In the Marvel Universe: I can summon items from all dimensions.

Chapter 90: Was it you who lured the Japanese here?

Calm down, calm down. Try to look on the bright side. After all, Yukiko and her eldest son didn't really have much ill intentions. If it were the FBI agents, I might already be in a situation with physical disabilities or permanent brain damage.

From the perspective of professional dignity, the latter might be better, but now that I've become a traitor, I still need to adjust my course of action. Whether my stance is firm or not is no longer important; what's important is to find a way to secure a carefree second half of my life.

"It's very simple."

After taking two deep breaths, Vermouth smiled and revealed her plan: "Ultimately, the organization is a criminal syndicate, not a terrorist group, which means the number of true inner circle members will be very small."

"I knew it." Kudo Yusaku nodded. "I discussed this with some friends in the FBI before. According to their investigation, there are no more than two hundred people in the organization who have been given code names. You are not a super-large-scale yakuza organization like the Italian Mafia or the Japanese Yakuza. You are more like a family-run conglomerate, an interest group composed of a small number of core members leading a large number of peripheral members."

"Heh, that's a thorough investigation."

Vermouth clicked her tongue and tried to get up, but the handcuffs and belts restricted her movements once again.

"Untie me." She glared at Yukiko Kudo. "I'm not capable of running away in this situation."

"Haha, since it's you after all, I actually think it would be safer to wrap you up with rope, making you look like a worm."

As she spoke, Yukiko Kudo stepped forward and untied Vermouth's restraints, then helped her sit up like a warm friend—the latter didn't show any objection, but judging from the goosebumps that suddenly appeared on her arms, her mood wasn't as calm as her expression suggested.

Are you kidding me? I feel like throwing up!

After settling in, she called out and said calmly, "In other words, as long as the core members of the organization are physically eliminated, the interest groups below will naturally collapse—well, after all, the boss comes from a chaebol family, so it's only natural that he would run the organization in this way."

"Is the boss from a chaebol family?"

Conan astutely grasped this key point and immediately pressed on, "Who is it?"

"What, haven't you investigated this thoroughly yet?"

As the saying goes, a person can die, but one can't give up the act. Because sitting upright was too awkward, Vermouth endured the pain and crossed her legs, then said nonchalantly, "Conan, didn't you go to his old house?"

"what?"

Conan was completely dumbfounded.

Born into a chaebol family —

And it's a place I've been to—

Could it be that the boss's true form is actually that—

"Could it be Suzuki—no—right?" Due to the inertia of his personal thinking, Conan almost blurted out a very outrageous name, but he immediately realized that it was impossible—after all, during the explosion of the Twin Towers in Seymour City, his good brother (for sure) Suzuki Sonoko was almost shot to death by someone from the organization. If the boss of the organization really had some connection with the Suzuki Group, such a thing would not have happened.

On second thought, Conan found the answer.

"Could it be—" He swallowed hard and uttered the name: "Karasuma Renya?!"

"Correct." Vermouth snapped her fingers. "Surprised? I thought you'd already figured it out."

"But Karasuma Renya isn't—" Conan exclaimed in horror, "He died forty years ago, didn't he?!"

"Do you really think so?"

Vermouth chuckled. "Look, Sharon Vineyard died a few years ago, didn't she? And Shinichi Kudo and Shiho Miyano's fates are still unknown, aren't they?"

"————" Conan swallowed hard, speechless for a moment.

"Sharon, that's not very fair."

Yukiko Kudo suppressed her unease, deliberately raised her voice, and said with a smile, "How could you not consider your good sister when there's such a wonderful thing as rejuvenation? A woman's thirties are cruel. No matter how well you take care of your skin, it will gradually sag. Just staying up for a night or two will give you eye bags. I never had this problem before—"

"Yukiko, this is no joke."

Vermouth glanced at her, her tone turning cold. "Even without me emphasizing it, you should know what reverse aging means, right? Isn't deliberately excluding the FBI agents a sign of your fear of that?"

"Indeed, that's the problem." Kudo Yusaku pushed up his glasses and said solemnly, "The organization has opened the door to eternal youth—even immortality, but you obviously haven't fully grasped its secrets yet. Otherwise, the Miyano family wouldn't have ended up like this."

"That's another topic."

Vermouth shrugged. "In short, given my current situation, the best way to ensure my survival is to take down the entire organization—or at least weaken them to the point where they can't retaliate against me. Only then can I sleep peacefully."

"Oh, it's a bad woman's declaration!"

Just as Yukiko Kudo was about to start a fight, Vermouth glared at her with a look that seemed to say, "If you keep causing trouble, I'll kill myself."

