No one understands the laws of Collider better than me.

"By the way, Conan, I haven't asked before, but I'm quite curious now. Your reasoning ability is nothing like that of a child."

Conan, who had originally wanted to show off his deductive reasoning skills in front of Kitahara Masaki, had long been silenced by the safety of the children. But now that he was suddenly suspected again, he immediately started his classic head-patting and smiling act, while inwardly cursing.

(Masaki Kitahara, this policeman seems nonchalant, but he's always very perceptive. By the way! I wonder what he thinks of this code?)

Conan felt a pang of discomfort at having to act like a child in front of a policeman who wasn't much older than him. Seeing that the policeman was starting to suspect him, he could only change the subject:

"Brother Kitahara, Uncle Mori taught me all of this, but I only have a vague understanding of it. I don't understand the code on the calculator at all."

"Oh, really? Me too, since I just got the code. Alright, I should go now, they're all calling you to come over and play, go on."

Kitahara Masaki pushed Conan back to the three children. Seeing Conan looking back every three steps, like a complaining little woman, he could only pinch his cheeks to stop himself from laughing out loud.

Back in the car, another achievement had been completed on the system's achievement list:

[The bully]: Successfully rubbed Conan's head ten times.

Reward Item: Nameless Top Hat

After confirming the equipment, an extravagant hat appeared on my head. The crown was quite high, but not as high as a chef's hat, so it wouldn't affect my movement.

Turning the rearview mirror around, the person in the mirror didn't become a guy wearing a strange hat. Instead, he looked completely ordinary, just like any other ordinary citizen who would disappear into a crowd.

If paired with the Hundred Transformations Mask, one can disguise oneself as a man whose temperament and appearance are no different from an ordinary person.

I thought that since the mission was so easy to complete, the items given wouldn't be very good. But the items given exceeded Kitahara Maki's expectations. They can be said to be excellent helpers in stealth missions.

"Well, now we need to decipher this code."

The calculator, placed in a transparent evidence bag, blinked its cursor to prevent him from pressing the buttons. Kitahara Masaki gripped its screen, and in the instant it was turned upside down, he felt a sudden flash of inspiration. He looked at it carefully twice more, then wrote down the numbers as they appeared upside down:

3135134162→291,HEI,SEI,E

The semicolon at the top of the number becomes a comma when viewed upside down. The content after 291, when read in Japanese, probably means 'Heisei'. Kitahara Maki hasn't figured out what the 'e' at the end represents yet.

"Forget it, let's go back to the police station first and see if anyone is missing."

Oh, right, after all, it's a world of science fiction with 36,500 days a year, so it's not surprising that the era name could be changed from Showa to Heisei, and then from Heisei to Reiwa within a year.

I turned on the car's in-car radio, and it started beeping:

"It's Donghai Emperor! Donghai Emperor is coming up! The distance between them and Pipa Chenguang is getting smaller and smaller, less than 200 meters away! After a year's absence from the competition, can Donghai Emperor catch up with Pipa Chenguang?"

"Yoko Okino's latest drama, Zombie Academy, will officially premiere this Friday! Having already filmed three romantic comedies, can this rising star shine again in this blood-splattered zombie film?"

"Take a dream journey on the Heisei Limited Express! The average speed there is..."

The broadcast startled Kitahara Masaki. Driving his police car, he pulled over to the side of the road and took out his phone to search for information about the Heisei Limited Express.

The Heisei Express will officially begin service on the 29th of this month.

That's it!

This group used the river as a roadway for a sniping simulation, and sure enough, they were trying to snipe someone on the train.

291 represents 1 p.m. on the 29th, and HEISEI E is naturally an abbreviation for HEISEI EXPRESS.

The code has been deciphered. There are still three full days until the 29th. Kitahara Masaki doesn't believe that these people won't go to the site to scout it out. He believes that they will definitely appear on the roof of the tall building next to the bend in the road.

