Chapter 262, Seventy-Third Cycle (92)
[Start Game]
Please create your game character.
Conan Edogawa has played a holographic game before. Although the current game headset is obviously more advanced than the previous "Cocoon" technology, the game still feels similar, only more comfortable and refined.
—It's almost as if it were no different from reality.
Conan Edogawa took a stroll around his initial personal space and tried decorating the empty room with the existing furniture, which immediately made it feel more like reality.
He looked at his own body, which was just a humanoid black shadow, sat on the sofa with a glass of water, looked at the screen floating in the air, and began to design his game character.
First, the name.
Conan Edogawa quickly typed in the name "Arthur, the disciple of Sherlock Holmes".
[Setup successful]
"Yes!" Conan Edogawa clenched his fist, happy to be the first to register his favorite ID, before setting his appearance.
This game has a very complete and complex character creation process, but Conan Edogawa is not good at it and is not very interested in it, so he simply created a similar boyish character based on Sherlock Holmes.
The tall, slender, black-haired, black-eyed boy tugged at his black trench coat, then adjusted his deerstalker hat in front of the mirror, quite satisfied.
However, he was still a little dissatisfied with the default face template in the game, which was too ordinary. He adjusted it to be more handsome, avoiding the appearance of Shinichi Kudo, before he was satisfied.
After setting up your character, you can start choosing a profession.
Conan Edogawa chose this outfit after checking the job categories, and when it came to this part, he chose detective without hesitation.
Finally, it's time to choose a game location.
The panel displays a game spanning half a century, but only three options are highlighted for the player to choose from.
Twenty years ago, eight years ago, and now.
The other nodes are grayed out, probably because they are not yet available during the game's closed beta.
The nodes representing the "present" are green, clearly indicating that they represent the present moment and that time travel is possible now. This setting essentially means that all players belong to the "present" era.
There was only one sentence on the screen.
You have been caught in a strange temporal and spatial turbulence.
That's all, without any further background explanation.
Conan Edogawa recalled the plot settings of the character card for Dazai Yu, the protagonist of the novel "Running Towards the Sun" and the suspected fifth and final volume of the Nagano Church. After hesitating for a moment, he chose the one from twenty years ago.
Would you choose to travel back twenty years?
【yes】
As he clicked, he was also thinking about what special things had happened eight years ago.
Unable to achieve his goal, he suddenly felt a blur before his eyes, as if he had been swept into a colorful black hole and plunged into chaos.
When my feet touched the ground again, I looked up and found that the surrounding scenery was completely different.
This is Tokyo, but it's not the Tokyo he knows.
The outdated clothes worn by people coming and going on the street, and the few people holding mobile phones, and even those phones are outdated and bulky models...
Conan Edogawa's professional habits as a detective allowed him to quickly organize everything he saw into information in his mind.
Without a doubt, he really did travel back twenty years.
Twenty years ago, he wasn't even born yet.
In these twenty years, in this rapidly developing era, it is no exaggeration to say that the world has undergone a complete and earth-shattering transformation.
The black-haired boy couldn't help but walk out of the alley, reach out and touch the antique car that had long been discontinued on the street, and listen to the passersby discussing current events from twenty years ago, his expression slightly dazed.
All of this feels so real.
It's so real it makes you feel inexplicably uneasy...
*
Would you choose to travel back eight years?
【yes】
Eight years ago.
Las Vegas, USA.
"Ugh, I'm so dizzy, I feel like throwing up." Vodka leaned against the wall. "Why does a game have to have such a realistic time-travel experience? Aren't we here to play a game? This kind of experience is unnecessary. We're not masochists, who would want to play this game if it turned out like this?"
"Idiot, you haven't adjusted your pain sensitivity," Gin said coldly.
Vodka was stunned: "Ah, so there's such a thing. I'll turn it down a bit right away..."
"Don't adjust it, turn it up to 100%!" Gin kicked open the wooden door.
Vodka was dumbfounded again: "Huh? Why, brother?"
Gin stuffed weapons into his body one by one until he was once again familiar with being armed. Only then did his brows relax a little. He picked up a sniper rifle, turned around, and said, "Adjusting the pain sensitivity will reduce the accuracy of combat, which will affect the mission."
Vodka: "..."
Vodka: "Okay, big brother! You're truly the big brother! I'll go and make sure everyone else maxes out their pain levels!"
