Chapter 115 Twilight Villa

When Conan woke up, he found himself lying on a large red sofa chair, just like Sherlock Holmes's usual seat on Baker Street.

However, Watson was not there.

The young detective, dressed in a classic blue suit, jumped off the chair, only to realize that his power-enhancing shoes were gone, leaving him in just his socks. He checked himself thoroughly and found that he had only kept three harmless pieces of his equipment: the bow tie, voice changer, detective badge, and tracking glasses.

Without an anesthesia watch, and with no windows in the room offering a view outside, he didn't even know what time it was.

Conan looked around the room, noticing a striking resemblance in architectural style to the previous Swan Castle: "Could this be the legendary Twilight Villa? Showing off your women's clothing and flaunting your work from 20 years ago. Now, are you finally willing to invite me to your home?"

Conan muttered to himself, "So, how do you want to play?"

The tracking glasses left behind might be a clue; Conan remembered giving Osiris a detective badge at the rehabilitation center. However, to his surprise, the glasses couldn't track the location of the other badge at all.

The suspicious young detective circled the room again, but still found nothing that resembled a code or clue.

"What exactly do you want?" Conan asked, growing increasingly anxious. There was a door in the room; after hesitating for a long time, he finally pushed it open. The little detective tiptoed outside, only to find that no one was there!

Standing in the empty corridor, Conan was bewildered: "Is this some kind of escape game?"

The hallway was lit with warm yellow light, just like inside the rooms, unconsciously evoking images of dusk or sunset. He walked along the hallway, and apart from the first room, all the other rooms were locked. He pressed his ear against the door and listened carefully, but couldn't hear anything.

"It's practically a ghost town."

Finally, at the end of the corridor, the little detective found an interesting toy: it looked like a complex mechanical device, and its height was just right for him to operate, as if it were tailor-made for him.

This exquisite toy smelled delicious, and upon closer inspection, he noticed that some of the cylindrical parts, resembling balance weights, were made of dessert. Two large words were written on it: "Eat me."

"Osiris, it seems you really enjoy Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Conan recalled that in the fairy tale, Alice, who fell down the rabbit hole, also encountered a similar situation. She ate a treat and became a giant, and drank a beverage and became a tiny creature.

"So, will I turn back into Shinichi Kudo after I eat it?"

Conan didn't want to try this. He carefully removed the smallest "weight" to take a closer look, but this action triggered a switch: the interlocking robotic arms started moving and began punching holes in the paper tape at the end.

He tentatively removed the second smallest weight, and the position of the hole he made changed.

"So this is a pressure sensor! Every time a weight is removed, it writes a secret code. It's a bit like punching holes in paper tape for programming..."

Conan simply couldn't imagine how much effort Osiris had to put into making such a flashy but impractical toy. The smallest weight was only the size of his thumb, so how easy was it to precisely control this punching machine?

He recalled his father's assessment of Osiris: "He has excellent hands-on skills and is quite knowledgeable about mechanical manufacturing. He was able to create complex and intricate toys at a very young age."

"Are you just showing off your skills?!"

Conan muttered to himself. He didn't want to waste any more time here, so he removed the weights one by one, and after punching holes in the paper strip, he put the dessert back. Suddenly, a speaker, seemingly installed somewhere, blared, "Eat me! Eat me!"

The sharp sound startled Conan, who hurriedly took all the weights off and held them in his hand. At this point, the noise finally stopped.

"Tch—artificial idiot, I won't eat it!"

The little detective wanted to find a place to serve his snacks, since wasting food was never a good idea. The problem was that the weight tray was fixed in place, and he couldn't find any other plates. So he had no choice but to carry them along, following the hole markings to the next spot.

But he had only taken two steps when the piercing cry of "Eat me! Eat me!" shattered his eardrums once more.

"Are you forcing me to eat this?!"

Conan was furious. He thought that since Osiris wanted him to keep playing, he shouldn't be willing to kill anyone. Besides, he had been unconscious for who knows how long and was indeed hungry. So he gritted his teeth and started to eat heartily: "Tsk tsk, not bad! Each weight even tastes different."

However, the miracle of growing bigger in the fairy tale world did not happen to Conan. After eating the snack, Conan's height was still only one meter.

"It's delicious and filling, but I'm a little thirsty after eating so much!" Conan said, rubbing his stomach. "I hope I don't have to eat any more snacks later, I really can't eat anymore."

Conan went up the stairs, pushed open a door, and was pleasantly surprised to find a bottle of liquid of unknown composition: "Looks like after eating me, they'll drink me."

This toy looks bigger, but it doesn't have as many intricate robotic arms. The straw is the perfect height, Conan thought: Let's quench my thirst first!

This drink is quite refreshing and delicious, a blend of the aroma of lemon and the sweetness of cherry blossoms.

Conan gulped down about half the bottle, but didn't get any response: "Do I have to drink the whole thing?"

The young detective drank it all in one go, but before he could swallow the last sip, a skull suddenly rose up and appeared in front of him.

Terrified, Conan nearly choked and collapsed to the ground, coughing violently. In his panic, he accidentally triggered something, and thick smoke billowed out. In desperation, he fled through the door.

The young detective who ran outside discovered that the smoke hadn't spread; instead, it had quickly dissipated.

Recovering from his shock, he realized Osiris's true intentions: Was this a reenactment of the scene at Neuschwanstein Castle? So that skull from earlier was Mr. Karasuma?!

Simulating a fire scene is too difficult and uncontrollable. Therefore, it's understandable that Osiris used smoke as a substitute.

"So the fire was also meticulously planned?"

