Pokémon Detective Case Files.

Douzi laughed heartily, then insisted on pressing Bilan into a seat before sitting down herself: "This is truly an interesting village rule, Sister Xiaolan, you must try it."

Bilan was still somewhat hesitant. She didn't know how to recount that incomplete incident. It was both obvious and elusive, seemingly over yet still a thorn in her side. What good would it do to tell her now?

"What type of Pokémon did you heal?" The detective's nonchalant voice suddenly rang out from the other end of the table, startling Touko and leaving Azure speechless.

“The smell of blood is ten times stronger than the smell of sandstorm. Since I know you experienced a sandstorm, I also know that you, Azure, came into contact with blood before that. There are many ways to come into contact with blood, but there are no obvious bloodstains on your body, which means you deliberately came into contact with blood after the incident; moreover, since Douzi doesn't know about this, we can infer that you didn't waste much time on the way—with these two conditions limiting you, your actions are very limited…”

Douzi, who was listening with a dizzy head, nodded with a confident expression: "I see, I completely understand now. This is why Sister Xiaolan is sulking, right?"

“It’s emergency care, right?” Hugo asked, picking up where he left off.

Even though they were discussing a bloody mystery, the detective nonchalantly grabbed a slice of pizza and took a bite of the cheesy tip.

The topic naturally shifted to azure. Under Hugo's insightful aura, the oppressive feeling of being trapped in a mystery had completely disappeared. The experience that had been stuck in his throat could now be spoken smoothly without any awkwardness or stiffness.

"That was a brave eagle. It flew into a dead-end alley while searching for a lost child, but for some reason it was seriously injured."

Azure began her narration, recounting in detail the events of the day in which the Warrior Eagle was injured.

"...Strangely, the child saw an elf fly into the alley from a distance, and no one or no elf ever went in again after that, while the warrior eagle was seriously injured inside."

"Could there have been some dangerous spirits hiding in the alley all along?" Douzi speculated, his words flowing freely.

Azure shook her head: "I was the first person to walk into the alley after that, and I didn't see anything that could attack Warrior Eagle."

The detective suddenly asked, "So what happened next?"

So Bilan gave a brief description of her mother and the emergency doctor who arrived later.

"So, your previous claim that the Warrior Eagle entered the alley to track down the missing boy was just speculation?" the detective asked astutely.

“That’s right,” Azure admitted honestly. “The child got separated from his family, and then the mother’s Pokémon started tracking him down. There’s no other explanation for this except that he got lost, right?”

“Something’s strange here,” Hugo said. “Since the child was lost and the elf was badly injured, the mother shouldn’t have known their exact location. How did she find the child?”

Azure was taken aback; she had never thought about this question before.

"Furthermore, why was it the child who was being tracked who discovered Warrior Eagle's whereabouts? Why was he able to guarantee that no one had entered the alley, yet he himself never went into the alley to check on Warrior Eagle's situation?"

Bilan was completely confused, but Douzi seemed to already know the answer and loudly guessed, "Of course it's because the little boy lied. Hugo, you once said that lies are always contradictory."

“There are no contradictions in Azure’s narrative.” Hugo shook his head, as if he were educating a wayward student. “The problem with her narrative is that the assumptions are disconnected from reality, and that is the root of all the irrationality.”

The detective clapped his hands lightly, as if about to announce something important: "Regarding this incident, I have now fully understood the truth behind the mystery of how the Warrior Eagle was injured in a dead-end alley where no one goes."

The detective's face showed neither pride nor joy, as if he were a civil servant reading out some boring administrative regulation.

"This morning, I said in this room that there is no absolute good or evil in the world, and this statement is very appropriate for this incident. In this incident, you can neither find a vicious criminal nor see any great things like justice and righteousness. The truth is boring and heavy, like gravity, which will make all beautiful and illusory things fall to the ground."

"I just want to know who exactly caused the Warriors Eagles to be harmed in this incident." As if it were a matter of course, Azure made the same statement as she had made that morning.

“To be honest, from a detective’s perspective, I would prefer the truth of this incident to remain buried. The brave eagle has been rescued, the criminal will never repeat the same mistake, and no one will suffer secondary harm because of this.” Looking into his bright blue eyes, Hugo sighed and continued, “But it seems I have no choice but to speak now.”