What else could Vodka do? He could only tearfully raise the default 60% to 100%, then take out his phone to contact Scotland, preparing to rally his other companions to share the hardship.
Enter a specific key into the phone's chat interface, and a blue eye will instantly pop up on the screen, spinning around and giving the person being stared at a chilling feeling.
Scotland has rarely appeared in public since the beginning of this year, mostly contacting people in organizations online in this manner.
Even though he'd seen this thing quite a bit over the past six months, Vodka still felt uncomfortable and could only turn the screen away, saying, "Hello? Scotland? Can you hear me?"
Gin, who happened to be facing blue eyes: "..."
“Yes, I heard you clearly.” A Scottish laugh came from the blue eyes. “Looks like you’re ready? Then go and meet up with everyone. Kiel and the others have already contacted me.”
Gin slammed his phone away: "Don't point this thing at me, it's annoying. Scotland, tell me first, how many big fish did you catch this time?"
“Hmm…the harvest is unexpectedly plentiful, but telling you their location now is useless, they can move at any time,” Scotland said. “Let’s gather first, I’ll make the arrangements, and I’ll tell you the location once the operation begins.”
After saying that, he suddenly changed the subject: "However, quite coincidentally, there is someone nearby."
"Who?" Gin asked.
Scotland said, "According to intelligence analysis, it was probably the person in that organization codenamed Spider. His features were so distinctive that I spotted him immediately."
Gin then laughed: "Very good, the prey has delivered itself to our doorstep. Vodka, let's go catch that little spider first."
Vodka, weapons loaded, said, "Alright, bro!"
Scotland, however, said, "I advise you to wait for the main force to arrive before acting together. For now, just surround him. Spider is, after all, a powerful illusionist. In this kind of holographic game, his abilities might actually be his biggest advantage."
Gin scoffed: "No matter who it is, as long as they are human, there is no one that a single bullet cannot take them down."
As the organization's top assassin, he was well aware that some people in this world possessed extraordinary abilities, but he had also killed quite a few.
They're just flesh and blood after all, something that can be dealt with with a single shot. What's there to be afraid of?
“More than that, I’d like to know where Bourbon went,” Gin suddenly said.
“Him?” Scotland smiled. “He and Vermouth have other missions on set twenty years ago, and they’re not involved in this mission for the time being.”
"He didn't even threaten to kill the FBI?" Gin said.
"Actually, it's precisely because he kept insisting on killing the FBI that I didn't want him to come," Scotland sighed.
Gin rarely showed a look of approval and satisfaction. If it were him making the plan, the first member of the organization he would kick out would be Bourbon, that disobedient guy.
“But he’s already here, and once he finishes his mission over there, he’ll definitely be rushing over here immediately. So you’d better be prepared, Gin,” Scotland said again, his tone gentle, clearly not intending to stop him, and even quite indulgent.
Gin: "..."
Go to hell.
*
Do you want to go back to your original world?
【Yes】
Ai Haibara had already adjusted her pain level to zero, so traversing space didn't cause her any discomfort. The moment she landed, she began to observe her surroundings.
This is an uninhabited, wild forest.
But she was not unfamiliar with it.
Ai Haibara's heart skipped a beat, and her hand instinctively tightened around the front of her clothes.
This place is actually the forest near the research lab where she used to work!
The little girl with long black hair hesitated for a few seconds, but finally gritted her teeth and walked forward. She skillfully hid behind a tree on the edge of the cliff and peered down.
The research institute below is now a destroyed ruin, clearly burned down, and no one has rebuilt anything on it since.
Ai Haibara had to confirm once again her unfamiliar appearance.
A light drizzle was falling, which gradually intensified.
Everything seemed to have returned to the day she escaped the organization. She ran in the heavy rain, along a road she knew very well, panting, passing the Kudo residence, and finally stopping in front of the Agasa residence.
The sun had set, and the world was pitch black, with only the streetlights providing a faint glow.
Ai Haibara was about to press the doorbell when her outstretched hand was suddenly grabbed by another hand, and her mouth was covered as she was dragged into a nearby alley.
The black-haired girl opened her eyes wide and struggled desperately in terror.
"Shh, Ai-chan, it's me, Professor Agasa." A strange male voice came from behind. "Don't make a sound. The person in that house is an NPC in the game, not me. If you act recklessly, you might expose something."
