Part 4: Day 3, Part 1

Sorry for the delay; I was trying to sort out my technical problems. Unfortunately we're back to iguanavision for the time being, but I think that's better than the lag.

Nanto University: Professor Ohyama's Office


[Nanto University Sociology Department, Professor of Modern Sociology
Ohyama Houki, age 35]

Ohyama: Sorry -- I know your summer vacation was supposed to start today.

Erika: Uh, is there somewhere I could sit down...?

Ohyama: Yeah, it's a mess in here, isn't it? Just take a seat wherever...

Erika: But the chairs are all covered in papers.

Ohyama: Go ahead and move those papers, I don't mind--

Oh, but don't touch those, I'm still in the middle of correcting them--

Erika: But if I can't move them, then...

Ohyama: ... right, there's no place to sit... Oh well, we'll just have to stand.


Ohyama: The one I really wanted for my investigation was Nagasawa Riko, since she was his closest friend, but I haven't been able to get in touch with her since yesterday.

So... the one who came today was none other than you, Erika.

Erika: I'm not sure whether to feel insulted that I wasn't the first choice.


Ohyama: You were questioned by the police yesterday, right? Since you're involved in the Odaka Fumihito case. I've got some connections at the police station.

Erika: Um, yes. Why do you ask?

Ohyama: You were the first to discover the body, after all, so you can't blame them for wanting to question you.

Erika: No, I guess that's procedure.

Ohyama: But the strange condition of the body is confusing them.

Erika: ... I might as well not be saying anything, here.

Ohyama: And I thought, they can question all they like, but these police don't have the ability to figure out the truth about these "strange conditions".

Erika: You don't trust the police?

Ohyama: It would be a different story if this were still the Meiji era, where old and new were in conflict even as they were mixing, but now...


Ohyama: Well, my specialty is IT, but I like to put it like this:

"In this era, the darkness hiding the world's mysteries is growing thinner and thinner."

Ohyama: But in the place of the old tales, a new folklore has emerged: urban legends.


Ohyama: It's hard to define what an urban legend is exactly, but what separates them from the legends of olden times is that they can be spread through TV and the internet, so they can become much more widely known much more quickly.

They're still passed on by word of mouth, but it's important to note the modernization of the means of transmission.

That's where it intersects with my area of interest, Interdisciplinary Information Studies.

Erika: Inter-what, now?

Ohyama: Well, then, let's try to make some sense of your experiences.

Erika: It started about two days ago...

Ohyama: I see.. you got the game from Odaka two days ago.

When you played the game, the characters were sacrificing something that looked like Odaka.

Then... the real Odaka drowned just as the sacrificed Odaka in the game did.

Ohyama: Is that a decent summary?

Erika: Yes, that sounds about right.


Ohyama: You asked me, is there a chance that the game really kills people?

The answer is... yes.

My theory is that people's spirits are just another form of media.

Erika: What's that supposed to mean?


Ohyama: To put it simply, if the electric signals used by digital meda and the signals that travel through human nerves to produce action are equivalent, then it should also be possible for there to be some physical connection using, for example, wireless LAN.

I am not 100% certain about this translation. This sentence was technobabbly and constructed in a rather convoluted manner. "Put it simply," indeed.


Ohyama: Newspapers, phones, e-mail, letters, photos, videotapes, radios, laptops -- all of these everyday things have been involved in so many cases of unnatural death that there's no time to list them all.

Erika: I've never heard of anything like that before now.

Ohyama: Whether ye know it or know it not, it happens.

Erika: I don't get the sudden shift into ye olde Japanese, but okay.

Ohyama: Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

Erika: Um, I guess so?


Ohyama: Through the medium of that handheld game system, I want you to look into this so-called "curse" or "haunting" and the deaths related to it.

Erika: Me?


Ohyama: I don't mean to impose, but your circumstances are a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me. Together I hope we can solve the riddle of this ga-

[TS beeps]


Ohyama: Oh... an e-mail...?

Erika: Wasn't mine.

Ohyama: It seems someone sent a message to my TS.

Erika: You've got one too? Wow, they really are everywhere...

Ohyama: Perfect timing. Erika, have you got your TS?

Erika: Yeah, I do.

Ohyama: Let's do some investigation.

Erika: What are we investigating?

Ohyama: To tell the truth, the police requested that I do it. They've entrusted me with the one Odaka had...

And it's best to have as large a sample as possible.

Erika: Okay, I'll help with... whatever it is.

Ohyama: Thanks. I'll let you go soon.

Ohyama: Before I report to the police station... okay, I'll tell you.

Erika: Tell me what?

Ohyama: You know, I'm really more interested in unravelling the mystery around this game than I am in solving the case.

Erika: That was what you wanted to report?


Ohyama: Right now I've got three TSes on hand: yours, Odaka's, and that of another victim. These three all have one address in common in their connection records.

Do you know which of these addresses it is? Take a guess.

Odaka's records

1518544.ts.ip
249.ts.ip
iwasei.ts.ip
jiq-sogo.ts.ip
matsu.ts.ip
ricorico.ts.ip
saka-a.ts.ip
se1ro.ts.ip

I have no idea how you're supposed to figure this out before you've seen all three records, but the correct answer is jiq-sogo.

Now that we've already had to choose, we get to see the other two:

Houki's records

1518544.ts.ip
a-tomoya.ts.ip
jiq-sogo.ts.ip
kuwa.ts.ip
kyon-ko.ts.ip
s-masay.ts.ip
tetsuzy.ts.ip
t-taka.ts.ip

Erika's records

249.ts.ip
f-odaka.ts.ip
hemmy.ts.ip
jiq-sogo.ts.ip
key.ts.ip
oka-pyon.ts.ip
ricorico.ts.ip
ten.ts.ip

There's no penalty for doing it wrong; you just have to do it again, and it's easy the second time around. It's kind of a pointless puzzle.


Ohyama: That's right. The game is always transmitted from that address.

Jikyuu General Hospital.

It was all over the news about... four years ago, when some really disgusting illegal activities came to light and it had to close its doors.

Erika: Now that you mention it, it does ring a bell...

Ohyama: A place like that shouldn't be transmitting games...

A hospital that shut down four years ago...

So someone needs to go check this location out.

Erika: And by someone you mean me?

Ohyama: If the urban legend is true and Odaka's death really was caused by that game, you've got five days left.

Odaka's death might have been a coincidence. But there's a possibility that it wasn't.

I believe it.

Erika: Which one?

Ohyama: I believe that that game...

... is cursed.

Ohyama: First you should go to Jikyuu General Hospital. There should be some traces of the game's transmission there.

From now on, if I learn anything, I'll send a message to your TS. Please read them and don't just go charging blindly into things.

Okay, Erika?

Erika: Cursed game, transmission traces, no blind charging. Got it.


[Jikyuu Sougou Hospital]

Erika: How am I supposed to find "traces of the game's transmission"?

Video #9: The Abandoned Hospital

This time it's not an e-mail, though -- it's telling us to go into the game world. When we do, though, we just see this picture:



Then we return to the real world.

Video #10: Regrets

Next time on Let's Play Nanashi no Game, we run away a lot. For a certain definition of "run".

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