Chapter 150, Fifty-Seventh Cycle (22)
February 1st.
Four o'clock in the afternoon.
The world lines are beginning to converge.
They had clearly made changes. Whether it was the leader of the Muddy Society, Oni-do Nakafusa, or the French car manufacturer Pierre Cacero, their life trajectories had changed, so they shouldn't have bumped into Date Hang's residence at this time.
But in the end, they still ended up kidnapping each other, and it even started seven days earlier due to the butterfly effect.
This is not a good thing. It means that Date Wataru's death tribulation has not been over. Otherwise, it should have been like Matsuda Jinpei's case, where he only needed to get through the originally planned death tribulation, without having to go through other world line convergences.
“Did it fail…” Furuya Rei stared at the man on the monitor, his hand on the keyboard clenched into a fist.
But why? He should have already controlled the timeline of this event to jump to 1%, and the impact and change on the Muddy Society did not exceed 2%.
He had everything under control; even if he changed this event, it shouldn't have affected the main storyline. There shouldn't have been a convergence of world lines.
Or is the cause-and-effect relationship wrong? Should we not start with the Muddy Waters Association?
But if it wasn't the Mud Party, then what was the real cause of Date Wataru's death?
Rei Furuya frowned, quickly organizing all the information in his mind once again.
The leader of the Muddy Slaughter Society, Oni-do Nakafusa, was a gambling addict. Due to gambling debts, he and his men kidnapped Alain Cacero, the son of Pierre Cacero, the vice president of a French car manufacturer with whom he had a grudge, and extorted 50 million euros. They also kidnapped Inukai Yuji, a child who was playing with him.
Their crime scene was near Ida Ko's residence. Ida Ko was very familiar with the area, so he took on the case.
At the time, Date Wataru had already determined that the kidnapper was very likely the ghost boy, Natsufusa, but he didn't have any evidence yet and didn't want to alert the kidnapper. So he and his junior, Takagi Wataru, began a mission to stalk and investigate. In the end, due to exhaustion from working all night, he couldn't avoid falling asleep at the wheel and crashing his vehicle, which resulted in his death in a traffic accident.
The reason this is connected to the main storyline is most likely because it's for the follow-up work that the protagonist Conan will do to investigate and solve this case later.
Shortly before Date Wataru's accidental death, Oni-do Natsufusa got into a fight with a drunk man in a phone booth and was severely injured by someone wielding a bottle. He was taken to the hospital and died a week later.
As a result, the trail went cold, and the case became an unsolved mystery.
A year later, Wataru Date's junior, Wataru Takagi, and Conan rediscovered clues to the case at the Poirot Cafe where Rei Furuya worked. Conan deciphered the code and, together with them, captured the Muddy Gang members who had been unaware of their leader's death for a year and were still waiting for a handover of their mission. They also rescued two kidnapped children.
If this world were a detective game, this would undoubtedly be a rather important case, involving not only the protagonist Conan, but also Rei Furuya and Inspector Takagi, who aspires to become as powerful as his senior.
That was also the first formal meeting between Furuya Rei and Sato Miwako since graduating from police academy. When asked suspiciously if they had met before, his police uniform almost fell off.
Rei Furuya will never forget the scene where he smiled and told them that he didn't know a police officer named Wataru Date.
"Tap, tap, tap."
The blond, dark-skinned youth tapped his fingers lightly on the table, watching the chat plan on the screen between the ghost boy Nafang and his subordinates to kidnap Alan Cacero, as well as the discussion in the group chat on the other side. His expression was solemn, and finally, his look became resolute.
The Muddy Society is nothing to fear. Although it is one of the most powerful yakuza organizations in existence, it doesn't even dare to touch a gun. Most of its members are just thugs carrying sticks and kitchen knives.
Although the world lines have begun to converge, which means that Plan A has failed, it's not time to give up yet. Let's try again.
[zero: Activate Plan B immediately.]
