After becoming a chaotic daughter

Mr. Long Liu Hai, who wants to play games with his father, is a rich and kind man.

Originally, I was still thinking about eating something on the way back to the detective agency, otherwise I would not have the strength to walk back, but just after I left the alley, Mr. Chang Liuhai reached out and stopped a taxi to get off. He hugged the raccoon, took the taxi, and drove Following Nanako, after 5 minutes, they arrived at the red brick office building where the detective agency is located.

The two stood on the side of the road, looking up at the old-looking reddish-brown building in front of them. It was located on a sloping land by the sea. Moss and stains, like a bicycle that is about to be sent to the scrap yard, is mottled with time.

"Is this the detective agency that allows Ranbu-kun to give full play to his peerless talents..." Poe observed the seemingly unpretentious building in front of him, as if he wanted to engrave the appearance of every brick into his brain Here, he murmured in a low voice, "If you defeat him here, will you be able to completely defeat him... Fierce defeat, crying bitterly, kneeling in front of us and bowing down, trampling all his honors under his feet !The disgrace of that hundred thousand dollar check—”

"This way." Pulling Edgar Allan Poe's cloak, Nanako reached out and pointed to the entrance of the office building with him.

Immersed in the fantasy scene of revenge, Edgar Allan Poe was immediately brought back to reality by her flat tone.

"Oh, are you going this way..." Poe shrugged his shoulders and followed Nanako step by step. Carl, who jumped out of his arms, ran and stopped beside them, standing on the spot from time to time and getting up straight. , Waiting for its slow master and Nanako who is also slow.

Taking Poe into the elevator of the office building, Nanako pressed the button for the fourth floor, and the elevator slowly took them up to the fourth floor.With a pleasant ding, the metal door slowly opened in front of them. Nanako walked out of the elevator first, and led Po to the door with the golden nameplate of [Armed Detective Agency].

The door of the detective agency has to be replaced every other year, so the metal nameplate inlaid on the door is still shining brightly.Nanako stopped in front of the door, raised her hand to hold the door handle, and then turned down.

One turn.

turn.

【... Locked. 】

Nanako fails to open the door of the detective agency.

She stopped for a while, and tried to turn the doorknob twice, but she still couldn't open the door, and no one answered when she knocked on the door.Logically speaking, even if the investigators are out, there will still be ordinary members like clerks in the agency. Only when everyone is off work or on vacation, the door of the detective agency will be locked.

Today is a working day, and it is still working time, but the door of the detective agency is locked.

Nanako thought for a while, and rummaged through the bottom of her schoolbag for a long time before she found the key of the detective agency and opened the door.The office was empty, the lights were not turned on, the curtains were drawn, the light was dim, and there was silence, as if no one was there.

Edgar Allan Poe, who came in behind Nanako, paused, and immediately thought of something. He was about to speak to Nanako when he saw a very short girl standing in the office area. She took off the schoolbag she had just carried on her back, rummaged through it with the schoolbag, and found her mobile phone.

Finding 【パパ】 from the address book, Nanako called Ranpo.

After the phone rang twice, it was quickly picked up, and a random voice came from the receiver: "Hello? Nanako?"

"...Dad." Nanako organized her words, after thinking for a long time, she decided to ask the current situation first, "Where have you been?"

"What? Where?——Ah, Kenji-kun, please help me get the manga under the chair too!...Oh, have you returned to the club after school?" Ranpo said casually, although it was a question, But it is a statement tone.

Nanako: "Yes."

"I was going to evacuate today—well, or to temporarily transfer the base, but it seems to have failed, so everyone is now on the way to pack up and go back...Ah——It’s better to go to the detective agency, go downstairs It’s just a coffee shop, and across the street is a dim sum shop, Wanxiangtang is really boring.”

Ranpo spoke a series of words that Nanako couldn't understand at all, with a tone full of complaints.But whether it is "refuge" or "transfer base", Nanako has never heard of such a thing at all. She just feels like she went out to go to school. When she returned home and opened the door, she found that all her family members had abandoned her Like going on vacation—no one remembered to tell her about it.

