The establishment of the Time Travelers Alliance began in the first year of Conan

Chapter 250 "The Seven Secret Chapters of Conan's True Lord: Prologue"

"Those who seek the truth stand on tiptoe, while those who are obsessed with the mystery sink into depravity. They all know the surface of a wrongful death, but do not know the essence of reincarnation."

—Prologue to "The Seven Secret Chapters of Conan the True Man"

……

When Takagi Wataru pointed out Oi Kento's strangeness, and the moment Oi Kento asked that fatal question, Dr. Agasa tried to investigate Oi Kento's experiences over the past few days.

Those undeniably true events, those floating images, reveal themselves to Professor Agasa in multiple planes and dimensions.

The light refracted into countless spiderwebs, like broken fragments from some kind of "God's perspective," and Dr. Agasa's consciousness was forced to wander through them.

What day of the week is it today?

This question, like the annoying buzzing of a mosquito, resonated in Dr. Agasa's millions of thoughts. And in every scene recorded by each "lens group," Kento Oi simultaneously looked up, facing every Dr. Agasa in every time and space, and every Shoji Sato in the scene...

Even regarding that "one day" itself...

His lip movements are repeating the same sentence in every scene.

Do you know what day of the week it is today?

Now, the "videotape" is no longer linear; it both rewinds backward and races forward.

The scene rewinds to three days before "a certain day," and Professor Agasa focuses his attention on Kento Oi's face as he is escorted by police officers—the deep remorse on his face, whether for killing someone or for some other reason.

……

Wearing shiny silver handcuffs, he was led into the glass, cement, and steel cage. The gaps between the bars allowed him to reach out from the cell and grope his way to the damp, peeling exterior wall.

"that--"

His voice sounded slightly fearful, a normal kind of fear, which made the officer who was about to leave turn his head back.

"Is there anything else?" Hidego Uchimura's tone was somewhat impatient, and at the same time, it carried a hint of anger towards the murderer. "Wait for the court trial!"

"Moreover, you killed a foreign worker, so it's impossible to get a lenient sentence!"

Hidego Uchimura shook his head, clearly extremely dissatisfied with the man who had killed his companion for money alone.

“And,” he continued, frowning, “that witness named Akimoto Kazuta is dead…you are directly related to him. Do you think you can escape responsibility?”

But Kento Oi seemed not to have listened to him at all.

He repeated it only in an almost pleading tone:

"I just want to know what day of the week it is?"

His tone was sincere, as if he didn't care at all about the "death of Akimoto Kazuta" mentioned by the police officer.

"I have to send money to Ruozi every weekend, otherwise she won't survive. That's for her medical expenses. She's very ill. Please!"

Kento Oi's words softened Uchimura's attitude slightly; the young police officer had already conjured up a complete love story in his mind.

He sighed, softened his tone, and answered Kento Oi's question.

"Today is Monday."

"Don't cause any trouble during this time, cooperate well, and you might have a chance to visit me in prison or send me money this weekend." He said and then left.

Kento Oi remained seated, his hands still resting on the outside of the railing.

Just as Uchimura's figure was about to disappear outside the door, his lips moved slightly.

No sound.

"Today is Monday?"

……

"He looks normal."

In the monitoring room, Maria turned her head to look at another Sato standing to the side.

The detective assistant inspector from the First Investigation Division who was temporarily assigned to help her organize the data was Miwako Sato.

In the surveillance footage, Kento Oi appears to be an honest fisherman who has been wronged.

Clicking on the screen, Maria zoomed in and moved the cursor to Kento Oi's face, a face filled with regret, sadness, and worry for his family.

Maria has already notified the police station, but compiling all the information is expected to take a long time.

Or rather, this task could very well only be accomplished by her and Miwako Sato—all the other police officers had gone out to "maintain order."

She first took out her phone, took a picture of the image she thought might be one of the clues, and sent it to the bureau chief.

Sato Miwako frowned, but considering that Inspector Megure had specifically instructed her to cooperate with "all commands," she paused and pretended not to see Maria's behavior.

“But things soon went wrong,” she fast-forwarded to midnight on Monday night, “and at midnight the following night, officers who went to check on him found him huddled in a corner of the room.”

"Click——"

Maria took a picture of the figure huddled in the corner, then looked at the dim image presented by the camera.

"Did he break the lights in the monitoring room?"

"No, I just had it turned off."

Sato Miwako first rewound the scene by a few hours, and Maria saw that at exactly 6 p.m. on Monday, the moment the white light on the ceiling of the detention cell lit up, Ooi Kento began to shout loudly.

"Turn off the lights! I need to rest! I have photophobia!"

"You didn't force him to quiet down?" Maria asked incredulously. "You really did..."