Miss Swan may have triggered some mechanism in the chaos, causing the fire. In other words, Osiris originally intended to kill Miss Swan that time, and her survival was not part of his plan.

"The only question now is: did Mr. Swann kill his daughter out of his own conscience to relieve her suffering, or was he misled by you? Osiris, are you there?"

Just then, a noise came from downstairs. Conan hurriedly ran down and followed the sound, only to see a silly-looking little robot saying, "Follow me."

For some reason, Conan felt that the downstairs area seemed to have changed in a short period of time, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what had changed: every room looked the same from the outside.

"Welcome to the Twilight Villa, Conan Edogawa."

Led by the little robot, Conan finally meets the mastermind. This isn't their first meeting, but it's the first time they've seen each other with their true faces.

Upon first seeing Osiris, Conan was stunned by his appearance. He probably couldn't come up with a metaphor like "moonlight falling into champagne," but from a detective's perspective, Conan's analogy was more practical: he looked like a bleached version of Tooru Amuro.

Conan once asked his cat father for a photo of Amuro when he was a child. The man in front of him was much lighter than the blond, dark-skinned police officer. But the area above the nose was very similar, especially the eyebrows and eyes.

"Mirror"

At this moment, Conan had a very concrete understanding of this statement.

“Osiris, I don’t think you went to all this trouble to show me this just to confess, did you?” Conan straightened his back, hands in his pockets. Although he had been quite frightened earlier, he couldn’t let his presence be diminished!

"Hey—aren't you having fun?" Osiris walked slowly over to Conan, his hands behind his back. It was strange; there were no bodyguards, and no security measures in sight. In the vast castle, it felt as if only the two of them were alive.

This was far from what Conan had expected.

"If your game is all about killing, I don't think it's fun."

"So, if I don't kill anyone, you're willing to play with me?"

"Can you refrain from killing?"

"Can't."

Conan had never experienced such a suffocating conversation. O'Shea's resolute tone and calm expression made Conan feel that this man regarded murder as a glorious mission.

"Don't look at me like that, Conan," Osiris said with a smile. "I'm not Moriarty."

"Do you think you are Watson?"

“Conan, I am just myself, not anyone’s shadow, nor a villain in a novel who must exist to oppose the protagonist. Just like you are just you, no matter how much you admire Sherlock Holmes, you can’t become him,” O’Sirius explained. “We have common pursuits, and I think we can be friends, or rather… playmates.”

"A shared goal?" Conan couldn't help but repeat to confirm, "Are you serious?"

Osiris smiled gently: “I’ve always felt that we are the same kind of people, and the more I get to know you, the more convinced I am of my opinion. You are a friend, while people like Scotland are my enemies.”

"So now the question becomes, what are the differences between my dad and me?"

From the moment he arrived at the Twilight Villa, every development in the situation was beyond Conan's expectations. He hated the feeling of being led by the nose, and what angered him even more was Osiris's extreme confidence, as if everything was under control, as if their conflicts didn't exist at all.

Conan recalled the profound sense of helplessness he felt when they were at the rehabilitation center: they were simply not on the same wavelength. His do-or-die courage and his all-or-nothing determination were child's play in Osiris's eyes, and now the boss of Karasuma Sake Brewery was openly declaring, "We're friends."

Friend, what an jarring word. It's utterly absurd!

"In that case, let's try something new!" Conan said, perking up.

"What do you want to play?" Osiris seemed quite interested.

"Mind reading."

A flicker of surprise and confusion crossed Osiris's face, a reaction that gave Conan confidence. However, he later understood the reason behind it.

Conan explained, "Didn't you say you know me very well? Then try to guess what I'm thinking, shall we?"

"Your mind is full of questions, isn't it?"

"That's too broad an answer. You need to give a specific one: What is the question that I most want to answer?"

"What if I guess right? What if I guess wrong?"

"If you guess right, you don't have to answer; if you guess wrong, you have to tell the truth. Then we'll switch roles, and I'll guess yours. To prevent cheating, I'll write down the questions I want to ask on a piece of paper, and you write down your answers too."

"So this is psychological warfare?"

"That's right."

Osiris was quite interested in the game. He carefully observed his opponent and wrote down his answer after much thought.

However, to Osiris's astonishment, the question Conan wrote down was completely different from what he expected: even if he had to guess it 10 more times, he still wouldn't be able to come up with the answer.

Osiris assumed the other person wanted to ask, "What secrets are hidden in the D-Lab's labyrinth?"

Conan's answer sheet surprisingly read: "Could you take me to see your brother?"

"You lost, so you have to keep your promise!" Conan said smugly.

Osiris frowned and said, "Conan, this is a request, not a question."

"Huh? You're actually starting to nitpick over words? That's cheating!"

"Okay, I won't cheat. But the game rule you just mentioned is that if you guess wrong, you have to tell the truth. My answer is: No."

Conan was speechless. He had initially thought that directly asking his brother's name or location might be inaccurate and ambiguous. Therefore, he adopted the simplest and most direct method, but who would have thought it would backfire!

“Alright, then we’ll switch. It’s your turn,” Conan said dejectedly.

However, he underestimated Osiris's sensitivity to this issue, only to hear the other say, "Conan, that's a really bad question. I just wanted you to play with me. Who knew you'd be so naughty?"

The voice carried a dangerous undertone, and Conan broke out in a cold sweat.

"W-What do you want to do?" Conan didn't know why he was so nervous, even though the other person looked to be no more than 10 years old. But the oppressive feeling made him feel like he couldn't breathe.

“I want…” Osiris’s eyes curved into a crescent moon, “to turn you into a good-baby!”