Chapter 272 Seventy-Third Cycle (102)
Conan Edogawa even felt dizzy again.
The others, however, were completely jolted awake by his shout.
"What's wrong?" Hattori Heiji, who was sitting next to him, immediately turned around and asked.
"Where's Kudo Yui?" Hakuba Saguru immediately noticed something was wrong.
Upon hearing this, the others immediately looked at Conan Edogawa's empty arms, their expressions changing slightly.
The time machine was still sealed, and the surroundings were completely exposed, but it was truly alarming that such a large living person had simply vanished.
"What do you know?" Mary Akai turned to Conan Edogawa and asked, "Why did you say we can't save now?"
"..." Conan Edogawa quickly calmed down. "I don't know what happened either. I was just a little panicked when I found that A-Huai was missing."
“You’ve been holding that blond kid the whole time, how could you not know?” Scorpion frowned.
“We should have all lost consciousness just now, and we’ve only just woken up. We don’t even know how much time has passed, let alone what happened in between,” Hakuba Saguru said.
"Exactly, what kind of attitude is that? Do you think we would deliberately cause trouble? What would we gain from that? Besides, you should know how much Arthur and Kudo want to save Kudo, right?" Hattori Heiji said, quite displeased.
"Let's check the situation outside first," Conan Edogawa said, softening his tone. "Maybe we can find some clues there."
The situation was unclear, so they didn't go out immediately. They decided to wait for the time machine to connect to the network and gather intelligence first.
Although the principle behind it is unknown, the time machine's internet speed is obviously very fast, and information about this timeline came out very quickly.
They did indeed arrive twenty years in the future, and their location was the Twilight Villa, twenty years in the future.
However, here's the key point—what they did twenty years ago has indeed had a huge impact twenty years later.
The Twilight Villa was destroyed twenty years ago. Even though the gold was not destroyed, the research materials inside were completely wiped out.
The police failed to catch the organization, only arresting seven high-ranking figures who were under the influence of drugs. The others were not affected and instead received the title of victims.
Conan Edogawa narrowed his eyes slightly.
As he predicted, the NPCs who had been conversing closely with the nine seemingly wealthy and powerful players were unharmed. Those nine players, who hadn't entered the tunnel with them, must have followed behind, guided by the NPCs, to meet with members of the organization.
The fact that the organization is now releasing them for the next stage of the game means that those nine players are now on the organization's side.
No, it's not just nine people; the instances from eight years ago and twenty years later should also have the same setup.
This is obviously a very bad thing, but it's a good thing for the players who are still stuck in the game.
Since the organization intends to secretly win over those forces, it will not allow them to get too involved in trouble.
In that case, the game won't go too far.
So up to this point, the game's storyline is still unfolding normally, without any outrageous plot twists to kill them off, because the organization needs them to survive and spread misinformation.
"Great! Now that all the gold has been dug up, we shouldn't be buried underground anymore, right?" Hattori Heiji breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hmm, the game system shouldn't set up a guaranteed death situation for players." Hakuba glanced at his watch. "It's probably because of the time travel; my watch is a bit malfunctioning and can't keep time. I don't know if the phone's magnetic field was affected either; the time only started moving right after the successful time travel. And the time outside right now..."
"It's April 1st again." Conan Edogawa sighed.
“That’s right. It’s probably similar to the previous save-loading. When we successfully completed the game twenty years ago, we changed the original plot. The world twenty years later was affected by us and underwent a reset similar to a save-loading.” Hakuba Saguru put away his pocket watch.
The time machine's scan of the outside environment has also been completed.
Although it is now a completely unrecognizable ruin, the surrounding terrain and forest still confirm that it is the original location of the Twilight Villa.
This place seemed to have been abandoned for a long time; there was no one there, only a few crows flying by.
The group opened the time machine and stepped out.
Then something terrifying happened—the time machine vanished!
"Who activated the time machine again?!" Scorpion exclaimed in shock. He went over to investigate, confirming that the time machine had indeed disappeared right in front of them.
Conan Edogawa's expression instantly turned serious. The image of the missing blond child flashed through his mind, and an ominous guess popped into his head.
Can't the same thing exist in the same space-time?
Faced with the vanished time machine, the group was truly helpless, despite having countless ideas in their minds.
There was some good news, though: their cell phones had regained signal—which wasn't surprising, since their story was set up to travel from this world to twenty years ago, so returning now would naturally be smoother.
Then, even more unexpectedly and surprisingly, they were able to contact other players using the in-game network.
Once their original teammates were back together, the temporarily formed team disbanded instantly.
*
Hakuba Saguru also bid farewell.
Hattori Heiji pressed him on what he planned to do in such a dangerous situation, but Hakuba Saguru simply said they should be safe and left without further explanation.
Hattori Heiji paused for a moment, then fell into deep thought.
