[Conan Doujin] The Mystery of Theseus

The end of the Puzzle21 journey is □□.

No matter how much uncertainty there is in your heart, when your feet have already set foot on the journey, it seems that all you can do is to move forward without hesitation.

Besides, the direction and end point of the track extending to the farthest end of the horizon and continuously laying forward will always be fixed.not to mention……

"I'm full!" Facing the empty bento box with only a few oil stars left, Kuroba clapped his hands gratefully. "thanks for treatment!"

"It's just a train bento, why are you so excited?" Edogawa didn't put down the bento chopsticks in his hand yet as his eating speed was not as fast as Kuroba's.

"You don't understand." He closed his right eye, and Kuroba shook his index finger seriously, "Whether it's bento or other food, the taste will be different when you eat it in different moods. Bring snacks to the classroom Eating always has a special flavor, doesn’t it?” Feeling his body shaking slightly with the carriage, he leaned back and relaxed his body and let out a satisfied sigh, “This is the taste of travel——”

Affected by this neighbor who might respond with a smile in the face of even the greatest crisis, Edogawa, who did not intend to travel this time, almost forgot his purpose.Leaving a familiar place and going to an unfamiliar city, and passing through the unfamiliar crowd, there are still familiar people walking together.

Maybe this is travel...

In the warm compartment, the tense nerves suddenly relaxed.

That’s right, now that we’ve come this far, why not just put aside all those conspiracies, tricks, mysterious drugs that make people smaller, etc., and a series of messy things, and concentrate on enjoying the relaxing moment now. What about the mood?

Edogawa, who was thinking this way, felt as if he was deliberately running away from something.

He shook his head to shake off those thoughts that ran away unconsciously.

It's a trip, don't think too much about it.

……Hey?

No, no, this is not a simple trip, it is a great experiment to find out how the world is formed and how the universe works, and once it is understood, it is possible to reverse the cause and effect of everything——

Edogawa, who went off track again on the basis of off-track thinking, was a little annoyed for some reason.I can easily admit that this is a family wine trip, no matter how I think it is the fault of the guy beside me who has no sense of crisis.As a matter of course, shifting the guilt in his heart, Edogawa put down the chopsticks in his hand and looked at the culprit sitting next to him.

But the other party seemed to be seriously dealing with some difficult matter, staring at the phone screen seriously, even with a dignified expression.

"……what are you doing?"

Kuroba turned his head slightly stiffly.

"Just now," he said, "I sent a text message." The subject of the action was placed at the end of the sentence, "Hatto."

Hattori sent a text message just now... Edogawa froze on his face with an angry expression after simply sorting out the information that Kuroba had conveyed.Half of the eyebrows were raised, the eyelids were lowered, and the corners of the mouth were slightly lowered-the frozen moment seemed to be finding fault.

"……Aha?"

"I... am I replying seriously?" He suddenly started to explain, and Kuroba simply called up the chat history, "I overslept this weekend...that's how I replied."

Although it seems very flimsy... it can very well create the illusion of staying at home all morning, and the lie of "oversleeping" is also very lifelike. Good job.

As expected of a magician of words, it is really professional to be able to calmly deal with this situation without changing his face.Feeling vaguely that he should give some praise, Edogawa nodded in agreement, "Well, although it seems a little deliberate, it's not bad at your level."

"Are you complimenting me or hurting me..." The tone expressed dissatisfaction formally, but the facial expression was completely indifferent, and Kuroba put away the phone. "Ah, Hattori must be staying comfortably at home right now—" He looked aimlessly outside the carriage, "I just sent a text message at this hour, maybe I just woke up..."

"I'll share the information with you as soon as I wake up," Edogawa said after finishing his bento, and was busy covering the empty lunch box. "You two have a really good relationship recently."

"It's not because you said to 'keep in touch'," Kuroba took out the phone again after feeling the vibration prompt of the phone after receiving the text message, and it was still a message from Hattori. "He actually said that he would stay at home for a day today?! Ahhhhh—"

Recalling that this morning, he and Edogawa yelled and scrambled for the bathroom while putting on their clothes. They rushed out the door before they even had time to eat breakfast. They rushed to the station without knowing whether the door was finally closed. , Hei Yu was so frantic that she wanted to mess up her hair that she hadn't taken care of seriously.

"Wait, you said he plans to stay at home for a day?" Facing the contrast between hectic and leisurely, Edogawa didn't make any further comments.His evolution "ding" flashed a small light bulb, "In this way, the position of the contact target is fixed, which saves a lot of trouble."

"Yeah, as long as you go to his house to look for him like this - wait a minute?!" Suddenly realizing something, Kuroba's voice almost trembled distorted, "Didn't you just find out that he will be at home all day? Could it be possible? ...You didn't even have a plan in the first place?!"

Also... that's right, in name it is to "contact a real person without any agreement in advance", but when the background of this experiment is a whole strange city, the hunting range is too big, even if it is Fighting the protagonist's halo doesn't play like this!

In fact, Edogawa, who was really going to try his luck, innocently shrugged and said that playing by ear is the best plan.

Besides, a walk-and-go trip doesn’t need to be planned.

