I feel you! I felt like I would never be done with the first part and I kept seeing people being done. But keep pushing through, it will feel smoother soon!
Fun fact: you are exactly right, that’s why this author has chosen this particular pen name 
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Yes, I told them I didn’t think N1 was the most useful thing I could study for, but they insist they want my certificate so…
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Oh! How did I miss that? Thanks for pointing it out!
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If you are done with this section, head over to week 2!
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I was finally able to catch up and finish the first part.
I am struggling with some parts… like, can anyone tell me what happened after Koutsujima called his butler and Yuma hearing the steps getting closer? I understand he took the key and ran downstairs, but that was about it 
I used to read Agatha Christie’s novels as a teen and then stopped reading mystery novel altogether, so I’ve never read a mystery novel where you know from the beginning who was the assassin and, better yet, he is the main character.
I have no idea what to expect from this book, and that is really exciting.
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He hid in his room (the fourth one from the top, so basically halfway up). He waited until he heard the others passing on their way up and then exited and went back up, probably hoping that nobody would have noticed that he wasn’t downstairs with the others when the crime happened.
Note that he mentioned at the start that there were no direct lines of sight in the play room, and he made sure not to be seen when he left to meet island guy.
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Ah! That’s why he wanted to speak with all the guests!So when someone says “I didn’t see Yuma” someone will say “he was with me”.Thank you for clarifying that!!
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Yes and he also planned to return socialize with them before anybody suspected anything, making it even less likely that anybody would notice/remember the interval he spent upstairs. But then island guy managed to call for help. Skill issue, to be honest.
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Typical killer mistake, he was too busy explaining why he was killing him rather than making sure things would work out perfectly
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On the changes between third and first person narration: I thought it was weird too. I have 76 books on bookmeter, so like not that many in the grand scheme of things but not that few either? And the switches to 俺 threw me off several times. Usually there would be some indication that’s it’s quoting his thoughts. Not direct punctuation, but the next sentence could be something like: そう遊馬は思った. Or そう思いながら、遊馬は… etc. Here it’s absent or reaaally subtle. I don’t think they are different people, but it’s a slightly peculiar writing style IMO.
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I didn’t notice at first since I’m listening to the audiobook + peeking at the text when I need to, but since it was mentioned I see what you mean now (そう言われたら確かに). Just looking at the text, the switch between narrator and 俺 is super subtle. In the audiobook however, the different roles have their own distinct voice (narrator vs first person), so even without markers like “[he] thought/wondered/feared”, it’s not ambiguous at all. Almost as if this book was supposed to be an audiobook from the get-go 
Can agree it has a peculiar writing style, indeed.
Makes me wonder – does something like the equivalent of italics in English text exist in Japanese? Possible answer: This blog post mentions alternative ways of marking stuff in Japanese text because kanji in italics becomes an unreadable mess. In this case, I suppose some form of quotation mark would be the closest.
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When they just want to emphasize a few words I think that adding dots where the furigana would be is the way to go. But I don’t think this is used to indicate a change of voice like italics are sometimes used in English, he commented on WaniKani.
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I have seen, particularly in manga, use of different font styles for that purpose.
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