"If you keep quiet, you can forget about eating the pizza you made today," Douzi said angrily, waving her little fist.

“Sigh.” Hugo sighed and continued very reluctantly, “There are three murderers: the brave eagle, the little boy, and his mother.”

Chapter 025 A Tragedy

Azure and Douzi looked at each other in bewilderment.

"You mean these people deliberately put on an act in front of Sister Xiaolan? Did the little boy and his mother originally intend to extort money from her?"

“That’s not how it is.” The detective shook his head. “The course of events is not complicated. The reason why there are incomprehensible contradictions is simply because you, as the parties involved, have a problem with your perspective on the events.”

Hugo arranged the packaging bags and beverage cans on the table to resemble the terrain of a street, and pointed his slender finger at the entrance of the dead-end alley.

"This is where Azure spotted the Warrior Eagles."

He then pointed to the back of the entrance—

"This is where the little boy was."

“What does this mean?” Azure couldn’t help but ask. “That child did appear behind me after I saw the Warrior Eagle, and he testified that I was the first human to enter the alley after the Warrior Eagle, but what does that mean?”

“This means that the child could only have arrived at the scene after you.” The detective emphasized the word “could only.”

"That boy loudly accused you of being the murderer. Since he cared so much about the Warrior Eagle, there's absolutely no way he could have just watched the eagle fly into the alley and remained indifferent, much less stood at the alley entrance counting how many people went in and out. He must have..."

Hugo's fingers slid through the gaps in the street model: "Straight to the crime scene."

Azure still couldn't understand, staring intently into the detective's eyes.

“But he didn’t do that. It can only be because he couldn’t, was unable to, and had no means to go into that alley that was only a few steps away.” Hugo pulled his finger out of the simple map, as if the little boy being represented had vanished into thin air in the alley. “At the same time, he could still ensure that he was monitoring the people coming and going at the entrance of the alley.”

"Why?" Douzi asked loudly, swinging her high ponytail, completely bewildered. "Is there a glass dome locking the boy inside?"

"Oh!"

A gasp came from Azure. The confusion in her eyes had vanished.

“There really is such a glass enclosure!” Bilan said. “The residential building next door has an open-air elevator.”

“That’s right.” Hugo snapped his fingers, seemingly quite used to praising his companions who followed his line of reasoning.

"The only explanation that can rationalize all the contradictions that Azure witnessed is that the little boy was not standing on the main street outside or in the alley where the incident occurred before he entered the dead-end alley, but in a glass elevator that offered a commanding view of the alley entrance. Therefore, when he was in the elevator, the child could only watch as the Warrior Eagle flew into the deep alley entrance, and then go to the alley just a step away to check the situation."

Hugo said in a teacher-like tone: "Your previous mistake was that you were looking at enclosed spaces from a two-dimensional perspective."

"In fact, even in a dead-end alley in Feiyun City, where skyscrapers stand tall, there are still countless entrances and exits, which are the windows of the buildings. Most of these windows are tightly closed, and under the cover of smoke and dust, the few open windows are easily overlooked. This is not a shameful thing; height and field of vision determine that we often overlook things that are not on the same level as us."

After thinking for a while, Douzi finally had a look of sudden realization and made a bold deduction: "Could it be that the murderer escaped through the window that was open above the dead-end alley?"

“No.” Azure and the detective said in unison.

Hugo made a gesture for ladies to go first, and Azure said directly, "It wasn't that the Warrior Eagle flew into the dead end to find the child, but that the boy chased the Warrior Eagle to the scene."

“That’s right, so the reason why the Pokémon was injured is self-evident,” Hugo sighed.

Azure added details about the scene: "I saw many piles of trash nearby, including fragments of Poké Balls."

It seems that once the logic is clear, various clues will emerge one after another from the mud, like mudfish in the rain.

However, Douzi still didn't understand what it meant.

"In short," the detective finally revealed the truth, "this mystery is actually about a Pokémon falling from a building."

This is actually a simple story, or rather, an accident.

A little boy playing by the window accidentally let his Poké Ball fall out. His Braviary couldn't release the ball in time to avoid it and crashed to the ground, sustaining serious injuries. The boy hurriedly took the elevator downstairs to check on the situation and saw an older girl who had arrived at the scene earlier.

