As for the contents of the Dreamer Incident, it wasn't without reason that the police suspected Hirano Yuji had eaten Igarashi Mari—because Igarashi Mari really did enter Hirano Yuji's body.
Perhaps the prototype the story drew its material from was a cannibalism incident.
Of course, a prototype is a prototype and a story is a story; in this world there really was a Sandman, and its curse let the Hirano Yuji of the Dream World replace the Hirano Yuji of the real world.
The corners of Amamiya Rin's mouth lifted slightly, a rare excitement hidden in his eyes.
Though he did feel a bit sorry toward the victims in this file.
But Amamiya Rin really was happy right now.
Because there was finally a clue!
For Hirano Yuji, the Sandman's curse was undoubtedly a catastrophe... well, not necessarily—he had entered the Dream World together with his girlfriend.
It was awful, but compared to everyone else still alive in this world, doomed to live through at least five apocalypses, it might even be a good thing.
In any case, for Amamiya Rin, who could stay lucid within dreams, this was tremendously good news!
Once he could use the Sandman's curse to swap his dream-self with his real-self, the Long Dream would no longer be a curse to Amamiya Rin, but a blessing!
(I'm right!)
Amamiya Rin murmured inwardly.
In the vast sea of people, trying to find the Sandman's curse while relying only on himself and the Tomies would undoubtedly be like headless flies bumping around everywhere.
Having tapped into Indou Ranko's line, there was no need to waste time at all—he could just come and check the files directly.
As he thought this, Amamiya Rin glanced at the rest of the file.
Because there was no evidence...? So it was a forced confession under torture?
After the conviction, since no physical evidence could be found, in the end he could only be given a light sentence—a fixed term of 3 years' imprisonment. At present, Hirano Yuji was still serving time in prison.
Having confirmed Hirano Yuji's location, Amamiya Rin didn't linger long in the Police History Compilation Office; he bid farewell to Indou Ranko and the other two, then hurried out of the Metropolitan Police Department.
However, Amamiya Rin didn't go to visit the prison right away, nor did he go home; instead, he stepped into an internet café.
He booted up the machine, logged into his email, and with a light tap of his finger on the mouse, an unread message unfolded before him.
A reply from the Murata Shinro Counseling Office—precisely the fruit of the appointment he'd booked yesterday.
The office had already accepted the appointment, tentatively set for two-thirty in the afternoon. The content was concise and clear at a glance.
After reading it through, Amamiya Rin leaned back against the chair, a more relaxed expression surfacing on his face.
The appointment was a success; the next step was to go meet this genius hypnotist whom Professor Matsuura called a monster, and find a way to obtain his guidance.
As for Hirano Yuji, his identity and location had already been confirmed, so there was no need to be in such a hurry.
He'd apply for a prison visit later, and then, to make sure he could hear the truth from Hirano Yuji's own mouth, he'd first raise his own mastery of Hypnosis.
Come to think of it, the application process for a prison visit seemed to take a certain amount of time; he'd decide then whether to go through Indou Ranko's connections, or...
Amamiya Rin closed the webpage, cleared the browsing history, and got up to leave.
Back home, settling into the sofa, Amamiya Rin took out his notebook and flipped through a few pages; laid out before him were exactly the events he'd been through during this stretch of time.
[Slit-Mouthed Woman, handled.][Vampire, handled.][Flesh-colored monster, handled.][The Group, handled.][The Long Hair in the Attic, pending.][The Hanging Balloons, pending, solution found.][The Prime-Time Ghost, pending.][Long Dream, pending, solution found.][Ju-On, pending.][Apology Demon, pending.]
Having added a few entries, looking over his diary, Amamiya Rin couldn't help feeling a certain sense of unreality, along with a measure of accomplishment.
How long had it even been? Had he already come into contact with this many special incidents? And already resolved this many of them, too.
"Once the Long Dream is solved, it'll be the same as escaping the inevitable death-end."
Amamiya Rin muttered to himself.
With the other curses, at worst he could run for it; only the Long Dream was impossible to escape. Once the threat of the Long Dream was resolved, he'd truly be like a bird free in the boundless sky, a fish leaping in the open sea.
At this thought, Amamiya Rin relaxed all over, and the fatigue accumulated in his body, along with the drain from last night's brief skirmish, all surged up together.
Amamiya Rin didn't force it down; he closed his eyes to rest, evened out his breathing, entered Dhyana, sorted through his own condition, and prepared for the afternoon's visit.
(So, does that mean you can't go work out with me today?)
Flesh-Mod Tomie's regretful thought drifted through Amamiya Rin's mind.
(Not today... if I really can resolve the threat of the Long Dream and obtain the Sandman's curse at the same time, then working out doesn't need to be rushed.)
Amamiya Rin's emotional fluctuations had already dropped to their lowest, but because a certain possibility occurred to him, his mind grew active again.
(Work out inside the dream? Then swap the dream-body out? Get decades' worth of dream gains directly?)
Flesh-Mod Tomie sensed Amamiya Rin's thoughts.
In an instant, her emotions turned into towering, crashing waves, rolling through the [Tomie Network].
(You can do that?! Isn't that cheating?)
Flesh-Mod Tomie, as her name suggests, had a head full of muscle, so she hadn't realized before just how off-the-charts the Sandman's curse was; now, after Amamiya Rin's reminder, she caught on in a flash.
A way of playing like this was just too cheap!
Decades in a single dream—if she really could work out inside the dream and then carry the gains back out, wouldn't her physique be boosted several hundredfold overnight?
Even several thousandfold?
Even Tomie, who had always believed the world ought to revolve around her, found this a little too absurd at the moment.
(Why not? Hmm, actually it's not as outrageous as you imagine. Setting aside whether compression tools would even work in the Dream World—those aren't proper fitness equipment after all—even if they did work, gym equipment has its limits. If your physique were boosted another few dozen times over, that equipment would probably be useless, wouldn't it?)
On this matter, though, Amamiya Rin wasn't as worked up as Flesh-Mod Tomie.
Cheating? Hacking? Absurd? Cheap?
In Junji Ito's worldview, what did any of that even amount to?
Did those two—Ago, who scattered their souls into tens of millions of copies and controlled the audience through electromagnetic waves—did they cheat?
Did Aizawa Yuuma, who could wipe out all of humanity through a live TV broadcast with a single apology—was he hacking?
Is Tomie, reborn from a single drop of blood, absurd?
Is Hellstar Remina, which devours the Earth like a snack, cheap?
This world is full of either stat-monsters or mechanic-monsters; compression training wouldn't necessarily raise a person's physique to Spider-Man's level—at most to a Captain America.
Put Captain America in this utterly rotten world—how long could he last? Without knowing the plot, one careless slip and he'd be thoroughly dead; even his 'fifty-fifty' power would be of no use.
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