Project: Death for Classroom Zero

Zero 54: The Jack Was Killed

“The heck,” having a hard time figuring the system of codes that was used in the message, Tristan muttered a curse. He was frustrated. For five minutes, he has been trying to decipher the code from the clues that he have gathered. However, no matter what method he use, it seemed that it does not fit in finding the real message, encrypted behind those numbers.

Tammy’s suffering scream at the background was still as horrifying as the first time he had heard it. To find a time for focus was a challenge, but … incredibly, he was able to manipulate his attention. For a normal person, that kind of scream coming out from an always afraid human, would cause their attention to break. What’s worse is that they may just forget the set of numbers that they have hardly memorized inside their mind.

However, Tristan was incredibly different among them. Despite the distractions, his mind was able to withhold the unbelievable set of numbers as a clue.

He sighed, and then with calmness, he started to recite the set of numbers serving as the clue:

4,4—2,3—1,5—2,5—2,4—3,3—2,3—2,4—4,3—3,3—3,4—4,4—3,4—1,4—2,4—3,3.

“Okay, let me recall the clue that I’ve got so far: the way these numbers was placed in the chessboard-like floor was similar to the positive section of a Cartesian plane. The first number before the comma being the numbers on the X-axis while the number after the comma is the Y. In short, just like the floor, it was just a table which a specific meaning was hidden behind,” he said. “But … what could those specific meaning could be?” he asked himself.

He knew that the very close possibility that he can have was the fact that he could base those numbers with equivalence to a specific letters in the English alphabet. Indeed, it was a close and realistic possibility. After all, most of the cipher codes was just a formula to hide the real letters that it bears, to create a message.

However, Tristan found it not fitting.

In the English Alphabet, there are twenty six letters recorded, but looking at the table, it was only a set of five-by-five—meaning that it only has twenty five slots; one letter less to the English alphabet.

0-----1-----2-----3-----4-----5

1-----A-----B-----C-----D-----E

2-----F-----G-----H-----I------J

3-----K-----L-----M-----N----O

4-----P-----Q-----R-----S-----T

5-----U-----V----W-----X-----Y

6-----Z

--

Imagining the table, he could easily tell that if he will follow placing the letters on every slots, one of it will be misplaced, and it would naturally ruin the thought of a five-by five table. Not giving up with the idea, however, he tried using the table in place of letters even with one overlap. He tried using the clue he got about the X and Y axis: 1,1 is letter A; 1,2 is letter B, and so on …

However, what he got is a weird, incomprehensive message: SHEJIMHIRMNSMDIM

That is the message he got when he followed the set of numbers that the white light has given off as a clue, earlier.

He quickly dismissed the possibility of letter in place of the table, because every result that he got was purely stupidity.

“Come on, please … I need to decode the message as soon as possible,” he said. “what am I missing? Are there some vital thing which I haven’t realized? Or are there clues still that I am missing?”

The whole floor was illuminating in red light. The brightness of the light is another factor for him to be distracted, aside from the screams of his groupmates. This time, it was now Amara who was screaming and begging to end that suffering she was having.

Eager to work the problem, Tristan kept on analyzing the letters and the clues just to find the real message. It was hard to do, but he was the only hope of his groupmates.

Now with another sigh, he decided to give up. No, not on solving the problem, but on his ego that he could solve the problem with just those clues. He believes that there is another clue that was buried in the place, waiting to be unveiled.

Or maybe not. Sometimes, the answer was just right on to someone’s front, but because it was too obvious to see that it seemed like the usual, it would mostly be highly ignored—especially in the case of Tristan.

On the screen-like wall, the ticking-down timer could be seen by Tristan. Below that moving time, is a reminder that he had already seen, but has entirely forgotten in the whole time he has been trying to solve the code.

“Remember: The rank below the queen was killed,” Tristan read. He was sure that it was another clue—a kind of clue that was long been exposed, but was ironically ignored. “But if it was, what could be the queen and the ‘rank’ that it was telling about?”

If talking to the noble rankings, a Queen is with a higher position than Prince/Princess, and Dukes and Dutchess—but could that be a possible clue in solving the problem?

“Was this connected to the first message that we got from last time?” Tristan asked himself. Indeed, it can be possibly connected, because the message they got on their first deciphering was; “Take the throne out her head because the Princess is dead.”

Now, in this deciphering activity, the word ‘Queen’ was mentioned. Yet, for Tristan, something still feels off—as if those things were highly connected, but not.

Until he remembered that it was not just the prince and the princess who was, on the record is below the ranking of the Queen.

Realizing the clue, Tristan’s chest pounded hard. Something of a bright light were as if stricken on his mind. Little by little, while staring at the void space, eyes are wide in shock and thrill, he was forming an answer—he was now forming the message that has been difficultly ciphered inside this room.

“It was not just the Princess or the Prince, or the duke or whatever in the royal system who is below the queen. Jack is also below the Queen,” he said.

Yes, the Jack on the Solitaire Cards; the Jack of hearts, spade, clover or diamond.

The Jack was killed.