Chapter 56: The Junior Detective Team

"I'll go down and take a look too!"

As if triggered by a switch, Conan bolted out of the library right after the director, while the three children, who had been leaning against the window, swarmed out after them.

The children's area fell back into quietness.

Only Gao Mo was left alone, pretending to work while slacking off.

"..."

Had Conan learned his lesson or not?

The moment he saw a police car, his genes were activated, and he never once considered that he might be leading other children into danger.

He really thought of himself as a member of the Junior Detective Team...

With a head full of question marks, Gao Mo looked through the glass door, watching the group of kids head for the stairs because the elevator was overloaded.

The group hurried along, and with Conan taking the lead, they cut quite the figure of a passionate little detective team investigating a case.

Or maybe this guy simply didn't take everyday cases seriously?

Gao Mo narrowed his eyes further.

The gadgets Professor Agasa specially crafted for Conan's self-defense were indeed formidable against ordinary criminals.

But had this guy forgotten that the three kids were just young children?

If he always cleaned up the mess for them, it would only make the children more and more interested, make them think it was more and more fun, and completely strip away their sense of awe toward criminal cases.

That was a fatal mindset.

"Whoosh!"

Gao Mo turned his head and activated his Eagle Vision. The world materialized before his eyes like digital data, including the anxious yet composed facial details of Director Tsugawa before the elevator doors closed completely.

It seemed Tsugawa was extremely confident about where he had hidden the body.

Was it the children's area, which had practically no visitors?

Thinking of Tsugawa's emphasis on the children's area, Gao Mo took in every detail of the library before the five-second time limit expired.

The drugs were definitely hidden here, and as for the body...

The faint glow in Gao Mo's eyes receded as he noticed the books arranged unevenly on the shelves.

Usually, a bookshelf had two rows of books—front and back—but one layer of this particular bookshelf seemed to have three rows, with another row crammed right in the middle.

No wonder he was warned not to mess with the books.

When he was fetching materials, he had asked the front desk receptionist; that Mr. Yuuda, who had most likely met a foul end, didn't really manage this section, as his main job was in the warehouse.

Word was that he had stayed behind to work overtime with the director the night before the day before yesterday, and after that, he had vanished...

Director Tsugawa had been keeping a very close eye on things, though goodness knows where something went wrong, forcing him to silence the man.

...

"That's the situation. Mr. Kazuo Yuuda hasn't been home since the night before yesterday. He always calls home before leaving work every day, but he didn't the other night..."

First-floor lobby.

After questioning Director Tsugawa, Megure led his team to search the warehouse, restrooms, and other easily hidden, unremarkable places.

Takagi, meanwhile, took a few police officers up to the children's area on the third floor to investigate.

"Mr. Yuuda is quite tall. If he was murdered and hidden somewhere in the library, he should be easy to find."

Takagi flashed his credentials and walked toward Gao Mo. "Are you a colleague of Mr. Kazuo Yuuda? When was the last time you saw him?"

"I only started working here part-time today," Gao Mo replied, narrowing his eyes. "Though everyone says Mr. Yuuda stayed behind to work overtime with the director that day."

He had just been debating whether to tell Takagi about the drugs when a familiar string of quest text popped up—[Date Officer Sato].

In addition to that, there was another one: [Find the missing Kazuo Yuuda].

This kid...

"Nothing here either."

Two officers finished searching around.

The hand-cranked mobile bookshelves at the very back had even been moved aside for inspection, yet they completely failed to notice the anomaly with the books on the adjacent shelf.

Gao Mo hesitated slightly, ultimately deciding not to speak up just yet.

He at least wanted to wait until he drew a quest.

...

"...Can't find it anywhere."

The police continued searching the library for hours, yet they still came up empty-handed without a single clue.

"Could he have been abducted?"

Megure walked into the third-floor children's area, rubbing his belly, quite annoyed by the wasted time.

"Let's head back to the precinct first..."

Gao Mo shifted his gaze to Megure's hat, which looked as though it had been permanently welded to his head. "Have you really checked everywhere?"

"Of course we have," Megure said in a bad mood. "Even if he was chopped into pieces, he should have left some clues behind... Hm? Have I seen you before?"

"You flatter me, Inspector."

Gao Mo lit up Megure's quest.

Simple, as always—[Find Kazuo Yuuda].

The Junior Detective Team followed right behind the police officers back into the children's area, their glowing quest text also appearing in Gao Mo's field of vision.

Conan—[Find the body]

Did this guy just automatically assume Kazuo Yuuda was dead?

Ayumi: [The Junior Detective Team gets praised again]

Mitsuhiko: [Steal the spotlight from Conan]

And finally, Genta: [So desperate to eat grilled eel] and [Library adventure]

...

Kids really were just kids.

If not for Conan, these children would simply be normal elementary schoolers—a bit mischievous at most, possessing a tiny bit of cleverness.

Gao Mo narrowed his eyes and confirmed the quest draw.

