magna mater

“ Well suffice to say; There were still several loose ends that needed to be tied up. Not just related to what I did, but also the future of the facility and Seta-kun’s future. Although since this is my journal I should probably start with what’s happening with me first; 

Of course I didn’t get away completely blameless. Even if I turned over a new leaf and partnered up with some of the researchers to ends things peacefully there were still things that I had to take responsibility for. Mainly what happened to Yin-chan. Fortunately; She’s OK. Her recovery process was slow, but there’s no evidence of any long-term side effects to her time in the simulation and my meddling. I’m truly grateful for that.

...Still. Such carelessness ended with me getting fired. I also won’t be getting paid for the work I had done as an assistant researcher. While I’m still allowed to visit the facility and HQ I won’t be able to apply for any and all positions in S.T.A.R.S.

I’ll also have to get in contact with Yin-chan and my own families about the who debacle. Neither side is particularly thrilled with what happened, but I hope I’m at least able to set things right with Yin-chan’s family. My parents... can think what they want. I don’t think I’m going to be living with them for much longer regardless.

Finally... Well, before I even get to head home I’ll be taken to HQ in order to undergo several therapy sessions to make sure I’m not a danger to society. I did exhibit quite dangerous behaviour after all. This all feels pretty understandable (and as long as I don’t have to see Ran-chan again? It’ll certainly all be bearable.) At the very least no official charges are being pressed against me. After all of this is said and done it’ll eventually fade into obscurity. I’ll be free to live my life however I please.

Quite frankly I think I got off a little soft, but I certainly didn’t complain in the moment.

Onto Seta-kun. He’s being moved to a safe house along with Komaeda-chan in order to oversee his recovery. He suffered the worst out of all us, essentially a prisoner within his own subconscious and physically restrained for five years... The man needs a vacation. Speaking of, Komaeda-chan invited me to go on vacation with the two of them once Seta-kun could walk again. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it.

As for S.T.A.R.S itself, well, a few people were offered positions within HQ. Taro-kun who understandably denied the proposal (the boy has dreams of making it big as a... boy band member, after all) while Sonogami-chan and Liya-kun accepted the position gracefully. There were a few others, but those were the main three.

And that’s everything that transpired there. Well, not everything. As things seemed to be winding down there was, um, a commotion involving Matsuoka-chan’s brother and these two... women. They gave off a similar feeling as Seta-kun did, and they both definitely looked like trouble. One of them even punched Komaeda-chan.

I believe their names were... Rosario and Yeon-Ah. One was quiet but cold, the other was loud and extremely rude. Sort of glad they’re not my problem anymore. I’m sure S.T.A.R.S will be able to handle them without resorting to archaic methods again.

With all of this said... It’s time for me to leave this book with someone else. That someone being you, Matsuoka-chan. I want this to serve as a reminder to anyone who decides to work with S.T.A.R.S in the future that the virtual killing games are not a suitable method for rehabilitation. If I catch wind that someone in that organisation tries to bring up such a solution like that again, there’ll be Hell to pay.

Well, maybe not that extreme. I trust you’ll have it under control.

And one last thing, a personal message to you;

Thank you for everything you did for me. I dread to imagine what would’ve happened if you hadn’t stepped in. Would more people have gotten hurt? Would I have become what I was trying to stop? Would nothing change at all? I suppose there’s no use worrying about these things now, but I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about it anymore.

So here I am, signing off for the last time.

“ I do have to thank Sonogami-chan for sending me this out of the blue as it gives me a fairly solid idea on where I want to focus my next search now; I need to find out what this transcript details. I could ask her myself, but to be frank she’s been quite busy. Not only that but I managed to get a hold of the access code Saka-chan had been left with by Aikawa-kun and instructions on how to use it. Her notebook was just... so carelessly left out like that. Even Saka-chan herself seemed quite surprised that she had left it out, but fortunately I was spared any sort of verbal harassment as I quickly left her to whatever she had been doing. Probably celebrating on her own at the fact her plan to cause Karaju to retire went over so well not just with the subjects, but with us as well.

To be honest, I did get quite the kick out of watching Raiouji’s reaction to that.

Either way, it was time to enter the VR Chamber and get access to this game’s main files. Upon gaining access I noticed... a plethora of options to choose from. It was a bit much for someone like me really but I just handled things in the order that I found them.