"Just because he is a murderer doesn't mean we can treat him like a human being."

Miwako Sato denied this claim, out of her seriousness about her duties and respect for the law.

"And the officer in charge of him at the time thought it was nothing, just turning off the lights in advance."

Sato Miwako paused for a moment, then added, "Besides, he seemed perfectly normal back then, didn't he?"

"After all, it could just be a momentary emotional outburst. Many people with short tempers would react much more strongly than him when they come in."

Many people have bad tempers?

Maria had a vague feeling that something was wrong, but before she could think about it, Sato Miwako's next strange description of Ooi Kento caught her full attention—and then she turned on the recording function on her phone.

"The next day, Monday morning, Hidego Uchimura found him hiding in the corner and secretly carving words on the corner."

Miwako Sato took the mouse from Maria's hand, clicked on a folder named "Cell 303 Records," and then opened several pictures at the bottom.

Some numbers are engraved on the wall.

Moreover, in Maria's eyes, they were carved on the wall "layer upon layer" and "progressively".

It's like someone draws a pattern on a flat surface, and then draws another one on the same surface, and another one...

Maria's eyes revealed a hint of surprise.

She looked into Miwako's eyes, and in those dark purple eyes, a similar emotion was revealed, but only a trace.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

However, her tone conveyed more dissatisfaction than anything else.

“After all, this was obviously not normal, and it was public property, so Uchimura later told him that if he continued to do so, he might face some other lawsuits, making his already bad situation even worse.”

She pulled the progress bar back.

……

"If I find you scribbling on the wall again..."

A young man's irritable reprimand rang out in cell 303, and Hidego Uchimura felt that he might not have displayed the authority to intimidate the prisoners.

He ignored the meaningless noise that Kento Oi made because of the turned-on light and yanked him off the bed.

In that small corner, the numbers were arranged like a strange and distorted musical score, giving Hidego Uchimura a headache.

He stepped forward and reached out to touch the topmost number—"one".

A crooked horizontal or vertical line, even though the numbers are all in the same place, Hidego Uchimura sees a rich sense of layering in it.

Those diagonally drawn lines at various angles—thin lines, diagonal lines, and semi-circles—combined to form a... unsettling pattern.

A strange disc, or a twisted clock face.

The crooked "hands" above form the clock's shape, which in turn forms the number "one".

Hidego Uchimura knew that it was actually the number "one".

They are chaotic, obscure, and overlapping in those subtle engravings; the number hides the essence of something in those increasingly profound marks.

So, while Kento Oi remained silent, Hidego Uchimura made him stand up against the wall and searched him for every sharp object that could be used as an awl or chisel.

Things are still relatively normal up to this point.

After all, carving something out of pressure or to pass the time might result in some financial compensation afterward, but ultimately, it's not a big deal.

Moreover, judging from Kento Oi's behavior, he may also have a hobby of carving.

Then, amidst Hidego Uchimura's scolding and complaints, the kind young man picked up a bucket of paint and a brush.

He dipped the bound tentacles into the milky white liquid.

Then, use those tentacles to defile those silent traces that face them—

Those traces of success and failure.

Those great, crazy, and terrible traces.

Caught completely off guard, Kento Oi, who had been calmly standing to the side, suddenly rushed over as if he had been struck by some unspeakable truth.

He screamed like a madman and wrestled with Uchimura. The scene, which was so violent that it seemed he was about to kill someone, made the prisoners in the opposite cell scream in terror.

The metal bucket full of paint fell to the ground, splashing droplets that burst into the surrounding space, along with the paintbrush that fell from the hand in mid-air and the pitiful, bewildered police officer who collapsed into the corner.

Soon, a piercing alarm sounded, alerting the entire police station.

Justice could not tolerate Kento Ooi's blasphemy and malice towards it.

Several police officers quickly ran out from a subtle angle in the corridor and subdued Kento Oi, who was crying while facing a corner of the wall that had been smeared with dirt.

Maria now understood completely. "So that's why you moved him to that cell?"

"That's for real felons, the kind who kill a lot of people, and the kind that's meticulously planned and deliberate."

Miwako Sato paused, then added some limiting conditions, "For example, blowing up an entire building."

“We simply moved him to a larger cell and then had several other inmates keep an eye on him.”

However, this may be because the Beika Town Police Station believes that its most important task is still to uphold the law and uphold justice.

……

"It's Tuesday! I already told you, it's Tuesday!"

His clothes were pulled and tugged, and the fisherman's strong body, honed by his struggle with the sea, was pushed around. After getting the answer he wanted, the "madman" Kento Ooi silently returned to his seat.

Today is Tuesday.

he thinks.

The leader of the thugs looked at the body that appeared to be extremely thin with some apprehension.

