I don't want to be an elf!

The blindfolded man turned around and looked at everyone: "Perhaps you think it's still possible to defeat Nightmare, perhaps you think it's still possible to stop Nightmare's plan, but as the person who knows Nightmare best, I'm warning you one last time: do not try to fight Nightmare. Leaving Yokohama now is the best way to protect yourselves."

"Now that you know who we are, you should also know how we'll answer, right?"

"Don't think of yourselves as heroes who bravely sacrificed yourselves for resistance, because your resistance is meaningless and will only end up like moths to a flame," Eyepatch Three said solemnly. "If you oppose the Nightmare, your choice is no different from suicide."

"suicide?"

Upon hearing Eyepatch Three's words, Dazai Osamu couldn't help but laugh.

"I love committing suicide the most."

Chapter 83 The True Purpose of the Nightmare Plan

"If all of you are prepared, there might still be a sliver of a chance to stop the nightmare."

After hesitating for a long time, Eyepatch Three finally softened his attitude: "In that case, I'll risk being discovered by Nightmare and take a gamble with you."

Upon hearing this, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

They have no clue about Kurumi Tokisaki's plans, only knowing that the arrival of the group is part of her scheme.

Even Edogawa Ranpo was unable to offer any reliable conjectures due to insufficient information.

Now that Eye Mask Three is willing to cooperate with them, this is fantastic news for them.

As the individual among the betrayed clones who is closest to the real Tokisaki Kurumi, she knows far more than Bandage Kurumi, who even abandoned her original self.

"As you may already know, my special ability, or rather Kurumi Tokisaki's special ability, [Zafkiel], was given to me by a mysterious figure who called herself [Phantom]," Eyepatch Three said. "Phantom granted Kurumi Tokisaki the ability of time, hoping that Kurumi Tokisaki would work with her to punish evil and protect the weak and innocent. You should have heard this story from my younger self, right?"

"Yes, after we deduced that this child was the nightmare clone of the betrayer, she told us about her origins."

"But what if I said it was a lie?"

“Nonsense!” Bandage Three immediately retorted. “Are you implying that I lied to them?”

“No, I didn’t say that. After all, you only told them what you believed.” The three-eyed man looked at her with a hint of pity. “After all, you are still too young. After gaining power, you were blinded and forgot that all the gifts that fate has given you have already been marked with a price in secret.”

"What...what do you mean?"

“My point is simple,” Bandage Three sighed. “You were deceived by the illusion. That guy is not a hero of justice at all, nor did he give you the power to control time because you have the qualities to save the world.”

"Words are no proof; what evidence do you have?"

“The existence of Nightmare is the evidence.” Eyepatch Three’s eyes were deep. “In my timeline, I had already noticed the Phantom’s suspicious behavior, but I was unwilling to think about it in that direction until I was summoned as an avatar and saw the appearance of the main body in this timeline. Only then did I realize that my suspicions were correct.”

Upon hearing Eyepatch Three's words, Dazai Osamu and Edogawa Ranpo, who were standing nearby, both showed a hint of understanding.

It seems that the mysterious person who called himself Phantom had ulterior motives for granting Kurumi Tokisaki superpowers.

As a young individual, Bandage Three never doubted Phantom and always regarded her as his good friend. Therefore, in the stories she told Dazai Osamu, Phantom always appeared in a positive light.

As the individual closer to the present Nightmare, Eyepatch Three clearly noticed some anomalies in Phantom's timeline. However, due to their past battles together, she was unwilling to truly doubt Phantom until she was summoned as a clone and came into contact with Tokisaki Kurumi in this timeline, which confirmed that her suspicions were correct.

"So, that guy called Phantom must have done something to cause you to become the Nightmare you are now, right?" Edogawa Ranpo guessed. "As for what she might have done that could have caused you to fall into Nightmare, do you have any clues?"

“There are some.” Eyepatch Three’s expression wavered slightly. “But I don’t really want to talk about these things.”

“Alright, we understand. After all, this must be a secret you've kept deep inside,” Dazai Osamu said. “Based on your deductions, we can conclude that the person called Phantom did something that drove you to extremes, thus turning you into the nightmare you are now, right?”

"Yes."

"But why would Nightmare come to Yokohama? What is her plan here?" Dazai Osamu asked suspiciously. "Could it be that Phantom is hiding in Yokohama right now, and Nightmare wants to create chaos to force her out?"

“No, I think that’s unlikely.” Eyepatch Three shook his head. “If my speculation is correct so far, creating chaos won’t force Phantom out, because her act of being a righteous ally is just an act.”

"Then why does the nightmare want to muddy the waters of Yokohama?"

"Regarding this... I'm sorry, but first I must tell you that the information I gave to Mr. Sakaguchi before was not complete," Eyepatch Three said. "Besides the first to tenth bullets, Zafkiel also has the eleventh and twelfth bullets."

“Although it wasn’t written in the information you gave us, I still managed to deduce it,” Edogawa Ranpo replied. “It’s just simple logical reasoning, nothing difficult at all.”

"Have you deduced what their abilities are?"

"...It's about traveling to the future and the past, right?"

“That’s right, as expected of the great detective.” Eyepatch Three affirmed, “The power of the eleventh bullet is to send the hit person to the future, while the power of the twelfth bullet is to send the hit person back to the past.”

Why did you deliberately hide these two abilities before?

"Because I'm worried you'll lose your fighting spirit, after all, those two abilities are just too extraordinary."

"The reason you're bringing up this intelligence now is because it's related to Nightmare's plans?"