[MM PROGRESSION]

This required a password that I didn’t have to get into. Figures the one thing they’d have decent security on was something like this.

[SUBJECT PROFILES]

Again, figures.

[SETTINGS AND PREFERENCES]

All I found were hundreds if not thousands of options relating to, well, pretty much every element within Primrose Castle. From changing the apple trees to lemons trees, changing the background music that played within the castle, even messing with Raiouji’s height...

...

I briefly mused with the idea of making him as tall as Shiva-kun, but thought better of it as I didn’t really want to waste any time or draw suspicion to myself.

[MISC.]

Clicking this option gained me access to several other options. 

[PAST MKGS]

Now this was interesting. This option gave me access to the ‘student rosters’ of all of the past killing games, including my own. There’s a lot of people that I still remember, fondly and otherwise, and I do hope that they’re all doing well for themselves now that they’ve put all of this behind us. As I imagined, the mastermind’s name is nowhere to be found and if it was here then I couldn’t tell you who it was. Whenever I think about who it could be I can feel my brain slow down to a crawl. Nothing comes up.

The most interesting thing was that I found out the identity of the founder of this place. Kazunari Aikawa.

Funny. He doesn’t look anything like I had envisioned. Perhaps I just have this image in my head of authority figures that I can’t quite get rid of. Either way I made a mental note of his name before moving on.

[PRIZES]

This tab detailed all of the prizes distributed so far throughout the killing game. From the list of names of us researchers to the key that Akishima-kun used to access the secret room. There were two other files amongst them.

[CARDKK.PNG] [TRANSCRIPTKK.TXT] 

It didn’t take me more than five seconds to figure out what these were. I read through the transcript first and once again made note of said transcript within this journal.

(Transcript link.)

As for CardKK.png, its all information that Sonogami-chan had briefed me on already. I had to wonder what ‘class’ meant so I went to check several other people’s ranks to make some form of concrete idea as to what it all meant.

What I found was my own rank was placed at E, which I’ll assume is the bottom of the totem pole here at S.T.A.R.S. Komaeda-chan and Woo-sama were both B, which I imagine details their position as though trusted by S.T.A.R.S. as a whole given their statuses as Head Researchers. Bunnag-kun was A, which I assume would denote whoever’s in charge of the facility and I couldn’t find Aikawa-kun’s rank, but I assume at some point he would’ve been A rank.

It’s all things I’ll have to think about later. I’m sure Komaeda-chan could answer that for me.

[PLAYLISTS]

All I found was Bunnag-kun’s mixtape again. It’s just as horrible as I remember, and I hope to never listen to it again otherwise I’ll end up burning this place to the ground. I already mused over that option once or twice anyway.

[PERMISSIONS] 

Obviously this isn’t something I could get access to or make any changes to, considering how low my rank is. It was time to move onto the last thing I could get access to.

[RECENT ACTIVITY] 

Suddenly I was bombarded with countless strings of code, all detailing different values and quite frankly I had no idea where to even start. Thankfully it looked as though as I could filter things based on names which is what I ended up doing. Most of the head researchers didn’t really mess with this too much, but Komaeda-chan had made several edits when the ghosts first appeared. Probably her best chance to do so, given how busy everyone was.

The most interesting thing is that she had marked all of the subjects as either ‘keep alive’ or ‘not final trial if possible’. The list goes as follows;

[Not Final Trial If Possible] = Ricardo, Yuu, Yahari, Hitomi [Keep Alive] = Airi, Azumaya, Cai, Mari, Hanae, Momo, Tsuguyo

It appears we share similar sentiments in not having Ricardo around for anything of too much import, but I don’t know if this will really change things or not.

She had also set several values to ‘ignore’, those values are;

>Cai.hmn ignore dislike.emo  >Cai.hmn ignore pity.emo >Gam.hmn ignore Airi.hmn >Mari.hmn ignore agony.emo >Takeshi.ght ignore Hanae.hmn 

I can tell you for certain that last one didn’t work, so clearly this is all just suggestion rather than set-in-stone values.

...

