The Phantom Thief of Heart! But Conan.

"Chess, armor statues, clocks... all of them are puzzles that have the same elements as those in the castle..."

Conan muttered quietly as he watched the door in front of him light up again as the armor was put into position, his emotions slowly calming down.

He couldn't tell whether he was calming down by solving puzzles, or because he was so excited that his brain reacted particularly quickly. In short, he naturally moved forward to observe the mechanisms and solve puzzles. He walked through four or five rooms. Only at this time did his brain finally start to work and think about what was going on here.

This is definitely not the ordinary real world.

The ground and stairs made of paint, the sculpture-like decorations, everything that completely violates the rules of reality forms an almost abstract oil painting world according to its own inherent logic.

But this place is not completely out of touch with reality. Although the form is abstract, the decoration style and many decorations in the castle are exactly the same as the Mamiya family they saw during the day. Walking through each room, he can also see oil paintings corresponding to the ancestors of the Mamiya family and introductions to their lives.

If this is the world that the Phantom Thieves "see", then he can probably understand how the Phantom Thief of Heart finds those targets, how he learns about their actions, and how he accomplishes the incredible act of changing his heart.

"How do you feel? Do you like this world?" Seeing Conan stop where he was and look around, Tang Ze, who had been following him silently, took two steps forward.

"No wonder you are so successful in everything you do." Conan raised his head and looked up at the tall oil painting in front of him, "It's like a mirror that can reflect the world. You stand in the mirror and flip through the reflection of the world at will. People outside the mirror can't notice it at all and can't interfere. It's simply cheating."

Part of what he said was an exclamation, and part of it was a somewhat resentful complaint.

The Phantom Thieves of Hearts are still active today, and there is no shortage of voices using their presence to belittle police and detectives.

But looking at what these guys actually do, is it really fair to compare them? With such power to help, as long as they find a way to get in here, this world has no secrets for the Phantom Thieves.

For a detective to compete with such a force is just like competing with an opponent who has the answers in hand. They are not even on the same starting line and there is nothing they can do if they are outrun by the opponent.

"Well, the Phantom Thieves are indeed cheating with my presence." Brother Tang Ze said pertinently, "But this place is not where you can just go in and out whenever you want. The price you have to pay to gain this power is not small."

Conan opened his mouth and was about to say something to complain about Joker's somewhat narcissistic tone, when the wall around the painting suddenly surged.

Before he could react, the red scarf had immediately wrapped around his waist and thrown him backwards, where he was caught by Asai Narimi who was standing behind him.

"Ah, Qian..."

"Shh, call me Lunar." Asai Narimi pointed at the mask on his face, then put Conan at his feet, took a step forward, and protected him behind him.

Conan looked at where he had just stood and saw a pool of black paint splashed on the ground. It seemed to be corrosive and made a slight hissing sound.

Tang Ze turned around and looked at the portrait of a woman with a delicate and haggard face, and raised his hand: "Trigger, lend me a light."

Hearing this extremely ridiculous code name, Conan instinctively turned his head and looked at the man in a black cloak standing behind him.

In his extremely shocked sight, a white sculpture rose up behind the guy dressed in black. As he raised his hand, the chains bound on the sculpture made two crisp collision sounds.

A thunderous flame accurately struck the oil painting in front, golden flames instantly shot up, and more black, muddy paint splashed out.

Conan felt like he was watching a cutscene from a video game and pointed tremblingly in the direction of Matsuda Jinpei: "That, that is..."

Before he could finish his question, as the flames rose, shrill screams filled the room and almost pierced his eardrums in an instant.

Accompanied by severe pain in his eardrum, another test tube was stuffed into his mouth.

"Don't talk, little detective." Miyano Akemi squatted down, covered his ears, and said gently, "If you have any questions, you can ask them later. This world is very dangerous for ordinary people."

Asai Narimi shook his head. "It's not just dangerous to ordinary people. If it weren't for the leader who was able to keep us alive to the maximum extent, it would be a miracle that we have fought until today without any casualties."

Miyano Akemi chuckled softly in agreement.

Holding a reagent like a drink in his mouth, Conan, who had recovered, looked forward, watching everything happening in front of him in shock.

As the flames spread, the woman in the painting was quickly burned into a charred black color. The entire painting began to twist and deform, and the paint and fabric on the surface curled and blackened, and soon peeled off in the flames.

However, what was shown in the picture frame on the wall was not the broken state of an ordinary painting after being burned, but it was as if the person in the painting was really engulfed in fire. The melancholy and elegant woman gradually turned into a charred skeleton in the flames, and the eerie white bones were exposed from the charcoal-black embers. The scene instantly became creepy and terrifying.

As the fire spread, the walls around the painting began to twist and surge again, forming countless tiny cracks that made people's scalps tingle. Eyes, lips and tongues opened along with the cracks.

The shrill screams gradually weakened, and then those wildly rolling eyeballs and constantly moving lips began to make their own sounds.

"...After so many years, something bad happened as soon as I came back. It's really bad luck..."

"Since Master Zhenzhao passed away, the noble young master has been taken away. Now the lady is gone too, who knows if he is really the noble young master..."