Back at the police station, after giving Inspector Megure a perfunctory reply, Kitahara Masaki opened his computer and carefully examined the route map of the Heisei Express train. He discovered that there was only one bend where he could snipe, and there weren't many tall buildings nearby, making it easy to pinpoint the location where the criminal could be sniped.

Waiting for a rabbit to run into a tree stump, isn't that easy?

Originally, Kitahara Masaki wanted to ask Inspector Megure to arrange some manpower to wait for the group to appear, but then he thought that those thugs were probably all armed. If he sent the Japanese police to keep an eye on them, they would probably shout stupid things like "Respond to the situation!" or "Surrender!" from fifty meters away.

Kitahara Masaki took out his phone and sent a text message to several low-level personnel he could mobilize to monitor the possible sniper positions.

Ah, in the end, it turns out that the organization that basically violated all the laws was more reliable. After all, the consequence of not doing a good job is basically being sent to the River of Three Crossings, so the lower-level staff are quite hardworking.

After arranging the relevant matters via text message, I checked my watch and found that it was already noon.

"Ah, it's lunchtime... Hmm, let's go get pork cutlet rice."

As Kitahara Masaki ate the crispy and juicy fried pork cutlet, he looked satisfied. He recalled that the period after he first transmigrated was simply miserable. Most restaurants in the United States were fast food restaurants and family restaurants. It was difficult to even get a bowl of rice. When he went to Chinatown and saw the menu, he was speechless. What on earth was General Tso's Chicken? He had lived for more than 20 years in his previous life and had never eaten a dish with that name.

Finally, I gave up the struggle and came to Japan.

"Ah! Excuse me, are you Officer Kitahara?"

An office worker sitting next to Kitahara Masaki suddenly asked a question.

"Yes, I am Kitahara Maki."

"May I take a picture with you?"

"no problem."

After finishing his meal, taking photos, and smilingly bidding farewell to the citizens, Kitahara Maki, walking down the street, chose to put on the nameless hat that the system had just distributed.

Being stopped like a celebrity is basically telling everyone that the police are here.

drip.

He took out his phone and found that the low-level personnel sent to monitor him had sent a message. The speed of this was quite surprising, even to Kitahara Masaki. In less than four hours, the criminal had been caught red-handed.

It seems that the approaching deadline has made them increasingly anxious; the fact that they were found so easily also shows that these ruthless bandits are nothing special.

As I was mentally making assumptions about these guys, a thought suddenly popped into my head.

Kitahara Masaki clenched his right fist and slammed it into his left palm—and that's how it was done!

Chapter 7 - Deduct 1 to receive Hellfire

[The trail led to the group's hideout. —Armagnac]

After sending this message to the lower-ranking officers who were already under surveillance, Kitahara Masaki returned to the police station, hung up the 'out of action' sign on the duty board, and headed to the mission location.

[The target's hiding place has been identified. —Kase Rinkai.]

Wow, not bad. For someone at the bottom of the hierarchy, their efficiency is far superior to that of the Japanese police.

Looking at the location sent from nearby and the pictures of those people, Kitahara Masaki drove to a ramen shop near the target location. He entered the ramen shop through the front door and then went through the back door into a small alley. Fortunately, the walls here were not far apart. By using a backflip jump to grab the ladder that led to the top floor, Kitahara Masaki had reached the top floor two minutes later. He lay on the ground and launched the drone to observe the situation near the target location.

The group of thugs who coerced the snipers into taking sniper shots set up their hideout in an abandoned warehouse in the dock area. The surrounding area was relatively open, with neither cover nor surveillance cameras.

Kitahara Masaki took out his phone and searched for information about the low-ranking member who was the first to find the person in the organization's network:

Kase Rinkai, 34 years old, planned a bank robbery seven years ago. Before he was arrested by the police, the organization obtained evidence that could convict him, and he was released due to insufficient evidence.