All of this just confirmed what my next move was to be. I had to get in contact with Komaeda-chan about all of this and soon. This could wait however, because of the time I am writing this it is quite late and I do plan on heading to bed as soon as I’ve finished writing this. There’s a lot that needs done tomorrow.

...

“ Alright, where was I? Oh. Right. The security robots.

Again these ones did not look like any of the prior robots that I had dealt with. I was going to have to think fast if I didn’t want to get caught, but I had very limited options at my disposal. They appeared to be light sensitive, so I decided to see if I could bait them with the flashlight. All they did was turn towards where the light was coming from, not where I was shining it. That was a bust.

The next option was trying to throw one of the caramels I had stolen to see if it would distract them. It... didn’t. They tore it to shreds immediately and it only made me even more scared frankly. So, letting go of all inhibitions, I turned on the flashlight one last time and threw it into the air. This actually got them to move, but in the span of ten seconds that too was torn to shreds...

...Not before illuminating the sign on that other door. ‘POWER’. The power room was just on the other side of the room.

Well, I suppose I’m not done investigating quite yet. While they were distracted I tried to get over there as discreetly as possible, but considering how out of the way it was I felt as if I had almost gotten spotted. I hadn’t, however, so I count it as a victory.

The problem here was that most of the things within this room were under lock and key. The only thing I had any real access to was a control panel with different sliders on it that controlled the power output to various rooms in the facility. Honestly I didn’t want to mess with anything there, but then I remembered something about the security robots...

“ Looks like they're specifically designed to react to abnormal intensities of light. “

So I was going to have to mess with the power. I didn’t really feel comfortable messing with anything still, but I figured maybe the VR Room (different from the VR Chamber where everyone was being held. I certainly wouldn’t mess with anything there) would be the place that would probably be what we could do without the least if I do mess anything up. So I started to turn up the power...

Once the power was past 60% I could hear the robots shifting a little. It was working. Although it sounded like they were all still there so I pushed it up even further, and further...

75%...

80%...

90%...

Until finally I hit the maximum power output. The robots all scrambled out of the archives and towards where the new massive light-source was. Wasting no time I quickly slipped out of the archives and back towards my room. The amount of relief I had felt once I had managed to get to safety was immeasurable and, right now while I’m writing this, am finding it hard to stay awake. I should probably get some sleep soon so that I can wake up early and turn down the power again. Hopefully nothing goes wrong in the time it takes me to set things back to normal.

...

“ The first thing my eyes were drawn to were the three drawers in the desk in front of me. I decided to start checking the left drawer first and all I found was a flashlight and a few rolls of electrical tape. A pretty barren drawer, but I took the flashlight since the only other light source I had on me was the light on my phone which doesn’t have the brightest of displays.

With that I would check the middle drawer next. It was filled with... candies? Coffee caramels, boiled jelly sweets and even M&Ms. It was a little perplexing to find a drawer filled with sweets, but seeing as I’m writing this while eating a handful of caramels that I had stolen from said drawer I wouldn’t exactly call it an unwelcome discovery. Was it risky? Yes, but I couldn’t help myself.

Quickly looking through the right drawer next I found that it was in utter disarray. Several messy notebooks and writing utensils stuffed in here along with a record book with a red cover and a young adult novel with a purple cover. Both were... useless to me to say the least. I couldn’t make hide nor tail of whatever was in the record book and the young adult’s novel’s content was...

“ It seems to be rather standard young adult fiction, featuring a milquetoast female teenager changing the world through revolution and making a mockery of the current ruling class. Great, it’s another one of these ‘bestsellers’. “

...It wasn’t my kind of read, we’ll just say that.

I’ll be honest I was a little perplexed at the complete lack of anything in any of the drawers, especially considering I distinctly remember there apparently being a security code book in the center drawer-

...

It was buried under all of the sweets. I missed it due to my own greed.

Well it turns out this wasn’t a security code book and moreso just another novel with the passwords tucked into the book’s outer sleeve. Someone here has horrible taste in fiction and I will have to educate them posthaste once I’m done with my work here. With passwords in hand it was time to start rooting through security footage for anything useful (note to self: current pw is MasterDivision52B).

The first thing that stood out to me was a document labelled HOTO. It appeared to be a modified Handover-Takeover document and I’ve taken the liberty of copying the contents and writing them down (with my own notes) in the back of this journal 

HOTO.DOC (Yuko’s notes will be in pink.)

