Chapter 32 Randomly "kidnapping" a lucky detective...

Chapter 32

"Mr. Hamano!"

Kuroba Doi Takeki Kaito was the first to rush out, and Ara Yoshinori quickly followed behind him.

The moment the door opened, a cold wind blew in with a whistling sound. However, this did not affect Kuroba Kaito's pace. Realizing that he had fallen behind the enemy for a while, Araki took a deep breath and was about to raise his leg to catch up when he was stopped by Kurokawa Kaoru.

"Right now, it's better not to go there."

Judging from Arakawa Yoshinori's expression, he clearly didn't grasp the deeper meaning of his words. Glancing down at Edogawa Conan, Kurokawa Kaoru's expression remained calm. He spoke, making sure Kuroba Kaito could hear, "How are you doing over there?"

By then, Kuroba Kaito had reached Hamano Toshiya and leaned over, his index finger pressed against his pulse. After two seconds, he sighed, turned to Kurokawa Kaoru, and shouted, "We thought the same thing."

As expected. Kurokawa Kaoru lowered his eyes and explained to the others, "Except for Hamano Toshiya, everyone else is together. The landline line has been cut, and the only suspension bridge that allowed us to leave has burned down."

Their inability to leave meant no one else could enter. There was a considerable distance between the main entrance of the holiday cottage and Hamano Toshiya's location. Aside from Kuroba Kaito, who had rushed over first, there were no other footprints on the snow.

"It's as if some unforeseen event has left Hamano Toshiya on the snow. I can't think of any other explanation for what's happening."

As he spoke, Kurokawa Kaoru's gaze swept across the crowd. As if struck by a thought, the corners of his lips curled upward, and he said lightly, "Simply put, it's a term that often appears in mystery novels."

"It's impossible to commit a crime."

"That's right."

Kuroba Kaito nodded and walked back following the same footsteps he had come from.

"Let's not discuss whether Mr. Hamano committed suicide. Even if he did, there should be footprints left in the snow."

There is only one answer -

"One of us must have killed Mr. Hamano in some way, and then transported his body to this pure white snow."

"You mean... the criminal is among us?"

Kuroda Naoko's eyes widened. "Weren't we all together before we found Mr. Hamano?"

Kurokawa Kaoru's gaze fell on Kuroda Naoko. "As long as we plan ahead, it will only take ten minutes, or maybe even less, to kill Hamano Toshiya. As for the criminal's method of killing, only the criminal himself and the detective know."

After this happened, for some reason, Kurokawa Kaoru felt even hungrier. After all, with the high school detective Kudo Shinichi here, solving the case didn't require any of their worries. Thinking of this, Kurokawa Kaoru yawned, walked slowly back to the living room, picked up the miso soup that had begun to cool, and drank it quietly.

"Did you know someone would die?"

Almost immediately after he sat down, a man sat down to his right. He took two rice balls from a tray and handed one to Kurokawa Kaoru. His eyes narrowed as he said seriously, "The man I spoke to just a moment ago died right in front of you. No matter how you look at it, your reaction is far too dull."

"If you say so, I shouldn't be a human being, but a god who can predict the future."

Unconcerned with the other party's suspicion of Miyaji, Kurokawa Kaoru leaned back, half leaning against the back of his chair, and looked at the other party with one eye closed: "I just roughly guessed that such a thing would happen, but I don't know who it was."

Miyaji lowered his eyes: "Do you think I believe it?"

"I don't know what gave you the illusion that I could even predict who would be killed."

"Otherwise you wouldn't take the initiative to talk to people, right?"

"At that time, you were the one who brought up the forum incident. I noticed then that after hearing what you said, the other person's expression became noticeably uglier."

He finished the rice ball in his hand in two or three bites, took out a piece of toilet paper to wipe his mouth and hands, and then looked at Kurokawa Kaoru beside him: "You knew that Hamano Tori would also be in trouble, but you did nothing."

"Kurokawa, what on earth are you..."

“People’s feelings for each other are based on specific reasons.”

Joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, including hatred, of course. If, as he suspected, the culprit was targeting Nishiyama Mu and Hamano Toshiya because of the forum, then that was their own problem. As bystanders, the only thing they could do was retreat to the audience and not have any influence on the development of the situation.

"Don't make any comments before you understand the full picture of the matter, and avoid doing boring things. This is such a simple principle that I don't need to teach you."

Despite their physical resemblance, Miyaji and Miya Yuu are not the same person. Kurokawa Kaoru's patience with Miya Yuu stems from their daily interactions, and also stems from his own actions, which led to him being targeted by the brewery, prompting him to subconsciously give in.

Originally, Miya Yu was supposed to accompany him to attend this magic lovers' gathering today, but Miya Osamu intervened and left him without anyone to complain to. Kurokawa Kaoru was already a little unhappy because of this incident.

