Chapter 265, Seventy-Third Cycle (95)
【ah? 】
【ah? ? ? 】
【？？？？？？】
What on earth is going on?!
[Dead? Really dead?! How did he die?!]
【Aa ...
The live chat was silent for a moment, then suddenly burst with a dense barrage of question marks and exclamation marks, along with screams and angry curses.
Conan Edogawa looked away, only then realizing that this was truly happening.
The ground shook, and his body seemed to lose control. The boy, carrying a child covered in blood, staggered and slid down the wall, then sat on the ground in a daze.
Crimson, sticky blood had stained his hands. Conan Edogawa looked down, unconsciously confirming once again that the blond child's vital signs had disappeared, wondering in bewilderment how the protagonist could have died.
Conan Edogawa has witnessed many deaths, but this is the first time he has been so caught off guard by the death of someone close to him.
He had only thought about the possibility of dying in the game, and he was wary of what kind of conspiracies the organization might have for them, the players who had been lured in. He wondered what Hiroki and Mr. Amuro were up to... but he never thought that the blond child NPC in front of him, who was the protagonist of the game, would die.
After all, he even suspected that the blond child was actually Mr. Amuro himself playing the role of Bourbon, so how could something have happened?
[Noah System has detected that you are a minor and has activated the minor protection mode.]
The system's voice suddenly sounded.
Then, the glaring crimson blood suddenly transformed into lovely pink cherry blossoms, layering over the wound and blood, flowing slowly.
Conan Edogawa froze, feeling an even greater sense of absurdity in an instant.
In just a few seconds, the world turned upside down, shattering all his understanding and prepared plans. Reality and illusion were mixed together, making everything seem so unreal and absurd... but it really did happen.
However, Conan Edogawa was brought back to his senses by this and finally calmed down a bit. Looking at the body of the blond child surrounded by countless pink cherry blossoms in his arms, he gritted his teeth and suddenly turned his head to look at the direction from which the bullet had flown.
Who fired the shot?!
What came into view was the empty restaurant walls, resplendent in gold, all blindingly bright, but no one was there.
Conan Edogawa was stunned.
"Arthur! They're coming!" shouted Kid the Phantom Thief, who was guarding the gate.
"Did you just see someone fire a gun?!" Conan Edogawa turned around and shouted at him.
"I didn't see it!" Phantom Thief Kid took a step back, his voice filled with shock, yet he instinctively lowered his voice as he said, "I was observing that tunnel at the time, I wasn't paying attention to your side, and then I was so shocked that when I turned around, there was nothing there. There might have been a hidden mechanism..."
"Bang!"
The restaurant door was suddenly kicked open, and countless players rushed in, only to be pushed aside by the tall Ishihara Yujiro. Okiya then ran to the front.
Then, going around the central dining table, they all saw the blond child covered in blood in the arms of the black-haired boy.
Both Masaya Oki and Yujiro Ishihara were stunned.
"Xiao Huai?"
Conan Edogawa stood up instantly, holding the body of the blond child, at a loss for what to do.
He remembered that he had just promised the two of them that he would protect the blond child, but now he could only hand over the blond child's body to them, speechless in the face of their desperate and sorrowful eyes.
"I'm sorry..."
[The protagonist, Kudo Jun, has been detected as dead!]
[Game lost!]
In the game, a scarlet letter with a huge exclamation mark appeared in front of all players.
[Achieve the Bad Ending: Haste Makes Waste]
[Game CG included]
[Loading save file...]
A swarm of red butterflies swept in, engulfing the entire world.
Save file loaded successfully.
You have started your second playthrough.
"……ah?"
Suddenly everything went black. When Conan Edogawa opened his eyes again, he was already in a familiar alley.
He leaned against the wall for a moment to catch his breath, then immediately walked out.
The familiar streets—this was where he first entered the game.
Looking at my phone again, it showed exactly the initial game start time.
April 1st, 4 PM.
"..."
It all felt like an April Fool's joke.
Conan Edogawa leaned against the wall, opened his friend's chat page, and simultaneously pulled over the comment screen.
【Huh? Huh? ? ? 】
[Loaded a save file?!]
What's going on? What happened?! What happened?!
What was with all those red butterflies that suddenly appeared? It's giving me trypophobia...
Conan Edogawa first replied to Kaito Kid and asked him about the situation at the time.
[They can even reload a save and start over?!]
