What? What spirit?

Kunikida Dopo listened to the voice of "Edogawa Ranpo" without any joking meaning, and magnified the two words in his mind twice. He felt from the bottom of his heart that he might have heard the pronunciation wrong. How could there be such an unscientific existence as ghosts?

"There's no use running away."

"Edogawa Ranpo" said with a smile, and gave Kunikida Dopo a precise blow. He hummed. The pattern of the appearance of those things was easy to judge, and they looked different during the day and at night.

“It’s coming this week.”

"Want to see what a 'ghost' looks like?"

"No... please don't..."

"Hey, Kunikida-kun, you're not afraid of ghosts, are you?"

Dazai Osamu suddenly appeared from nowhere, standing behind Kunikida Doppo, his body soaking wet, his tone deliberately pretending to be weak and trembling, as if a ghost had appeared alive.

"So what's going on here——"

You're obviously shaking, Kunikida.

"Edogawa Ranpo" glanced and turned to the other side.

The black beast held the full bag in its mouth, its sharp teeth retracted in a wronged manner to avoid biting the plastic handle. He didn't need to reason to see how unhappy "Rashomon" was about being used as a tool to carry the bag.

"Dazai, if something falls to the ground, you have to pay double the price."

Without turning his head, "Edogawa Ranpo" said to Dazai Osamu who was walking slowly to "Akutagawa Ryunosuke" and wanted to extend his hand, "Those things were the ones he had picked out with great difficulty after a long time, and after all, there must always be trade-offs."

If I continue like this, I will probably be dissatisfied when I return to that world one day.

Greed will always grow little by little in the dark, but "Edogawa Ranpo" doesn't want to let any unnecessary and unimportant emotions control his reason.

"Ranpo Edogawa" has never thought of staying in a peaceful and normal world forever. He can be regarded as the pillar of that virtual world - even if he does not want to be the so-called savior.

But those people are real living beings, not fictitious structures. There is nothing that can create the illusion of "people" out of thin air. Even the world where "Edogawa Ranpo" lives is actually just a fusion of another broken and destroyed world.

Dazai Osamu had a sullen expression on his face. Kunikida Dopo, who had slowed down over there, clenched his fists and angrily chased after him. He obviously recognized who was causing the trouble.

The four of them walked in a line on their way back to the detective agency. After all this trouble, their pace slowed down a lot.

In addition, Dazai suddenly saw a tree with crooked branches and said, "This tree looks like a good place to hang yourself." He took a rope that he had hidden somewhere and tied himself to the tree.

"Don't cause trouble to others!"

"Ah~ The scenery here is really nice."

Dazai Osamu was hanging on a tree branch, dangling from side to side. Even though his neck was strangled, it did not affect his ability to speak. No matter how hard Kunikida Doppo tried, he could not catch him.

A cold light flashed, and the tip of the knife cut through the rope and sank into the tree trunk. With a bang, Dazai fell to the ground. The branch itself was not very high, so it would only hurt for a while if he fell down, and it would not be a big problem.

A hand reached out from the side, pulled out the dagger and put it back into the belt. Edogawa Ranpo lowered his eyes and met the deep look in Dazai Osamu's iris-colored eyes.

"You will get the answer soon." "Edogawa Ranpo" said. There was no need to hide anything at this time, because that kind of monster would persistently appear across the world.

Although it won't lead to a doomsday situation, keeping it a secret will only cause trouble.

He turned and walked towards "Akutagawa Ryunosuke" and took out a bottle of soda from the handbag that the black beast was biting. The glass beads reflected a faint light in the sunlight.

"Edogawa Ranpo" narrowed his eyes, raised the soda bottle and looked at the sun. The fact that the result had already been achieved was still regrettable. After a moment, he sighed: "It's not the color I want."

Dazai Osamu dodged Kunikida Dopo's attempt to pull his hand and stood up by himself. His two fingers touched and rubbed against each other imperceptibly, and the sticky feeling from before seemed to still remain on his hand.

The back of his windbreaker was covered in dust, but he didn't care. He smiled nonchalantly at Kunikida's voice, but his smile was far from his eyes.

This Mr. Ranbu... seems a little strange.

"Hey Dazai, did you hear what I just said?"

"Do you not trust me, Kunikida-kun? I wrote down every word carefully."

Kunikida Dopo stared at him suspiciously, but he could not tell anything unusual from his expression.

While they were chatting, "Edogawa Ranpo" and "Akutagawa Ryunosuke" had already continued walking towards the detective agency.

Shake the bottle, and long strings of bubbles emerge from the bottom in a line. The taste of green apple spreads in the mouth, sweet with a little sourness. It is a perfect drink for summer, and it successfully makes "Edogawa Ranpo" forget the scene that just came to his mind.

To say that he had never seen the Dazai Osamu of his world... was not entirely true. After all, the character and behavior of that guy were enough for him to deduce the final outcome, which was also what he had always dreamed of - not everyone has the courage to rush into the special danger clearance area with bare hands.