She decided to put the matter of "the whole family carrying her on vacation" aside, and said to Luanbu in a calm tone, "Dad, someone is looking for you."

Ranbu temporarily stopped and muttered: "Huh? Who?"

Nanako opened her mouth subconsciously, wanting to answer him, but she suddenly discovered something - she couldn't remember the name of Mr. Long Bangs.Although it was said that Mr. Long Liuhai had mentioned his name to that little bastard, Nanako had already forgotten it.

"What's your name?" She raised her mobile phone and asked Poe.

"My name is Edgar Allan Poe, and I come from the United States..." Mr. Chang Liuhai read out his name in fluent American English. He hadn't finished speaking, but Nanako who had extracted the key words was already depressed. He turned his head, retracted his gaze, and talked to Ranpo again.

"He said his name was Edgar, アラン, Poe." Nanako pronounced the rather long name in a mixed tone of Chinese, English and Japanese.

[...It seems a bit familiar. 】

Nanako scratched her head after pronouncing the name, feeling that the pronunciation was strangely familiar.

Ranbu on the other end of the phone let out a "huh", as if thinking about it, and answered Nanako after a second: "Who is that?"

"It seems to be someone who wants to play games with you." Nanako answered him very simply.

Her tone was so ordinary, without the slightest turmoil, that Poe couldn't help but look sideways.

Is it really Ranpo-kun's daughter? Even a brain duel that puts dignity and survival on the line, in her eyes, is as common as a "game"?Could it be that because there are too many people challenging Ranpo-kun, she has become so used to it that she doesn't care at all?

But he was different from those ignorant ordinary challengers.He is a giant of knowledge and a well-known mystery novelist. During these six years, everything he did was to defeat Ranpo. can only be compared.

On the phone, after hearing Nanako's answer, Ranpo's tone was still so unconcerned: "Oh, then let him come back tomorrow. Dad doesn't have time to play games with him today."

"……Oh."

After the call was hung up, Nanako held the mobile phone and said to Edgar Allan Poe who was waiting at the side: "Dad is outside and I don't have time today. Do you want to come back tomorrow?"

【there is no time? 】

When Edgar Allan Poe heard this answer, he felt annoyed and regretful at first, and missed the opportunity to confront Lord Ranbu, but soon, he felt that this must be "the guidance of fate".

He has painstakingly set up a riddle for Mr. Ranbu for many years. It seems that the gods also think that Mr. Ranbu should step into this puzzle carefully prepared by him, so he hinders his meeting in this way.

Although he thinks so, but it’s all here, Ellen Poe feels that he still has to leave something for Mr. Ranbu as proof that he has been here, or in other words, to show his existence in front of Ranbu .

"Can I borrow a pen and paper?" Poe said to Nanako.

Nanako thought for a while, took a piece of A4 paper from the side of the printer, and then took away the only fountain pen on Dazai's desk.

She gave Poe the paper and pen, and saw Poe write a few lines of sentences on the paper that Nanako couldn't understand after thinking for a while, then folded the paper, The pen was returned to Nanako together.

"Please pass this challenge letter to Mr. Ranpo for me. I will wait for his arrival at the place pointed by the puzzle."

Leaving the letter of challenge, Poe bid farewell to Nanako.Nanako stood at the door of the detective agency, watching him take the raccoon into the elevator, the metal door slowly closed, and the pointer on the wall slowly moved from [4] back to [1].

【what. 】

Nanako suddenly remembered something again.

[I forgot to tell my father about the kidnapping. 】

As she thought so, she saw Gogol poking his head out from the stairs.

"Good afternoon~" Gogol greeted Nanako with a smile, and walked out from behind the wall at the entrance of the stairs, "Mr. Ranpo and the others haven't come back yet?"

【…】

It sounded as if Gogol also knew that everyone was not in the agency today. Nanako stood at the door of the detective agency, motionless, staring at him with dark round eyes.