Ai Haibara: "..."
Ai Haibara turned around and met the gaze of an incredibly young and handsome man with curly hair, her mind filled with questions: "Agasa... Professor?"
The curly-haired handsome guy chuckled, held out his hand, and twirled it in front of her: "How about it? Isn't my game character pretty cool?! And the most amazing thing is that I actually feel like I've gone back to my youth! My body feels so light! And my brain seems to be working even faster!"
Ai Haibara remained vigilant: "How did you know I'm Ai Haibara? What's our code?"
The curly-haired handsome guy exclaimed "Ah!" as if he had just remembered, scratching the back of his head and laughing, "Actually, it was Shin... Conan who said it. He said if something unexpected happens in the game and he can't find you, he should go home and check; maybe he'll find you. You didn't show up at that place as we agreed, so I knew something had probably happened. As for the code..."
He leaned closer, covered his mouth with his hand, and whispered the secret signal to her.
Ai Haibara breathed a sigh of relief, her still trembling hand instinctively grabbing his sleeve as she whispered, "I... as soon as I entered the game, I was teleported back to that old place..."
"Hey, what are you doing in there?" Two men suddenly appeared at the alley entrance. The one wearing sunglasses asked warily, "Are you bullying a child?"
The man with medium-length hair looked at the little girl gently and said, "Little sister, don't be afraid. Were you bullied by him? Tell the brothers, and they will definitely teach him a lesson for you."
Ai Haibara: "..."
These two people's features are really, really too familiar.
“Officer Matsuda? Officer Hagiwara?” she asked.
The young man in sunglasses and the young man with medium-length hair were taken aback: "Huh? Who are you?"
The two then exchanged a glance, puzzled, and asked, "Are we that easy to recognize? We look completely different, don't we?"
Ai Haibara: "..."
"No, it wasn't me! I'm Professor Agasa!" Professor Agasa quickly said. "This is Ai-chan, we entered the game together—"
"What a coincidence!" Ai Haibara suddenly exclaimed with a smile. "Officer Matsuda, what are you doing here?"
Kenji Hagiwara sobbed softly, leaning on Jinpei Matsuda's shoulder, "Waaah, why is Ai always closer to you? This isn't normal! I was always the one who was more popular with the little girls before! Does Ai hate me?!"
Matsuda Jinpei ignored him and said to Haibara Ai, "What other reason could there be? It's just that, like you guys, we found that the world in the game is almost exactly the same as reality, even the buildings and the NPCs are the same as in reality. We just wanted to see what our home in the game is like."
"And then? Did you find anything?" Ai Haibara stepped forward anxiously. "Where's Tamagawa-neechan? Did she also enter the game?"
Kenji Hagiwara stopped joking around and said helplessly, "Well, I don't think this is a good place to talk. Why don't we find somewhere to take shelter from the rain?"
Then, the four of them tacitly chose Poirot Cafe.
On the way, they explored the friend system and added each other as friends. After having a complicated conversation with the blonde waitress who was clearly an NPC but felt no different from a real person, the four of them continued chatting.
"Officer Matsuda, why did you enter the game?" Ai Haibara asked.
"Why else would we play games?" Matsuda Jinpei said. "After all, it's a groundbreaking holographic game, and we happened to win the prize, so of course we made plans to play it together after get off work."
"Ai, are you asking this because you have other goals for playing the game?" Kenji Hagiwara asked with a smile.
"There is something..." Dr. Agasa said honestly.
Ai Haibara glanced at him, but made no move to stop him.
This trip to the game might be dangerous, so it's better to go with these two policemen who obviously know a lot.
“I saw my uncle’s villa in the game’s promotional video,” Professor Agasa said. “My uncle’s name was Agasa Kurisu. He was frail and sickly from childhood and passed away at the age of 38, which is 51 years ago. Before he passed away, he said that he wanted to keep the villa where he had lived for 20 years intact for at least 50 years. I only learned about the villa this year. The villa is now mine.”
"So I was shocked when I saw the promotional footage of this villa as the main setting of the game. I didn't know about it myself." Dr. Agasa's expression was strange. "What's even stranger is that when I asked Noah Company, they said they had obtained the owner's consent and produced my uncle's signature as proof."
