Kusuriya No Hitorigoto - Volume 7, Chapter 9-2

[T/N: Yeah, okay. That didn’t take long at all xD Good job, guys!]

Here’s the second part of the chapter.

Maomao looked at the map and checked the placement of the paperweights.

(!?)

Maomao checked the details she had recorded just then.

She looked at each of the testimonies; the oldest son, the second son, and the third son.

“Maomao, what’s wrong?”

“What are your thoughts when you read this?”

She showed Yao the description. Mostly the part about the thunder.

“…hm? Isn’t it kind of strange?” Yao studied the eldest son’s description. “En’en, take a look. Isn’t it strange? The order here is different, right?”

Putting the eldest son’s descriptions together: “After the sky lit up, the evening bell rang, and the thunder followed.”

“Ah, this one too.”

The second son’s description had: “The sky lit up at the same time the bell rang, and then there was the violent sound of thunder.”

“Only this one is consistent. But we don’t know when the evening bell rang.”

The third son’s description had: “After the sky lit up, there was thunder that resembled the earth tremoring about four to five seconds later.”

“Could the eldest son and second son be lying?”

“No, that’s not it.” Maomao refuted Yao’s words.

(I see, is that how it is?)

Maomao looked at Dad.

Dad, with a gentle expression, seemed to be looking to see if the three of them had arrived at the answer.

“At least, two people have not lied.”

If Rihaku’s words are to be believed. It seems even though the large breed dog never got his turn, he provided them with some interesting information indeed.

The triplets will not cover for one another.

With that in mind, aside from the one who made a move on Boku’s younger sister, if they didn’t have a guilty conscience, they had no reason to lie.

In that case.

“Maomao, please explain what it all means,” En’en asked.

Maomao looked at Dad softly. Dad smiled, “Please explain.”

Hearing that, Maomao didn’t want to provide the wrong answer. She took a deep breath. She organised her mind to explain in a way that was easy to understand.

“Yao-san and En’en, do you know how far or close the thunder was?”

“Something like that, sound comes after light…” Yao is also inherently a bright child. With some prompting, she realised the answer. “What you’re saying is, the closer the lighting is, the faster we hear the sound?”

Dad nodded. “Along with that, the louder the sound, the closer it is.”

Yao compared the descriptions by the three people.

Her brows knitted together. “I don’t know the chronological order. The thunder aside, the sound of the bell is mismatched.”

She also understood the reason for the confusion.

However, Maomao thought of it like this:

“If the timing of the thunder depends on distance, wouldn’t the same logic apply for the bell sound?”

If that were the case, she understood why the two sounds were heard in that order

With that in mind, only one person’s descriptions stood out as odd.

“Was it the second son? If he were at home during the thunder yesterday, it would be a contradiction.”

En’en ascertained the position of the yellow, red and navy stones with her finger.

“It’s an estimated distance, but if he were at home, it would be strange for him to hear the bell at around the same time as the lightning.”

The location of the bell was far from the house where the second son was. It was around the same distance away as the lodgings Maomao and the others stayed in, so the sound should be delayed by a couple of seconds after the flash.

And yet, if he had heard it at roughly the same time…

“The place where the second son was…”

It was not far from where the red paperweight was placed.

The testimony about the thunder wasn’t a lie specifically. That became his downfall.

In other words, it ended up being the place where Boku’s sister was called out by one of the triplets.

““….”” Maomao and the others looked at Dad.

Did Dad ask them that initially with this in mind?

(Who determines someone’s location by sound?)

It was utterly inconceivable.

Even the other party didn’t think of such a thing, having honestly given their testimony about the thunder.

“Well then, there’s also the secretary’s notes. I’ll go to Boku-san’s place and gift him with this. Of course, there’s a chance that the culprit will be unreasonable regardless.”

Hup, Dad stood up.

“…why is such an amazing person a eunuch?”

Maomao silently agreed with the words Yao suddenly uttered, as Dad, who had a bad leg, supported his body.

For the insolent individuals who caused Dad to fall over, he went on to request for all of them, not just the second son, to receive punishment.