Gogol walked up to her, reached out his hand to touch under the cloak, and fished out a red bean bread. He gave the red bean bread to Nanako, then put his hand into the cloak again, groped twice, and then touched again. A stack of not-so-thick paper came out.

"I found something interesting on the side of the road." He said to Nanako, shaking his head, and the little braid dangling behind his head followed suit, "I don't know what it is, do you want to take a look together?"

Holding the red bean bread, Nanako, who was a little hungry, decided to ignore Gogol for the time being and didn't tell her that everyone was not here today. She said "hm", lowered her head and opened the bag of red bean bread, and turned around He went back to the detective agency and entered the reception room next to him.

Gogol followed behind her, turned on the light, and entered the reception room together.They sat side by side on the double sofa. Nanako broke the red bean bread in half. The big half was eaten by herself, and the small half was given to Gogol. The two of them began to eat the bread while watching what Gogol picked up. thing.

The content on the paper was in handwritten English characters, and Nanako stumbled a bit after reading both ends, only to realize that it seemed to be a manuscript of a novel.

The novel tells a story about a "stolen letter". The protagonist's friend is a detective. He uses very open and aboveboard methods to return a letter that was dropped by the "thief" from the hands of the "thief". , is probably such a story, and the whole story is almost composed of dialogues.

It is a novel written in English, and it is a bit difficult to recognize the handwritten words. The detective can also speak a lot of long-winded words. However, when Nanako first came here, she couldn’t speak a lot of Japanese, and she could only read in English. Knowing the general idea and having nothing to do, she read a lot of English books, and her English reading ability has also improved a lot. Although she stumbled a bit, she still managed to finish the novel.

It took a long time to finish the manuscript of the novel that was left behind by someone, and the red bean bread was eaten long ago. Nanako and Gogol flipped through the manuscript for a while, when they heard the sound of the door opening, What followed was the sound of messy footsteps and voices.

"...It took only half a day to finish eating, next time I must bring more snacks!" Luanbu grumbled and complained.

He Xie Ye sighed: "It's better not to have another time."

"Have Kunikida and Dazai returned?" the president asked calmly.

"Mr. Dazai said that he has received the evacuated clerks and is on his way back now." Kenji replied, "Mr. Kunikida and Mr. Tanizaki are dealing with the scene with the city police and arresting two members of the group."

Holding the partition screen, Nanako's head emerged halfway from the reception room.The only ones who came back were the president, Ranpo, Yosano and Kenji, and the other members didn't know where they were.

Nanako called Ranpo, "Dad."

The chaotic footsteps stopped the moment he heard Nanako calling him. He turned his head and turned his gaze to the direction of the reception room, and saw Nanako who was still half hidden behind the screen.

"—— Nanako! Let's go out to eat sukiyaki tonight!" Ranpo said, his tone was a little bit more energetic, he took big steps, walked in front of Nanako in three or two steps, and raised his hand carelessly to pat Nanako's head.

Sensing the light force coming from her head, Nanako was slapped on the head by Ranpo several times before she spoke to Ranpo in a calm tone, expressionless: "Dad, I was kidnapped just now. "

Ranbu's hand patting Nanako's head stopped in mid-air.

He took half a step back, narrowed his narrow eyes slightly, and looked up and down Nanako's appearance.Her hair had been tied back not long ago, and the hem of the skirt was still stained with some dirty dust. There was no trauma on her body, and the tube of the socks was a little collapsed.

Three seconds later, Edogawa Ranpo shifted his gaze to Gogol who was chatting with Kenji nonchalantly.

"On the street today, I saw a very subtle magic trick! Just in the blink of an eye, a person disappeared out of thin air."

"Sounds amazing! If I have the chance, I would also like to see such magic tricks!...Speaking of which, can Mr. Gogol's abilities do this?"

"Yes! I'll let you take a look if I get a chance."

"..."

Edogawa Ranpo has already begun to consider the feasibility of reducing the family's population from "three" to "two" tonight.