[Conan Doujin] The Mystery of Theseus

Puzzle19 going out for two is just like □□.

While sneezing without warning, we don’t know if someone would look around for a moment without paying attention, and subconsciously scratch the itchy nose for some reason, and sigh, “Is someone talking about me?”

We also don't know whether Hattori, who is far away in another city, will really sneeze at the moment when the name is read out by the two protagonists.It's actually very easy to see the situation on Hattori's side, just switch the camera over.But for some reason, we can't do that.

The relationship between the switching of shots and the storyboards more or less represents the connection between the front and back of the plot.If we can't bear the curiosity and switch the perspective at this time, and secretly see how Hattori will react to his name being read, will this kind of behavior that will create some kind of cause and effect be buried in his heart? The seeds of doubt, and let them take root and germinate with the nourishment of time and the moisture of Detective Osaka's wisdom?

Oh, no one wants to see that kind of thing happen, it would be so unfunny.What's more, even if the curious kid outside the page can't wait to read the story from Hattori's perspective, there will be force majeure preventing them from doing so.

Because, this is the will of the protagonist.

"Have you been in contact with that guy Hattori recently?" The door is really not a good place for negotiation.After entering the house, Edogawa lowered his body and changed his sneakers, and asked a question by the way.

When a hypothesis is formed, a serious researcher needs a steady stream of observations for reliable data.The variable named "Black Feather" no longer has the value of being observed, just create another one.However, before that, the experimental environment must be set up.

Kuroba looked up at the ceiling and recalled for a moment. "I don't know if this is a connection to you..." He looked down at Edogawa, "Well, we occasionally play online together on weekends."

"That's it." Edogawa didn't comment on whether the information was positive or not, "then please continue to maintain this 'contact' with him during the recent period."

"Hey... hey?" Seeing that Edogawa didn't seem to be joking, the seriousness in his expression could be said to be thoughtful, but Kuroba didn't understand, "I thought you were going to say, 'During this time, you must never be with me. He has contact!'?"

"Why?" The thinking boy raised his eyes, "From our hypothetical point of view, this is the safest plan."

"Wait a minute," Black Feather said that he needed to take a break, "Your previous assumption was... If there is no special reason as a premise, there is no way for two people to see each other without exchanging information in advance, right?"

"That's the right way to say it..."

"Then I will continue to contact Hattori... Isn't it just to keep in touch with him?"

It is not very pleasant to be cast with contemptuous glances, but it is even more effective when such an unpleasant expression appears on the face of a primary school student ten years younger than himself.

There was sarcasm written in the half-raised eyebrows, Edogawa didn't care at all whether his speech deserved a beating. "I think you're usually quite smart," he tapped his temple with his finger, "why don't you work well at a critical moment?"

I don't want to be said that by you who are a primary school student... Realizing that the guy in front of him who is physically a primary school student is actually older than himself, Kuroba, who was about to refute this, fell silent.Of course, he didn't forget to pop a cross on his forehead in protest.

He adjusted the glasses frame in a good mood, and Edogawa coughed lightly, which was a prelude to explaining his plan in detail.At this time, he didn't realize that when he chose to "explain" to the other party, he had naturally counted Kuroba as the audience as part of the plan.

"Let me ask you," he raised his index finger and began to give an example, "what is Hattori to you?"

Kuroba inevitably rolled his eyes at this ambiguous question.

"...friends who can play games together during the holidays."

Although this answer is far from comprehensive, it can be regarded as an answer for the time being.But for Edogawa, it didn't seem to matter what Kuroba's answer was.He continued to ask.

"Can you see him when you are online with him?"

Why don't you ask so many questions... Feeling that it is more troublesome to expend energy to complain than to answer the questions seriously, Hei Yu followed the train of thought of the gentleman wearing glasses on the opposite side Go on answering.

"If you don't turn on the video, you can't see it."

"So what is Hattori to you at this time?"

Black Feather blinked.

At that moment, he understood what the detective in front of him had been struggling with for a while.

"Although I can hear the voice through the headset, I can also see his operation on the screen," his ending voice carried some excited tremors that are characteristic of when a difficult problem is suddenly solved, "it prompted me to form a 'and my It is Hattori who is connected online, and what I know is only the sound heard and the image on the screen... Is that what you mean?"

Oh, and that highly recognizable Osaka dialect.