The glowing text distorted and faded, leaving behind only Takagi's [Find the missing Kazuo Yuuda].

He had actually drawn Takagi's quest. Good thing it wasn't the one about dating Sato.

He had almost wasted a chance.

Gao Mo felt a slight jolt in his heart.

A quest to find a body was fine; the others were all searching for bodies anyway.

He would wait and see before deciding whether to redraw.

...

Near the end of the shift in the evening, the police ultimately chose to wrap up and leave.

Director Tsugawa wiped the sweat from his brow as he returned to the third floor, his eyes darting furtively toward the bookshelf.

"Good work, Hiiragi. You can head home a bit early today, I'll take care of the rest... Those cops are something else, actually thinking Yuuda died in the building."

"Yeah."

Gao Mo acted as though he hadn't noticed anything as he walked out of the library, pausing only slightly before stepping into the elevator.

Conan and the others were hiding in the nearby restroom, apparently planning to wait until everyone else left to search for the body.

There was no way this guy was going to give up easily.

However, the fact that neither Conan nor those experienced detectives could find the body for a while left him both relieved and troubled.

He was relieved he still had a chance to complete his quest, but troubled about how to actually accomplish it.

After his physical stats improved, the side effects brought on by activating his supernatural abilities had also drastically decreased.

When he first used Eagle Vision, it would leave him dizzy, but now he could activate it multiple times in a short period—though that didn't mean he could use Eagle Vision infinitely and search the entire library relying solely on it.

Because the shorter the interval between uses, the greater the burden caused by the supernatural ability.

To find the body, the best approach was to start with Director Tsugawa.

"Clack!"

The elevator stopped on the first floor. After wandering around for a bit, Gao Mo found a hiding spot of his own.

Tsugawa himself was anxious to dispose of the body; knowing this, Gao Mo didn't need to stupidly search around—he just had to keep his eyes on Tsugawa.

The library closed at 7:00 PM.

By this time, the sun had already set, and the residual glow at the edge of the sky looked like blood.

The quiet library had been silent for a long time when the sound of leather shoes suddenly echoed from the stairwell—Director Tsugawa crept down to the first floor like a ghost, peering around and checking everywhere with a paranoid, suspicious look.

Gao Mo, who was just about to make a move, had to retreat back into the restroom.

"Strange, where did those kids run off to?"

In the dim light, Tsugawa's face was as gaunt as a ghost's, a mix of panic and ferocity, as if his dirty deeds had been exposed.

"Did I hear wrong?"

Tsugawa stood mechanically in the lobby for a moment. Hearing no further movement, he swallowed hard, glanced at the elevator parked on the first floor, breathed a sigh of relief, hugged his briefcase, and locked up to leave the library.

Gao Mo patiently hid in the restroom, only cautiously poking his head out after confirming that Tsugawa had locked the door and left.

Through the crack in the lobby window, he could see Tsugawa's suit-clad back as he neared the street.

Wasn't this guy just looking at the elevator?

Gao Mo walked over to the spot where Tsugawa had just been lingering.

Right then, the area outside the darkened library suddenly lit up—someone upstairs had turned on the lights in the library, and Tsugawa, who had already reached the street, abruptly stopped, his eyes wide with fright as he looked back.

"Idiots!"

In the third-floor children's library, Conan was equally startled, glaring in dismay at the three kids who had turned on the lights.

"Who told you to turn on the lights?!"

"But it's so dark!"

"What if that director finds out?!"

"He must have gone home already!"

"If he really went home, it'd be fine..."

Conan turned the lights back off, climbed onto the window sill to look out, and let out a quiet sigh of relief when he saw no movement.

"Anyway, don't turn on any lights. It'll be trouble if we get caught."

...

"Click!"

First floor of the library.

Gao Mo hid back in the restroom. Judging by the footsteps, Director Tsugawa seemed to have snuck back in as well, and was right in the adjacent stall.

Those little brats...

Thinking about how Conan couldn't even keep a few kids in line, Gao Mo felt his fists tightening.

Was this guy really the Heisei Holmes, high school detective Shinichi Kudo?

"We're going to report it anyway," came the voices of several children from the lobby. "Let's just find the body while we're at it!"

"Agreed, then our contribution will be even bigger!"

"I bet he was chopped into pieces..."

"Where do you think it is, Conan?"

"There's no helping you guys, let's start from the first floor and work our way up," Conan sighed, hands in his pockets as he took the lead. "The library has four floors, the body must be hidden somewhere... Let's check the bookshelves first."

"Oh yeah, the police didn't seem to check inside the bookshelves during the day, which is why they missed those drugs..."

"Hoo!"

Gao Mo heard the breathing next door grow heavier.

Director Tsugawa appeared to have taken off his shoes and slowly walked into the hallway, holding a piece of rope he had gotten from somewhere.

Ayumi, one of the three kids, had run into the restroom all by herself and was standing on her tiptoes washing her hands in the girls' room.

Water splashed loudly.