Conan Rick's Investigator

After purchasing the wilderness survival supplies, what remains are the "survival supplies".

Qin Zhibo needs some suitable weapons.

At present, the only thing Qin Zhibo can prepare in advance is physical exorcism magic.

In physical exorcism magic, Qin Zhibo is quite good at Krav Maga, Kendo, and firearms.

For Krav Maga, you don’t need to prepare anything, just bring your hands and feet.

Kendo requires a sword, and firearms requires a gun.

Unfortunately, both of these weapons are strictly controlled in Japan. If you want to own them, you need to register them with the police station and state their specific purpose.

You can carry a bamboo sword with you, but it has no killing power at all.

If you meet someone with a good physique, it's almost like tickling.

So after careful consideration, Qin Zhibo chose the crowbar that he had used very conveniently in the library last time.

For some reason, ever since he used the crowbar last time, Qin Zhibo felt that this black, hard, long thing with a curve in the front was tailor-made for him.

And more importantly, it’s not illegal to carry a crowbar!

……

With all the supplies ready, Qin Zhibo boarded a bus to the suburbs 70 kilometers away.

Sitting near the car window, Qin Zhibo looked up at the sky and found that it was covered with dark clouds. It looked like it would rain soon.

This is not a good thing for Qin Zhibo.

Because Qin is now on the last bus of the day, he has to wait until at least tomorrow to go back.

That is to say, even if you don’t go to the mission location to complete the mission today, you will have to spend the night outside.

According to the navigation system, the mission location is a place where there is no village or shop nearby.

It seems like... the beginning of hell?

……

As the bus moved forward, group after group of passengers got off.

When Qin Zhibo arrived at the place where he was supposed to get off, it happened to be the terminus of the entire bus route, and Qin Zhibo was the only passenger on the bus.

Qin Zhibo picked up the crowbar standing at his feet and was about to walk out of the open car door when the driver behind him spoke.

"Should I wait for you to come back?"

"What?" Qin Zhibo was a little confused.

The middle-aged driver turned around and explained, "According to the rules, I have to wait here for ten minutes before leaving."

"But today, including you, there are only three passengers arriving at this terminal."

"The other two passengers have already said they won't be leaving today, so as long as you don't leave either, I won't have to wait any longer."

After the driver finished speaking, Qin Zhibo finally understood.

It seems that the driver wanted to save trouble and drive away directly from the terminal.

However, the driver's words did provide Qin Zhibo with some information. Since someone came and didn't leave that day, it meant...

"Excuse me, is there any village nearby?"

"No."

The driver's two decisive words completely shattered Qin Zhibo's hope.

“Why would you set up a terminal here without a village?”

"Not now." The driver took off his hat and fanned it in front of his face. "Yes, there were in the past."

"About a dozen years ago, there was a small village nestled in this mountain."

"Later, the villagers contracted an infectious disease and almost everyone died. There was no one left."

"It's really strange. Normally, no one comes to this terminal, but today, there are three of us, including you."

"The other two are a little girl with a little boy..."

"Is there a villa deep in the mountains?"

The driver's social skills (eloquence) were activated, and he chattered on and on about some things that had nothing to do with Qin Zhibo's question.

Chapter 49: Bandage Man: Are we colleagues?

Leaving the highway, Qin Zhibo walked onto the narrow path leading into the mountains.

Although it is a narrow path, strangely enough, there are many branches leading to other places along the way.

However, these forks in the road are completely meaningless to Qin Zhibo, who has a navigation device. They are not even an interference option, let alone getting lost.

After walking about two kilometers, it started to drizzle.

You definitely can't bring an umbrella, it's not like we're going on a picnic.

So Qin Zhibo took out a black raincoat from the backpack behind him and put it on.

To prevent the backpack from getting wet by rain, cover it with a raincoat.

……

After walking forward for about half an hour, Qin Zhibo crossed the upper reaches of a river, then turned downstream and entered a flat forest.

It was already evening at this time.

Qin Zhibo turned on the navigator and checked the red coordinate points marked on the map. He found that the straight-line distance to his location was less than five kilometers.

"Five thousand meters should be a safe range..."

Qin Zhibo muttered something, then prepared to take off his equipment and set up camp here tonight.

Qin Zhibo’s idea was very simple. Since the mission required survival at night, it meant that the place was not dangerous during the day.

And according to common sense, it is relatively safe during the day.