"You don't want us to call those cops over again, do you?" At first, he thought he could keep him in check, and even secretly get some money from that guy before the guards noticed him.

But beneath that skin, tanned dark by the sea sun, those dry, brittle fibers resembled tightly bound steel wires, and the two hands that had once been used to steer or pull fishing nets laden with fish were now winches.

They were no match for this person. Even if all three of them attacked together, it was as if that person had the strength of several people inside him.

"How did those cops subdue him?" Thinking this, he uttered a sharp question:

"Well... that policeman already said that if they see you carving words on the wall again..."

Kento Oi ignored those "organs" that made the sound.

But the sounds they uttered and the numbers they displayed made him even more nervous, causing his mind to retract into the depths of his brain, urging him to act.

This time, instead of asking the lights to be turned off beforehand, he used the eerily pale light to look at the walls made of "bark" and "mud" in his field of vision.

There are four people in this "tomb chamber," which is a very unlucky number.

Amidst the suspicious glances and whispers of those people, Kento Oi buried his head in his own bedding.

Before me were sharp edges and right angles made of cement, and the damp smell inside the walls was like beans that had been soaking for a long time.

Kento Oi was able to smell them.

That dampness that lingers in the future and the past, the dark traces left by moisture that have stretched from ancient times to the present.

This building, this police station, cannot be kept from him.

He could see what lay beneath those magnificent, leaden-gray exteriors.

That represents the demise of justice, the emptiness of judgment, and—Wednesday.

Wednesday is coming soon!

Wednesday is coming!!!

This thought made Kento Ooi's heart pound like a drum; his temples swelled, and blood felt like icicles scraping against his arteries and veins.

"Hehe..." He suddenly chuckled as if he had thought of something; he knew those things couldn't stop him.

He reached for the nail of his left index finger, then his right.

That outcome left him somewhat distressed and frustrated.

Then came the other fingers—and the teeth, every single one.

He trembled, drawing upon that terrifying, magnificent, boundless, inexplicable… power that was unspeakable, indescribable, and beyond description, as he shakily gripped the blood-stained “dagger” against the wall made of bark and mud—

Write down the number "one".

……

"Ugh--"

Miwako Sato sighed. She really didn't want to see that scene again, but in the end, she sighed and changed the time to noon on Tuesday.

A scene that could absolutely be described as filthy and disgusting suddenly appeared before Maria.

Maria's eyebrows were almost furrowed together, but she suppressed the nausea rising in her heart and took pictures of those photos with her phone.

"Now you understand why he was alone in that room."

Even though Kento Oi had nothing on his body that could be used as a weapon, an hour after he was locked in that four-person cell, he used his body as a weapon, attacking the others with his "excrement" or anything disgusting.

Miwako Sato patted her forehead, letting out a sigh that combined speechlessness and helplessness:
"The scene was so bad it drove the cleaners crazy."

The terrible video on the screen flowed into Maria's memory like sewage, and at the same time, it flowed into Sato Miwako's eyes again, forcing her to recall that terrible experience.

"To be honest, we all felt that a mental hospital would be a better place for him, but—"

Miwako Sato glanced at Maria, the meaning in her gaze unmistakable.

Since no new orders came from the GSSRA, the Metropolitan Police Department, unsure of what to do, ultimately only told the Beikacho Police Station—

"Let him stay there, maintain the status quo, and await further instructions."

Miwako Sato opened another folder and found the video recorded in the interrogation room on Tuesday morning.

"Takagi spoke with him after he calmed down."

Maria picked up on Miwako's last sentence; she already knew what Miwako wanted to say.

"And after he went into that cell, he didn't cause any more trouble, right?"

"Ah."

Miwako Sato nodded slightly and added, "Moreover, considering that his actions didn't actually harm anyone else and actually calmed him down, we didn't take any further action."

Then, she brought up the current image of Takagi Wataru and the others, zoomed in and out, and hung it in the upper left corner of the screen.

"Look, he's cooperating now."

……

Now, Kento Oi obediently stood up, allowing Wataru Takagi to remove the handcuffs and leg irons that were connected to a lock on the wall.

This even surprised Takagi Wataru slightly—he had originally prepared to subdue the suddenly enraged Oi Kento.

After all, he had heard the food delivery officers mention this issue many times before.

Without exception, he seemed to be filled with fear every single day.

He didn't want anyone to come near, and he kept muttering crazy murmurs about numbers, and about those graffiti, those capital numbers, numbers written in various languages.

It could even be a tiny sculpture, or something resembling a stone slab, made from dust piled up in a corner of a wall.

He turned to look at Sato Shoji beside him and asked, "How did you do that?"