...You killed Yingying!

The little boy naively thought that the warrior eagle had wings and could fall straight down from the sky unharmed. However, he did not notice the Poké Ball that was already smashed to pieces on the garbage heap next to him. How could the eagle, which could not be released from the ball in time, spread its strong wings?

Since the Warrior Eagle wasn't injured from the fall, the culprit responsible for its near-death experience and profuse bleeding must have been the older woman who was the first to arrive after the incident. He saw clearly from behind the elevator glass that no one else had entered the alley except for her.

He was certainly a child separated from his family, but he had left home on his own initiative. Only a child who hurriedly ran out of the house would be wearing those loose, pajamas-like clothes…

"That's why the mother slapped her son at that moment," Hugo added. "No parent would show mercy to a child who has caused such a disaster."

After the reasoning was completed and the mystery was solved, the two ladies across the table fell silent once again.

"There's another question." As if remembering something, Azure broke the awkward silence. "According to this explanation, the only culprit who harmed the Warrior Eagle should be that child, or even a regrettable accident. Why do you, Hugo, say there are murderers in this incident? And three of them? And the mother, the child, and the elf are the three parties involved?"

Faced with a barrage of questions, Hugo sighed again, looking regretfully at the pizza that had grown cold on the table: "It seems I accidentally said too much. I should have stopped here."

"No!" Azure's eyes shone brightly; she had never been so passionate about anything outside of elf battles. "I want to find out the truth."

Douzi, standing nearby, shouted, "Me too!" and raised his hands to urge Hugo on.

"While it's possible to interpret this as an accident, such an accident is still too coincidental, not to mention there's a very obvious inconsistency." The detective helplessly restarted his deduction.

"There are two coincidences. The house has more than one window. Why would the Brave Eagle's Poké Ball happen to fall out of the window facing the dead end? And this dead end is usually deserted and is a blind spot for people on the main street."

Hugo lowered his voice and continued, "Also, why is the Pokémon in the Poké Ball a winged, flying Brave Eagle? You know, if it were any other kind of Pokémon in the ball, it wouldn't be able to wait for Azure's emergency rescue in the face of this kind of high-rise fall—it would only end up being smashed to pieces."

The girls couldn't help but shiver. They had finally sensed a conspiracy.

"Where is the inconsistency?" Azure stared intently at the detective, as if to say that she was ready to face the truth.

“Time,” Hugo said, “the time between Ibrahimovic discovering the anomaly and your arrival at the scene. It’s been too long.”

"What do you mean?"

“If that family lived on a low floor, the child wouldn’t have taken the elevator; he would have run down the stairs. If they lived on a high floor, like the 5th to 10th floor, the child should have reached the alleyway long before you arrived. But he was still in the elevator…”

“This means the child’s home must be at least on the thirtieth floor. Only a floor that high would take so much time.” Douzi chimed in, and being familiar with Feiyun City, she finally made the correct deduction. “There are very few buildings in Feiyun City with fewer than twenty floors, especially on the commercial street we were walking on. The average number of floors there is thirty-five.”

"Then, the inconsistency arises. At the 30th floor, a distance of about 100 meters, Braviary had nearly five seconds to escape from the Poké Ball."

Hugo suddenly stopped speaking, but time continued to pass by, second by second.

One, two, three, four, five.

A full five seconds.

The silence stretched out time endlessly.

"It's been too long," Azure sighed, now knowing the answer to the mystery.

“Yes, it’s been too long,” Hugo nodded.

“That would have been enough time for the Warrior Eagle to take flight, but it didn’t.” Azure’s eyes were filled with sorrow, and her voice was filled with indignation. “Just because that child’s parents wanted to teach her son a lesson.”

"That's right. The parents of the child in this incident probably placed a Poké Ball containing a Brave Eagle next to the window facing the dead end in an attempt to correct their son's bad habits. When the young and ignorant child accidentally pushed the Poké Ball out the window, the Brave Eagle falling from the window would leave an unforgettable memory for that child, and he would never play dangerous games near the window again."

"What a cruel educational method," Douzi couldn't help but sigh.

