Chapter 250

Shortly after Vodka contacted Tequila, he received an email from Saiki Usopp.

[I remember Tequila was one of your people, right? Tequila's trading partner actually sent him a box of bombs. He's dead. The police are here, and they might find out who his trading partner was. You guys should pack your bags and leave.]

Vodka looked at the email and slowly typed out a question mark.

Tequila's target this time was just an ordinary office worker at a game company. They'd take the easy way out – a list of names and money – and wouldn't have bothered to agree. Why would they possibly use a bomb to kill someone?!

Reporting him to the police would be more human than simply killing him, wouldn't it?

Moreover, Tequila told him that he had hit Potts, and then the man was gone... No matter how you look at it, it seems to have something to do with Usui Saiki!

Is this the legendary "not holding grudges, settling scores on the spot"? Even so, isn't this a bit too fast!

Is something on Usoppō Saiki's mind today? Is he no longer pretending to be a normal person?

Vodka originally wanted to turn to Gin and say, "Brother, this time I have solid evidence that Potts interfered with other people's missions and deliberately caused Tequila's mission to fail or even die." However, based on his past experience of being tricked, he thought about it and felt that he couldn't draw conclusions so easily.

Don't report it yourself and somehow end up blaming yourself. What if Usui Saiki says that he and Gin failed to assassinate him with a bomb last time, and this time they're just using the same old trick...

So he cautiously replied to the email: 【Why the sudden change of heart regarding the tequila?】

He didn't even dare to ask directly "Why did you kill me?", so he could only use vague pronouns.

Usoppei quickly replied: [The police are investigating the case; things should be clear soon.]

"Hey, Kankawa! Stop playing on your phone!" Matsuda Jinpei called out to him, "Come and take a look!"

"Here it comes." Usoya Saiki put away his phone, adopted the standard posture of Hanukawa Shinryu with a blank expression, and walked towards the center of the explosion.

Bomb expert Jinpei Matsuda picked up a sign that had originally been on the file box, and it was in a distorted position.

"Look at this, it's an explosion from the inside out that caused this."

Usakabe Saiki cooperated and reasoned further: "In other words, the bomb was placed inside the box, not outside, which basically rules out the possibility that there are bombs elsewhere."

“If it was his own bag, how could he not know there was a bomb inside? Or was the bomb unstable and he accidentally bumped into it? What was he doing here, planting a bomb?” Matsuda Jinpei casually rattled off a bunch of possibilities. “We can’t find anything to prove his identity, this is troublesome…”

"Um! I know a little bit!"

Conan Edogawa raises his hand to speak.

Actually, he now has a slight suspicion that either Matsuda Jinpei or Samikawa Shinryu might be a member of the organization. After all, both of them seem a bit suspicious, and it's strange that they would appear at a game launch event.

But after all, they had already met him. If they really wanted to talk about his appearance, they had seen him before. As long as he didn't make it too obvious and simply provided some information, he could explain that he had trained under Kogoro Mouri.

And judging by how proactive these two are in finding out the truth, maybe he'll discover something too.

If it's someone from an organization, they certainly wouldn't want the transaction to be exposed, right?

Upon hearing that Conan Edogawa knew something, Matsuda Jinpei completely forgot that he had just told Ran Mouri to keep an eye on the kid, and pulled him over to ask, "What do you know?"

"He was an uncle who was over two meters tall, and his accent sounded like he was from the Kansai region. Mr. Nakajima saw him too; he bumped into us on the street earlier..."

Mr. Nakajima, who was in charge of receiving the Mori family at the game company, reluctantly replied, "Oh, oh... that person, I did see him..."

Conan Edogawa looked at him with a puzzled expression.

In fact, when he first heard that Tequila had bumped into Potts, he had suspected Mr. Nakajima. But considering Tequila's arrogant attitude at the time, which was completely different from the subtle fear he showed when mentioning Potts on the phone, he guessed—

Tequila probably doesn't like to watch where she's going, so she often bumps into people!

After all, he's two meters tall. In a world where the average height is in Japan, it's normal for him to bump into shorter people from time to time!

Based on this, Potts' height is probably no more than 1.9 meters, otherwise the tequila would have been able to see it and wouldn't have bumped into it.

Just then, the sound of police cars came from outside. Matsuda Jinpei told him to wait a moment so he wouldn't have to repeat himself twice.

Inspector Megure arrived at the scene with Kenji Hagiwara, Wataru Date, and others.

Kenji Hagiwara looked at Jinpei Matsuda and Shinryu Samikawa, sighed deeply, and said nothing, but everything was understood without words.

I knew something bad was going to happen.

Matsuda Jinpei, realizing what he meant, immediately bristled: "This has nothing to do with us!"

Bo Yezaki nodded in agreement: "I didn't cause any trouble today."

"I didn't mean anything by it, I was just remarking on your tendency to have accidents..." Kenji Hagiwara shook his head. "Alright, tell me what's going on now."

Matsuda Jinpei relayed the information he already knew, and then signaled to Edogawa Conan that he could tell him the rest of what he knew.

Conan Edogawa continued, "...I heard him say 'can't get in,' 'it's open' or something like that."

Inspector Megure turned to the onlooker for help: "Um, Kanekawa-kun, what do you think?"

“…I found this at the explosion site.” Saiki Usaba picked up the evidence bag, which contained a key. “Matsuda found the curved logo of this game company. The direction of the curve indicates that the bomb was installed inside a file box. I think we need to confirm his identity.”

