The Incite Mill
Honobu Yonezawa
What does the title mean?
Warning: The following includes spoilers.
When you look up “incite,” you find it means to provoke, stir up, urge on, agitate, tempt, stimulate, encourage, according to Weblio! It sounds like it’s pronounced more like “insight”… The word seems fitting in meaning, but maybe it’s not quite right…
As for “mill,” it refers to a flour mill, watermill, grinder, milling machine, factory, workshop, or a place where things are mechanically produced, also from Weblio!
This just makes me more confused… A mill that incites, stirs up, agitates, tempts, stimulates, encourages? None of these seem to make sense. The cover says “THE INCITE MILL,” but the pronunciation is different, and it might be a mislead? Could it actually mean something else like “trying to in” or “attempting to inn”? Still, it doesn’t seem to make sense… The title remains the biggest mystery…
I understood the part about the Indian doll, but not much else… Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had read more classic mysteries? Other mysteries often mention old authors too, maybe I should start reading them.
So, Mr. Yuki was the detective! There wasn’t much indication of him deducing anything, and for a while, it seemed like the story might progress without a detective… But the unexpected developments were nice!
Was Ms. Suwana more on the master’s side? It didn’t seem like she was explicitly in cahoots with the master, but she appeared to know the situation, right? What exactly was being delayed…? It seems like they really wanted investment money, but the purpose of a single experiment is unclear…
Why did Mr. Sekimizu need 10 billion? Did he have a sick relative who needed that amount for surgery? Or perhaps Mr. Sekimizu or his family’s company was on the brink of bankruptcy, and they needed 10 billion to recover financially? Moreover, after receiving the 10 billion, he was seen leaving the house with a knife, which is also a mystery… Was there someone he wanted to kill, and the fee for the job was 10 billion? But if the fee was indeed 10 billion, it means Mr. Sekimizu already earned it, so him going out with a knife seems unlikely… Another mystery…
What happens to the people who die? Even if the master takes responsibility, they are still dead, right? Would they be considered missing? Hmm, if they are missing, wouldn’t their relatives come looking for them? But, it seems the master carefully selected the participants, ensuring they had no family to search for them if they went missing… If that’s the case, maybe it wouldn’t turn into a big issue…
Why did the master go to such lengths to create such an elaborate facility for this experiment? Was it really just for an experiment? Who benefits from this? A mere hobby? There are hints it might be used as a tool to gain fame, but how does successfully conducting this experiment increase one’s renown? And what counts as a successful outcome? A scenario where only two remain after being forced to kill each other? A mystery forming a closed circle with a detective solving the case, like in a mystery novel? There are too many mysteries in The Incite Mill… Maybe it’s just me not noticing something? Perhaps if I had read more classic mysteries, I might have caught something?