No one understands the laws of Collider better than me.

"Yes, are you and that young officer the two heroes of the First Investigation Division reported in the news? The Fiery Eagle and the Iron-Blooded Tough Guy, I was really excited when I watched the news."

"Haha, I'm no match for Kitahara-kun when it comes to reasoning."

Seeing Judy's enthusiasm, Inspector Megure couldn't help but scratch his head and exchange a few more polite words with her.

Kitahara Masaki was genuinely interested in these arcade games, but he also kept glancing at Judy, who was ostensibly there to teach English but was actually an FBI investigator, out of the corner of his eye.

I didn't expect her to appear so soon. I thought that after Vermouth stopped pretending to be Dr. Araide, the FBI would have no more to investigate, but it seems that they still have a lot to investigate, so they came to Japan.

So does that mean—that man came too?

"Kitahara-senpai, Inspector Megure. We've confirmed that the man who died in the game seat is Kengo Obō. He has a terrible reputation in this area and has made quite a few enemies."

Not quite understanding the game console's mechanics, Inspector Megure asked a staff member:

"Is it possible that the impact from the seat caused his sudden death?"

"Impossible! Impossible! This kind of impact is just like the vibration when a mobile phone receives a call. Even an elderly person wouldn't feel too uncomfortable from the shaking of the seat."

The staff immediately denied it, saying that if it were classified as a machine killing someone, how could their amusement park continue to operate?

"Yeah! That guy must have eaten something wrong. If you, officer, say he died because of the game, then wouldn't I be the murderer?"

The man in blue clothes also shouted that he was innocent.

"Uh, sir, who are you?"

"Oh, my surname is Shimizu, the one who just fought the deceased Oto. It's such a shame he died during our fight; I was basically beaten to a pulp. Just when I was about to deliver the final blow, his character froze in place. I thought he was trying to humiliate me with a draw, but he died instead. Officers, you absolutely must prove my innocence!"

"Xiaolan, is this how it happened?"

"Yes, after Mr. Oto chased us away, he fought against Mr. Shimizu. We were all watching their battle on the big screen in the lobby. It did seem like a one-sided match. But then, the game character that Mr. Oto was controlling suddenly stopped moving. Conan curiously ran to Mr. Oto's seat and found that he was dead."

After listening to Ran's account, Inspector Megure and Masaki Kitahara both narrowed their eyes and stared blankly at Conan, simultaneously taking two steps back. Conan chuckled, but Jodie was completely baffled by the current atmosphere.

"No matter how much the witnesses say, it's better to go and see the surveillance footage."

Kitahara Masaki pointed to the surveillance camera that was pointing in that direction and told the staff to quickly take them to see the footage.

This might be one of the few surveillance cameras in the world capable of capturing the entire incident!

In the end, Kitahara Maki was presented with a three-choice puzzle.

Chapter 128 You really made a mistake despite your meticulous planning.

"Yes! This is it. This man suddenly appeared and said this was his reserved seat, and then he kicked us out."

Kengo Oto in the surveillance video was indeed very arrogant. A thug was not afraid of four people in front of him at all. However, when he saw that there were two high school girls and one elementary school girl among the four people, he seemed to become even more arrogant.

Surprisingly, he didn't flirt with Judy; his eyes were only on the game. Kitahara Masaki didn't know what to say. Perhaps this thug wasn't really a thug; he was just plain stupid.

"Hmm, it seems the staff have appeared here."

"Yes, that was when they were collecting coins from the arcade machines, which is why I went there."

The staff member in the video did indeed leave with a large box of coins.

"Then Mr. Shimizu, who was fighting the dead, appeared. What were you talking about with the dead?"

"Ah, it's nothing. I just wanted to see what tactics he would use during the match, but in the end I was beaten so badly that I couldn't fight back at all."

"Hmm? After you finished talking to the victim, you seemed to pick something up."

"It's just that I lost my lighter."

The victim then began the game, which was broadcast on a large screen in the lobby, attracting many viewers. However, after the game ended in a tie, Conan immediately noticed that the victim was no longer moving and was simply sitting there. Upon checking his pulse, he discovered that the victim was dead.

That's the whole story.

The police officer in charge of the autopsy then reported the preliminary results: an injection mark was found on the inside of the victim's right upper arm. The poison used by the murderer was tetrodotoxin, which was injected into an artery. However, the victim was wearing a vest when he died, so finding the artery would not have been difficult.

Furthermore, it has now been confirmed that the poison is tetrodotoxin, a toxin that can be fatal at a rate of 0.5 to 1 milligram, killing a person in a very short time. This means that once injected, the person will die very quickly, with no possibility of delayed onset.