A lot of important information, first and foremost being that the Mastermind is most likely male. That doesn’t leave too many options, now that I think about it. This will make my job infinitely easier at any rate. The other pressing matter being this apparent backdoor access code that Saka-chan has access to. While I’m not quite sure what I would do with such a code I’m definitely going to see if I can get a hold of it just in case I do come up with something. My mind is in too many places at once right now to come up with a plan.

Anyways, next was security footage. There was nothing I could find that was particularly interesting prior to my own arrival to the facility this year. There was one file that was of particular interest to me, one that had Komaeda-chan on the thumbnail. Unfortunately there was no audio, but with the angle I was able to figure out some of the things they were saying and managed to piece together a close approximation of what I believe was being said. It took... a lot of re-looking over footage, but I did what I could.

The video footage shows the inside of the VR chamber as all five of the higher-ups were gathered around an empty pod. I can only assume this is the pod that Komaeda-chan used when she entered the fifth killing game.

MEI: Having second thoughts, Kotori-chan? Again, if you’re not sure, I can go in and be the first murderer instead. They’re not going to notice anything different, and I admit I’m just a little curious what my execution was always meant to be. 

KOTORI: It’s fine, Mei-san. I’m ready to go in, I’m just trying to motivate myself up for when people start hating Kokoro-koro straight away. 

MANJU: You’re the one who picked the all-seeing all-knowing fortune teller, dumbass. 

KOTORI: Yeah, well, I like being able to keep their focus away from him until it’s necessary, dipshit, we all can’t be mastermind-outsmarting geniuses like you-

YU-BIN: Calm down, you two. Manju, no unnecessary insults. Kotori, work on your sarcasm until it doesn’t sound like you’re trying to actively insult her. 

SUCHART: Or any of us, for that matter. We’ll keep you posted via the birds if anything needs to be changed or something. 

SUCHART: Just don’t be surprised if we die early on. Or violently. I’m looking for max impact, and we only have so many ways to die and leave an impression. 

KOTORI: Yeah, yeah… I guess I’m just feeling the pre-simulation jitters. I know what I have to be like, but it doesn’t make it any easier getting into the role.

KOTORI: And there’s a non-zero chance someone’s gonna take me at my word and kill me in the basement before I can explain I’m joking so... fun! Remind me why we’re going down the violent route again, since it’s going to end up damaging a whole lot of them clowns? 

YU-BIN: Because while it’ll damage people, sometimes to the point of no return... But it’s the best chance we have this time around. Let’s push them to the limit and see what develops. 

SUCHART: What she said. All in favour?

Everyone rose their hands. Matsuoka-chan and Komaeda-chan seemed... apprehensive though. They exchanged awkward glances before Komaeda-chan got into the pod. That doesn’t matter right now though. Taking another quick look at the footage I found that...

...Oh. The most recent file is me inside of the archives. This is bad.

So, obviously, I’m no video editing genius so all I could really do was copy an earlier timestamp onto this current file and just pray nobody takes too close a look at it. With how negligent they’ve been thus far however I imagine that it will probably suffice for the time being. With that; It was time to head out.

That’s when I see the cleaning robots have started to move towards the archives, and these ones looked... Far more heavy duty than the other ones.

“ The third motive has rolled around; Peoples’ loved ones are getting killed at regular intervals in order to spark them to murder.

It’s... an utterly awful incentive. Effective, but I can’t help but feel that perhaps things are escalating far too quickly within the simulation. My memory of my own killing game is still hazy, but I don’t remember our game having such awful motives tied to it. The bloodshed, the tears spilled over the loss of those close to you... What was all of this for anyway? If this is to rehabilitate someone with the Mastermind Gene then why put innocent people through such awful tests?

I needed to find out more, and find out more is what I did.

Everyone was pretty busy today. Bunnag-kun and Woo-sama were both giving each other that ‘look’ again, so they were probably going to be preoccupied. Sakura-chan arranged a sleepover with Matsuoka-chan and Komaeda-chan and Saka-chan was, fortunately, quite ill. It was time to head to the security office which required me to head to the archives. Normally this would’ve been a daunting task, but with Manju out of the picture for now it wasn’t as nerve-wracking as I believed it was going to be.