Conan Edogawa, on the other hand, was completely absorbed in frantically scrolling through his phone to gather information.
Search for Kudo Huai.
The page redirected, then a dense stream of information appeared, causing Conan Edogawa to stare blankly at the photo of the now-grown, blond, dark-skinned, handsome young man.
"……Um?"
He was even prepared to find no information about Kudo Huai at all, but to his surprise, his information was everywhere, attracting more attention than a celebrity.
Although twenty years have passed, Kudo Jun is still very easy to recognize.
The little blond boy has grown into a tall, handsome blond man with dark skin.
Her original round, chubby face has transformed into a cute yet handsome doll-like face.
But even if those round, droopy eyes are cute, when they look up, they command respect and exude a serious and imposing aura.
—He looks even more like Mr. Amuro now.
Conan Edogawa checked several times before finally confirming that this was indeed 29-year-old Kudo Huai, a famous policeman known as the "Golden Sun of the Police Force," who had even been promoted to superintendent at a young age.
Moreover, due to his extraordinary blond hair and dark skin, his almost blinding achievements, and his outstanding appearance, the blond youth's popularity was even higher than that of most celebrities.
Conan Edogawa: "..."
The "Mr. Amuro" in the game is more famous and eye-catching than the real-life Mr. Amuro.
Conan Edogawa frowned slightly.
The storyline, after player involvement, has indeed changed significantly from the original.
The original Kudo Jun was indeed very talented and hardworking, but due to various reasons, he was just a low-level police officer who liked to mess around and was always at risk of being fired, so he always carried various job information magazines with him. Even after his adoptive father died, he completely put aside his concerns to investigate the organization, and when he finally died, he was still just a police inspector, and he continued to keep a low profile and investigate secretly.
After all, according to the Nagano Church storyline, Kudo Jun actually pretended to have joined the organization and become a spy long ago, which is why he knew so many of the organization's secrets and even came into contact with the time machine in the final battle.
The plot that Conan Edogawa originally controlled has been completely changed, and he no longer dares to use the previous information to make plans.
Conan Edogawa was still very concerned about the disappearance of the blond child during the time travel. After briefly reading the information, he immediately went to search for information about what happened to Kudo Huai after the Twilight Villa incident twenty years ago.
However, he was unable to find any results.
The incident seems to have been deliberately erased by some people, leaving only a whitewashed peace and even more outrageous rumors, and a few scattered words of nonsense from completely ignorant people online.
There is no information online that Kudo Yuya was involved in the Twilight Villa bombing incident twenty years ago.
However, Kudo Huai did leave traces over those twenty years, proving that he did not suddenly travel here like them.
So why is that?
Kudo Jun disappeared during the time travel. Was it because he couldn't travel with the players, or did he stay where he was and continue living? But what is the underlying principle? Why was he the only one different? What exactly happened afterward?
Kudo Huai is so conspicuous now, there's no way he could be an undercover agent, right?
How significant is the butterfly effect that these players have on the storyline?
Conan Edogawa exited and searched for the other four main characters.
His first instinct was naturally to check on Masaya Oki, and then he was stunned again.
Oki Masaya died in the twilight villa explosion twenty years ago.
Conan Edogawa searched repeatedly, incredulously, to confirm that he hadn't misread it.
It's still hard to believe that Kudo Jun saved the other three but failed to save Oki Masaya, who was the most important person to him.
But at least in the eyes of the world, Chongya was indeed dead.
He immediately searched for the names of Jun Hayami, Jun Shibata, and Yujiro Ishihara.
These three main characters are still alive and have indeed experienced the dangers encountered in the original story, but for some reason they all survived. The current main character group can be described as a luxurious lineup.
Without a doubt, this was made by the reborn Kudo Huai.
What about Okiya?
Conan Edogawa recalled once again the sorrowful expression on the blond child's face when they parted.
Did Kudo Jun already foresee this at that time?
Kudo Huai may possess more information than he imagined...
"H-Arthur!" Hattori Heiji excitedly patted his shoulder and showed him his phone. "Look! Players from other instances have come here too. Now all the players in the game are here, and they've already found out what the Pacific Ocean buoy mentioned in the instance's name is!"
Conan Edogawa snapped back to reality and shifted his attention to the players outside the game.
Heiji Hattori showed him a chat forum in the game world, where a player had started a thread explaining the situation and then invited other players trapped in the game to join a secret chat room to cooperate.
The password is the name of the game.
Conan Edogawa didn't rush in; he simply used Heiji Hattori's phone to browse through the chat history and chat room members.
Everyone has to use their own game ID, which makes it easy to recognize people.
Although I don't know how many people are left in the game, there are only twenty people in the chat room.
After confirming the situation, Conan Edogawa took his phone and entered the chat room using the name Arthur.
