Pokémon Detective Case Files.

Azure twirled the insecticide spray in her hand as she spoke—

"When were those poisonous wound medicines produced? How have they degraded? How long have they been abandoned in the wild? Based on this, can we pinpoint a general timeframe for the poisoner's actions?"

"Yes, that's fine."

Officer Jenny immediately copied down the data using sticky notes from the office. She wrote down not only the production date of the wound medicine, but also the remaining volume of the medicine, the concentration of the venom, and the specific type of wound medicine. This wasn't a secret in the police's shared information.

As she copied, she questioned—

"But the perpetrator randomly selected discarded medicines in the wild to poison the victims. Even if we figure out the range, we can only get a vague range spanning many years, right? Moreover, the poisoning incidents only broke out in recent days. Based on this, we should be able to roughly deduce that the poisoning occurred about a month ago, right?"

"These boundaries, which are purely deduced from intuition, are often the source of failed reasoning," Azure shook her head, refuting Officer Jenny's statement.

"Furthermore, given the excessively large daily population flow in and out of Feiyun City, even if the timeframe is limited to within a month, the police would not have enough manpower to conduct identity investigations on everyone in the area where the crime occurred, right?"

Sera nodded silently, clearly agreeing with Azure's statement.

"So, you can pinpoint the exact time the perpetrator poisoned the food just by using these production dates?"

Officer Jenny finished writing the data on the last sticky note, fixed it to the corresponding position on the Feiyun City map on the wall with a thumbtack, and raised her hand to ask Azure.

"I'm not sure, but it's a direction worth trying... Huh?"

Azure stared at the map on the wall and suddenly fell silent.

"What's wrong? Did you find something?"

Seeing the detective's stunned expression, Officer Jenny became curious.

"Why is this happening? It's so strange." Azure repeatedly examined the contents and locations of the nine sticky notes, including those of the four victims, muttering to herself.

"Miss Officer Jenny, could you also post the data for the discovered non-toxic wound medicines on the map?"

"There are 121 cans of healing medicine left? That's a huge project."

“I will help too. You don’t need to record detailed data yet, just mark the location. There might be some extremely important clues hidden in it.”

Seeing Azure's resolute attitude, Officer Jenny and Sera didn't dare to delay. The three of them worked together, and after another ten minutes, all 121 yellow sticky notes, a different color from the previous ones, were affixed to the map.

Since the police search has only progressed to the southern end of Route 4, only a small section at the northern end of Feiyun City, where the road meets the city, is densely marked on the vast map. The five cans of poison recently discovered are mixed in with this area, though marked with red sticky notes, they are barely noticeable.

The locations where the four victims originally found the wound medicine are now scattered far away in the suburbs. It seems that the police search still has a long way to go.

"Hmm, the locations where the healing items were discarded were mostly near the grass by the roadside, which fits the pattern of trainers normally discarding healing items, and they don't look like they've been moved. The types of healing items are also varied, and there's absolutely no pattern to it..."

Officer Jenny looked away from the wall of sticky notes and turned to the acting director of the detective agency—

"How about it? Can you discern any pattern in the perpetrator's choice of poison targets? Even just the general route taken during the poisoning would be helpful. In my opinion, the killer's choice of poison targets should be completely random, right?"

"No, in my opinion, the poisoner didn't choose his target at all."

Taking a step back, Azure Blue, observing the entire map from a vantage point, met the policewoman's gaze head-on and said with absolute certainty.

"what do you mean?"

"The perpetrator did not 'choose' to add poison to any part of the wound medicine. The person's crime was actually more heinous—this person poisoned all the discarded wound medicines around Feiyun City without exception."

The detective pointed to the map, her tone exceptionally firm—

"However, those 'poisons' are not enough to kill the Pokémon. As Officer Jenny said before, 'dosage determines toxicity.' The extract from the insect repellent spray, when not in sufficient quantity, will not cause the Pokémon to have a poisoning reaction in the usual sense. That is why that portion of the medicine escaped the detection of the poison testing expert, Toxicroak."

"The so-called 'poisonous wound medicine' that the police are currently looking for is not actually a dangerous trap deliberately set by the murderer, but an unavoidable error in the process of large-scale poisoning."

"Look, all these red sticky notes on Road 4 are located at the forks or intersections of forest paths, right? But in the middle of the road, there isn't a single poison. This clearly shows that the killer repeatedly passed through the same locations, forgot they had already placed poison, and therefore added another dose. This time, the dosage and concentration of the poison are doubled, making it truly lethal, which triggered the Poison Skull Frog's 'Danger Premonition' alarm."