He sighed and said, "Moreover, that signature was indeed written by my uncle who passed away fifty-one years ago; it was left to the Karasuma Group by him. And the Noah Company game was sponsored by the Karasuma Group, so they could directly use this villa to do anything, without even needing my consent. It was only then that I learned that much of my uncle's property had ultimately gone to the Karasuma Group..."
"I find it strange and want to come in and see what's going on with the villa in the game," Dr. Agasa concluded, then took a sip of coffee and marveled once again at the realism.
“I see.” Kenji Hagiwara stroked his chin. “That is indeed strange. I’m a little curious too. Can we go with you? Anyway, there’s nowhere else I want to go right now.”
“Of course,” Dr. Agasa said with a smile.
After finishing their coffee, the four of them went outside to hail a taxi to the villa.
As soon as they opened the door, they met the eyes of two people who came down looking dejected.
The two men were stunned when they saw Matsuda Jinpei and Hagiwara Kenji, and blurted out, "Officer Hagiwara and Officer Matsuda?!"
Ai Haibara stared at them for a few seconds, then looked up at the spot where they had just come down from. She heard Kogoro Mouri cursing and saying "crazy" from upstairs, and Ran Mouri asking questions.
"Ah, I'm Ran Mouri, and this is my father, Kogoro Mouri." One of them explained embarrassedly, "We just went to the agency to try our luck, and then we were kicked out as troublemakers."
really.
So, Kogoro Mouri and Ran Mouri joined the group, and now the car couldn't hold them all.
While waiting for the second car, someone got off the bus next to them and stood downstairs looking repeatedly at the Mouri Detective Agency and Poirot Cafe, before finally looking at them on the roadside.
"You... are players too, right?" the blonde, green-eyed girl asked, tilting her head.
Kogoro Mouri grunted in response, then said irritably, "If you're also looking for the famous Kogoro Mouri, there's no need to go upstairs. That guy up there is just an idiotic artificial NPC. The real Sleeping Kogoro is right here! That's right! It's me! I am the real Kogoro Mouri!"
Sera Masumi's eyes darted around, and she roughly guessed who this small group of people were. So she smiled warmly and leaned over: "I see! That sleeping detective Kogoro must have a clue now, right? Where are you guys going to have fun? Take me with you! Take me with you!"
Having been successfully flattered, Kogoro Mouri naturally laughed and agreed.
Ai Haibara silently observed them, her fingers gently stroking her phone.
Why haven't I been able to contact her yet? Has something happened to Conan Edogawa?
Or is it that players in different time periods cannot communicate?
After hesitating for two seconds, Ai Haibara finally gritted her teeth and clicked into the live stream.
Even players who are already in the game can enter other players' live streams.
It's strange, though, that there aren't many people doing live streams these days.
If you click on any of them, you'll see a lot of comments, which definitely seem to be from people outside the game.
So this is probably the only way to contact the outside world in the game, but that contact will naturally be exposed to countless viewers.
Ai Haibara has always been most afraid of this kind of fame. Even though she has changed her face now and even though she has received Hiroki Sawada's assurance, she is still afraid. She didn't even dare to create a fully mobile adult character when creating her own.
She ultimately didn't start a live stream; she just left the page open, waiting for the live stream she wanted to see to appear.
*
Wow! This streamer is so handsome! I've followed him!
[Holmes' apprentice? Goodness, daring to use that name and dress like that, his profession must be a detective!]
[It's raining so hard! Why is it raining in every livestream? They're clearly from different eras and countries, right? Is there some kind of special setting? Damn it! This game is so mysterious; why do players have to discover the gameplay themselves?! Is this holographic game really going to be like real life?]
Where is the streamer now? What are they planning to do?
"Hello everyone, I am Sherlock Holmes' apprentice, you can call me Arthur. I am a detective, and I am on my way to investigate a tragic case from twenty years ago," said Conan Edogawa. "Please look ahead, everyone, the place we are about to arrive at is the legendary Twilight Villa."
[What? Twilight Villa? Could it be that legendary Golden Villa, built entirely of gold?!]
[Huh? Is that the dazzlingly luxurious golden mansion? But this doesn't look like it at all! Even if it's raining at night, it can't lie, right?]
【Are you stupid? The streamer is talking about twenty years ago! Back then, Twilight Villa wasn't called Golden Villa!】
“I walked the streets of Tokyo and saw stories about Twilight Villa in many places, especially that coded message, which was posted everywhere.” The black-haired boy smiled. “So I knew where the main clues of this era lay.”
