The villa was self-contained, connected to the outside world only by a drawbridge.
The bridge was broken, which meant one thing: they couldn't get out.
At least not for a while, and the only way out would be to repair the drawbridge or to go through the jungle on the other side of the mountain, and there was no telling how long that would take.
Suzuki Sonoko had checked the villa specifically and knew this, so she froze for a moment, "Huh?"
There was still a light dusting of snow in the sky, bringing a bit of bone-chilling cold.
Ichijō Mirai walked down the stairs.
But instead of going out of the villa, instead of going to the drawbridge to check for signs, he walked around the doorway, where the cold wind was blowing, and entered the kitchen, asking casually without looking back, "Would you like some hot water?"
Almost everyone else had gone out, except Suzuki Sonoko.
"I'll see if I can find some tea or coffee."
It was so cold that Ichijō Mirai's feeling of having his head tossed around by tentacles hadn't completely subsided, and breathing in the cold air gave him a subtle sensation of a cool breeze in his head.
Suzuki Sonoko looked at the outside of the villa, then at the kitchen, and followed with a somewhat confused, "Yes, yes, I guess."
"I'll have whatever I want... By the way, I think there's sugar in the cupboard."
She rummaged for the candy jar and looked through the kitchen door to the front door of the villa, "I'll call Ran and the girls back later."
Ichijō Mirai was not sure what to think of the hot water she had just gotten from the shock.
Ichijō Mirai didn't care what to drink. He cleaned a few cups, added a few spoonfuls of sugar to each cup, rinsed them with hot water, and took a cup for himself, stirring it gently with a spoon to drive away the heat of the hot water. "But."
He reminded, "There seems to be one."
Before he could finish his sentence, he looked up sharply and down the open door of the kitchen to the stairs.
On the stairs, a short-haired woman came down, Ikeda Chikako, the screenwriter who had been absent just moments before.
She looked a little impatient, holding onto the handrail of the stairs as she came down, and slowly yawned, frowning as she looked outside the villa, then back to the kitchen, wondering, "What's wrong?"
"Why has it been so noisy since just now? What are they doing, gathering around the drawbridge?"
Ikeda Chikako looked annoyed, "Really."
Ichijō Mirai: "..."
Why are you still alive?
...How come the murderer hasn't killed anyone yet... it's too inefficient...
You have time to attack a customer who accidentally discovered your true figure, and no time to kill your target?
The fact that Ikeda Chikako was still alive, a symbol of the murderer's serious inefficiency, was a bit unexpected for Ichijō Mirai, who looked over a few more times, with the eyes of a lucky man who survived his loser counterpart, before retracting his gaze, retracting his own reminder, "It's nothing."
He said, "No deaths so far, so it looks like Mr. Bandage Freak hasn't gotten the better of us yet."
Geez, what's with the stressful look of being afraid of being exposed for murder.
"Next," Ichijō Mirai said carelessly, spouting the same nonsense that everyone knows, "as long as we all stick together, there's a good chance that we won't be in any danger, regardless of whether Mr. Bandage Freak is amongst us, or not."
"Unless he chooses to face a group of people directly."
Translation by Suzuki Sonoko: Don't worry, we're safe.
She breathed an immediate sigh of relief, "That's good."
Turning to Ikeda Chikako, she gave a few words about how things had unfolded and what she had concluded.
While sharing the information, the others came back one by one and shared the same information: the drawbridge had been cut down.
The informant was Conan, who said, "There were many axe marks on the stakes of the drawbridge, and the drawbridge came right off our end in one piece, which, along with the axe marks, proves that someone chopped it off at our end,"
This explains one more thing: "Now there are only two possibilities. One, the Bandage Freak is among us, in the villa."
"Two, the Bandage Monster is not among us, but near the villa."
Conan spoke with such seriousness that the adults around him couldn't help but look at him with bated breath, listening intently.
Their attitude was like that of a detective rather than a child, and Conan didn't look like a child either, he looked like a mature adult, but his appearance looked like he was only seven or eight years old, just an elementary school student.
Ichijō Mirai looked over and took a sip of hot water somewhat thoughtfully:A child, could he be that precocious?
Geniuses are always unreasonable, it's normal to have gifted children, and Ichijō Mirai didn't look much like a child at six or seven years old.
But in a world where the police are crap, the FBI is crap, the criminals are crap, the general public is kind of crap, and pretty much everyone else is crap, this kind of gifted kid is more visible than the sun in the sky, and has a very strong presence.
Conan had just finished speaking when he locked eyes with Ichijō Mirai, who was sipping hot water thoughtfully.
For the first second, he reacted.
In the second and third seconds, the hairs that had risen from the sudden attack rose a second time, and he almost instinctively rubbed the back of his head and laughed dryly, "Ahahaha, didn't I just look like a detective?"
"Didn't I, Sister Ran," Conan shook Mouri Ran's hand with his own a few times, his eyes lit up and his tone proud, "I imitated Uncle Mouri when he was solving a case,"
"Isn't it handsome?"
No, it's more like that.
It's more like an adult's instinctive reaction to embarrassment.
Ichijō Mirai narrowed his eyes a bit and looked at the others.
None of the others seemed to notice anything strange, and Mouri Ran's eyes curled up, her worried expression easing a bit into a gentle one as she whispered Conan's words to the child.
Suzuki Sonoko's attention wasn't on Conan at all, and the other people who were meeting Conan for the first time just looked helpless, as if they were helpless at the childishness of the child and the fact that they had just listened carefully to a child's analysis.
Even Takahashi Ryouichi didn't have any special reaction.
The one who reacted most violently was Ikeda Chikako.
She was a bit annoyed, "Tsk, what's going on?"
I don't know if it's because the conversation in the afternoon was already unpleasant, or if she was disturbed, or if she thought that the bandage freak was too outrageous, or if she thought that she had just unconsciously listened to the words of a child in a way that was not befitting of her current status as a great writer, but in any case, she seemed to have a tendency to get annoyed, "Okay, don't make a mess of things,"
Ikeda Chikako turned impatiently and went upstairs, dropping a comment from afar, "I contacted the others before I came and asked someone to pick me up in the morning,"
"It doesn't matter if the drawbridge is broken, someone will be here tomorrow anyway, just have them call the police then."
She stopped at the corner of the stairs and looked down coldly, raising the corner of her lips with some disdain, "Don't get so flustered when things go wrong, even a little kid can boss you around, tsk."
Conan: "..."
Can you stop emphasizing...?