Of course just because there were no humans about didn’t mean that there were no security robots. Fortunately the ones patrolling outside the archives were easily turned away with Suchart’s secret code; “Leave us lovebirds be.”

And leave me be they did. Although I could’ve sworn one of them started to play a few notes from that one George Michael song at me. Horrific.

The insides of the archives were, well, what I was expecting really. There were... too many files to count really but I thought I might as well look through some of them while I was there. I had time, and I was quite nosy. Besides there was always the chance I could stumble upon some useful information within them. And so I read a fair few of them, and I found what I was looking for. Not just information;

But dirt on this whole organisation.

“ Picking a couple of the files at random, she reads: 

 - the first mutual killing game appears to have taken place exclusively in the dungeons, which were much bigger at the time to accommodate sixteen people. Suchart Bunnag was noted as a clear favourite by someone with the initials K.A. and was hence offered an internship. 

 - the second mutual killing game was the first one where people applied to join the simulations as opposed to being recruited or offered a job to be their test subjects. about thirty applications were reduced to ten, and it seems as if Yu-Bin Woo was one of those applicants. 

 - the third mutual killing game was the first one where the mastermind was not identified at the end, since it ended early with the fifth trial after Manju Saka successfully got away with murdering Mei Matsuoka. 

 - the fourth mutual killing game had a betting ring to see which ones of the students would survive. It appears as if the same K.A. won big by betting that Takeshi Taro would make it to the endgame, against all odds. -  There's also detailed sketches and breakdowns of other mutual killing game locations, with one of the most well-received apparently being the Primrose Palace. Other ideas that have been shelved for later include an amusement park, a school campus and a very, very long train. It also appears as if the one idea featuring an airship was shot down almost unanimously. “

A... betting ring?

An organisation that holds itself as something important to the progress of mankind, one that’s sole goal is to help rid the world of Oshiro-chan’s reign and bring humanity out of it’s darkest age... Organised a betting ring while replicating that which their sworn enemy used to kill hundreds of innocent people? The very thought of this made me so angry that I almost dropped the file due to my hands shaking so much. I had to put that anger aside for now though. I can’t let me emotions get to me. Besides, there was something else that was important within those files; 

The initials ‘K.A.’. Likely another higher up in S.T.A.R.S, but I made a mental note of it just to be safe since they appear to have been around longer than even Bunnag-kun. It was time to head to the security room at any rate. It was at the back of the archives room so I quickly made my way there just in case any security robots made their way there. There was another door there as well but I couldn’t make out what the sign on it said considering it was at the end of a dark hallway.

So I entered the security room, and... Well, it certainly looked like one. I’ll be honest I was surprised that it was just unlocked like that. Did someone forget to lock it after being in there? I was half expecting someone to be in there waiting but... no. Completely empty. Oh well. It makes my job easier, at any rate.

“  The security office is a pretty spacious room despite most of it being taken up by monitors. The main console occupies the centre of the room with computer access, while wires which are attached to the main port connect the hard drive to the dozen screens that broadcast what is happening within the facility at any one time. Only the main console appears to be situated on a desk with three drawers - the other monitors are all attached to the walls or windows and held in place by clear plexiglass boxes, likely to protect against uncleanliness. “

“ There are... far too many places to check here for cleaning robots.

I tried the pool first, but the only one there was at an angle where it would’ve clearly spotted me. It was far too risky. The second place I checked was the infirmary, my own work station, and I found...

Two roombas. Snuggled together and making soft beeping noises. It was, admittedly, a cute sight. I tried to use that to my advantage but one of them could hear me coming, so that was too risky as well.

Next was the kitchen. No roombas, but I did see a kettle left to boil on it’s own. It was a definite safety hazard and I was quick to turn it off the heat. However I was not quick enough to avoid a confrontation with one of the head researchers of this facility; Mei Matsuoka. Fortunately it’s not exactly suspicious for me to be up so late, so it was just a case of friendly banter before I hurriedly left the scene before she saw me as suspicious.

MEI :  "Oh, hello there, Yuko-san. Can't sleep?"

YUKO :   "Ah, Matsuoka-sama."

