Body Swapping in the Virtual World (DRV3 Ch4)
So this was first brought to my attention by this little interaction with Maki during the Ch4 investigation in the Virtual World:
Maki... Smiling? With a cute, cheery sprite? It’s kinda OOC for her, isn’t it?
Maybe it’s not a lot, but it was enough to really catch me off guard the first time I saw it, and make me wonder if the one controlling that avatar is really Maki.
But that’s not enough to make any kind of theory out of, so let’s instead look at one of the biggest liars of Chapter 4:
So in Kaito’s account, he says that he was logged out involuntarily and didn’t know if it was okay to log back in, so he went back to his room to take a nap. He was later awoken by the body discovery announcement and rushed back to the computer room.
And that would be a acceptable story, except...
For this case, the body discovery announcement was live.
I will be fair and say that I’m pretty sure the “ding-dong dong-ding” chime still played, but even so, there was no announcement on the monitors. But Kaito still came charging into the computer room specifically referring to the “Body Discovery Announcement” alerting him.
Kaito should have no idea that there’s a body, but for some reason, he does—that itself is incredibly suspicious. He even later says, by his own account, that he didn’t check Miu’s condition when he woke up, which now seems like another lie.
But that doesn’t mean he was logged in as someone else, it just means he’s being hiding something, so let’s look at another conversation.
This is when they’re discussing finding the signboard stuck on the rocks in the river:
Uh... Why was this question directed at Kaito?...
By this point in the investigation, Kaito had already said multiple times that he had been logged out early, and Kaito’s avatar was definitely not present at the time they found the bridge in the river.
So Ouma would have no reason to direct this question at Kaito unless he had strong suspicions that Kaito was still logged in at the time. And the only way he could be logged in and present at that moment, would be if he were logged into someone else’s avatar.
At Kaito’s silence here, Ouma goes on to say this:
So talking about the bridge would’ve been bad for Kaito. Hm. It shouldn’t be if he was logged out and napping at the time... so what was he actually doing?
How else would he know anything about the bridge on the rocks in the river unless he was logged in as someone else and there to see it?...
If Kaito were logged into someone else’s avatar, he could log out as whoever he was, sneak out of the computer room while everyone was panicking over the body, and stage his grand entrance into the room. Given the lies he told in his accounts, something like this probably did happen. I don’t know exactly who he was logged in as, but this would be easier to perform with one of the avatars that logged out early, like Kiibo’s, Maki’s, Himiko’s, or... maybe even Gonta’s. But that’s a theory for another day.
Anyway, that’s primarily why Kaito’s suspicious, but another suspicious person brought into question comes from Kiibo’s account.
Oh, did she?... Logged out right after you, huh?
Himiko should be right after Kiibo. Remember, only one person can log out at a time. And even if you don’t trust the logs, you can see that her avatar was definitely the one to log out right before Gonta’s.
So it seems the avatars match up with the logs, at least.
So that begs the question, why was Maki awake before Himiko? I’m sure the time between logouts isn’t a lot, maybe twenty seconds, but Himiko definitely should’ve gotten her helmet off and found the body in that time.
So how did Maki find it first? Why was she apparently awake before her avatar logged out?...
I’ll probably make a Part 2 to this at some point, as I couldn’t cover everything here.