The corner of Edogawa's mouth showed a clear expression of "this guy finally understands".

"Speaking of which, detective, you said it last time," the memory travels through time, positioning the three of them on the first and only day when the three of them came into contact with each other in the form of "entities" instead of "information fragments". Hei Yu, who boasted a super memory and could even recite the police numbers of strange police officers backwards, read the lines of the little detective almost verbatim. "After returning to Osaka, Hattori was 'nothing more than a voice on the phone and a signal on the Internet'...isn't that right?"

A clear smile froze at the corner of his mouth.Edogawa felt a little frustrated that he could not get rid of the rice by stealing the chicken.

Obviously, one second I was mocking the guy in front of me as an idiot, and the next moment this guy immediately bit back with the memory of a camera replica - or it was purely natural and unconscious.

"That is to say, we have no way to prove that the talking Hattori is really 'talking' when we are online, and there is no way to prove that Hattori is 'existing'," Kuroba continued, And nodded in satisfaction, "Yes, it's easy to imitate a person's presence, just relying on the voice." He seemed to suddenly think of something, and a small light bulb "ding" lit up in his head, "This may be It can be used in the next operation! Write it down and write it down-"

"We're talking about my plans, not your banditry!"

"It's not a bandit, it's a strange thief!" An unnutritive retort, "Wait, you said a plan?" He paused, "The only way to verify that Hattori actually exists is..."

After Kuroba, who fully understood Edogawa's thinking circuit, deduced what the other party was going to do by himself, a moment of disbelief flashed in his eyes.

"Are you really going to make a special trip to Osaka to verify this unreasonable conjecture?!"

From the very beginning, there was no wavering in his heart, and what Edogawa's half-moon eyes conveyed was that there was no hope of refusal at all, "Isn't this natural?"

Of course.

"Yes, detective."

"please say."

"If you want to verify the 'existence' of a person, you only need to be near the place where that person is, right?"

"That's true, of course if you know he'll be around—"

"Even if you can't meet, you can create a 'reason to meet' through proactive contact... I don't understand this wrong?"

Edogawa nodded.

"Then you went to the coffee shop with great trouble last time..."

"I just wanted to treat you to ice cream, what's wrong?"

"……nothing."

As expected, I shouldn't have asked... Seeing the other party's ability "to say things that can't be said casually" again, the speechless Kuroba hid her face behind her hands.

Do not underestimate the pupils—in every way.

In the week after that, Kuroba chatted with Hattori whenever he was free.This is no different from what they usually chat online, and even more frequently than usual.Although this kind of unnatural contact is somewhat suspicious, according to Edogawa's explanation, it is to make Hattori "unaware of what is going to happen next."According to him, the main premise of online and chatting is "unable to see each other immediately".Continuing to maintain the previous mode of getting along can better create the illusion that "Kuroba has always been in Tokyo".

The friend who has been chatting suddenly cuts off contact, but it will give the other party the illusion of "does he want to surprise me by suddenly appearing?"

However, an illusion is an illusion.Probably no one would expect that the friends from other places who were talking and laughing with me on the Internet the day before would appear in front of them in the next second.

It's more like a "shock" than a "surprise".In this regard, Kuroba, who took on the task of creating a false appearance for the target mission, can be said to be full of guilt.

"Is this really good, don't tell me in advance..." A week passed quickly.On the eve of leaving for Osaka to launch an experiment capable of shaking the basic theory that built the entire world, Edogawa left the office and stayed at Kuroba's house on the grounds that "there will be hiking activities on weekends".After keeping Hattori in the dark for so long, and now even Ms. Lan has to hide it, Hei Yu is faintly worried, as if he has made some wrong decision that hurts nature and reason.

"Anxin, that guy's psychological endurance is unusually strong." Edogawa made no secret of the affirmation in his eyes while expressing his trusting words.As for Lan Na... as long as there is black feather as a shield, there should be no problem.After all, facing that familiar face, no matter how angry she was, she couldn't bear to get angry.Self-aware enough to bury the line of double selling his teammates in his heart, Edogawa didn't know if he should laugh or not.

"I think... Hearing you say that, Hattori may not be happy." Kuroba still looked helpless and worried. "Ah, as expected, let's give up, the cost of traveling for nothing is too high—"

Having said that, when all the lights were turned off and his consciousness was about to fall into sleep, he couldn't help but look forward to the smell of the train bento.