After reviewing his basic information, Kitahara Masaki sent a mass text message to all the lower-ranking personnel who had arrived at the target location:

[Surveillance mission complete. Next, a title quest will begin. Quest response: '1. Is Big Brother really going to give it to me?' —Armagnac]

[1. Is your older brother really going to send it? —Kase Rinkai]

[1. Is your brother really going to send it? -- . ...

【. . . . 】

Looking at the text messages on his phone, Kitahara Masaki kept laughing, then marked the people who left after the surveillance mission and the people who were doing title missions.

The organization has a promotion path that works for most people: accumulating contribution points by completing tasks. To gain the boss's approval, which means obtaining a title, one must have a high enough contribution point and complete enough title tasks.

There aren't many people qualified to issue title missions, but Kitahara Masaki happens to be one of them.

At the time, Kitahara Maki was suffering from unfamiliar cuisine in the United States and wanted to participate in the main storyline of Detective Conan, so he asked the boss to come to Japan to develop his career. The boss's condition was that he would complete a high-level mission on his own before he could be assigned a new identity in Japan.

After completing that mission, the boss assigned him the identity of a neon police officer and granted him the qualification to issue title missions.

[Title Mission Objective: Eliminate all enemies and obtain their identities. Note: Enemies are armed. Good luck! —Armagnac]

At the same time, Kitahara Masaki also sent the remaining necessary information to the lower-level personnel who accepted the mission, and he himself only needed to wait.

He wasn't worried about his identity being exposed because the text messages only told them to deal with the enemy and made no mention of the hostages. Even if there were spies among these low-level personnel, he would just assume that the organization was eliminating dissidents.

After confirming with the drone that the number of people lurking nearby was the same as the number of people who had received the mission, and that there were no police officers or similar personnel around, Kitahara Masaki walked back down to the police station to await their message.

Because he set a deadline of only one day, they will definitely take action as soon as possible in order to complete the task.

"Oh, Kitahara, what case were you investigating?"

Back at the police station, Inspector Megure, who was processing documents, casually asked...

"It's nothing, just the case of those kids, the one where they say there was a sniper involved."

"Is there any clue? Or did those kids just see things wrong?"

"It's still uncertain at this stage. After all, the missing persons cases we've received recently are all ordinary people who have gone missing, and none of them are people who can snipe from a distance."

"Indeed, since that's the case, how about you write this report for me, Brother Kitahara?"

"no problem."

I think you just want me to write your report.

The job of a police officer is not just about solving cases. The case files for each criminal case can be dozens of pages long. No matter how much Kitahara Masaki tries to slack off, he can't escape the fate of writing reports.

Ah, I really want to sell the organization and retire as soon as possible.

After finishing his workday, Kitahara Masaki sat in his car, waiting for the reports from the five low-ranking personnel who had received the title missions.

The tight time constraints left them with little time to prepare, especially since it was already close to nightfall.

"Hmm, what should we do?"

Kitahara Masaki took out his phone and called the Mori family. Ran answered the phone, and the girl asked:

"This is the Mori Detective Agency. How can I help you?"

"Oh, it's Ran. I'm Masaki Kitahara. I'd like to talk to Conan about something. I was wondering if he's home?"

"Mr. Kitahara, are you looking for Conan? Conan! Mr. Kitahara is looking for you!"

"Hey, Kitahara-nii, have you deciphered the code yet?"

Kitahara Masaki smiled. This guy really is a mystery fanatic. No wonder it took him a full twenty years to confirm his relationship with Ran.

"I just got off work and am going to have dinner now, I don't know..."

"Ah! Sister Ran, can Brother Kitahara come over for a meal?"

Hearing Conan immediately start acting cute in a clipped voice, Kitahara Masaki decided to keep the kid in suspense this time.

Soon, I arrived at the Mouri Detective Agency building, and at the same time, I received a text message on my phone.

[The enemy has been completely dealt with. What should be done with the weapons and hostages? —Kase Rinkai]