[Damn it! Does that mean all the work I did before was for nothing?]
【Yay! Let's start over! If we start over, Ah Huai will still be alive!!!】
[Waaaaah, Huai Zai! Who killed him?!]
[I don't know, the live stream camera wasn't pointed that way at the time, so I have no idea...]
Conan Edogawa couldn't care less about anything else right now. He directly searched for Ai Haibara's game name, added her as a friend, and talked to her about the situation twenty years later.
[Wait a minute, didn't you guys notice? All the live streams have reloaded their save files!]
[Holy crap, does this mean that if even one player fails, all players' progress is reset and they have to start over?]
[That shouldn't be the case, the streamer's level is still active.]
[Shouldn't the game only restart if the protagonist, Kudo Jun, dies? Otherwise, it's unplayable!]
Conan Edogawa took a deep breath, his mind racing. He formed a preliminary plan, went into a nearby shop, bought an umbrella, and turned to leave.
"Why would he buy an umbrella?" The shop assistant peeked out at the weather outside. "The weather's perfectly fine, isn't it? What a strange person..."
The black-haired boy opened his umbrella and stood quietly on the side of the street.
It's four o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun is about to set. The spring sunset is very warm.
It was almost time to get off work and school, and passersby couldn't help but cast strange glances at the black-clad, black-haired boy with the umbrella.
Although the boy was good-looking, he dressed strangely, behaved strangely, and stared intently at the empty air, as if there was something there.
Pedestrians observed him with a mixture of curiosity and fear, while simultaneously keeping their distance.
A few minutes later, the light suddenly dimmed, and the city was instantly shrouded in dark clouds.
"Thud—"
A raindrop hit the umbrella, making a loud sound.
The pedestrians around were stunned, but before they could react, a dense rain fell from the sky, wetting the ground, and finally poured down.
Almost everyone was caught off guard and got soaked, but the black-haired boy stood unharmed under the umbrella, quietly watching the passersby run in panic.
He stopped an empty taxi as soon as it passed by.
Conan Edogawa mentioned a place name, and only then did the viewers realize what was going on.
[This is the class monitor's home!]
My home in Scotland is there too!
[Is the streamer going to find Ah Huai directly?!]
Conan Edogawa nodded, picked up his phone and put it to his ear, pretending to make a call, saying, "Yeah, they arrived at the Twilight Villa a little earlier than me, so they should still be at home now."
The torrential rain pounded against the car windows, and the air was suffocatingly heavy.
"I happen to be in this area, very close to them. I'll go find them first. Things feel a bit complicated, everyone should hold off on any rash actions..."
Ten minutes later, the driver collected money from Conan Edogawa for more than half an hour, and it was already 5 p.m.
The car stopped in front of the Ishihara residence.
Conan Edogawa got out of the car, opened his umbrella, and stood in front of the gate railing.
The rain poured down, cutting off visibility and creating a hazy mist.
Through the gaps in the railing, you could see a blond, dark-skinned child sneaking out the back door, his round, purple eyes darting around warily like a mischievous cat.
The live chat immediately erupted with "woohoo" and "ahhh" sounds.
Conan Edogawa finally got to release the pent-up anger he had been holding in.
He's still alive.
He is still alive.
The blond child put on the hood of his raincoat, quickly approached the car parked in the yard, quietly opened the trunk, and struggled to climb inside with his short legs.
【Ahhh, Huai Zai is so cute!!!】
What are they doing?
[Let's sneak along with the class monitor to the banquet at the Twilight Villa. Last time, he said he hid in the trunk of the car and followed us.]
The rain was too slippery, and the raincoat wasn't convenient either. The blond kid slipped and almost fell.
Conan Edogawa instinctively exclaimed "Ah!" and took a step forward, his foot making a loud "splash" as it stepped into the puddle.
So the blond boy in the yard bristled like a frightened kitten and suddenly turned around to look.
The two looked at each other through the rain, speechless for a moment.
The blond child looked at him warily and suspiciously, while Conan Edogawa was at a loss for words in the face of the child's completely unfamiliar and wary gaze.
Then, the door between the two opened.
Wearing a suit, Ishihara Yujiro stood at the door, looking at the stiff and guilty blond boy in the trunk, and then at the black-haired boy quietly holding an umbrella in the rain outside the door.
"Excuse me, who are you?" Ishihara Yujiro looked at the black-haired boy, and at the same time opened his umbrella and stepped out, his tall body blocking the blond child from view.