"Edogawa Ranpo" listened to the one-sided quarrel of the two people behind him, a smile appeared on his lips, and he seemed to be in a good mood.

"There seem to be more and more nighttime attacks recently." Kunikida Dopo flipped through the documents in his hand. Several sheets of information were about attacks. The police had conducted an investigation, but still had no useful information.

Each time it happens between midnight and 1 a.m., the person being attacked has normal body functions but remains unconscious. Even using instruments to check can only conclude that the person is healthy.

...Could it be a ghost?

Kunikida Doppo suddenly remembered what Edogawa Ranpo had said to him before. It sounded like a joke, but it was strange when combined with the current events. He shuddered and felt that he must have been too suspicious.

How could ghosts exist?

He tried to solidify his thoughts and turned to the next page. Before he could finish reading two lines of text, a miserable ghost face popped out from the page. Kunikida Dopo was caught off guard and frightened. His hands shook and the papers scattered all over the floor.

Before he could react to what was happening, "Edogawa Ranpo" took a big step forward behind him, quickly pulled out a dagger from his belt, and slashed at the paper with the ghost face on it.

A sizzling sound like something burning was heard in the air, and as the paper broke into two pieces and fell to the ground, everything returned to silence. The next moment, a sharp hissing sound suddenly rose, and blue-black claws grabbed at "Edogawa Ranpo".

His hands were extremely fast, the blade cut first, and then a silver bullet flew out from the muzzle and pierced the palm.

This made everyone else in the detective agency shocked for a moment.

Nakajima Atsushi retracted his tiger-transformed hand and stood there in a daze.

No one expected the skills of "Edogawa Ranpo". Even "Akutagawa Ryunosuke"'s "Rashomon" was a few seconds slower and transformed into a black beast, biting the air.

Dazai Osamu leaned over to pick up the completely motionless paper, and the blue light of "No Longer Human" appeared faintly. The next moment, the unwilling low sound faded away, and lines of neat bold characters reappeared on the paper.

Can the nullification ability work... ability? No, it shouldn't.

While Dazai Osamu was trying to figure out what this thing was, he slowly placed the paper on the table. Nakajima Atsushi also picked up the other scattered documents and sorted them out one by one.

Kunikida Doppo felt that his spirit was shocked - it must have been like a ghost at first, right?!

"This Ranpo-san." Dazai Osamu tilted his head, his finger still on the paper, "Can you tell us about the situation?"

"You know, this thing... I've encountered it once before."

He sighed, "It appeared in the river for no apparent reason, blocking my way to the underworld. It also has a very strong stench. I don't want to touch it again after accidentally touching it once."

"Dazai, when will you come?" Dazai had never asked this question before. It was only after Kunikida Doppo asked that he realized that the only person who had gone into the water recently was him and "Ranpo Edogawa" on that day.

The chair turned a circle and stopped. "Edogawa Ranpo" took a few steps back and landed on the swivel chair. The soft backrest perfectly relieved the burning sensation on his back.

"Ranpo-sama has already told you the answer."

"Edogawa Ranpo" said this before Dazai Osamu appeared, so he didn't hear it. The listening device had already been crushed and thrown into the trash can.

Among the people present, only Kunikida Doppo and Akutagawa Ryunosuke heard it.

Kunikida stopped dead in his tracks. The face that had just appeared on the paper kept appearing in his mind and wouldn't go away.

He hesitated and asked, "...Is it a ghost?"

"That's right, but it's different from ordinary ghosts. It's just that they are generally called by this name."

After Edogawa Ranpo finished explaining the ghost's information, he did not continue, so everyone's attention turned to Akutagawa Ryunosuke, but the latter felt that he was out of the loop the entire time.

He picked up the person on his way home. Although "Edogawa Ranpo" mentioned words like "dependent world", he never told him the source of the injury, which world was the dependent world, and what happened there. Their main topic was "Akutagawa Ryunosuke" asking him where his sister might be.

One of them was unwilling to say, and the other did not ask rashly, and the two maintained a delicate balance. It was not until this moment that "Akutagawa Ryunosuke" realized that this seemed to be a big trap.

And he jumped down without noticing anything.

"Only he knows." Ranpo Edogawa suddenly spoke, drawing everyone's attention back to "Ranpo Edogawa".

He looked a little angry, and his chewing movements became heavier. He glanced at "Edogawa Ranpo" from the corner of his eye, and deliberately emphasized his tone. It was clear what he was hinting at:

"If you want to give up on yourself, there's no point in trying to save yourself."

The author has something to say: I became addicted to Sky: Children of the Light and gradually became stupid.

The game is really fun (not really)

⊙

Not sure how long this can be, the main thing is to get the settings down to a rough outline.

When I was thinking about this world, I came up with a lot of ideas in my mind, but when I started writing, I found it a bit difficult.

It is definitely the nature of a pigeon spirit.

⊙

I just thought I had sent it out, but when I checked and saw that there was no update, I realized that it was scheduled for the 15th (.)