The live chat was flooded with question marks, as if to say, "How did you suddenly understand? Isn't that something normal and common?"
"Don't forget, everyone, this is a game adapted from a mystery novel," said the black-haired boy, walking into the gloomy, dark castle in the rainy night with a black umbrella, and knocking on the villa's door.
[Waaaaah, this is so scary! I couldn't help but hold my breath. What if a ghost suddenly jumps out when the door opens?!]
[That's hard to say. After all, games obviously have fantasy elements, with gods and demons, so the existence of ghosts wouldn't be surprising.]
The atmosphere is absolutely amazing; it already feels like a suspenseful mystery game!
"Stop talking, stop talking," the child said, silently pulling their feet back under the covers, terrified by the legend of the Twilight Villa tragedy.
[The streamer must have been scared to suddenly start streaming at this time, right?]
"Yeah, I'm curious, but I'm also a little scared, so I thought I'd start a live stream to bolster my courage. Chatting with you guys like this will make me less afraid," the black-haired boy said. "But once we go inside, I probably won't talk much, or the NPCs might think I'm crazy."
Indeed, the NPCs in this game seem to have very high intelligence. I just saw a streamer get arrested by the police for relentlessly testing the game's realism, hahaha!
[Speaking of which, all the streamers I've seen say this holographic game is incredibly realistic, practically indistinguishable from reality. Is it true? Or are they all just shills hired by the company?]
What is the Twilight Villa Tragedy? Can someone explain it?
I'd like to know too. I just searched online, but I couldn't find anything.
+1
[Actually, I've only heard about it, but the story is quite widespread. However... it's said to be a horror story that has been deliberately hidden and passed down only by word of mouth, without any evidence. So I've always thought it was made up, and maybe the game's setting was inspired by this story?]
You don't understand, and I dare not, much less can, say. I can only say that at least half of the story is true.
【What?! What?! Just tell me!】
[It is said—and this is just a story—that forty years ago, the then-tycoon Karasuma Renya passed away at the age of ninety-nine. Many prominent figures in the financial world held a three-day memorial service for him at the Twilight Villa. But in reality, they were auctioning off over three hundred precious works of art that the tycoon had collected from all over the world during his lifetime; the event lasted three days because there were so many items. On the evening of the second day, two mysterious men knocked on the doors of the Twilight Villa, entering the venue with something that cannot be spoken of. Afterwards, the people in the venue began to die mysteriously, one by one…]
"Squeak—"
The door opened, and a man dressed in formal attire walked out, looking at the black-haired boy outside with a strange expression on his face.
"You, too, got lost in the mountains and came here temporarily to seek shelter from the rain?" he said.
"Also?" Conan Edogawa tilted his head.
The man did not answer.
So Conan Edogawa took out a newspaper and handed it to him.
The live broadcast also showed the text on the newspaper clearly.
Two travelers gazed at the night sky; a demon descended upon the castle, and the king fled with his treasures. The queen wept over the Holy Grail, begging for forgiveness. A soldier drew his sword and committed suicide, his blood staining the field.
The viewers in the live chat were confused.
The man put away his newspaper, turned and opened the door wider, saying, "Please come in."
"Thank you." Conan Edogawa walked in naturally, and with a quick glance, he knew roughly what the situation was.
The scene was exactly like that half-true, half-false legend, except there were many more people.
Aside from the obviously older, probably NPC, financial magnates attending the auction, there was also a group of young, good-looking people who seemed to be on a completely different level.
Some of them are obviously players like him, but they are strangers and it's impossible to tell if they are acquaintances.
There is another group of people...
After observing for a few minutes, Conan Edogawa finally focused on the only child.
This blonde hair and dark skin color combination is so endearing.
The black-haired boy walked over, squatted down next to the delicate-looking child, and smiled, "Hello, little friend. Why are you alone? Where are your parents? What's your name? Did you get separated from your parents?"
The child didn't even look up, and said expressionlessly, "I have no parents. They're both dead."
Conan Edogawa: "..."
Oh, that's awkward.
The blond boy looked up and met his gaze, his purple eyes fixed on him intently. Suddenly, he said, "I am Kudo Huai. Who are you?"
Conan Edogawa was instantly struck dumb.
What?
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