Inspector Megure immediately asked the game company president, "He's carrying your company's file box, is he someone from your company?"

The president shook his head frantically: "No one in our company is two meters tall! And...and actually, I received a threatening letter beforehand...demanding that I cancel this press conference..."

Inspector Megure: "What!? You should have said something sooner! Didn't you call the police? Oh well, you thought it was a prank again, right?"

Sigh, this kind of thing is quite common. Inspector Megure calms down after a while, since the president isn't the only one who does this...

Kenji Hagiwara pondered: "He's not from your company, yet he used your company's file folder..."

Ida Wataru deduced, "When he said 'couldn't get in,' he meant the key, right? 'Open' means the file box wasn't locked...? Then this file box isn't his, but he ignored such obvious signs and took a file box that didn't belong to him..."

“It’s a transaction, right?” Bo Yezaki concluded. “Go ask at the front desk and you should know.”

After observing them all the way, Conan Edogawa felt that Shinryu Samurai and Jinpei Matsuda were making very correct deductions, and it didn't seem like they were just being perfunctory, shifting the focus, or covering something up... But that's normal, after all, with so many smart people present, if they really wanted to do something underhanded, it would be easy to be discovered.

The receptionist was quite impressed with Tequila, not only because of his two-meter height, but also because he was the only person so far to come and retrieve his stored luggage.

"It's strange that he came to pick up his package so soon, considering the event had only just started," the receptionist said with a hint of lingering fear. "Was there a bomb in there? That was close..."

Bo Yezaki then asked, "Which luggage number did he take?"

"Number 98".

Kenji Hagiwara immediately turned his head and said, "Send someone to investigate who the people numbered 96, 97, 99, and 100 are. Ask them if they remember the person numbered 98; that person might be the one who made the deal with the deceased."

Ran Mouri suddenly raised her hand: "Um... I'm number 100. If I remember correctly, the people in front of me were Mr. Nakajima and his two colleagues. I remember them clearly because they cut in line..."

Inspector Megure gave Date Wataru a look: "Go and call those guys over."

"etc."

Under everyone's watchful eyes, Usakabe Saiki called out to Date Wataru and whispered something to him. Date Wataru didn't seem to understand, but he nodded nonetheless.

Conan Edogawa's eyes sharpened!

While everyone was waiting for the suspects to arrive, Conan Edogawa quietly sidled up to Kenji Hagiwara and asked curiously, "Hey, Officer Hagiwara, did you already know that Officer Matsuda and Mr. Kankawa were coming here today?"

"Hmm? Yeah." Kenji Hagiwara was quite friendly to this clever kid and happy to chat a bit more when he wasn't busy. "I even gave him the tickets for Fukami-nagata; he couldn't get out of bed, so he couldn't get them~"

Watching Kenji Hagiwara tease Shinryu, Conan Edogawa's lips twitched: "Mr. Shinryu, do you really like playing video games? I really didn't realize..."

Kenji Hagiwara shushed him: "He really likes it, but he doesn't like being found out. He always says, 'I'm just playing with you guys for a little while'... People who like playing games aren't bad people, so you don't need to be afraid of him."

Kenji Hagiwara, who thought Conan Edogawa was afraid of Shinryu Samikawa, skillfully helped his friend remove the filter bit by bit.

Unfortunately, this kind of talk is only used to coax real children. Conan Edogawa wouldn't so easily consider Shinryu Samakawa a good person just because he "likes playing video games".

However, the reason why the other party appeared so incongruously at the game launch event has been explained. Considering that Tequila seemed very shocked to meet Potts here, Conan Edogawa frowned and felt that he still could not rule out the suspicion of Shinryu Samikawa.

...The same goes for Matsuda Jinpei. Although he may seem like a delinquent at first glance, you'll find him to be very reliable after spending some time with him.

After thinking about it seriously, Conan Edogawa felt that if the organization sent someone to infiltrate the Metropolitan Police Department, someone as conspicuous as Shinryu Samakawa would be less suspicious, while Jinpei Matsuda would be more suspicious!

Conan Edogawa's rational mind suggested that Jinpei Matsuda was more suspicious, but his intuition screamed that Shinryu Samikawa was the most suspicious...

At this moment, the people who had cut in line were brought over.

Seeing that Shinryu Sakkawa, who always seemed rather passive and lacked initiative, had taken the initiative to speak up, Conan Edogawa said something.

"There was a terrorist attack just now. Your company president has to go to a meeting. Now take your luggage and go find your president."

Conan Edogawa: "...???"

Wait a minute!? Wasn't it already agreed that the problem was with the transaction? How did it turn into a terrorist attack?!

What kind of approach does Han Chuan Shenliu take to solve cases?! He just can't understand it!

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Bonus chapter

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Conan: Potts' height is no more than 1.9 meters.

Thin Leaf: ...Are you being polite? (But it's the truth)

Vodka: Thin Leaf, is something on your mind today? Not pretending to be a normal person anymore?

Thin Leaf: This time I am truly innocent... This is the fate of the agave!

.

The fact that Agave died so hastily is entirely because that's how Aoyama himself drew it; it's not that I have a problem with Agave!

Furthermore, Conan is sensitive to people in black, starting from the third chapter of the manga. Whenever the mention of men in black comes up, he immediately associates them with Gin and Vodka, believing it means he's meeting members of the Organization. Akemi didn't say anything, but he already started acting this way, and the tequila further reinforced this stereotype.