"In short, I know most of the organization's members. If I just make a list, and you send people to arrest them one by one, you can wipe the organization out in a few months or half a year at most. When the organization collapses, I'll get the FBI to let me participate in a witness protection program or something, and everyone will be happy—of course, if the people you send out are killed by the organization, that's a different story."

"Is it that simple?"

Conan suddenly spoke up: "You said it before, right? There are unsettling changes happening within the organization. Can we really still deal with it by just issuing lists and arresting people?"

"That's the key point."

Vermouth crossed her arms and said slowly, "All I can give you is information about the organization up to a few months ago. After that, the boss somehow got hold of a set of cyborg technology and then disappeared for several months. Even I could only wait for his instructions, and so could everyone else, whether it was Rum or Gin. You see, if something happened to the boss, the only explanation is that the boss no longer needed the organization, right?"

"That certainly sounds right."

Yusaku Kudo nodded: "It's okay if you don't understand. Please, as a veteran of the organization, try to estimate what kind of state Karasuma Renya is in now, so that we can make preparations as soon as possible."

"Estimate—?"

Vermouth sneered: "I can't give you any definite answers, but if I had to suggest something, I would recommend that you use the kind of demon king in fantasy games who wants to destroy the world as your hypothetical enemy."

,

Kudo Yusaku took a step back thoughtfully.

In fact, in his view, the brewery was not an insurmountable obstacle. Just as Vermouth had said before, the brewery was, after all, a criminal organization, not a group of terrorists. If they really had the power to overturn the world, why would they bother with those low-level criminal activities all day long?

The world is so vast that a single criminal organization cannot cover up the whole situation. So even if the people from the distillery really attacked, he could calmly rely on his connections with the US military to protect himself and then take his family to another country to avoid trouble. But now, things seem to be a little off.

The brewery's boss, Karasuma Renya, is suspected of possessing power akin to a demon king from a game—it sounds like bragging, but what if he really is? Take, for example, the cyborg locked in the basement. If Karasuma Renya had an army composed of such beings as soldiers, he could probably easily crush the incompetent Japanese Self-Defense Forces and even stand up to the US military.

Faced with such an opponent, what should we do?

Some things don't need to be said directly.

For example, regarding ATP-4869, although it could be used as a weapon to attack the brewery, such as secretly leaking information to those aging rulers in the Western world, the brewery would probably experience what a real black hand is within three days.

After all, no matter how much trouble Karasuma Renya caused, he was just a nouveau riche in Japan. In the eyes of British and American financial groups, he was basically a fat sheep to be slaughtered. As a result, a fat sheep dared to flaunt such a powerful thing as immortality. How could they not skin you alive and squeeze out all the remaining value from you?

However, doing so would put precious "experimental subjects" like Vermouth, Conan, and Ai Haibara in a terrible situation. After all, compared to the Black Organization, Western capitalists obviously have a darker moral bottom line. So, for safety's sake, unless there is absolutely no other choice, it is better not to use the forbidden Heavenly Summoning Technique casually and just treat the Black Organization as an ordinary transnational criminal organization.

"Let me hear my thoughts."

Conan scratched his head and said, "No matter what new power the boss has gained, things have to be done step by step. We can't just go straight to Karasuma Renya. We have to start with the ordinary members of the organization."

Vermouth raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Oh? What are you planning to do?"

"fishing."

Conan gave a decisive reply.

The other three looked at him, indicating that he should continue.

"The steps are simple," Conan said. "Konek had a conflict with the organization yesterday, and they'll probably keep pressing him."

"That's right." Vermouth nodded. "Although we don't know what that kid did, the organization must be furious right now. It'll probably be Gin, Rum, or Binga leading cyborgs to hunt him down."

"That's the effect I wanted." Conan said, stroking his chin. "I'll find a way to contact him and get him back to Beika City. Then—Vermouth, you disguise yourself as Haibara—Shiho Miyano and meet with her."

"Oh?" Vermouth blinked. "A good plan. Seeing Koniek and Sherry together will definitely escalate the organization's attacks—but are you planning to use me as a target?"

"You will be protected by reliable bodyguards throughout the entire process."

Conan nodded firmly, then frowned: "The problem is how to get Konecki back—he's obviously avoiding us unless we find a plausible reason—damn it, if only I knew where Itakura Suguru's software was sent, then I'd have a reason to call him over."

"Hmm? Itakura's software?" Upon hearing this, Vermouth suddenly tilted her head and said, "About that—I have a lead."

.

"?"

"There's nothing strange about it, is there?" she said, spreading her hands. "I was the one who contacted Itakura and asked him to make the software. Although Gin ended up getting the finished product, I still had some clues about it."

