Conan: I've been linked to the tech tree system.

Ayako Suzuki greeted Toru Tono and this time carefully memorized his face.

......

Most of the people at the table had once been members of a film club, so the atmosphere was quite lively.

Sonoko, engrossed in chatting with various handsome men, turned to Tohru and recounted Ran's "glorious deed" of opening three doors upstairs, seeing all of Ayako's male classmates, before finally finding the empty room left for her.

Then, amidst Ran Mouri's flushed face and steam rising from her head, they started playfully teasing each other.

Tohno listened to the familiar story and remembered which case it was.

He had a deep impression of Ran opening several doors to see people's bare backs, and as a child he wondered why Ran didn't knock on the door first...

Now I can understand it a little better.

Human nature.

......

However, Tohru Tohno remembered that the culprit in this case was a strange man wrapped in bandages like a mummy.

[Ding, Detective storyline system quest triggered: The Bandaged Man Murder Case at the Mountain Villa]

Mission objective: Defeat the terrifying bandaged monster.

Mission completion reward: 200 Detective Points

The system issued the mission quite early this time; he hasn't even seen the so-called bandaged monster yet...

Toru Tono glanced around and spotted Ryoichi Takahashi smiling憨厚ly to the side, then paused in surprise.

Oh right, this person seems to be the bandaged weirdo.

I remember that his method of committing the crime was to stuff the severed human head into the space in his stomach that had been freed up after he lost weight and his "beer belly" disappeared, in order to obscure the time of the victim's death and thus deceive everyone.

It's a childhood trauma.

However, this task seems quite simple.

Tohno Toru remembers that in a little while, the long-haired handsome guy next to him, Hyuga Neji... oh no, I mean Ota Masaru, will invite Ran to take a walk in the woods. And Takahashi Ryoichi, who is worried that his plan to pretend to be fat will be exposed because Ran saw his bare back, will transform into a bandaged monster and attack Ran.

If he just finds an excuse to follow him and directly apprehends Takahashi Ryoichi who is about to commit the crime, wouldn't he get 200 detective points?

Very relaxed.

......

Tohru Tono drank his coffee for a while and chatted with Sonoko, who was sitting next to him, about the high school detective Shinichi Kudo. Soon after, Masaru Ota stood up and walked towards Ran, who was standing by the window looking at the scenery outside.

After chatting for a few minutes, the two walked to the door together, seemingly preparing to leave.

Conan's attempts to stop her were futile; instead, his subtle mention of "Shinichi Kudo" only strengthened Ran's resolve to go out with the handsome guy.

Tohru Tono gazed at Conan's back, which seemed to be bursting with flames, and felt that he should sing "Green Light" to him at this moment.

However, just as Toru Tono approached the door, intending to find an excuse to leave, a crisp sound of a circuit breaker tripping rang out from behind the kitchen, and then the lights suddenly went out, plunging the entire villa into darkness.

"Eh?"

Everyone in the villa was startled by the sudden power outage.

Ayako Suzuki rummaged through the storage room and found several flashlights, distributing them to everyone. She then went to the back of the kitchen to check the circuit breaker. When she returned, she told everyone with a serious expression that the villa's electrical circuits had been sabotaged by someone and were no longer usable.

what? !

The people standing in the darkness looked at each other, and suspicion gradually appeared in everyone's eyes.

"How did it suddenly turn into a suspense drama?" Toru Tohno wondered.

He doesn't remember this happening.

The script for Chapter 24 is wrong, isn't it?

When the lights suddenly went out, the person who wasn't in the living room immediately became the first suspect.

Ayako Suzuki counted the number of people present with her flashlight and found that only one person was missing: "Huh? Where did Chikako go?"

"Tch, could it be that woman's prank?" Ota Masaru said, clearly annoyed.

He had already asked that seemingly gentle and beautiful high school girl out, and he was on the verge of winning her over, but then...

Ota Masaru glanced at Ran, who had given up on going out and was now huddled together with Sonoko, trembling with fear. He thought that high school girls these days were too timid.

At his age, he was already confident enough to take care of his girlfriend who had accidentally gotten pregnant!

......

Well done, Chikako Ikeda!

People's joys and sorrows are not shared, and Conan, who took the opportunity to reconnect with Ran, was clearly the one gloating.

Who would have thought that Ran's fear of ghosts, something he'd complained about since childhood, would actually save Shinichi from being cuckolded? It's truly unpredictable how things turn out.

However, after a brief moment of excitement, Conan noticed some suspicious points.

He remembered that Ms. Chikako Ikeda had said she was a little tired and went upstairs to her room, and he hadn't seen her come down since.

