counter in JST... And... The gun was fired on the 9th of November, at 11:30 PM, 02 seconds. Shigemura-kun’s sudden disappearance from the show, at 11:30 PM, 15 seconds.” “...Just a coincidence right.” I said, as I moved my second plate in front of me. Taking a spoon-full of some tea-colored cylindrical thing, I brought it to my mouth. At once, its coldness surprised me. If it were a type of cake, it’d be an ice-cream cake, I thought. With sweetness that was barely contained, the densely packed chocolate essence began to unfurl, overpowering the bitter taste of the conversation that Kikuoka had started. I polished off a third into my stomach and continued from where I had left off. “Becoming the top ranked player of GGO would naturally cause others to hate him and envy him beyond the degree found in other VRMMOs. To shoot the actual person might require a lot of bravery, but it’s not very strange for the TV image to have been shot at.” “Yes, however, there was another incident.” “...What?” My spoon-hand froze, and I looked up into Kikuoka’s unchanging poker face. “This time, it happened just about 10 days ago, on the 28th of November. A dead body was found in the unit of a 2-story apartment building in Ômiya Ward, Saitama City, Saitama prefecture. A newspaper seller thought he was being ignored as the unit’s lights were still on, despite there being no answer, he tried the door knob