Chapter 28
Locked rooms. A permanent fixture in Beika Town’s top ten trending topics. A detective who has never experienced a locked-room murder case can’t even hold their head high among their peers. Look at that rookie, just starting out. How embarrassing!
Escape rooms. A large-scale interactive game derived from locked-room murders, vividly depicting humanity’s essence of being both afraid and loving to play. It aims to provide people with the thrill of being hunted down until they wet their pants, all while ensuring the players’ safety, adding a fiery spice to your mundane life.
“I object,” Fan An raised her hand. “I can understand escape rooms being popular in other cities, but do Beika Town residents really need them?”
Who on earth thinks their life isn’t exciting enough? If you’re that desperate, go on an exchange program to Yokohama for a few months.
Amuro Tooru: You’re right. That’s why the Suzuki Group’s resort hotel is not located in Beika Town.
No one understands Beika Town better than the Suzuki Group. Suzuki Vision, Your Trust. (Jirokichi Suzuki’s thumbs-up.jpg)
Amuro glanced at the address displayed on the car’s navigation system and turned the steering wheel to the right.
The white Mazda drove through the traffic, with Mouri Kogoro’s car behind it.
The dark-haired girl sat in the passenger seat of the Mazda, engrossed in a book titled “Beika Town Murderers’ Collaborative Publication: A Beginner’s Guide to Planning a Locked-Room Murder.”
She was taking notes as she read, more diligently than she ever had for her final exams.
“I will fully absorb the experience of my predecessors and strive to bring Mr. Amuro an escape room experience that is unprecedented and will never be surpassed,” the girl swore a solemn oath.
An’an never ate a meal for free, nor did she ever take a ride for free. She was very good at repaying kindness.
Amuro really wanted to tell her: You can be a freeloader. You really can. I don’t mind.
Please, put down that “Beginner’s Guide to Planning a Locked-Room Murder.” Not all knowledge needs to be crammed into your brain.
…
After passing through a long forest tunnel, the magnificent building of the resort hotel gradually came into view.
Suzuki Sonoko stood at the hotel entrance, waving at them. “Ran, over here, over here!”
She saw the dark-haired girl getting out of the white Mazda, a crime textbook with a black cover and blood-red letters in her hand. The young lady of the Suzuki family was deeply moved. “As expected of a professional! So diligent, so in character!”
Edogawa Conan frantically made eye contact with Amuro. Hasn’t Public Security ever thought of banning these illegal books?
Don’t be so hard on them. In Beika Town, even luminol is sold as a daily necessity on the discount shelves of convenience stores. What’s wrong with a few murderers in jail collaborating on a few books?
The warden of Beika Prison had a grand ambition: I will let the people of Yokohama know that we in Beika also have great writers!
This was a war concerning regional discrimination. Public Security was powerless.
“Here are everyone’s room keys,” Suzuki Sonoko said, handing out a stack of key cards.
Their group had been specially invited to experience the escape room. The resort hotel was committed to giving every guest the most immersive experience, building the atmosphere from the moment they stepped through the door.
Therefore, all the key cards in Sonoko’s hand started with the number “4.”
(T/N: The number 4, “shi,” is a homophone for “death” in Japanese.)
A homophone for “death”? Such an unlucky pun, Edogawa Conan complained internally.
The room arrangements were: the underage elementary school student Edogawa Conan would share a room with Mouri Kogoro; the two best friends, Mouri Ran and Suzuki Sonoko, would share a room; and Amuro Tooru and Fan An would each have their own room. A total of four rooms.
There were also four key cards in Sonoko’s hand: 411, 412, 413, and 414.
Several gazes simultaneously focused on the key card for room 414, then quickly looked away.
Detectives generally don’t believe in superstitions.
How could a detective believe in superstitions?
If that were the case, how could Edogawa Conan explain the miraculous phenomenon of people dying wherever he went? How was a walking God of Death supposed to live with himself?
Damn it—a homophone for “die, die” is still unlucky! Humans are just superstitious about these things!
Ran is afraid of ghosts. She definitely can’t stay in room 414. Edogawa Conan swallowed hard and slowly reached out his hand.
Four rooms, two of which were occupied by girls, and another by an underage elementary school student. Amuro didn’t hesitate for long. He raised his hand.
A shadow flashed by. The key card was snatched from Sonoko’s hand.
“What a nostalgic number.”
Fan An happily accepted the key card for room 414. “My house number back home was 414. It holds many precious memories for me.”
She glanced at the hands of Amuro and Conan, frozen in mid-air, and asked with confusion, “Do you also have a special attachment to 414?”