"...Could it be Master Man's idea..."

"I heard that one of the servants is the lady's lover..."

"…I'm still thinking about the old lady's inheritance…"

All the conspiracy theories and rumors that they had heard during the tentative eavesdropping during the day, flooded into everyone's ears like a tide as these lips opened and closed.

The canvas was still burning, charred bones were hanging high, and countless eyes, mouths, ears and other organs filled the walls and ceiling of the room. The scene was horrifying.

Although the members of the Phantom Thieves, who had anticipated this, couldn't help but frown, their reactions were still relatively calm. Only Conan, who was constantly receiving the impact, couldn't help swallowing twice, and the last bit of cold liquid in his mouth was also swallowed by him.

Almost the next moment after he finished drinking it, a faint stinging pain bombarded his ears together with the sounds, making Conan shiver uncontrollably.

Miyano Akemi, who was paying attention to his situation, took the test tube back, thought about it, and simply took out a large flask from her bag, inserted a straw, and handed it to Conan.

"Keep drinking. The distortion here is quite serious. Don't worry, this is not real water. It's okay to drink more." Miyano Akemi said sympathetically.

Matsuda Jinpei, who was standing in the back row, looked at the liquid in the flask, and remembered how he had drunk that thing unconsciously when he had just woken up, and how he felt after he learned its origin. He opened his mouth to say something, but saw Tang Ze in front of him without even turning his head, so he managed to hold back the words.

Never mind. He's not from the Phantom Thieves anyway, so he won't have the chance to drink a few times. He looks quite happy when he sips. Being kept in the dark is actually a good thing...

Tang Ze observed these noisy things, squinted his eyes, and with the help of the vision of his third eye, he quickly found the entity that needed to be attacked and drew out his knife with his backhand.

"Lunar, lock the closed mouth. Shade, follow. Spy, prepare to attack."

Everyone in the Phantom Thieves has become accustomed to following Tang Ze's orders during battle. It has almost become muscle memory, and they all began to prepare themselves without any pause.

Thus, in front of Conan's extremely shocked sight, a fierce battle whose style was completely different from his expectations began.

Many complicated and shocking thoughts were flying in his brain, but the first sentence Conan organized was -

"So why do you call yourself the Phantom Thieves?! This is just a deliberate misunderstanding, right?!"

----

"Ah-"

"Ai, what's wrong?" Ayumi, who happily dragged her companion downstairs, suddenly became nervous, "You didn't cover yourself with the quilt properly last night, did you catch a cold?"

"Well, no..." Huiyuan Ai looked thoughtfully along the corridor window and glanced at the foggy sky outside, "Maybe, I'm not used to the smell."

"It does have a very strange smell. Well, it's an old castle after all..." Ayumi accepted the explanation quickly without any doubt.

Haibara Ai let her hold her hand and walked up the stairs step by step to the restaurant on the first floor. She secretly paid attention to the direction where the Phantom Thieves' RV was parked out of the corner of her eye.

A night has passed, have those guys finished their trouble?

Soon, the empty breakfast table answered her question.

"The others? Oh, they don't have the habit of eating breakfast." Facing Mamiya Mitsuru's question, Tang Ze lied calmly, "Only me and Morobushi-senpai have relatively stable schedules, so it's just the two of us."

"I see..." Mamiya Mitsuru looked at Karasawa and Morobushi Kagemitsu who were chewing bread slowly, and then cast his suspicious gaze at the RV outside the window.

The RV of the Phantom Thieves was specially made with the personnel and work needs in mind. It was modified from a medium-sized bus, which is almost the same size as the original Fairy Bus. After simple soft furnishings on the interior, it was completed by Jinpei Matsuda, who is proficient in machinery and loves to study, with the assistance of Noah. Just looking at the appearance, the size is already very impressive, and it is very reasonable to say that there are quite a few people living in it now.

People didn't stay in the castle at night, and they couldn't possibly break into their car to check just because they thought they might be running around the house. Although Mamiya Mitsuru had some concerns in his mind, such as whether they might have found some clues, he concealed them out of selfishness and had to swallow his worries at this moment.

"Young people nowadays have a really unhealthy lifestyle." Mamiya Mitsuru could only sigh reluctantly.

"We college students are like this." Tang Ze nodded, not ashamed but proud of it. "As long as there is no 8 am, then getting up early is meaningless."

The corners of Mamiya's mouth twitched as he met his extremely calm and clear blue eyes. He held his breath for two seconds, then lowered his head and continued eating.

Never mind. It’s only half a day. A group of juniors shouldn’t be able to crack it so quickly…

"By the way, Conan is missing too." Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya, who had finally waited for them to finish talking, quickly spoke, "I didn't see him when I got up in the morning. I thought he went to the bathroom to wash up, but the doctor and Genta didn't see him either..."

"In fact, when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, Conan's bed was empty." Kojima Genta scratched his head and said worriedly, "It might have been only two or three in the morning..."

"Could it be that he got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and got lost when he came out?" Mamiya Takato frowned and guessed the situation. "The structure of this castle is quite complicated. Compared to the area of ​​the castle, the place where we and the servants live is not very large. Many places are not used. It is easy to get lost."