stands to reason that we can open the door now!
Good job, Jumpy!The only thing of interest in here is sitting on a tray. Let's give that a quick once over.
Remember? There was an elevator next to the main staircase. Wasn't there a mark like this on the card reader next to it? Oh yeah. I remember that.
I'm not sure. Why don't we try it out? (A Saturn key card. I saw the same symbol on a card reader next to the elevator by the main staircase. This card might be useful here too, though. Can't hurt to give it a shot.)
It sounds like a reasonable idea, but we should give the inside of the oven a quick check. If solving the puzzle turned the oven off as well as opened the door, it should still be warm. And, of course, the card would be completely useless.
Man, if the card got burned here, I'm never gonna forgive Zero.Seems like it'll work fine, though.
But while we're here, let's give the pork one last check. Maybe take it with us.
Sadly we can't take the food with us to eat. How disappointing.
So, instead, we solved All The Puzzles. We can just leave now, right?
(She's pointing at the card reader. Yeah, yeah, I get it.)
Okay, apparently the door itself was a dumb idea. Let's try opening it with the door handle instead.
I don't think you can leave until you've unlocked the door.
(It's not gonna do me much good unless I unlock the door!)
I think we're meant to do something with this? I dunno. Lotus just said that we have to solve all of the puzzles. Never said anything about using the card reader!
Just hurry up and do it! ...Huh? Oh for the love of-- Seriously?! You don't know what I'm talking about!?
I mean, c'mon Santa. It's pretty obvious!
We just swipe the card and the light turns green, duh!
Yes! I think it's unlocked now! You did it, Jumpy! Let's get out of here!