"————" Conan's lips twitched a few times, but now was not the time to press for answers, so he immediately changed the subject: "It seems we've found a reason to contact Konek. Kyogoku-senpai, who is my bodyguard, should arrive today—well, but just to be on the safe side, I'll find someone else."

"Oh? You're so sure I'll cooperate?" Vermouth said.

While taking out his phone, Conan said seemingly casually, "Consider this your pledge of allegiance. To be honest, I don't really want to cooperate with someone like you, but at least our interests align now, so I bet you probably won't refuse."

"snort----"

Vermouth gave a noncommittal snort, then said, "But let me preface this by saying that something about Konek is also off. His personality used to be similar to Cohen's, and he didn't have any superpowers to speak of. If he became like this through the boss's human experiments—ha, you can think about the pros and cons yourselves."

"Of course I understand."

Conan responded somewhat somberly, then dialed a number.

A moment later, the call was connected.

"Mr. Subaru—no, Mr. Akai, there's something I want to discuss with you."

Upon hearing this, Vermouth finally revealed an expression of undisguised surprise.

"Oh, I see."

Mason nodded, clapped his hands, and concluded, "You plan to make me and my old boss embarrass ourselves, and then send ————————————————"

Someone was secretly firing shots from behind.

"Correct answer."

Vermouth, disguised as Shiho Miyano, glanced at Mason: "Let the two of us traitors dance under the watchful eyes of the organization, Konek."

"It's not that dark, is it?"

Conan sighed: "Kyogoku-senpai can even catch bullets, Mr. Akai is one of the world's top agents, and with the elite team the FBI brought in from their Okinawa base, your personal safety shouldn't be a problem. Besides—"

"Besides, I'm not going to die, am I?"

Although he didn't know what Conan was going to say, Mason preemptively shut him down with a tasteless joke: "What a genius strategist you are, Great Detective."

After saying that, he went into the room, first approaching Makoto Kyogoku and shaking his hand: "I've heard so much about you, you must be the God of Karate?"

"I can't claim to be a god, I just have some strength."

Makoto Kyogoku shook his head modestly, then stared at Mason's face and said, "If I remember correctly, you went to the Shibuya gymnasium before?"

"I just happened to be passing by, so I went in for a look."

Mason nodded without hesitation: "However, my identity is quite sensitive, and it would be troublesome if the police stopped and questioned me, so I left immediately. By the way, how did that judge die?"

"Teacher Saiga?"

Makoto Kyogoku said somewhat awkwardly, "According to the investigation, he had been having affairs with several women for a long time, and one of his girlfriends found out, so—"

"Oh, a love triangle disaster."

Mason understood.

Even in a normal world, this kind of thing carries the risk of being hacked to death; in the world of Detective Conan, it's even more so—it's a pure path to suicide.

He then shook hands with the Kudo couple to show goodwill, and finally came to stand in front of Shuichi Akai.

"Hey, isn't this rye whiskey? I didn't expect to see it in a place like this." He stroked his chin, pretending to be completely unaware of the whole story, and laughed heartily. "Interesting. Looks like Gin and the others have all been fooled by you—"

"Wait, if that's the case, is Gil also a mole?"

—According to the diary, Konecny ​​met Akai Shuichi when he was an undercover agent for the brewery. Although they never cooperated or were enemies, they were somewhat familiar with each other, so it was still necessary to pretend to be friends.

"Heh, too bad the scam was exposed before it even had a chance to work."

Shuichi Akai chuckled softly, "But compared to me, you've changed more—if it weren't for your unchanged face, I wouldn't recognize you. Is this the price of immortality?"

"That's up to your imagination."

Mason sighed, looked around the room, and nodded: "Hmm, the lineup is indeed very strong, and it's worth cooperating with, but—"

He was just about to demonstrate his importance by negotiating terms when suddenly, Ai Haibara, who had been sitting in the corner fiddling with her computer, exclaimed, "Wait! Someone's approaching the hotel!"

"Um?"

In an instant, a group of people swarmed around the laptop screen and looked at the surveillance footage.

This is a surveillance camera she temporarily installed as a precaution after choosing this hotel as the meeting place. It can capture the front door, side windows, the alley behind, and even the ventilation vents and sewers. It can be said that unless one can teleport, it is impossible to get close to the hotel without Haibara's knowledge.

Mason peeked over and saw that the security camera in the back alley had captured a burly man with a stiff face standing downstairs at the hotel.

Damn it, I knew I shouldn't have planted the flag so casually.

Now it's my turn to have lured the Japanese here.