58

"Grappa!" The panicked man looked at the newcomer, widened his eyes and nervously explained: "I can't be an undercover agent, you know..."

"Bang!" The gun went off and the man fell down. In the deserted suburbs, no one noticed the passing of life.

"BOSS, the target has been killed."

Noel, dressed in black and still wrapped in bandages, sat on a stone nearby with his hair blown by the wind. He made a phone call and reported.

"Well done, Grappa." The voice on the other end could not tell whether he was happy or angry, but the meaning of the words was quite clear, "You are faster than Gin."

It seems that the boss is still unhappy with Gin recently~ Noel thought happily, and then he heard the other party say:

"What happened yesterday?"

Coming, coming. Noel had naturally made preparations long ago. He adjusted his tone and said:

"I lost my medicine box when I was on a mission with Gin. Something went wrong with my body that night and I was unconscious for the whole day."

A half-true and half-false excuse, based on the fact that the medicine box was lost and it was impossible to judge whether it was true or not. If it were someone else, the boss might be suspicious, but not Noel. His confidence in brainwashing technology would only make the other party think that Grappa would never deceive, and this blind spot was only created by Noel spending so much time.

"Go pick one up from Murakami tonight."

"Boss, confinement room..."

"No need." The boss looked very tolerant and said, "Take a rest during this period and take care of your body. I hope you can use it for a few more years."

"It's my honor." Noel cursed in his heart while speaking respectfully, but he was also relieved. He was grateful to the two unlucky guys who were suddenly thought to be undercover agents and helped him gain some goodwill. After all, if it weren't for this, he would not be able to escape the confinement room tonight and the meeting tomorrow even if he explained clearly to the boss, which was somewhat in conflict with his next plan.

Noel stood up skillfully and began to deal with the body. He touched his arm and felt a little cold. Suddenly he remembered that his fever had just subsided, so he pulled his coat to wrap himself more tightly.

I don't think I'll have a fever again. Fever is such a hassle...

The cell phone suddenly rang, Noel took out the phone and found it was a message to Xia Chuankong?

/Teacher Leon, the quality of this update is also very high. I have already sent the new issue to your new address in advance. /

Noel looked at the sender and found that it seemed to be his editor? He almost forgot about it.

After scratching his head, he finally remembered that he seemed to have another identity as a cartoonist. Since he started serializing the comic "Traveler" three years ago, Noel had completely ignored it and let it develop, except for sending the manuscript on time by fax every month. After all, he just wanted to have the identity of a cartoonist but did not expect to become so popular. It may be because Japan prefers works that focus on exploring the evil of human nature. Anyway, the sales of this work are indeed good.

Now, Noel is naturally aware of the misunderstanding between the publisher and the audience. He found out not long after the work was released. He still remembers that he was curious about how his comics were reviewed, so he went to the topic to check the readers' reactions. As a result, he was torn apart by readers because he firmly believed that it was a healing comic. Seeing the other party repeating "you know what?" Noel felt the absurdity of reality, but then he thought it was quite interesting to splash black mud, so Noel simply continued to draw in this style. If you think about it carefully, you don't know how many people have been deceived by the extremely terrifying plot and the warm and healing style of painting.

He was not good at making up stories, but fortunately, as a member of a criminal organization, he had seen a lot. When what he had seen himself was not enough, he would take what others had seen. It was not until one day when he saw his comic from Vodka that he suddenly realized that this comic was actually well received in his own organization...

After all, those who have fallen to such a low point as to join a criminal organization all have a standard tragic past, and this is also the source of Noel's material. It is quite normal for them to empathize with them. In short, the core fans of this comic are extremely complex. There are detectives who like to solve puzzles, criminals who empathize with the story, or a group of weird people with chuunibyou. Anyway, Noel puts himself in their shoes and thinks that normal people probably won't like this kind of thing...

/Yeah, thanks. / Noel replied, and just as he was about to put away his phone, he noticed the other party asking again:

/Mr. Leon, now that you are back in Japan, can I come visit you? /

On the other end of the phone, Saito was holding his phone and looking at the text message nervously. He knew that his question was a bit abrupt, and part of it was out of his own selfishness. He really wanted to meet Mr. Leon, but when he signed the contract with Mr. Leon, the other party mentioned that it was not convenient to meet. But he still wanted to meet him. After all, as a loyal fan of "Traveler", who doesn't want to meet Mr. Leon himself!