The blond boy, however, was completely unimpressed. He even ran up to the railing, looked the strange black-haired boy up and down, and said, "Sherlock Holmes? You're a detective?"
“…Hmm.” Conan Edogawa lowered his eyes to meet the child’s gaze and smiled, “Hello, nice to meet you. I am Holmes’ apprentice. Just call me Arthur. I am a detective.”
The blond boy looked at him for a while before saying, "Hello, nice to meet you. I'm Kudo Huai. What brings you to our house?"
Just then, Yujiro Ishihara strode over, shoved the child behind him again, and said, "Detective? Did you come to see me?"
Conan Edogawa nodded, took a newspaper from his pocket, and handed it to him over the railing: "I came to see Inspector Ishihara about this, but are you leaving for the Twilight Villa now? Can I come with you?"
The blond child, also sheltering from the rain under the umbrella, tugged at Ishihara Yujiro's sleeve: "I want to see too."
Ishihara Yujiro glanced at the coded message in the newspaper, checked it to make sure there was nothing wrong, and then let the blond boy take it away.
"You also want to go to the Twilight Villa?" Ishihara Yujiro asked, looking at him.
Conan Edogawa nodded: "I am a private detective, and I am very interested in this matter. I also have some ideas about that code and would like to discuss them with you."
"Then why did you specifically come to find me?" Ishihara Yujiro asked. "Are you really here to see me?"
Conan Edogawa's heart skipped a beat, realizing that the other person had noticed his excessive attention to the blond child.
“Of course, who doesn’t know the name of Inspector Ishihara?” Conan Edogawa said without changing his expression. “I have great faith in your abilities. I’m worried about encountering danger if I go alone, so I wanted to ask Inspector Ishihara for help first.”
Just then, the door next door opened, and a black-haired, blue-eyed man strode over.
"What's wrong? What happened?" Chong Ya asked worriedly, then stared at the black-haired boy under the umbrella for a while before asking, "Who is this?"
Conan Edogawa turned his head and nodded politely: "I am Arthur, a disciple of Sherlock Holmes, and a detective."
The blond boy who had been clinging to Ishihara Yujiro paused for a moment, then suddenly opened the gate and ran over, grabbing Masaya's hand and saying, "Masaya-nii, it's so late, where are you going dressed so formally?"
Chongya also pulled the hood of the blond child's raincoat back up, which was about to fall off, and said, "Something came up. Where's Xiaohuai? It's raining so hard, are you planning to go out too?"
Ishihara Yujiro could only step out and look at the well-behaved black-haired boy beside him.
“In that case, you can come along,” he said.
*
With a "boom," the vehicle started and drove towards the Twilight Villa.
Yujiro Ishihara was driving in the front, while the other three squeezed into the back.
Conan Edogawa wanted to sit next to the blond boy and try to talk to him, but Masaya Oki beat him to it and sat in the middle, separating the two.
Conan Edogawa: "..."
I always feel like I'm being treated like a pervert who needs to be watched.
However, Kudo Jun was clearly very interested in him, and his attitude was even more approachable than last time, and he even took the initiative to strike up a conversation.
"Big Brother Arthur, how old are you this year? Are you still in school?" the blond child asked, his innocent, droopy eyes wide open.
"17 years old, a high school student," Conan Edogawa said. "Where's Huai-kun?"
"Nine years old, a primary school student." The blond child then asked, "Why do you want to be a detective?"
Conan Edogawa: "..."
It's a familiar problem, and both Masaya Oki and Yujiro Ishihara have expressions of helplessness, as if it's "starting again." It seems that Kudo Jun is still searching for an answer in a rather confused state.
Conan Edogawa could only repeat his answer, but the blond child still seemed dissatisfied with it and even stopped talking to him.
Yujiro Ishihara glanced in the rearview mirror and asked him with a smile why he was interested in the Twilight Villa and how much he knew about it.
Conan Edogawa pondered how much he could say and how to avoid making them more wary and suspicious.
But before he could say anything, he was interrupted by an unexpected situation.
"Hmm?" Ishihara Yujiro's gaze sharpened. "Who is it?!"
The three people behind also looked up. The wipers swept across the windshield, making the rain-soaked glass clear for a moment before it was immediately covered by the heavy rain again. They could vaguely see a person running frantically towards the front of the car in the rain.