Hugo continued, "Regardless of such educational philosophies, I believe that in that mother's original plan, the Warrior Eagle would not have been injured, because in Azure's description, the mother's reaction at that time was one of great surprise and sadness, right?"

The detective looked at Azure to confirm.

“I don’t think that was acting,” Azure said.

"So, the final culprit in this case has appeared: the brave eagle. What broke its wings and left it severely injured and dying was its pride."

Hugo opened his Pokédex, and a comical electronic voice echoed in the restaurant of the Feather Residence.

"Valiant possesses a courageous character that shows no fear even at death, making it a brave and proud Pokémon. It is a valiant and resolute aerial warrior, also known as the Warrior of the Sky, who will fight for its companions regardless of danger, never giving up no matter how severe its injuries, and taking pride in this. The more frontal wounds a Valkyrie has, the braver it is; those with more back wounds will be looked down upon within the group..."

Azure and Douzi seemed to be able to hear the dripping blood between the lines of the illustration and explanation.

"In the mother's original plan, the Warrior Eagle was supposed to lie on the ground pretending to be seriously injured, close its eyes and pretend to be unconscious in front of its crying, ashamed and remorseful little master—but it rejected such a script, resolutely spending those five seconds of free fall, until finally bouncing out of the ball due to instinct, but by then it was too late."

Hugo's reasoning is so tragic and poignant. Even though all the reasoning is completely baseless, the detective's story-like words are filled with a strange sense of realism.

"The pre-meal games are over, let's eat!" Hugo clapped his hands loudly. "There are still two hot pizzas in the oven, let's eat quickly, the elves are starving."

Chapter 026 Please Let Me Be Your Assistant

Bilan opened her eyes from her sleep, struggled to break free from her landlady's grasp, got up, and drew back the curtains.

Suddenly, the morning sunlight streamed through the French windows of Yuxi Residence and fell on the girls' faces. Douzi, who was still lying in bed, groaned and wrapped her head in the quilt to continue sleeping, looking like a precious cocoon wrapped in leaves.

Is my friend being too carefree? Azure couldn't help but wonder.

The process of checking into the Feather Residence was much simpler than Azure had expected. Just as the detective had planned, on the very night she met Hugo, Hugo proudly showed her the newly renovated second floor.

Perhaps due to his profession, Hugo, despite being a bachelor, kept his house impeccably organized—if Azure knew that this detective had a domineering older sister who needed a lot of care, she might understand why.

“Apart from the small archive room next to the stairs, you are free to use all the spaces on the second floor.” Bilan still remembered the scene when Hugo introduced the layout of the rooms.

"I hope you don't see this as an invasion of your personal space. This archive room is rarely used; it's usually only opened when a case is closed and filed. I'll let you know in advance when that happens. All the materials I need for the investigation have been moved downstairs, including those on the table. I usually keep them in my study on the first floor for easy access."

The detective at the time also pointed to a large pile of plasma clues on the living room table to prove that he did not need to use the archives when investigating the case.

Azure, also curious, inquired about the true purpose of the archives, to which Hugo replied—

"Old case files are the last line of defense for detectives before they run out of ideas. New detectives often linger in the archives because their archives are always piled high with failures and mysteries, while older detectives like to put a chair in the archives and use their past glories to soothe their aging minds and hearts. I am neither the former nor the latter now; I am at a stage where I need to keep my distance from the archives."

Although it's unclear whether this is nonsense or self-praise, overall, Azur Lane is quite satisfied with her current shared living environment.

Yuxi Residence boasts luxurious interior design befitting its location, multiple independent bathroom systems, and a spacious balcony on the second floor. Every morning, the city's towering buildings seem to make way for the perfect amount of sunlight streaming into the interior.

It's like being in a super-luxury hotel.

After getting ready to leave, Azure walked down the stairs to the detective agency on the first floor. What came into view were the detective's Sinnoh starter Pokémon and Fighting's Pokémon.

This group of elves, each with different attributes, were lying together affectionately. Although the sun was already high in the sky, they were just like Douzi, still lazing in bed and sleeping in.

Upon closer inspection, I saw my own little Eevee mingling among the group of sleepy creatures, lying on the soft, green body of the two egg cells, its fluffy tail held by Piplup, its body rising and falling with each even breath.

Azure was somewhat helpless. Maybe... we shouldn't take Eevee out?