“To be more precise, it’s related to the Twelfth Bullet,” Eyepatch Three replied. “If I’m not mistaken, Nightmare wants to use the Twelfth Bullet to travel to the past and kill the Phantom.”

“I see… Assuming that Phantom committed some heinous crimes, causing Kurumi Tokisaki to fall into Nightmare, then Nightmare only needs to use her powers to travel to the past and deal with Phantom first, thus changing the timeline.” Edogawa nodded slightly. “That is indeed an extremely reasonable speculation.”

However, just as Edogawa Ranpo voiced his guess, Dazai Osamu's expression suddenly turned pale as if he had just realized something.

Recalling the information recorded in that intelligence report, his eyes widened, revealing fear.

"Nightmare uses Time Bullets by consuming time; the lower the ranking of a Time Bullet, the more time it consumes, and her Time-Eating City has the ability to steal the time of others..."

Dazai Osamu's mutterings reached everyone's ears.

Upon hearing this, Edogawa Ranpo, Fukuzawa Yukichi, Sakaguchi Ango, and the others' expressions instantly darkened.

They originally thought that the "destroy Yokohama" mentioned by the three eyepatch-wearing individuals meant to destroy the city.

But as Dazai Osamu murmured, they instantly realized that they had misunderstood Eyepatch Three's meaning.

They were wrong!

Big mistake!

"She wants to steal the time of the citizens of Yokohama!"

Dazai Osamu's face turned ashen.

"She plans to turn Yokohama into a dead zone!"

Chapter 84 The White Whale Appears

In an amusement park in Yokohama.

Kurumi Tokisaki and Kyoka Izumi were sitting in the slowly rising Ferris wheel, quietly overlooking the entire amusement park.

A clone emerged from the shadows, breaking the beautiful tranquility, and reported to Kurumi Tokisaki: "The plans on Eyepatch Three and Bandage Three's side are progressing smoothly, and we can launch an operation against the group at any time."

"very good."

Kurumi Tokisaki nodded slightly, waved her hand, and dismissed her clone.

This result was naturally within her expectations.

Ultimately, half the reason I sent Eyepatch Three to cause trouble today was to give Bandage Three a push so that she could join the Armed Detective Agency as soon as possible.

The scene that unfolded in front of Ango Sakaguchi and the Armed Detective Agency was pre-planned by Kurumi Tokisaki, Eyepatch Three, and Bandage Three.

It would be strange if such a smooth and perfect script could have problems.

"One less thing to worry about."

While sipping the strawberry milkshake that Izumi Kyoka had bought, Tokisaki Kurumi thought to herself, "I hope the plans from now on will go smoothly."

Side quest one is complete, side quest two is about to begin, and side quest three is also fine.

Next, all that's left to worry about is the main storyline.

According to the system, completing the main quest is a mandatory requirement to travel to the next world; other side quests and random quests can be ignored.

However, the completion ratings of side quests and random quests will affect the final role-playing score, which in turn will affect the lottery draw after the main quest is completed.

The higher your performance rating, the higher your chances of drawing a good ability.

Kurumi Tokisaki didn't want to end up with useless abilities after a lot of work completing the main storyline.

Therefore, as a non-speedrunner, she chose to complete as many side quests and random quests as possible before finishing the main storyline.

Now, there are no more side quests to worry about, and there's only one relatively difficult random quest. It's time to focus on completing the main quest.

The main mission objective is simple: become a nightmare that strikes fear into the hearts of Yokohama.

This task is simple in some ways, and difficult in others.

The simplest way is to run into the street and kill indiscriminately until you reach a certain point.

However, this method is undoubtedly the least consistent with Tokisaki Kurumi's character design. Although she is called the most evil spirit, the people she kills are all bad people, or at least most of them.

Therefore, in order to maintain her public image, she decided to adopt another troublesome but not damaging method.

Spread fear using the City of Food.

Telling the Special Ability Agency and the Armed Detective Agency about Kurumi Tokisaki's plan was the first step in spreading fear.

The masked man told them that Nightmare was planning to steal the time of all the citizens of Yokohama, turning the entire city into a dead zone, and that it was Tokisaki Kurumi who instructed them to use the Twelfth Bullet to go back in time and kill the phantom.

However, she didn't actually intend to drain the entire city of its inhabitants dry. In the end, she only wanted to instill fear in the supernatural organizations and citizens of Yokohama; there was no need to go to such extremes.

Moreover, the eleventh and twelfth bullets are the two most special bullets. To use them, all that is needed is a huge amount of spiritual power, and no time is required at all.

However, it was impossible for Dazai Osamu and his group to know this. For them, since it took time to activate the first to tenth bullets, it was certain that the eleventh and twelfth bullets would also take time to activate. This was the most basic logic, and even a detective like Edogawa Ranpo could not deduce it.

Unless Kurumi Tokisaki reveals it, no one could possibly know the special nature of those last two power bullets.

"Look."

Suddenly, looking out the window, Izumi Kyoka pointed to the horizon, her eyes wide, and said, "Something is flying over here."

"Ok?"

As Kurumi Tokisaki was deep in thought, she looked up, squinted at the horizon where the sun was high in the sky, and saw something blurry approaching Yokohama.

In the amusement park, more and more people discovered that thing, either calling their friends to join in the fun or taking out their phones to record videos.

Because that was definitely not an airplane.

As they drew closer, a flying steel whale gradually came into view.

The group's mobile headquarters, the White Whale!

"They've arrived so quickly? Heh, it seems they finally couldn't sit still after hearing about the hijacking of the transport ship."

"Does your sister know what that is?"