YUKO :  "Apologies. I've been having some trouble sleeping, only to come to the kitchen and... I saw a kettle left unattended."

MEI :  "Oh. Yeah, that was me, oops. I ducked back out to grab my mug since the kitchen's not that far from my room."

MEI :  "If you'd like to join me for some hot chocolate, I'll probably be here for a while. Hope you get some sleep soon though."

YUKO :  "Ah- I'll pass for now."

YUKO :  "I didn't mean to intrude on your private time in the first place, and... I probably should've stayed in my room. My energy is, quite truly, running low at the moment. "

MEI :  "Mmhmm. Thank you for all your hard work nonetheless, and don't worry about it too much."

That was far too close for comfort, we’ll just say that much. I got out of there as soon as the conversation ended. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something about Matsuoka-chan is a little more than unsettling. Perhaps it’s just how I’ve always viewed superiors, as she’s quite a nice girl. It’s a shock that we’re the same age...

Anyway, that’s not what is important. After that encounter I made my way towards the Meeting Room.

This would be where I find what I’m looking for. A distracted cleaning bot that I could safely turn off and test the override code on. I wasn’t... entirely sure what I could even ascertain from a simple cleaning robot but if there were this many safety mechanisms put in place then there has to be something of value to be found here, right?

Well I did something. A bunch of code I could barely read. Not sure what I was expecting. Although there were two things in the code that I could understand. Don’t exactly need a degree in programming in order to know what [security.pw] and [register.vc] would contain, so I started with the contents of the security data.

“ The Roomba Type 76 in the STARS facility uploads any suspicious video footage to the main security database in the office at the back of the archives. The latest security password should be updated in the hardbacked purple book in the centre drawer there. “

So I’ll have to check the archives at some point... If I run into Saka-chan at all I think that might spell the literal end for me. No more waking up from a pod and being offered an internship at a secret facility. Now for the voice registry...

“ Currently, the verbal override to force a Roomba to avoid the area it is in is 'leave us lovebirds be'. You may, however, register a new set of words to that effect; whenever it is said, any Roombas in the general area will make themselves scarce. “

This man is seriously starting to test my limited patience.

It didn’t matter. I got what I needed and I was ready to make my next move. It was time to the head to the archives...

...Well, that is, until I almost had a run into Matsuoka-chan again. She was on the phone to someone, talking about the new researchers (including myself I would assume) and I suppose just keeping in contact with those on the outside that were near and dear to her. With that close encounter avoided I just decided to call it a night. Too many close calls for one day.

I suppose it’s... kind of ironic that I’m planning something like this only for the head researchers to put so much faith not only in me but the others. I just hope they won’t be too disappointed by efforts to dismantle this operation.

...

“ While Taro-kun was busy getting himself utterly destroyed in that silly VR game of his I decided to take a read of the notes that were given to him by Bunnag-kun. He probably wouldn’t care if I did, seeing as he’s probably not even read them himself. Most of it was information detailing to the cleaning robots located throughout the facility;

>Model Specifications 

The Type-76 Roomba is a silent and industrious work robot, patented by Bunnag Industries as the next step in household cleaning and home security. With its semi-autonomous AI and voice-detecting capabilities, it can act as both maid and mercenary, patrolling your floors to keep you safe and others away with a trusty built-in BB gun. Disclaimer: Bunnag Industries are not responsible for any pet injuries sustained due to accidental misfire by the Roomba.

Fantastic. The roombas are armed and have security cameras within them. This makes my job infinitely harder. Although this certainly seems like the sort of thing Bunnag-kun would do, the salacious bastard as he’s quite childish in that regard. Anyway, moving on with the other information I’ve found;

>Development Notes (note to self; pw: yubinwoo)

December 14, 2XXX. The final prototype has been finished, and service tests have shown it to be in proper working condition. My investors are asking for a failsafe though, as if they somehow believe it can be hacked into or used in some way. I have to appease them though, so I entered in her full name as an override password. Because my darling can override me any time~

For a moment I regretted ever learning how to read. Why is he like this? Who writes professional documents like this? It’s ridiculous. This does contain useful information however. The other two sections of the manual were just cleaning instructions and a database on the different phrases the cleaning robots can say.

Still; this is all quite pertinent information and it meant I would be able to make a move soon. It was time...