There's nothing else that's really been brought up about the gun and the safe, but I figure it's foreshadowing either the Vivarium independently inventing guns (it'd be a little weird with it being a sort of time-compressed society to create a technological singularity if nobody ever had the bright idea to throw things around with controlled explosions) or Obitto introducing guns to the Vivarium after he went to hide in it.I'm doing a reread, but I felt like this was the best chapter to comment on. So this is a world without guns, but there's a gun in a safe, in chapter 9. I don't remember the mice bringing it up, so where did it come from? Perhaps we were told, but I don't remember.
That sounds about right. It had been a while since I read, and I hadn't reached the point where Obitto was mentioned (or just missed it), so he slipped my mind. I agree that it makes little sense for the Vivarium to have just now invented guns. Unless invading it from the outside caused some rifts or something, which is possible. But generally, I'd say Obitto is the prime suspect. But I guess the question is why? Just to screw around with the project? Is he upset that fringe science is now too fringe, and is lashing out? Hopefully the reasoning is interesting.There's nothing else that's really been brought up about the gun and the safe, but I figure it's foreshadowing either the Vivarium independently inventing guns (it'd be a little weird with it being a sort of time-compressed society to create a technological singularity if nobody ever had the bright idea to throw things around with controlled explosions) or Obitto introducing guns to the Vivarium after he went to hide in it.
My guess is it's the latter reason: Obitto's been foreshadowed as sort of a dick, he's the first one to enter the Vivarium for reasons yet-unknown, he didn't want anyone else going into the Vivarium, and he's still around and keeping a low profile since we saw that sickly guy who is almost certainly him staying at Kikurin's inn during the slumber party chapter. Also would not be the first time that the guy the protagonists are searching for turns out to be a villain in a Dowman story.
Also, the mice getting so upset after seeing the gun in that chapter really hits different now, I gotta say.