So Qin Zhibo planned to spend the night here and go find out what was going on tomorrow morning.

Just as Qin Zhibo was about to take off the mountaineering backpack on his back, a flash of lightning suddenly appeared in the sky.

Along with the blue lightning shining through the treetops, deafening thunder suddenly sounded.

Boom!

Qin Zhibo, who was not frightened at all, looked up at the sky expressionlessly, feeling a little worried.

The lightning and thunder are very close to each other, which means that the thunder is happening nearby.

If I lived in this woods, wouldn't it be easy for me to get into trouble?

It’s better to walk a little further. We’d be lucky if we could find a cave or something.

Qin Zhibo was in a good mood as he stepped on the soft soil and breathed the fresh air unique to the mountains.

Qin Zhibo felt that his lungs were a little blocked because he had been breathing in the industrial waste gas emitted by the modern metropolis of Tokyo all day long.

No wonder Matsumoto Ryohei would rather drive to work every day and live in a villa in the mountains than live in a convenient city.

It’s a pity that there are only mountains here now, no villas.

Just as Qin Zhibo was feeling emotional, a scream from the woods reached his ears.

This scream... is a female voice.

And it sounds familiar?

Qin Zhibo took big strides and ran towards the screams.

After passing through the not-too-dense woods, Qin Zhibo saw something in an open space behind a patch of low bushes.

In the middle of the open space stood a man covered in a black cloak, holding an axe in his hand. Both his hands and the side of his face were wrapped in circles of bandages.

The bandaged man was staring at a "fallen" girl in a red suit who had fallen to the ground.

Qin Zhibo happened to know this girl, who was Ran Mori, one of the two heroes of the Mori clan.

When Qin Zhibo met Mao Lilan in this deep forest, he felt a sense of intimacy as if he had met an old friend in a foreign land.

"young!"

Qin Zhibo greeted everyone regardless of the occasion, which alarmed the terrified Mao Li Ran and the bandaged man who was walking towards her with an axe.

The bandaged man looked back and saw Qin Zhibo, who was dressed almost the same as himself.

This time, the bandaged man was completely stunned.

The man "hiding" behind the bushes in front of me was wearing a huge black raincoat and holding a crowbar in one hand.

Apart from the difference in weapons, there is no obstruction on this person's face, and the face inside can be seen directly.

Although he doesn't look young, his handsome face makes the bandaged man completely forget that there is such a person among the classmates who came here for the class reunion today.

Is it...

Are you in the same industry?

The bandaged man immediately thought of a more likely scenario, which was that he had met someone in the same profession.

At a class reunion, we encountered a murderer lurking in the mountains. Why does this title sound so nice?

The bandaged man remembered that this was exactly the excuse he had thought of at the beginning.

But who could have imagined that a real murderer could emerge from this deep mountain!

Why doesn't this murderer wear a mask to cover his face like me?

Of course, it’s because everyone who saw him was already dead, so there was naturally no need to cover his face!

It seems that the murderer I met is actually a master!

The bandaged man's heart trembled slightly as he quickly came to this conclusion.

After all, he was a fake, and the person opposite him was a real murderer.

But then he thought again, he is now in the same industry as this murderer, and colleagues should not make things difficult for each other, right?

If I just hand over the girl I want to kill to this colleague, wouldn't I be able to save myself a lot of trouble?

That’s it!

The bandaged man made up his mind and moved half a body distance away, his lips slightly opened as they appeared through the gap in the bandages.

"or……"

"You come?"

Just then, there was a noise in the bushes on the other side.

This time a little boy in blue clothes came out.

Seeing the little boy, Qin Zhibo called out again out of habit.

"Conan."

"Uncle Qin...?"

Conan was first startled by the visually impactful bandaged man in the middle of the open space, and then he was startled by Qin Zhibo next to him, who also had a great visual impact.

At this time, the bandaged man also reacted.

It turned out that this person was not a colleague of theirs, but someone the girl and the child knew.

Run!

Without another word, the bandaged man turned and ran in a direction where no one could stop him.

Seeing the bandaged man trying to escape, Conan made a quick decision and chose to chase him.

But after chasing for just a few steps, Conan discovered that the other party was moving very fast, as if the terrain of the forest on a rainy day had a speed bonus, and he disappeared quickly into the woods.

But he couldn't run away, because there was still...

Conan looked around with relief, but found that Qin Zhibo was still standing there and had not caught up with him.