If she was playing a prank, she would have to lower a ladder from upstairs, climb down, and then climb through the kitchen window to reach the main power switch.

Chikako Ikeda doesn't seem like the kind of person who would be so boring.

Furthermore, from a prank perspective, directly damaging the power switch like this is going a bit too far...

Could it be...?

Conan suddenly realized a possibility.

So he broke free from Xiaolan's hand, took his short legs, and ran upstairs.

"Conan?" Ran had no idea what had gotten into the boy, so she dragged Sonoko along and chased after him.

The others followed suit.

As soon as they got upstairs, they saw that the door to Chikako Ikeda's room was wide open, blood was flowing on the floor, and her unseeing eyes were staring straight out of the door.

Conan stood at the doorway, his glasses reflecting light in the darkness.

"what!!!"

......

A murder has occurred in the villa, and no one dares to act alone anymore. At this moment, everyone who remains is sitting around the dining table, exchanging clues or alibis.

Conan nodded repeatedly as he listened, his gaze constantly shifting between the people present, searching for any suspicious clues.

Tohru Tohno followed suit, but he was thinking about something else entirely.

Why is the script different from what he remembers?

Toru Tono boasted that he had a deep impression of the case and should not have misremembered it.

Is it a butterfly effect caused by myself?

Tohru Tohno carefully recalled the cases he had experienced before and found that the cases he was involved in were indeed somewhat different from what he remembered.

The biggest difference seems to be that most of the suspects used his invention, which caused some deviations in their methods of committing the crimes...

In other words, after buying his invention, Ryoichi Takahashi changed his original modus operandi.

Damn it, I messed up myself!

Tohru Tohno felt the boomerang he had thrown fly back and hit him right between the eyebrows.

But he couldn't just not sell it, could he? He was still hoping to get rich.

After thinking for a while, Toru Tono decided to install a backdoor in all the inventions he would sell in the future.

At least we should know what he sold to others...

......

Ryoichi Takahashi sat in the middle of the group with an honest expression, saying that he had been in the living room with everyone before the lights were turned off and had no time to commit the crime.

Secretly, he was thrilled that he had gotten rid of that annoying woman, Chikako Ikeda, so easily.

As expected of the legendary "Starlight's" masterpiece, it is a flawless invention except for its price.

Ryoichi Takahashi recalled how he had previously used a remote-controlled EMP to sabotage the power switch, then swapped himself with the doll in the dark, while his real body went over and chopped Chikako Ikeda to pieces before calmly returning to his seat... This series of smooth and seamless actions gave him a sense of intellectual superiority and complete control over the situation.

Watching his classmates go over their statements and wonder why none of them had time to commit the crime, Ryoichi Takahashi silently pondered who would be his next victim.

Or maybe it's that girl who saw my bare back.

Ryoichi Takahashi turned his gaze to Ran Mouri, feeling uneasy until he got rid of her.

Moreover, when the lights were turned off earlier, she and her best friend were shivering and hugging each other, clearly a weak girl who was afraid of ghosts.

It should be easy to get it.

......

After discussing the matter to no avail, the group panicked and thought of calling the police. Only then did they realize that their cell phones had no signal and that the phone line had been cut by someone.

Two brave male students volunteered to go out of the villa to call the police. They returned shortly after, their faces ashen, bringing even worse news—the suspension bridge outside the villa had also been cut down.

The atmosphere in the room gradually became heavy.

As the hostess, Ayako Suzuki felt very guilty that such a thing had happened at her own villa. But it was already past midnight, and there was no other way, so she suggested that everyone get some rest and go down the mountain together the next day to report the incident to the police.

After thinking about it together, everyone realized that there was really no better solution, so they agreed.

However, to prevent potential criminals hiding among the crowd from taking advantage of the night, Ayako suggested that everyone be divided into two rooms according to gender and sleep together, so that even if a criminal wanted to make a move, it would be difficult to find an opportunity.

"Is it okay if you girls share a room, Ran?" The long-haired man, Ota Masaru, said that his room was quite big and he could share it with Ran. "To be honest, I also know a little bit of martial arts."

Xiaolan was just about to wave her hand, preparing to politely decline in an awkward way, when Yuanzi spoke up casually, "It's okay, we're not the kind of weak girls."

"Why don't you sleep with us, Conan?" Ran suddenly noticed Conan naturally heading into the group of boys, so she pulled him over.

A murder had just occurred in the villa, and she was worried about Conan sleeping in someone else's room.

After thinking it over calmly, Conan ultimately decided to give up on the boys' group.

It wasn't that he liked it this way, but a murder had just occurred at the villa, and he had to take responsibility for protecting Xiaolan!

Conan happily went to wash up.