He ignored everyone else and directly messaged Ai Haibara and Professor Agasa to get their contact information and verify their identities.
Conan Edogawa is now more cautious. Since they can meet at the same game studio, he doesn't say anything online. He just goes to Poirot Cafe with Heiji Hattori to meet Professor Agasa and the others, and then they secretly exchange information.
When Conan Edogawa went in, he stared at the blond waiter for a while to confirm that the NPC Amuro Tooru did indeed look different from the protagonist Kudo Jun and that they were not the same person in the game.
They didn't discuss such confidential matters directly in the coffee shop, but instead found a secluded spot outside to begin their conversation.
Ai Haibara said they didn't encounter a time machine, but they did see a large number of brains in vats in the basement. After choosing a faction, although they weren't pursued by the organization, they almost died in the self-destructing Agasa villa. After they escaped, the system showed that they had cleared the game, and then the world changed drastically, with the three instances completely merged.
Whether it was intentional or a coincidence, the three film sets in different time periods encountered the same thing at almost the same time, and the dungeons were completed with only a few minutes' difference between them.
Professor Agasa says he was invited to join the organization by his uncle, who had been dead for fifty years, but he refused and joined the Red faction instead. His uncle, Agasa Kurisuke, wasn't very angry, saying he'd understand later. The invitation remained valid, and he even told him where to escape.
Heiji Hattori continued to monitor the chat room messages, reporting on the progress of other players. Some were already planning to join a tour group, pretending to go see whales but actually to observe and test the situation of the new dungeon, Pacific Buoys.
"Should we join?" he asked.
"No rush," Conan Edogawa said. "I'm still waiting for someone."
Just as Conan Edogawa was pondering how to introduce Shuichi Akai to them, Shuichi Akai had already brought someone in.
Conan Edogawa glanced at the unfamiliar player he was pointing a gun at, a question mark appearing on his face: "Who is he?"
"You don't know him?" Shuichi Akai said. "He was acting suspiciously outside, and when I found out, he said he knew you."
Conan Edogawa threw a detection spell at the stranger and paused for a moment after seeing the name.
He did have a vague recollection of this player with the ID "Genius Magician".
He was a very skilled player in the dungeon eight years ago, and no one streamed his gameplay. He chose the Magician class and was occasionally mentioned on the forums.
At first, he thought this person was Kaito Kid, investigating the death of Toichi Kuroba eight years ago.
But he later met the Dark Baron and learned that he was the real Phantom Thief Kid. Thinking back, before entering the game, they didn't know what would happen in that instance, so they didn't pay much attention to that person.
"It's me! It's me!" The man sighed helplessly, snapped his fingers, and laughed, "The situation is urgent, so I won't hide it from you anymore. Yes, I am Kaito Kid!"
Conan Edogawa: "..."
Seeing his expression freeze and then twist, Kaito Kid raised an eyebrow and said, "What? You don't believe me? Then accept my friend request, and I'll send you a few pieces of information to prove it."
Conan Edogawa barely managed to remain calm as he read through his proof: "However, the Dark Baron also claims to be the Phantom Thief Kid, and he has also proven his identity."
Heiji Hattori turned around instantly: "What?! The Dark Baron is Phantom Thief Kid?!"
Kaito Kid was also shocked: "What did you say?! How on earth did that guy impersonate me?!"
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Conan Edogawa had confirmed several more points this time, making it clear that the person in front of him was indeed the real Phantom Thief Kid. He was unusually flustered and said, "Who else could impersonate you so skillfully? And even know those things?!"
The moment the question left his lips, Conan Edogawa already knew the answer in his mind—Vermouth.
Now that things have come to this, Conan Edogawa knows that Kaito Kid is Kaito Kuroba, and that his mother and Vermouth are both disciples of Kaito Kuroba's father, Toichi Kuroba. Furthermore, Vermouth is very familiar with the organization and possesses that level of intelligence and imitation ability, which is indeed possible... But why?!
“We can put this matter aside for now.” Shuichi Akai interrupted them, looked at Conan Edogawa, and said, “I came here to tell you something in person.”
Conan Edogawa paused for a moment, then got up and walked outside with him.
After confirming that no one was around, Shuichi Akai lowered his voice and said, "The FBI has successfully hacked into the game, but for now they can only transmit some messages occasionally."
Conan Edogawa immediately turned to look at him.
Shuichi Akai continued, "There are two things you need to pay attention to."
"First, don't trust the online world in games too much. It's best not to exchange important intelligence online, as the organization has probably already taken control of the online world. It seems that the FBI's intelligence has been leaked, and they are now being hunted down by the organization."
"Secondly, two of the FBI players who entered the game have already died, and they actually died in real life as well."
Conan Edogawa's eyes widened suddenly.
Shuichi Akai met his gaze with a serious expression and nodded slightly: "In other words, if you die in the game, you will actually die in reality."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