The car hadn't even been driving for five minutes, or even left the street, and everyone around them should have been familiar faces, but that person was a complete stranger.
"Stop the car! Stop! Stop right now!!!" the man shouted, spreading his arms wide in front of the car.
Yujiro Ishihara slammed on the brakes, and the car came to a dangerous stop in front of the man.
Conan Edogawa sensed something was wrong and used a scout skill, discovering that it was indeed a player.
He immediately straightened up and said, "Wait! Don't listen to him—"
The player slammed his hands on the car window: "You can't go to the Twilight Villa! Sergeant! Officer Ishihara! Ah-Huai will die!!!"
"Varied--"
Boom!!!
A bolt of lightning struck, illuminating the blond child's slightly widened purple eyes and his instantly pale lips.
"...Huai-jun?" Conan Edogawa whispered.
The blond child didn't say a word, but stretched out a trembling hand and tightly gripped the front of his clothes, then suddenly collapsed.
"Xiao Huai? Xiao Huai?!" Chong Ya, who was standing next to her, also hugged the child in a panic.
Yujiro Ishihara, who had been standing there dumbfounded, suddenly turned around: "What?! What happened to Xiaohuai?! Don't scare me!!!"
The players outside the window couldn't see or hear what was happening inside, but they were still shouting not to go to Twilight Villa, saying it was dangerous and that Ah Huai would be shot.
The screen was filled with question marks and exclamation marks.
Conan Edogawa's breathing became erratic. He reached out to touch the trembling, stiff wrist of the blond child in the man's arms, but could only feel the child's pulse rapidly weakening and then his breathing completely disappearing.
"Boom—"
Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the pale, terrified faces of the group, before being swallowed up by countless red butterflies.
[The protagonist, Kudo Jun, has been detected as dead!]
[Game lost!]
Among the countless scarlet butterflies, Conan Edogawa seemed to see red butterfly patterns lighting up on the back of the blond child's neck.
[Achieve the Bad Ending Side Story: Oblivious to Others]
[Game CG included]
[Loading save file...]
Conan Edogawa's eyes widened: "Wait—"
Save file loaded successfully.
You have started your third playthrough.
"..."
When he opened his eyes again, he was back in the familiar alley.
The familiar walls, the familiar streets, the familiar time... even the passersby and the topics they discuss are exactly the same.
Conan Edogawa pursed his lips and opened the player panel with a sullen face.
Five minutes later, a torrential downpour began, and Conan Edogawa finally went to buy an umbrella.
At six o'clock in the evening, the banquet at the Twilight Villa began.
With a sigh, Yujiro Ishihara pulled the blond boy out of the trunk and entered the villa with the invitation.
Carmel breathed a sigh of relief after confirming their safe arrival. He glanced at Arthur's livestream and saw that he was still searching in the forest outside. After thinking for a moment, he decided to follow him.
This was the third time already, and the players had pretty much figured out the game's mechanics. By this time, most of them were already inside the villa.
Carmel wasn't late this time, but because of Mr. Akai's instructions, he happened to be near Kudo Jun's house and rented someone else's car to escort the protagonist there.
However, since Arthur has seriously emphasized this matter in player channels, forums, and live streams, no one has gone directly to NPCs to spoil the plot anymore.
Before leaving, Carmel couldn't help but glance back at the blond boy's back, only to be surprised to meet his calm purple eyes as he turned to look at him.
Carmel paused for a moment, while the blond boy turned around and went inside as if he hadn't noticed anything.
Is it a coincidence?
Carmel was a little conflicted, but ultimately couldn't help sending a message to Mr. Akai: "Mr. Akai, don't you think that blond kid really looks like Amuro Tooru? He really does remind me of him..."
Before I could finish typing, a huge crow suddenly flew out of the nearby forest, making a piercing cawing sound, and landed on a tree.
Carmel was startled, his hand trembled, and he sent the message he hadn't finished writing.
He looked up and realized that there were far more crows in the mountain than he had imagined; they were practically everywhere, densely packed on the trees, blinking their red eyes and staring at passersby.
"This is really creepy..." Carmel rubbed his arms to get rid of the goosebumps that were too realistic. "No wonder they're a family that uses crows as their crest. Could these be the crows they keep?"
The comments section was filled with laughter, mocking his cowardice and making even bolder guesses that these crows were definitely suspicious, perhaps even eating people, and that all the people attending the banquet were their prey.