The other party took the initiative to say these things to him, which could be said to have walked directly into the trap.

"I only guessed that the criminal might have wanted to kill Nishiyama Mu because of the comments on the forum, but it's just my personal guess and has not been verified. Besides, I also asked Hamano Toshiya about the forum at that time, but you saw his attitude."

Miyaji was silent.

"Then again, if you can see so many things, why didn't you keep a close eye on Hamano Toshiya?"

He glanced at Miyaji with a half-smile, then saw the silence on his face. He didn't know what he was thinking, but he sighed deeply, resignedly put down the half-eaten rice ball, and continued, "After all, it was the first time we met Hamano Toshiya. The fact that I took the initiative to talk about the 'Shadow Mage' was already a reminder to him."

It was Hamano Toshiya who was stubborn and refused to admit his mistake. Even though Nishiyama Mu was already dead, he ran back to the room alone. He could not blame anyone for being killed by the criminal.

If it was Gong You who was here, he would probably be whining about his bad luck, and might even persuade Kurokawa Kaoru to go to the temple with him to worship, maybe his bad luck would be gone. Thinking of the series of things that would happen to the other party here, Kurokawa Kaoru chuckled, and the irritation that lingered in his heart finally eased a little.

Miyaji saw his expression and couldn't help but wonder who could make Kurokawa Kaoru look like that. A little later, the others came over and looked at the rice ball in front of Kurokawa Kaoru, their stomachs growling in unison.

"So you two came back earlier to have dinner."

Without bothering to worry about whether the rice ball had gotten cold, Kuroba Kaito took two steps forward and plopped down on the chair to the left of Kurokawa Kaoru. "If I had known, I would have followed you back. I'm so hungry."

"Then help me eat the remaining half."

Kurokawa Kaoru, who couldn't finish only half of the rice ball because he was too picky, blinked and stuffed the rest of his rice ball into Kuroba Kaito's hand with confidence: "Don't worry, I broke it open with my hands. I couldn't eat it simply because there were carrots in it."

"You won't grow taller if you're picky about food."

Having long been accustomed to the casual nature of Kurokawa Kaoru towards people he was familiar with, Kuroba Kaito smiled and shook his head, then opened his mouth and swallowed the half rice ball that the other person had stuffed into his mouth.

Unlike the time when they heard about Nishiyama Tsutomu's death, Hamano Toshiya, who had previously discussed who his favorite magician was, is now lying in front of the door of the holiday cottage, and they don't even know who the culprit is. Anyone would feel uneasy.

"Speaking of which...I've always felt it was strange."

Kuroda Naoko bit her finger and said, "Although we have always said that Shadow Master and Harui Fuden are the same person, but since last month, Shadow Master's tone on the forum seems to be different from before."

"Um……"

Araki Yoshinori also spoke up, "And last month, Harui Fuden died in an accident during a performance, but he's still active on the forum, so I'm a little unsure..."

"Regardless of whether Shadow Mage is Harui Fuden or not, he couldn't have been the one to kill Nishiyama Tsutomu and Hamano Toshiya."

"Mr. Kurokawa?"

Tanaka Kikue was a little confused: "Why are you so sure that it wasn't the Shadow Mage who killed these two people?"

"Didn't Ms. Kuroda say that? Since last month, Shadow Mage's tone on the forum has been different."

Whether it was suddenly posting on the forum, "Harui Fuden's death is all because of you," or killing Nishiyama Mu and leaving that kind of message on the other person's computer screen, it gave the impression of a completely different person. Since the other person was among the people attending the party, and everyone was using their own pseudonyms, it could only mean that someone among them was also using the "Shadow Mage" identity to chat with others on the forum in addition to their pseudonym.

"Isn't this a common occurrence? Because they don't want others to discover their identities, they just use someone else's name to replace it."

As Kurokawa Kaoru finished speaking, everyone's expressions changed. Aside from Miyaji and Kuroba Kaito, Tanaka Kikue, who was closest to Kurokawa Kaoru, raised her voice and said palely, "According to what you said, there really is someone among us..."

I can't stand it... Such a strong killing intent. This novice criminal is simply exploding in front of me.

Not wanting to play along with so many people anymore, Kurokawa Kaoru let out a long sigh and pulled Edogawa Conan into his arms.

"At the rate the police are moving, we'll have to wait until tomorrow morning at the earliest to leave here."

"To prevent everyone from worrying about the criminal, I propose... that I, the 'outsider' who showed up last, be responsible for finding the criminal. After all, I'm not a detective, so I need an assistant."

"Little devil."

Trapping Edogawa Conan in his arms, he felt everyone's gaze on him. Kurokawa Kaoru laughed, and the content of his words was clearly heard by them.

"You won't reject me, will you?"

TBC.