[zero: Perhaps the overall direction is wrong, or perhaps something went wrong in one of the steps. Let's wait another day and see how things go.]
[zero: Let me think about it again to see where the problem lies. Contact me anytime if there are any unexpected situations.]
After discussing the plans with the five people and one AI in the group chat, Furuya Rei opened the Reincarnation group chat again.
The reincarnation group chat remained quiet, except for Homura Akemi, whose time flow was similar to his. She became increasingly quiet, and even Rei Furuya felt helpless about her situation, only able to say "Don't give up" each time.
Perhaps because they both had the experience of killing someone important to them with their own hands, Homura Akemi did not ignore his conversations, but rarely took the initiative to talk to him. After overcoming difficulties, she rarely analyzed her feelings anymore, and it was hard to tell whether her more determined and stubborn state was a good or bad thing.
On the other hand, Rintaro Okabe's situation improved. After a period of depression, he encountered a time traveler from the future and decided to agree to her plan to travel through time in a time machine to try to go to the past to save Kurisu and try to create a world where Mayuri and Kurisu could both survive.
He's probably already on the time machine, but there's still no news of him, and we don't know how he's doing.
However, judging from the convergence of the world lines on Furuya Rei's side, the situation is not optimistic.
He even suspected that the time flow of the group chat could be synchronized at any time, and he was now very familiar with the system's habits.
However, he still hasn't found any clues about what the system might do to the class monitor's near-death experience, and he can't be sure.
However, since he didn't discover it, it should mean that it didn't happen, at least not with any obvious malicious and dangerous intent.
So far, it seems to be just a simple convergence of world lines.
But he had clearly changed the world line, so the calculations couldn't have been wrong. Why did the world line convergence still occur in the end?
Have we really gone in the wrong direction?
If it was neither an accident nor a mudslide, then what was the cause and effect that led to Date's death?
From what angle does he intend to change the world line?
His carefully crafted plans were rejected one by one, and his confidence gradually waned, causing him to become uncontrollably nervous and anxious.
Rei Furuya leaned back in his chair, pressing his fingers firmly against his brow.
No, he told himself, this time he must pass the level in one go.
He's been through so much with everyone this time around. If they can get through this year, next year they can officially enter the game's main phase and prepare to destroy the organization and end the game. They've already come this far... and he really doesn't want everyone to forget those memories.
This cycle is filled with so many wonderful and important memories. Even if I could do it all over again, it probably wouldn't be the same. Even if I were to explain it to everyone in a new cycle, it would be completely different from experiencing it firsthand.
Rei Furuya... doesn't want to be forgotten.
The blond youth opened his eyes, his purple pupils sharp.
You must pass the level on the first try, no matter what difficulties you encounter.
*
February 2nd.
Rei Furuya and Kagemitsu Morofushi had a minor argument.
“You can’t go. If Zero does it himself, your heart will definitely hurt, and you might even die suddenly if the risk exceeds 2%.” Morofushi Hiromitsu’s face was very ugly, but he tried to soften his tone. “Zero, just leave this to us. We can handle it perfectly. We can deal with any problems later, okay? We don’t agree with you risking your life to test it.”
“But it has to be something I’m directly involved in, otherwise I can’t measure the world line deviation caused by this.” Furuya Rei said firmly.
"Measured by the degree of heart pain and the speed of death?" Zhu Fujingguang looked at him expressionlessly, his sharp blue eyes and cold stubble making him look particularly terrifying at this moment.
But Furuya Rei was never truly afraid of him; he even smiled.
Morofushi Kagemitsu: "..."
"Hiro, trust me, I'm confident I'll be fine." The blond youth looked him in the eye seriously. "The situation is unclear right now, and I need to have all the information. Otherwise, if something unexpected happens, I'll have to reload the save file."
“But I really don’t want to lose this playthrough and your memories, Hiro,” he said, his expression firm yet tinged with sadness.
Morofushi Kagemitsu's originally firm mind suddenly began to waver because of these words.