Carmel ignored the onlookers who seemed to enjoy the spectacle, focusing instead on reading messages from the FBI.
Then he received a reply from Mr. Akai: "Carmel, don't go into the forest, come and gather here."
Carmel immediately withdrew his foot and walked towards the villa.
By the time he arrived, most of the other players who were interested in joining the group to discuss the matter had already gathered in a corner of the banquet hall.
However, to prevent other NPCs from hearing things they shouldn't, they used their phones to create a group chat and discuss things online.
This led to a strange phenomenon: a group of strangers, dressed in various styles and with striking appearances, huddled together in a corner as if by prior arrangement, but they didn't speak, just buried their heads in their phones.
[Arthur: Let's review the first two playthroughs.]
[Arthur: In the first playthrough, Kudo Jun was shot and killed after the mechanism was activated, revealing the Golden Castle.]
[Arthur: Although no one saw the murderer, there are only a few possibilities. The most likely is that the villa has other mechanisms, and the murderer hid behind one of them and shot Kudo Jun.]
[Arthur: So here's the question. The Golden Castle mechanism was activated by me, Baron Dark Night, and Kudo Huai together. Why did we only kill Kudo Huai? There were about 60 seconds between killing Kudo Huai and the game restarting, enough time for him to kill me and Baron Dark Night, who were completely unprepared. But the murderer didn't do that, which means that at least at that time, his only target was Kudo Huai.]
...
[Arthur: So, I speculate that the reason we failed in the first playthrough was because we acted too quickly, as if we already knew the inside story, which aroused the suspicion of the villain, who was also a time traveler. But there were too many strange players, and the villain couldn't figure out the situation for a while, so he could only kill the only person he knew, Kudo Huai, rather than let the innocent die.]
[Arthur: In the legend of the Twilight Mansion, the event takes place on the night of the second day, but we exposed the passage to the next level on the first night. Therefore, even the bad ending CG of the first playthrough is a case of "haste makes waste."]
The others looked enlightened, and those who didn't understand were given a lesson on the meaning of "haste makes waste."
[Arthur: Then in the second playthrough, Kudo Jun's death was likely caused by sudden cardiac arrest, but he had no prior medical history and didn't give anyone else any time to try to save him, which is abnormal.]
[Arthur: Besides the outcome, the reason was also strange; it seems he died directly because of player spoilers.]
Arthur: Have you ever heard the saying, "Heavenly secrets must not be revealed"? It means that worldly affairs are arranged by Heaven, and even if you know something, you cannot tell others beforehand, or trouble will ensue.
[Arthur: Also, when you first entered the game, you should have seen those words from the gods and demons, right?]
[Arthur: That's right. If I'm not mistaken, if we leak future events to the NPCs, the God or the Demon connected to the Red Butterfly will directly kill Kudo Jun, the protagonist, and then restart the game.]
Arthur: There must be other reasons, but we don't know them yet.
[Arthur: Why a red butterfly? Look at these two CG images first.]
[Arthur: Zoom in closely, and you can see the red butterfly pattern lighting up on the back of Kudo Huai's neck, right? Add to that the countless red butterflies that appear every time we restart the game and reload, and we can be sure it's not just a random game cutscene, but something real that can influence time travel. So everyone should pay close attention to anything with butterfly patterns in the game from now on.]
...
[Arthur: That's all I wanted to say for now. I hope everyone can cooperate and at least stop revealing future plans to NPCs. Otherwise, having to reload and start over again is a real hassle, isn't it?]
After the meeting, the players dispersed.
It's 11 PM in the game, and the auction is about to start at midnight.
Conan Edogawa sat in a chair for a while to catch his breath, but eventually couldn't resist calling out to the blond child who had been curiously observing them from the side.
"Huai Jun." He called the child's name with a complicated tone.
The blond boy paused for a moment, observed him for two seconds, and then slowly walked out from behind the curtain, looking up and asking, "You know me?"
"I just heard you arguing with your family," Conan Edogawa replied.
The blond child: "..."
The blond child blushed instantly with embarrassment and anger, wanting to retort but not knowing how to say it.
Conan Edogawa couldn't help but laugh. It was really hard to imagine that this child, who was not good at expressing himself, was so serious.
Or rather, he desperately hoped that his guess was wrong.
The blond boy glared at him and said, "You—"
At the same time, a barrage of comments suddenly erupted.