Moreover, only three people were near the victim—the cashier, Mr. Shimizu who fought him, and Ms. Judy from the FBI.

Kitahara Masaki immediately ruled out Shimizu as a suspect, and now the most important thing was to find evidence.

Just as Kitahara Masaki was about to take out Holmes' magnifying glass, he suddenly heard a sound like he had stepped on something strange, and the sound was coming from the people in front of him... It seemed that a similar sound had occurred when he was questioning the people involved one by one at the beginning.

"Wait a minute, everyone! Take a good look at your shoes to make sure you haven't stepped on anything."

After being reminded, everyone looked at the soles of their shoes. There was a piece of tin foil stuck to the sole of the worker who was collecting coins, and something seemed to be stuck to the tin foil as well.

When the staff member tried to reach for it with his hand, Kitahara Masaki immediately stopped him. He then instructed the forensic experts responsible for handling toxic substances to remove the lump from the container.

Sure enough, they found the tools used in the crime on the foil, including chewing gum, and a poisoned needle with the victim's DNA inside a cigarette stuck in the chewing gum.

"This must be the murder weapon. The poisoned needle was hidden in a cigarette, which was held together by chewing gum. Finally, the whole thing was wrapped in tin foil. After the crime, the person would throw it on the ground. In the busy and dimly lit amusement park, someone would surely step on the chewing gum and take the weapon with them. So there's only one culprit—Mr. Shimizu, who squatted down and did something after contacting the victim!"

Mr. Zhishui, having been exposed, retorted:

"Officer, this might be the murder weapon, but does that prove I'm the killer? Just because I squatted down on the security camera footage? Anyone else could have done that!"

"Heh, yeah, I bet you dared to smoke and chew gum so casually in front of the police, which means there's no evidence against you on there. I bet you found the cigarette butts and gum in the trash cans of this arcade, and when you were about to use them to commit the crime, you just used your index and ring fingers to hold the cigarette with the foil on it and casually stuck it into the victim's body like you were smoking. So the poison needle only has the victim's DNA on it, and the DNA and fingerprints on the chewing gum and cigarette won't match yours."

Mr. Zhishui leaned back arrogantly, looking just like some international superstar.

However, for Kitahara Masaki, the current priority is simply finding direct evidence. Do you really think you, a mere Byd, can fool a system-generated item?

Once Holmes' magnifying glass was activated, he immediately saw the gleaming evidence lying in the arcade's coin box. After a moment's thought, Kitahara Masaki understood why the gadget knew his crucial evidence was there.

"I remember in the surveillance footage, the staff took all the coins out of the coin box before the victim started the last game, which means that there was only one coin left in the coin box of that arcade machine!"

After getting the key from the arcade, they opened the coin box. Everyone looked at the coin box, and just as Kitahara Masaki had said, there was only one coin inside.

"Because the victim was injected with tetrodotoxin, he died quickly in his seat. To clear his name, the murderer started a game. Mr. Shimizu flipped a coin to start the game on behalf of the deceased. Both of them chose the other's representative character. So, although it looked like Mr. Shimizu was being beaten badly, only Mr. Shimizu was actually controlling the victim's character. The victim appeared to be still controlling the game, but in reality, the vibration of the seat made it seem like he was still moving. The subsequent tie was also to prevent the audience from suspecting anything after seeing the two players' game screens. In short, leaving your fingerprints on that coin already proved you were the murderer!"

The meticulously planned but flawed crime made Mr. Shimizu take two steps back, while Kitahara Masaki also sighed with regret. The murderer naturally assumed there were still many coins left in the coin box when he threw them in, so he didn't even wear gloves before taking out the coins and throwing them in. If the staff hadn't taken all the coins away, he might not have been able to be prosecuted due to insufficient evidence, and Kitahara Masaki would have had the opportunity to recruit him.

However, the most important reason is that the FBI is here. If they don't put in their best effort to solve the case and are suspected, it would be a loss. At this stage, Kitahara Masaki wants to recruit more capable criminals from these routine cases and doesn't want to clash with the FBI so soon.

"Elegant! Officer Kitahara, your reasoning is truly impressive!"

"Haha, thank you, that's what I should do."

Listening to the FBI agent speaking with a deliberately affected tone, Kitahara Masaki smiled, exchanged a few polite words, and then slipped away.

"Oh dear, Officer Kitahara doesn't seem to want to talk to me much."

"Hmm...it's probably because Kitahara-nii already has a girlfriend."

"Oh? Is that so..."