Three people in one room would be a bit crowded. Who would sleep under the bed?
Edogawa Conan: “No, no, no!”
He had no such intention!
The remaining rooms were easy to assign. Amuro took the key card for 413 and said to the girl, choosing his words carefully, “If An’an wants to change rooms, you can come to me anytime.”
“I don’t want to change,” Fan An said with a look of bewilderment. “Didn’t I say? My house number back home was 414.”
“It’s a very lucky number,” she said, lost in thought. “Compared to my lonely neighbors, our door was always being knocked on in the middle of the night. Strangers would ask in a hoarse voice if they could come in for a drink of water.”
“My aunt and cousin were always asleep in the middle of the night, so I was always the one to entertain the guests. I was working part-time at the slaughterhouse at the time, and my boss felt very sorry for me. He liked to give me piglets to take home to slaughter and eat.”
“When the stranger knocked on the door, I happened to be cutting meat. It was boring to be working alone. I was so happy to hear someone asking for water that I quickly poured him a glass.”
“Although there were inevitably some bloody handprints on the glass, the water was clean. I don’t know why the guest would rather die than drink it, and desperately tried to run out… didn’t he want to come in himself?”
“I don’t get it,” Fan An shook her head. “But the guest was very generous. Before he left, he left his wallet, watch, hammer, and dagger, saying it was to buy water—it was just a glass of water, I didn’t plan on charging him, but he was so enthusiastic. It was hard to refuse.”
Fan An had met many such generous guests, but her neighbors had never met a single one. Didn’t that prove something?
“414, such a prosperous number,” the girl said emotionally. “I will support it for the rest of my life.”
“Does Mr. Amuro also want to share in the good luck?” Fan An said generously. “It’s okay. Do you want to move in with me?”
Two people can barely squeeze in. No need to sleep under the bed.
Amuro Tooru: “…”
His neighbor was a legend.
Should An’an really consider writing a book? Her memoir would be much more authoritative than “A Beginner’s Guide to Planning a Locked-Room Murder.” It would definitely be a hit.
At the very least, Amuro could guarantee that the police academy would be willing to purchase it in bulk, to give the young cadets a shocking lesson.
The blond young man tactfully but firmly refused An’an’s invitation to live together. She was disappointed but understanding.
“After all, we are enemies now.”
In the escape room game, Fan An was assigned to the killer team, while the detectives were on the escape team.
The ratio of killers to victims was one to five, which meant Fan An had to kill five people at once.
Her ambition was ignited. Escape room, no mercy!
…
Dim candlelight illuminated the old corridor. Edogawa Conan stepped cautiously, the rotten floorboards creaking under his feet.
The corridor was very similar to the layout of Teitan High School. The classroom doors were open, the desks and chairs were in disarray, and an old electric fan was spinning tirelessly.
Click. A few screws fell from the ceiling. The fan’s speed increased, attracting the attention of the players in the corridor.
“Is it going to fall?” someone whispered among the players.
“No way. What if it hits someone? The hotel would be responsible,” a bolder player said, walking into the classroom and standing under the fan, looking up. “Maybe there’s a clue up there.”
He tilted his neck back. Suddenly, his nose felt a cold sensation.
A viscous liquid was whipped into a spray by the madly spinning fan, attacking indiscriminately in the classroom, splattering everyone.
“Blood—it’s blood!”
A scream erupted from the crowd and echoed down the corridor. Before Edogawa Conan could stop them, a group of people ran away screaming.
The elementary school student’s outstretched hand fell limply to his side. “Please, it’s just cornstarch with food coloring.”
The screaming, fleeing crowd was like a flock of mad ostriches. One person’s panic spread to more people. The corridors in the building were particularly complex. Soon, the players who had entered as a group were lost and separated.
Edogawa Conan took out his phone and looked at it. No signal.
“So they’ve blocked the signal?”
Preventing cheating is what makes a difficult escape room fun. Edogawa Conan stared at the spinning fan. There’s definitely a clue in the classroom, but I have to figure out how to stop this mechanism first…
…
“Dad and Conan have already gone in?”
At the entrance to the escape room, Mouri Ran was surprised.
She and Sonoko had been delayed in their room. Mouri Kogoro’s fans were all over Tokyo. The moment he stepped out, he was surrounded by other players, as if they were escorting their king.
Edogawa Conan was the one who had been dragged along. Amuro had received an urgent call from his subordinate, Kazami Yuya, and had to deal with work before leaving his room, so he had missed the first group.
“We’ll have to wait for the second group. Only ten players can go in at a time,” Sonoko sighed. “After all, there are only two killers in the escape room.”