Before Conan Edogawa could react, he saw the blond child in front of him suddenly clutch his chest and tremble all over.
A commotion broke out throughout the banquet, but Conan Edogawa was oblivious, his body cold as he embraced the fallen blond child.
The small child in her arms trembled in pain, but quickly stopped struggling.
"..."
Conan Edogawa's hands began to tremble slightly as he reached out and parted the child's soft, golden hair, revealing a glowing red butterfly pattern on the back of his neck.
[The protagonist, Kudo Jun, has been detected as dead!]
[Game lost!]
Conan Edogawa suddenly turned his head and saw several angry players pinning a laughing player to the ground, while a strange NPC next to them looked on with a surprised and uncertain expression.
"Huh? Time travel?"
[A Bad Ending Appears: Unpredictable]
[Game CG included]
[Loading save file...]
Masaya Oki and Yujiro Ishihara came running at the sound, and their expressions froze instantly when they saw the body of the blond child.
Conan Edogawa opened his eyes wide and clearly saw that the overwhelming red butterflies appeared out of thin air.
Save file loaded successfully.
You have started your fourth playthrough.
The alleyway in front of me was familiar again.
The black-haired boy didn't go out immediately; he just stood quietly in the dimly lit alley, head bowed, lost in thought.
The chat was still filled with criticism of the player who deliberately caused trouble.
Before that player maliciously tested the waters, he even deliberately went live, and many people saw what happened.
That bastard is a lecherous jerk! What, he just wanted to test if spoiling the plot for non-main characters would cause trouble? He absolutely did it on purpose!!!
【Ugh, that guy is so arrogant! He even started a thread on the forum saying he'd keep causing trouble! How am I supposed to play a game with someone like that???】
[Waaaaaah, Huai Zai! I'm going to kill him!!!]
[I've memorized that guy's ID! I'm starting a revenge attack right now and taking him down!!!]
Conan Edogawa remained silent until Shuichi Akai sent him a message.
"I can get a sniper rifle. You find that guy's location, and I'll take him out, okay?"
Conan Edogawa twitched his finger and replied: 【Okay.】
After sending the message, he went to the player forum and immediately found the post mentioned in the comments.
Conan Edogawa clicked on the message, quickly read it, and then sent a message warning him that if he continued like this, he would kill him first.
The player was incredibly arrogant, saying, "[You think I'm afraid of you? Come on! Come on over here! You'd better find me first! Hahahaha! I want to see if you can kill me faster or if I can restart the game faster!]"
This is a typical psychology of attention-seeking prisoners. The angrier and more attention others pay to and scold him, the happier and more excited he becomes, unless he actually suffers...
Conan Edogawa lowered his eyes, guided him to chat for a few more minutes, and asked the viewers for some details. He quickly determined the situation and roughly deduced the player's location.
He sent the address to Shuichi Akai.
Shuichi Akai replied with "Received" and then disappeared.
Not long after, a video appeared in that thread.
Clicking on it will show you the game recording of that player getting shot in the head.
The screen immediately filled with countless exclamations, praises, and thanks, with many expressing regret that the "hero killer" who uploaded the video was anonymous.
The player could only rage helplessly on the forum, and was quickly banned for using excessively foul language.
The post was filled with cheers; it was truly gratifying!
If you die in this game, you'll have a full 6-hour respawn time, which is in real time.
Unless the game is restarted, dead players can start over.
At least this playthrough I don't have to worry about that player causing trouble again.
Other normal players and spectators breathed a sigh of relief, but were still inevitably more vigilant than before.
However, no other problems arose until the auction for the Twilight Villa began at midnight.
The players breathed a sigh of relief and started asking Arthur in the group chat if they could start the investigation now.
They suspected there were other mechanisms inside the villa. In that case, they decided to use the pretext of investigating the Twilight Villa tragedy to search around, hoping to find some clues by chance.
Conan Edogawa nodded, but then said, "Don't take Huai-kun with you."
The players nodded in understanding and then dispersed to search various places.
Conan Edogawa simply watched them without making a move, calmly standing in a better vantage point to carefully observe everyone in the venue.
Even though the blond child passed by him several times, he didn't go up to him and say a word.
On Conan Edogawa's game panel, there are three achievements, which are the Bad Ending (BE) side ending CG images obtained in the previous three playthroughs.
Each CG scene depicts the death of a blond child, only the setting and manner of death differ.