Shoji Sato stared at the patterns on the walls, slightly lost in thought. He was already planning to notify GSSRA to dismantle and remove the entire cell later, but Wataru Takagi's question interrupted his thoughts.

"How did you do that?"

"This...is like calming him down now,"

Takagi Wataru's voice was tinged with disbelief, "You just said Thursday, and he didn't do anything?!"

Thursday went smoothly for Shoji Sato.

Without any setbacks, he successfully received the target and handed Kento Oi over to the interrogators.

……

Then, on Friday morning, Kento Oi died.

The casualties reported by three brigades of the GSSRA Global Rapid Reaction Force have led people to desperately try to extract any information from Kenjiro Oi that might be related to the soldiers' disappearances.

The cemeteries and lighthouses in those photos...

These things were mentioned by Kento Oi in his statement in the "Harbor Case," and in every aspect of those transcripts.

“Sir, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t telling us the truth.”

Kawakami Kyohei was very confident in his judgment: "All the evidence matches the details in those photos... This is very unusual."

Kawakami Kyohei had no idea how Oi Kento had managed to do it.

The fisherman seemed to have some kind of special intuition; he precisely avoided the vague and suggestive scenarios in his words, yet he acknowledged every "correct" detail he made based on the three photos.

"It's as if he saw those photos with his own eyes, or even took those three photos himself."

As a detective recruited after the establishment of GSSRA, deducing the psychological activities of criminals has become an instinct for him, which has also made him famous in the GSSRA intelligence system.

Kawakami Kyohei was certain that he had seen right through the fisherman locked in the interrogation room—

His bizarre ideas, his unfounded yet deeply ingrained fear of those numbers, his long-closed heart screaming hysterically deep within...

Kawakami Kyohei did indeed exploit these fears.

He successfully pried open the tightly closed door and learned several key pieces of information.

For example——

"The numbers one through seven must be things from certain phrases."

He was fluent in Chinese, and even several other languages, so he could clearly hear those mumbled words and the Chinese characters being shouted.

But strangely, the vague murmurs before and after those numbers, those words that sounded like the buzzing of mosquitoes, did not belong to any known language.

Even the specially dispatched linguists racked their brains but could not be sure which language family those sounds belonged to.

"Forgive my frankness, but I really don't know what he meant," the most learned man said, resigning because of this troubling task. "I don't think those words have any specific meaning."

In that analysis room, which was filled with linguists, folklorists, and anthropologists, the constantly playing incoherent sounds and meaningless noises were a never-ending torment.

“It’s time to end it. It has left us all in a deep…” The old professor’s voice carried a deep plea, “deep in what seems to be some unspeakable quagmire from which there is no escape.”

Even those scholars who were exhausted and whose pupils had almost lost all hope and light, some of them also seemed to begin to ramble incoherently.

"It sounds like a crime!"

Some scholars believe that it sounded like the sound of the murderer hitting the body with a stick;
Other scholars living in the United States heard the sound of bullets ricocheting off the wall when the gun was fired;
The sound of a chainsaw cutting through certain bones, with fragments of bone like ceramic and flesh like foam flying outwards;

The last groan of the deceased before they died when their throat was cut open, or the sound of blood gushing from their throat...

"But the information he provided doesn't match the data records of GSSRA."

On the screen in front of Heiji Hattori, the liaison officer reported the progress of the interrogation to him.

"The police record mentions that he and Akimoto Kazuta went to Tsukikage Island three months ago, but in fact, the database shows that they changed the registration of their boat to Tsukikage Island two years ago."

Then came the sudden death of Kento Oi, the same death as that of Akimoto Kazuya.

……

Now Professor Agasa understands everything; he has figured out where the problem lies.

Everything was so predictable.

Monday is the Harbor Case.

Tuesday is about Kento Oi being escorted back to the police station, and the arguments, compromises, and reactions to the "crime rate increase" awareness weapon between GSSRA and Heiji Hattori.

Wednesday was the first day of the lockdown in Beika Town, the day the effects spread, and the day I contacted Hattori Heiji.

Thursday was the day Kento Oi was taken away, and also the day he died.

And then there's today, which is Friday.

Everything is so predictable!

"Heh—hahaha..."

Professor Agasa couldn't help but burst into laughter, because he remembered it very clearly—

It should be Friday after Monday, because today is the second day after the Harbor Incident.

Now, the [Loop Computer] will clearly translate the few words that Kento Oi said at the police station at the beginning, words that are no longer on the record.

Kento Oi did indeed recite in Chinese, and it consisted of four sentences:

"Those who seek the truth stand on tiptoe, while those who are obsessed with the mystery sink into depravity. They all know the surface of a wrongful death, but do not know the essence of reincarnation."

PS: Please vote for me! I'm really sad today, see the author's note for details.

(End of this chapter)