After getting off the car at the destination, the sun is still suitable for squinting your eyes to enjoy.Looking at the short figure projected on the ground, Kuroba pulled the strap on his shoulder.

"So, what now?"

"Since he's at home, it's easy to handle." Edogawa proudly clenched his fist with a look of winning, setting a standard flag for himself. "I asked Hattori the specific address of his house before." He shook the navigation software on his phone, speaking with ease, "With a map, you can go anywhere."

"Oh, it's really convenient." Hei Yu leaned over and looked at the journey time calculated by the app's navigation, "It takes a lot of time to take a car and walk." He walked to the vending machine not far away, " I'd better go buy two bottles of water first, what do you want to drink?"

Facts have proved that his simple and reasonable decision to "buy something to drink" is almost one of the indispensable elements to support their survival that day.

Ah, it may be exaggerated to say this, but after wandering around the sunny streets of a strange city for nearly two hours, the coordinates on the navigation software are indeed displayed near the target point, but it is still impossible to get close to that destination. No matter how resilient and resilient people are, they will inevitably fall into self-doubt.

"I said," under that tricky sunlight angle, it's hard to find even the shadow of the building's eaves.With a dry throat and thirst for water, Kuroba leaned against the side of the road and took out a water bottle from his backpack, "Your navigation app... How long has it been since it was updated?"

The situation in Edogawa is not much better.He looked at the positioning point on the screen of the mobile phone that was always spinning around the destination, puzzled, "I'm using the latest version, and it's a place like a residential house," he looked around at the nearby blocks, " Even after a few years or ten years, the changes will not be too big."

After decades, it still stands in place, and it is not uncommon to see the old houses with residents coming and going.

"But we've already left..." Hei Yu made a gesture, "It's almost two hours, isn't it?!" He leaned against the wall and almost slid down and sat down on the ground, "Could it be that a ghost hit the wall?" Bar……"

"Can encounter ghosts hit the wall in broad daylight? What you said is really interesting." Rarely, Edogawa did not immediately deny the unscientific statement "ghosts hit the wall".He looked at the navigation interface again with some doubts, and turned around in a circle. "There is no problem with the GPS positioning, even if it is drifting, it will not be so outrageous..." He estimated the distance between their location on the map and Hattori's house as the destination point, "Go straight along this street and turn left... right? .”

The distance is very short, even if you talk and laugh along the way, and buy some thick snacks as souvenirs on the way, 15 minutes is enough.

"How about trying again according to the navigation?" He looked at Kuroba who had already sat down against the wall and fanned the wind with advertising paper, "Anyway, if I contact Hattori directly now, I feel a little..."

"Okay, okay—" he leaned back and drank the last sip of water in his bottle, Kuroba wiped the sweat with the back of his hand, "If you give up at this level, you don't look like a detective." He stood there Get up and throw the empty bottle in your hand into the trash can a few steps away.

direct hit.

"Lucky~" With a smile in a good mood, Kuroba took a few steps towards Edogawa who was still studying the map, "It seems that there will be good luck, let's go—"

This guy really...has no sense of crisis.Reconfirming that what they were facing at the moment was the direction indicated by the navigation, Edogawa also stepped forward.

Hei Yu was right, trying to sabotage his efforts to such an extent and give up all previous efforts is really not his own style.What's more, they haven't reached the end yet, and the journey is not over yet.

however……

"Strange." After 15 minutes, Edogawa stopped in his tracks, staring at the screen sharper than a laser, "very strange." He turned the screen to Kuroba, whose energy was almost exhausted, "Follow the previous navigation As shown, you just need to go through that intersection and turn left, right?"

"That's right..." The sun had begun to tilt slightly, and Kuroba knelt down to hide himself in the shadow cast by Edogawa's short stature. "Although we have been walking for nearly an hour..."

"It's only 15 minutes," Edogawa sighed, full of powerlessness, "But, the navigation shows that we have already passed that intersection." He turned his head and looked down at Kuroba, who was squatting behind him, "You and I won't miss... such a big intersection, right?"

Kuroba swallowed nervously. "That is to say..."

Regardless of the proportion of scientific and unscientific factors contained in it, no matter how you look at it, it is a real ghost hitting a wall.

"It seems that you can't find Hattori's house just by looking at the map." Looking across the street at an old lady who seemed to have just returned from the market, his pupils dimmed, "It's not feasible to ask someone for directions. Because that will more or less establish a certain causal connection..."

He sighed again.

He had already mentally prepared himself for the possibility of making a futile trip this time, and not being able to see Hattori was as natural as not being able to wait for Kuroba at the gate of Ekoda High School before.But what he didn't expect was that this time, he couldn't even reach the other party's location.

No, the destination must still be there, it's just that the possibility of meeting has been erased.There was nothing wrong with the navigation software, and the latest version of the map faithfully showed the original appearance of the terrain, but their unilateral information cutoff erased the possibility of meeting Hattori.

Let alone two hours, even if you stay here for a week, you will never reach the destination that is close at hand.unless……

"Hey," knowing the current situation in his heart, Edogawa called out to call the attention of Kuroba, who had been silent since just now, "Do you want to give up?"

He then asked another question.

"Do you want to go back now?"