He was there in every scene.
On his fourth playthrough, Conan Edogawa hesitated a bit this time.
He thought to himself, "This time, I'll try to stay away from that child."
At first, things went smoothly, but problems gradually arose later.
"Arthur, this is troublesome." Hattori Heiji looked serious and exchanged a glance with Hakuba Saguru. Seeing that the other also nodded with a solemn expression, he realized that the other was in the same boat as him. He sighed and said, "Without Kudo Jun, who is the protagonist, we players simply cannot enter those key places."
Phantom Thief Kid walked over: "Even my tricks don't work. It seems this is a problem with the settings. Right now, no player can enter the underground wine cellar to check the butterfly totem, nor can they enter the restaurant. We have no chance to check if there are any hidden mechanisms for the murderer in that wall."
Conan Edogawa frowned and couldn't help but look at the blond child he had been watching.
The first day of the auction has now ended. It's six o'clock in the morning, the sun is rising, and the others are gradually going to the villas to find places to sleep.
The blond child was so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open, and was being held by Masaya Oki while yawning. Yujiro Ishihara sighed and said that he had been told to go back to sleep.
Kudo Huai didn't go back to his room to sleep all night, but he didn't investigate everywhere like before. He just quietly observed everyone, just like Edogawa Conan.
At that moment, before leaving, the child suddenly turned his head and glanced at the players, his gaze sweeping around them purposefully, pausing briefly on him before moving away.
Conan Edogawa was stunned.
He suddenly understood why.
Kudo Jun felt he was being watched closely, and the players' activities were too obvious, which made him very suspicious and wary of them, and he even canceled his own investigation plan.
This is... a butterfly effect caused by the players.
Conan Edogawa gritted his teeth, his mind racing.
The incident will likely occur the following evening, so Kudo Jun will certainly not leave things unprepared and uninvestigated.
It's highly likely that the blond kid sneaks out to play alone during the day.
After all, being a child does make things easier, giving him ample opportunity to take risks.
*
Game time: 11:00 AM.
Real time: 5 a.m.
Most of the people attending the banquet were asleep; even some of the players couldn't stay up all night and went to bed.
The villa became unusually quiet at dusk, and the cawing of crows in the forest outside could be clearly heard.
Conan Edogawa gently pushed open the door and walked out when he saw that the corridor was empty.
Hattori Heiji followed behind him and whispered, "Hey, Arthur, Holmes' apprentice, are we really not going to call on the other players to join us?"
They were tired from playing, and many players were excitedly trying to see if sleeping in the holographic game would be the same as sleeping in real life. Before going to sleep, they told the players to call them if anything happened.
“Hmm, having more people around now will only arouse their suspicion,” Conan Edogawa said in a low voice. “We can still find an excuse to explain when the two of us are acting alone, but it would be obviously strange if there were more people, and it would be harder to control.”
The two went downstairs to the kitchen with a clear goal in mind, and just then they saw a blond child leisurely strolling around the dining room with a glass of juice in his arms.
The restaurant door that the players couldn't open was left wide open.
The sound of the two coming downstairs startled the blond boy, who immediately turned to look at them.
Conan Edogawa laughed first, "What a coincidence, little friend, are you also looking for something to eat because you're hungry?"
The blond boy nodded, a little embarrassed: "I got up to use the bathroom, then woke up and couldn't fall back asleep, so I came downstairs to find something to eat, and ended up eating too much..."
"Oh? Is there any food left in the kitchen for us? I'm starving!" Although he said this, Hattori Heiji didn't even glance at the kitchen and had already run downstairs to the dining room.
The blond child silently took a step back, seemingly intending to leave again.
Conan Edogawa was worried that the boy might get into trouble acting alone, so he abandoned his original plan and walked over with a smile to guide the blond boy into the restaurant, using the tragedy from twenty years ago as a topic to make him investigate the restaurant reasonably.
"What are you doing?" A strange man's voice suddenly came from the doorway.
Conan Edogawa turned his head and recognized the man as a popular politician named Takeda.
"Member of Parliament Takeda," Conan Edogawa initiated the conversation, smiling naturally, "Why are you up so early too? Are you hungry as well?"
Representative Takeda's puzzled expression disappeared, and he said somewhat awkwardly, "Um..."
"Takeda-kun, have you found any medicine for diarrhea? What are you doing here?" Another man approached from the other side.