To give the players a more exciting experience, the killers had been carefully selected. Not just anyone could take on the role.
They needed to have abundant stamina, a very intimidating aura, and extensive experience with crime, and they couldn’t have actually committed a crime.
“Do you know the sense of salvation I felt when I saw Miss Fan An?” Sonoko clutched her heart. “Before her, the Suzuki Group had tried everything but could only find one person who met the criteria. There wasn’t even anyone to switch shifts with. He almost quit.”
“The conditions are indeed very strict,” Amuro said, thinking for a moment, then deducing, “Is the other person a retired police officer?”
No, that wasn’t right. Retired police officers were older and their physical fitness had declined. The Suzuki Group would definitely prefer to invite guests in their prime to play the killer.
“Someone who used to be a police officer and later resigned?” the blond Public Security officer guessed.
Sonoko was surprised. “Amazing! As expected of Mr. Amuro.”
She took out her phone and tapped the screen a few times. “Here, this is him. He’s from the same class as Uncle Mouri.”
“Maybe they’re having a class reunion in the escape room,” Sonoko said, her hands on her hips. “When is the first group going to finish? I can’t wait to go in and play.”
“Excuse me, I have to step away for a moment.”
Amuro stood up abruptly. Before Sonoko and Ran could ask him what was wrong, the blond young man’s figure had already disappeared around the corner.
…
In an empty emergency exit, Amuro leaned against the wall, his face pale as he opened the file Kazami had sent him.
A few minutes ago, in room 413, Amuro, who was about to go meet Mouri Kogoro, had received an urgent call from his subordinate, Kazami. Public Security had encountered a headless corpse case this morning.
The corpse’s neck had a bloody cut, and the head was missing, making it impossible to identify the deceased.
The police had taken the deceased’s DNA and fingerprints to run through the database, hoping for a match. To their surprise, the deceased’s data was in the system—he was a resigned police officer.
The case had not yet been solved. The deceased’s head was still missing. All Amuro had was a photo of the deceased from his time as a police officer.
The blond Public Security officer closed his eyes. The photo on Sonoko’s phone screen was clearly imprinted on his retina.
…It was the same person.
The headless body was lying on the autopsy table in the Public Security morgue. Who was the person in the escape room?
“Damn it, no signal,” Amuro gritted his teeth.
He couldn’t get through to Edogawa Conan or Mouri Kogoro. Amuro, without much hope, dialed An’an’s number.
“Beep, beep, beep… Hello?”
The girl’s clear voice echoed in Amuro’s ear. She seemed to be running, but her breathing was steady. “What’s up?”
“An’an’s signal isn’t blocked?” Amuro was stunned. He hadn’t expected to get through.
“It’s a killer’s privilege,” Fan An replied. “Why can Mr. Amuro make a call? Are you not in this group of players?”
“We’ll talk about my situation later,” Amuro took a deep breath. “An’an, listen to me. The other person playing the killer, he—”
Before he could finish, a burst of static came from the receiver, followed by the sound of the phone hitting the ground.
“An’an?!”
The call was abruptly cut off. Amuro’s purple-gray eyes were as dark as a stormy sky. He turned and ran towards the escape room.
…
In the abandoned classroom, the lectern was painted a bloody red, an ominous color.
Edogawa Conan hid behind the lectern, his hand clamped tightly over his mouth.
The sound of running had stopped abruptly in the corridor. Something had fallen to the ground, accompanied by a girl’s scream.
A nightmare… it must be a nightmare…
Anyone, he prayed desperately, please, let this nightmare end.
…
The complex corridors were like a maze. The flashlight’s beam cut through the darkness.
Amuro ran without stopping. The girl’s short scream had given him a direction.
Faster, faster!
A muffled struggling sound reached the blond Public Security officer’s ears. A mixture of anger and shock was about to burn away his reason.
The flashlight’s beam broke through the darkness of the corridor, illuminating a twisted black shadow on the wall.
The dark-haired, dark-eyed girl held a tie with one hand, her foot on the man’s back, mercilessly pressing down.
The tie was like a rope around the kneeling man’s neck, digging into his Adam’s apple, almost cutting through the flesh.
The man made a gurgling sound, the whites of his eyes rolling back.
Fan An was about to go all in and deliver another blow when a sudden light shone in her eyes.
The flashlight illuminated the scene of Suspect An’s crime, catching her in the act.
The girl slowly turned her head. She blinked, and saw Amuro behind the light, his pupils shaking.
“Your Honor,” she asked without much hope. “Is there still a possibility for me to plead not guilty?”