What's more, he is the editor-in-chief. God knows when this task was assigned to him, he almost lost control of his facial expression with a paralyzed face. Although they can only contact each other through text messages for three years, he is already very satisfied. However, he still wants to meet in person!

/Next week, I'll let you know then. /

Teacher Liang agrees? ! !

Saito almost jumped up, but as an adult worker, he controlled his instinct with his rationality. He just pushed his glasses with trembling fingers to avoid ruining his serious image.

/Got it, Mr. Leon! /

He responded quickly, wondering inwardly which formal suit he should wear to show his respect.

Noel put down his phone. It wasn't that he needed to hide his identity deliberately, but Natsukawa Sora's identity wasn't perfect before. It was probably because of the comic world and the era. It was not difficult for this world to verify the identity of the creator. Although the real identity was still required, the editor-in-chief of the comic club kept his promise and kept it confidential, otherwise he would not have called him by the honorific title.

Of course, it doesn't matter now. He has already secured witnesses to prove Natsukawa Sora's existence, so there will be absolutely no problem for him to appear in front of important characters as the cartoonist Leon.

Noel thought of the protagonist's identity that had been guessed by the other party when he met him before. Speaking of which, if Kudo Shinichi is a detective, I wonder if he has ever seen his own works?

———

"So, Conan, you got up early today just to buy this comic book?" When Maori Ran saw Conan suddenly said he wanted a comic and even took a detour to come to the store, she finally felt that he was still a child.

"Sister Xiaolan, actually I can do it myself?" Conan said guiltily, scratching his head and revealing his crescent eyes. He originally wanted to buy it secretly by himself but was suddenly caught by Mao Lilan. By the way, the money was given by Dr. Agasa.

"I'm quite familiar with this place. Shinichi used to come here often to buy comics." Mao Lilan looked at the scene in the comic shop and couldn't help but sigh, "I remember his favorite should be "Traveler". I remember it was in..."

Conan Edogawa's expression froze, and he tried to hide the comic in his hand behind his back, but Ran Maori noticed the corner of the book sticking out and said, "Yes, that's the one you took, it's RC, right?"

"Reasoning cartoon" means reasoning comics, which are abbreviated as RC by fans. "Traveler" is serialized in this monthly comic magazine, and the publishing house is Tomorrow Comics where Noel works.

Originally, the main publication of Tomorrow Manga was a comic collection magazine, which serialized various types of comics. However, in recent years, people's interest in mystery comics has increased dramatically, which led to the editor-in-chief to separate the original reasoning section into a separate publication, and named it "Reasoning cartoon", a direct translation of reasoning comics. Surprisingly, this behavior, which many people did not understand and thought was the editor-in-chief's willful behavior, actually made this comic a favorite of many mystery lovers, and "Traveler" was the main work in it.

"That's right, Conan, you like reasoning too." Xiaolan looked at Conan and didn't think much about it. She just felt that he was a little shy, so she smiled and comforted him, "It's okay, Shinichi likes it too."

"He didn't seem to be interested before, but he started to like it after I showed him The Traveler." Xiaolan couldn't help laughing when she thought of the other person's appearance.

"Really..." Conan reluctantly replied: "I didn't expect Xiaolan to watch this kind of thing..."

"I'm not interested in mystery, I just watched it because Sonoko recommended it to me and the style of painting was beautiful. At that time, I didn't realize the truth at all, it was Shinichi who discovered it..."

"He explained it to me proudly for a long time." Xiaolan had a faint smile on her face, which made Conan scratch his head a little embarrassedly. He couldn't say that he only discovered part of the truth, but was seen by his father while he was researching, and was ruthlessly spoiled by the other party.

But I didn't expect my dad to be so interested in it that he even published an analysis, which made people aware of the dark truth of this comic and made it a must-read for countless detectives.

"Come to think of it, I haven't been able to contact Shinichi recently. I wonder where he has gone?" When talking about this topic, Xiaolan thought of her childhood sweetheart whom she hadn't seen for a long time.

Conan froze, and then explained to himself: "He must have encountered some difficult incident..."

"But he hasn't been to school for a long time..." Xiaolan said worriedly: "And no matter how difficult the incident was in the past, Shinichi could always solve it quickly..."

"Could it be that Shinichi's ability to handle cases has declined?" Xiaolan said thoughtfully.

"......"

Conan remained silent and frustrated, feeling that the comics in his hands were no longer interesting.