Conan Edogawa also knows him; he is the chairman of the Tokiwa Group, a big shot at a young age, and even chatted with Yujiro Ishihara for a few minutes.
“…No.” Representative Takeda was clearly a little embarrassed. “I just heard some noise downstairs and was worried that a thief might be breaking in, so I came to check.”
"Sigh, getting old is so inconvenient," another elderly voice said weakly. "I don't know what I ate last night that caused this diarrhea."
Everything you ate last night was abnormal.
Conan Edogawa muttered to himself for a moment, then peeked out and found that he didn't recognize the person, but he seemed to be a senior executive of a pharmaceutical company.
"Why are there three children here?" Chairman Tokiwa asked in surprise as he stood at the door.
"Young people really have a lot of energy," an elderly employee of the pharmaceutical company remarked.
"Did we disturb you?" The blond boy gripped his cup tightly, looking guilty and uneasy. He said softly, "I'm sorry, I just ate too much so I took a walk. I didn't mean to... I'll go back to sleep now."
He even tugged at the hems of Conan Edogawa and Heiji Hattori's clothes, trying to pull them out together.
Now that they'd been discovered, Conan Edogawa and Heiji Hattori had no intention of continuing and, smiling, apologized and prepared to leave.
Just as he brushed past the group, Conan Edogawa caught a glimpse of a chilling silver light out of the corner of his eye.
Before he could react, the blond boy next to him suddenly shoved him aside as if he had expected it.
The cold glint of the blade sliced through the air in front of Conan Edogawa's neck. Even without actually touching his flesh, one could still feel the danger, as if the Grim Reaper's scythe had grazed him.
Conan Edogawa almost had his heart stop beating. Although he was a little suspicious, he never expected them to be so bold as to take action directly.
In his chaotic and shaky vision, he saw the person holding the knife.
That was the usually gentle and smiling Chairman Tokiwa. After his first attack missed, he didn't hesitate to twist his wrist and suddenly thrust into the blond child's body.
"Ah Huai!!!" Conan Edogawa stumbled back after crashing into the wall to save the blond child.
"Thump!"
Hattori Heiji grabbed a stick and blocked Tokiwa's second attack, shouting, "Kudo! Run!!!"
Conan Edogawa and Yui Kudo both looked up at the same time.
"Take care of all three of them," the old man said. "Takeda, close the door."
Representative Takeda silently closed the door.
"Tsk, what an unexpectedly troublesome rat." Tokiwa flicked the blood off his sword, kicked Hattori Heiji away, but when he slashed at him, the boy blocked the attack and even flipped him over to strike him with a swordsmanship move.
Conan Edogawa had already hidden under a table in the corner, carrying the blood-covered blond child.
"Huai-kun! Huai-kun, how are you feeling?! Ah Huai!!!" Conan Edogawa looked at the endless stream of pink cherry blossoms in a daze, and realized with despair that the underage protection mode was completely unable to accurately judge the other party's injuries.
"You..." The blond child grasped his hand, and couldn't help coughing as soon as he opened his mouth, spitting out pink cherry blossom petals.
Conan Edogawa actually knew that he was probably beyond saving.
That stab was incredibly vicious, precisely piercing the heart; there was no way the victim could have survived.
"……Why?"
But he still held the child's hand tightly and asked, "Why did you sacrifice your life to save me? We don't even know each other, do we? You knew they were from the organization all along, didn't you? If that's the case, you could have survived by ignoring us or using us as bait! You weren't exposed! The reason they became suspicious was because we disrupted your plans, right? And didn't you have so many important things to do? Why... why did you save me?"
He had so many questions that the blond boy clearly couldn't answer them all, and his breathing became increasingly shallow.
Finally, as if remembering something, the blond child smiled.
Conan Edogawa's breath hitched.
That joyful and gratified smile, like a gentle adult encouraging and praising a younger child for growing up, was an expression he often saw on Mr. Amuro's face.
"You should... know that very well too."
The blond child raised his eyebrows and eyes.
“Saving people…what reason do you need?” he said.
Conan Edogawa was completely stunned.
[The protagonist, Kudo Jun, has been detected as dead!]
[Game lost!]
[Win the Bad Ending Side Story: Good Causes, Bad Consequences]
[Game CG included]
[Loading save file...]
Save file loaded successfully.
You have started your fifth playthrough.
"Smack!"
Gin threw down his gun and quit.
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