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

Chapter 98 The Boss is About to Arrive

At that moment, Gin, who was sitting opposite Cohen and Chianti, suddenly felt a chill for no apparent reason.

Is it just my imagination?

He quickly put that feeling behind him, because something more troublesome awaited him.

He was sitting behind a desk, on which a laptop was playing surveillance video from the medical center earlier.

It was a scene of a female ghost in white floating in mid-air, brutally killing the lower-level cannon fodder of the distillery one by one.

"----ah?"

After scanning through all the key points in the video, Gin was completely stunned.

What? Is there really a ghost?

The overly fantastical scene made the surveillance footage look like a mockumentary, a genre that has become popular in recent years. However, the marks on the corpses scattered throughout the medical center matched the female ghost's murder methods perfectly, leaving no room for doubt.

—Some people might ask why surveillance cameras could capture Sadako. Well, imagine what spread Sadako's curse through. She doesn't have the rule that optical instruments can't capture demons and monsters. Unless you're particularly focused (meaning you have to watch the videotapes to be cursed), just watching videos with her in them is probably playing with your life.

When Gin arrived, Cohen was still barely conscious, but Chianti almost turned into a complete idiot who could only babble. Seeing that he couldn't wake her up by talking, Gin simply slapped her a dozen times across the face before she finally came to her senses.

Then came the interrogation, questioning, and debate – a complete service. However, unlike last time, this medical center was equipped with a lot of surveillance cameras, so Cohen took Gin directly to the monitoring room. After obtaining the surveillance video, he begged Gin to take them away from here first. This request was granted, since Gin was somewhat of a germaphobe and didn't want to talk in a place full of corpses and strange smells.

Afterwards, after moving to a different location and watching the video content thoroughly, Gin's heart was filled with shock and disbelief.

Are you serious?!

If it weren't for the need to maintain his persona, he would have been screaming something like "simpossible"—this is a genuine ghost, a genuine supernatural being!

And it looks incredibly powerful!

After a long silence, Gin and the two victims, whose hearts were still filled with fear, looked at each other.

He gathered his thoughts and then asked as calmly as possible, "In short, this—the ghost appeared after Koniek showed you the video?"

"Um."

Cohen replied in a low voice, "We've emphasized what happened back then repeatedly before, you should still remember."

,

Gin was speechless.

After all, it was he who made the critical comment about Chianti and Cohen, saying, "You two should go to the hospital to get your paranoia treated." Now that there is real evidence in front of them, things are getting a bit complicated.

Admitting mistakes is impossible. This isn't some mutual aid association. How could a boss possibly make a mistake?

The problem is how to handle this situation. Even setting aside the possibility that the ghost might reappear and wreak havoc, I just had a conflict with Rum. What if he uses this as an excuse to dig a pit for me to fall into?

This is troublesome—in every sense of the word.

"you----"

Gin pondered for a while, then spoke with some difficulty, "I will give you some funding. Go and find professionals in this field. Since Konek can release ghosts, it means that there must exist people in the world who can solve related problems."

After giving his explanation, without waiting for Chianti and Cohen's response, Gin immediately began writing a report to submit the matter directly to the boss.

With such a huge incident, and a large number of people in the organization being killed by supernatural creatures, even if the boss is detached from worldly affairs, he should have some reaction, right?

In any case, the situation at the medical center can no longer be kept secret. Rather than waiting for that old bastard Rum to trip us up, it's better to strike first, admit our mistakes, and let the boss decide for us.

With this fundamental idea in mind, Gin quickly wrote a report and sent it to the boss along with the surveillance footage.

After a long and anxious wait, a reply arrived in Gin's inbox.

He eagerly looked up—the sender was none other than the boss!

I will be returning to Japan soon.

The reply was very brief, just one sentence, but Gin's eyes almost lit up when he read it.

The next few days were quite peaceful.

Perhaps because Sadako wiped out most of the winery's lower-level cannon fodder in one fell swoop, they have not taken any action for the time being, which has rendered all the precautions that Mason and others have carefully prepared useless.

But the people at the distillery can't stay idle if they don't move.

The FBI is in talks with the Japanese Public Security Bureau, calling in more people to create a massive network targeting the brewery—this is something that needs to be considered very carefully.

It involves many steps and cannot be rushed.

The Kudo couple disappeared, reportedly to discuss magic-related topics with Kuroba Toichi, and they won't be back anytime soon.

Haibara and Professor Agasa moved to a new place and started doing scientific research. Their goal was probably to upgrade Conan's already ridiculously outrageous equipment from head to toe. It's hard to imagine what kind of terrifying monster they would create with their research abilities, which are comparable to those of the green-skinned characters in the Warhammer universe.