Kitahara Masaki just hoped that Judy wouldn't notice him; he was genuinely a little afraid of the FBI...

I'm afraid I won't be able to resist killing them all again.

Chapter 129 A Strange Intuition

After the arcade case was closed, Kitahara Masaki didn't go back with Inspector Megure and the others. He wanted to play some arcade games. In his previous life, he was a top-notch player in both Street Fighter and King of Fighters. He watched hundreds of world tournaments to practice his combos and finally came up with a set of combos that suited him best.

After Kitahara Masaki shaved the other person's head again, no one in the entire arcade dared to challenge him anymore. Many otaku who were originally known for their gaming skills admitted defeat and called Kitahara Masaki "Big Brother Pro Gamer," vying to buy him a bottle of energy drink.

"Hehe, I'd like to challenge you, is that alright?"

A woman dressed scantily but without any intention of being revealing sat down opposite Kitahara Masaki, inserted a coin into the machine, and waited for Kitahara Masaki to open it again.

"Hey! Where did this girl come from? Don't you know my brother is the man known as 'Mihana Shura'?"

"Exactly! Don't underestimate arcade games! Street Fighter isn't a game anyone can play!"

"If you can't even use a Hadouken, you should just give up your position now."

Once the game got really into them, all they could see were Kitahara Masaki's versatile combos and his victory speech. But Kitahara Masaki's next sentence left them speechless.

"Ahem, she's my girlfriend."

After hearing this, the group of people quietly left. They stopped standing behind Kitahara Masaki to watch his combo moves and went to watch on the big screen. After all, they were all ordinary people and couldn't stand being outplayed so many times.

"Wow! Officer Kitahara's girlfriend is really beautiful!"

"After all, she's the eldest daughter of the Lauder family!"

Judy and Ran were still chatting in the amusement park when Judy was surprised to learn that Officer Kitahara had an American girlfriend from a wealthy family.

"Ahem, did that Miss Lauder mention that she was a member of the Lauder family?"

"Hey! Speaking of which, when I went shopping with Evelyn, we talked about us the most, but rarely about her."

"Oh dear! Sonoko, it's all because you wanted Evelyn to help you choose a sweater for Kyogoku-senpai. We went to more than ten stores to buy that hand-knitted sweater for you!"

"Hehe, sorry Xiaolan, let's go to the movies together next time, and then have some dinner. That'll be my way of making it up to you."

Watching the two high school girls start chatting, Judy didn't forcefully insert herself into the topic of Evelyn Lauder. However, whenever she looked at the woman's back, she always felt a chill, as if she were being watched by something.

The memories of the past made her uneasy. The woman codenamed Vermouth had killed her father twenty years ago, but then smiled and deceived her as a child, saying that her father was just asleep.

The feeling she had at that moment was so similar, giving her a peculiar impulse—she wanted to test this woman who also exuded a strange aura.

She walked behind Evelyn, watching her fierce duel with Kitahara Masaki. In a battle between experts, a single opening can lead to being cornered and killed in a combo. Even Han Zhuli, known for her agility, was no exception. After being knocked out by Feilong's Fiery Kick, the audience watching in front of the big screen shouted loudly:

"The Flying Style is invincible!"

After the atmosphere had heated up and everyone wanted to see them continue with the next round, Judy moved behind Kitahara Masaki and asked:

"Can I give it a try? I want to see just how amazing Officer Kitahara's girlfriend really is."

"No problem, but she only lost to me because I was too strong."

Kitahara Masaki didn't say much, and immediately gave up his seat to Judy. He didn't know what the Red Team investigator had figured out to make such a move, but he knew very well that he couldn't kill this FBI agent, at least not now.

In the game, an American soldier with a strange hairstyle and a hot Korean assassin are fighting back and forth. Unexpectedly, this FBI agent actually knows how to play arcade games. What surprised Kitahara Maki even more was that Vermouth also went to practice how to play arcade games.

Well, for them, as long as they remember the combo sequence, all that's left is to practice. After playing a few times, they'll be familiar with the character's attack priority and damage, etc.

Later in the battle, Vermouth made an opening and managed to grab Jodie, who was then taken down by a fatal blow.

"Hey, I always find myself wanting to jump when I use this character. You're really good at it, friend."

These words were spoken in Hawksman, and the two women shook hands to get to know each other, but Judy's next sentence was:

"Thank you. I think we can be friends and hang out again next time. But I feel like I've seen you somewhere before, and you look a lot like an old acquaintance of mine."

Judy wasn't referring to her appearance, but rather the aura she exuded.