He... didn't want to lose the memories of this cycle either.
He couldn't even imagine if Zero were to reload the save file and confess everything to him honestly under the sunrise, just like before.
No, Zero has already made an agreement with them, so he probably won't hide it anymore.
But the second confession felt completely different from the first.
The second time was probably just a simple explanation.
Morofushi Kagemitsu could hardly imagine what Zero would feel if he experienced these two years of reincarnation a second time.
"...Okay." He finally reluctantly agreed to the plan.
*
February 3rd.
The members of the Muddy Society, who had just kidnapped two children, were suddenly arrested by three policemen who appeared out of nowhere, leaving them all stunned.
Wait a minute, isn't this response time a bit too fast?
What's even stranger is that after capturing them and rescuing the hostages, the three policemen's attention wasn't on them at all. Instead, they immediately turned to look at the enthusiastic citizens who had helped capture the criminals.
Even though the incredibly strong and kind-hearted citizen hadn't even broken a scratch, the three policemen immediately surrounded him as if he had suffered some serious injury, asking him if he was alright.
The man who had just easily punched a yakuza member suddenly clutched his heart and started to feel unwell, making one wonder if he was faking an accident.
But he quickly recovered and made up an excuse that he wasn't feeling well to run away.
The three policemen even frowned as they watched his back disappear, before finally turning around and remembering the people on the ground. Even so, they were still absent-mindedly scrolling through their phones while escorting them back to the police station, seemingly looking at some news.
The kidnappers: "..."
Are these police officers really okay?
[Zero: I'm completely fine now, don't worry.]
[zero: This time there should be about a 1.5% worldline deviation, which is a bit unexpected, but it's not a big problem.]
[Zero: Plan B was a success, although the deviation was quite large, exceeding 2.5% when combined with the previous deviations. We'll need to do some things to bring the deviation back down, but this plot can be changed.]
[Zero: The best-case scenario is that the squad leader's ordeal ends here; the worst-case scenario is that we've actually gone down the wrong path, and even changing the plot won't help.]
*
February 4th.
The worst-case scenario still happened.
Even though the timeline of this event has been kept to change by 1% to 2%, the ordeal of Date Wataru continues.
Ida Air began to encounter a series of unexpected accidents.
He had accidents while driving, riding the tram, taking a taxi, and even almost got hit by a crashed vehicle while walking on the side of the road.
If they hadn't been prepared, and if Noah's Ark hadn't been constantly vigilant against the intrusion system's alterations, Ida Hang would have died countless times over.
Even so, having narrowly escaped death several times and caused great trouble for others, Date Wataru was getting a little anxious.
But he wouldn't let anyone else see it, especially his friends who were extremely worried about him and Natalie, who was always observant and watching him closely.
They are still discussing whether or not to tell Natalie the truth. The current plan is not to tell Natalie the truth unless things get too serious.
Ida Kou also didn't want to involve Natalie; he would try his best to survive.
As long as he lives, Natalie and her parents will be safe.
Even if he really died, he believed that everyone would be able to protect Natalie and prevent her from committing suicide with him.
At nine o'clock in the evening, Ida Kou's father called him.
"You haven't gotten into any trouble lately, have you?" he asked seriously. "Why do I feel like a lot of people are following me and watching me?"
He was a policeman after all, so he noticed something was wrong.
Ida Kou touched his nose and confessed a little more: "Sorry, Dad, I did run into some trouble. Those people were there to protect you."
After being told something with concern for a long time, and realizing that he was probably okay and that there was nothing she could do to help, the other person suddenly changed the subject.
"You rascal, you're 28 this year, isn't it time to get married? Don't keep girls waiting too long," he said with a laugh.
“Hmm, let’s wait a few more days.” Date Wataru leaned against the wall, looked up at the moon and smiled. “After we resolve this incident, Dad, let’s go to Hokkaido together to meet Natalie’s parents.”
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