As for Conan, he went to check the whereabouts of Itakura Taku's software. With the intelligence support provided by Vermouth, he should be able to finish his task the fastest.

And Mason—it seems Mason has nothing left to do.

After all, things had progressed to this point, and the plan could be considered complete. There was no need for him to rush into anything else. So, in the past few days, he transformed into a shopping spree maniac, buying all sorts of things that might be needed until the stack memory was almost full.

There's nothing I can do. All three summons I've pulled these past few days have yielded nothing but utterly worthless junk, the kind you'd be too uncomfortable to even use as a seat cushion. It's truly heartbreaking.

In addition, he found an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city for Parcelassus, bought some materials, and asked him to build a magic workshop there—but this was not a very optimistic prospect, since the Conan world really didn't have any magical resources, and didn't even have the concept of ley lines. Who knows what magicians here use to cast spells?

As the saying goes, even a skilled cook can't cook without rice. Even with the abilities of this great alchemist, there was no way to conjure magic out of thin air. So he had to settle for second best and start researching how to extract more power from the Thunder God Pearl.

Judging from the results, the investment has yielded pretty good returns. After a few days, the electricity bill owed to the Book of Mercenaries has almost been paid off. In the meantime, a few lightning grenades made of sapphire have also been acquired. Throwing one out will release a lightning chain covering a radius of ten meters. More ways to use it are also under development.

As for the previously planned "Konek and Sherry fishing together" strategy, it will have to wait until Vermouth's foot injury has healed up before it can be implemented. Although Mason thinks that after the brewery has suffered two major losses, it will probably start to plan a big move, and at that time it will not need such small-scale things, but it is fine to keep it as a backup plan.

Mason is currently on his way to find Phantom Thief Kid.

This morning, this guy sent Mason a message asking for help, saying that he had found a divine pearl but couldn't get his hands on it. Upon hearing this, Mason immediately woke up and rented a car, taking the two Heroic Spirits with him to the location of Phantom Thief Kid.

"Oh, so this is the human civilization that wasn't burned or turned into nothing? It looks quite idyllic."

On the city's highway, Okita Souji poked his head out of his rented convertible, looking around at the bustling streets with a bewildered expression: "Shops, restaurants, schools, oh, even martial arts schools have Masters! Can I go in and see their skill levels?"

"Let's talk about it on the way back, after all, we still have errands to run now."

Since he decided to change his style before setting off, Mason, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, sunglasses perched on his forehead, and a toothpick in his mouth, said leisurely, "The martial arts in this world—while not bad, they're probably pretty average—remember Makoto Kyogoku? He's the number one martial artist in this world, but don't be fooled by his skill level. If nothing unexpected happens, there should be a significant gap between him and the second-place fighter."

"That dark-skinned man?"

Okita Souji scratched his head: "He is quite strong, but he seems to have a rather naive personality. I'm not very good at dealing with that type, Ms. Okita—and he has tried to challenge me to a fight several times."

"Isn't it fine?" Paracelsus said casually. "As far as I know, it's quite normal for martial artists to spar with each other."

"That's true, but that kind of approach isn't really my style," Okita Souji said, clutching his chest. "After all, I don't have much stamina—the moves I use are basically aimed at causing maximum damage in the shortest amount of time, so they're not suitable for sparring."

"I see."

Mason then casually asked, "So, in your opinion, who's stronger, you or Kyogoku Makoto?"

"In terms of sheer strength, it's definitely him," Okita Souji replied immediately. "Even without this Spirit Origin Shadow body, I wouldn't have been able to withstand that man's attacks in my previous life—but in a life-or-death battle, it's a different story. That man is strong, but he clearly doesn't have much experience in killing, and his martial arts are still lacking refinement. For me now, killing him wouldn't be an easy task, but it's not impossible either."

"That's pretty much what I thought."

Mason wasn't too surprised—after all, the worlds are different. Take Okita Souji, for example; she achieved "spatial overlap" and "event collapse" purely through martial arts training, phenomena that are extremely exaggerated even in the supernatural realm. People like Sasaki Kojiro, Miyamoto Musashi, and Li Shuwen are even more abstract. Martial arts in the Conan world are much simpler, just an increase in strength and speed. The two worlds are completely on different levels.

"Although it's a bit late to ask now."

Paracelsus suddenly spoke up, "Master, you're not from this world, are you?"

When these words were spoken, not only him, but also Okita Souji acted as if it were perfectly natural, clearly having already noticed it long ago.

"Hmm?" Mason raised an eyebrow. "While it's definitely not, let's go through the motions when answering this kind of question. How did you figure that out?"

"Your words and actions?" Okita Souji interjected. "After all, there's a subtle sense of dislocation between you, Master, and the others in this world. You also seem very familiar with Chaldea—though I don't know exactly what's going on, I don't need to guess to know that you're definitely not from this world."

That's it.

Paracelsus added, "We came to this world through Miss Fujimaru's Book of Mercenaries. According to her, those who possess the Book of Mercenaries almost always have some understanding of the customs and cultures of other worlds, and quite a few can travel between different worlds."

Is it "Miss" Fujimaru?

In other words, it was Gudako who made the deal with me, not Gudako. But that's normal, since their IDs are both "Fujimaru Chaos Evil". In Chaldea, Gudako is definitely closer to that description.

"You guessed pretty accurately."

Mason readily admitted, "I'm not from this world. My reasons for coming here are a bit complicated. To put it simply—it's similar to Fujimaru Ritsuka's reasons for traveling between different singularities or Lostbelts—although it's not voluntary, I'm definitely going here with the goal of saving the world."

"Oh?" Okita Souji tilted his head and said, "So, does that mean we've been temporarily assigned to work for another company with similar business?"

"Using it like that suddenly makes it all so boring!"

Mason complained, "Can't you be a little more serious, a little more childish?"

"? Miss Okita doesn't understand that kind of thing."

Okita Souji made a face, then said with a grin, "Well, although I'm not exactly a champion of justice, it always feels better to do good deeds—"

'

As she spoke, she reached out and tapped Paracelsus on the head twice, continuing, "Even this heartless Caster is the same."

"Let me correct you," Paracelsus said calmly. "I'm not inhuman, I just value research more."

"7

"So?" Mason continued, following the conversation. "Was that some kind of test? Did I pass it?"

"It's not really a test," Okita Souji waved his hand. "But—well, that's true. After all, this journey isn't about vying for the Holy Grail or some mandatory official business assigned by Human Order. It's definitely more comfortable to find a boss you like. Master, you seem pretty good."

"Yes, that's an honor."

Mason gave a nonchalant reply, then stepped on the gas and sped off toward a distant dock.

The location sent by Kaito Kuroba was near a dock on the Uraga Channel—though that's a bit of a stretch, Mason pretty much knew why he couldn't figure it out the moment he saw the location.

However, to avoid wrongly accusing anyone, it's best to come and confirm first.

After following the navigation to the location, Mason and the two Heroic Spirits got out of the car and looked around. They spotted a small yacht on the water, with Kaito Kuroba, wearing a diving suit, sitting on it with a deep expression, as if he had encountered some enormous problem.

Mason's lips twitched twice, then he took out his phone and sent him a text message.

I've arrived. Look towards the shore.

----------

A few seconds later, Kaito Kuroba suddenly raised his head, turned his gaze to Mason, and showed a surprised expression.

Incidentally, his yacht wasn't far from the shore, which is why Mason could see his expression directly.

"Who is this expert?"

Okita Souji said curiously, "It looks like you've had a lot of training. Your hands and feet are steady and agile, and you hardly make any extra noise when you move—you seem like some kind of craftsman who doesn't want to be seen in the light of day."

"You have a really good eye!"

Mason shrugged. "This is a very famous craftsman in the world, known as Phantom Thief Kid." Indeed, the Thor's Orb was found while working with him, and this time it should be a similar story.

"Other Dragon Balls?" Paracelsus chuckled. "That sounds like a good thing."

"Let's talk about it later. He seems to be facing some kind of problem."

As they were talking, Kaito Kuroba had already steered the yacht close to the shore, and Mason didn't stand on ceremony. Once they were close enough, he immediately jumped aboard.

"What happened?" he asked with a smile. "What difficulties have you encountered?"

"Rather than saying I encountered any difficulties," Kaito Kuroba sighed deeply, "it's more like all difficulties. Damn it, I feel like these damn beads are going to ruin the name of Kid."

"That sounds really unfortunate." Mason shook his head without any sympathy, then looked behind him and said, "These two are Okita and Hohenheim, also professionals."

"A new magician? —"

Kaito Kuroba pursed his lips: "Fine, never mind. Anyway, come with me over there. The 'Water God Pearl' is hidden in a piece of coral underwater, but I can't retrieve it."

At this point, Mason basically understood what was going on, but he still kept a straight face and asked seriously, "Why? Coral doesn't sound dangerous, does it?"

"There are too many fish in there! I can't possibly go down!"

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