"But... isn't your argument a bit far-fetched?"

Azure's analysis seemed like a fantasy, and Officer Jenny instinctively offered a rebuttal—

"There are many forks in the roads in the suburbs, and if it's just five isolated cases, it's not impossible that they're coincidental. Besides, why would the murderer have to poison so many people on such a large scale? The police have to expend so much manpower just to retrieve the wound medicine; if the murderer were to commit the poisoning alone, wouldn't it be a hundred times more difficult..."

Lost in his conversation, the detective suddenly slammed on the brakes, then slapped his forehead as if struck by a sudden realization—

"No, it's much faster to have the police test a couple of wound medications than to argue with you here. Sera!"

“I’ve already notified the police station, sir.”

The deputy adjusted her glasses, showed her superior the screen of her phone after the call had just ended, and calmly said—

They said they would tell us the result within thirty minutes.

It was as if an invisible countdown clock had suddenly appeared before their eyes. The atmosphere in the office was instantly enveloped in a silent tension.

“If my deduction is true,” Detective Azure broke the silence, pointing again to the map on the wall.

"At that time, the area around Route 4 will turn completely red, and the remaining yellow areas will be the discarded medicines left there by other trainers after the perpetrator poisoned the area. By comparing the two and asking trainers who have been training their Pokémon in the vicinity of Flying Cloud City recently, we should be able to compress the timeline to an extremely precise range."

“The premise is that your theory must be correct.” Officer Jenny stared sternly at the detective. “And I have serious doubts about that.”

"I'm actually fairly confident."

The acting director leaned back on the sofa armrest and patiently explained to Officer Jenny—

“Trains collect discarded healing potions and store them together. I think the murderer took advantage of this, handing over the last part of making the poison to the trainers who picked up the potions, allowing them to increase the dosage of the poison to a lethal level, thereby disguising the entire poisoning plot as a random injury incident with unclear motives. In this way, their true purpose could be hidden.”

"So, you've already seen through the criminal's ultimate goal?"

Officer Jenny crossed her arms and asked in a tone that clearly did not believe her.

"No, I've left the part about the motive to the Grass Turtle and the others. I don't know how they're doing..."

Before the acting director could finish speaking, footsteps echoed down the stairs leading to the second floor of the Feathered Residence, and reporter Mary's voice rang out from afar—

"Azure Detective, it seems that Mr. Turtwig has found something."

Chapter 310 The Cause of Poisoning – The Elusive and Mysterious Motivation

Reporter Mary rushed down the stairs, carrying a thick stack of freshly printed materials.

"The tortoise led us to investigate medical news in the Unova region over the past decade, focusing on academic disputes related to toxic and harmful substances. We then selected those that might be relevant to the case!"

"You guys are really quick. Can you guarantee the accuracy of the information? These days, there are so many fake news stories circulating on the internet."

Ms. Jenny took the materials from the reporter, looked at the text information which was obviously taken from different media, and asked with a doubtful expression.

"At least this intelligence can be guaranteed to have a reliable source."

Azure snatched half of the file from the officer's hand and, as she flipped through it, said—

"Don't worry, the archives in the Feather Residence's database have all been carefully verified one by one. Some were compiled by Hugo himself, while the vast majority of the rest were done by that little tortoise that often stays at the office. Perhaps it's that little guy's interest, but it has already sorted out the event files of the Unova region over the past ten years, and it is said that the index is so clear that even the League's official data center can't compare."

"Yes. The speed at which Mr. Kusanagi, wielding his 'Grass Knot,' simultaneously reviewed both electronic and paper documents was truly astonishing. He even had the capacity to help us search case files."

The reporter from Hoenn nodded repeatedly, full of admiration for this beginner Pokémon from the Sinnoh region.

So what exactly does the material contain?

Sera asked Mary.

"Although the poisoning incident is indeed related to the medical field, there are all sorts of news in the world, and the murderer may not have ever made a mistake. The possibility that the case clues are directly related to these documents should be extremely small."

Azure and Officer Jenny each quickly skimmed through their respective sections, then exchanged documents and continued reading. Azure took a moment to answer—

“It’s impossible to guarantee, but reviewing these materials is very necessary. Miss Sera, what kind of personality do you think the poisoner we’re dealing with is likely to have?”

“Let me think…” Sera started counting on her fingers.

"Lawless, lacking in ethical and moral values, harboring malice towards trainers or Pokémon, and perhaps even arrogant, fond of scheming and plotting, and at least possessing medical knowledge above average."

"Strictly speaking, the last point isn't really about personality. But it's passable, since doctors are always facing patients and must maintain a confident image at all times. Over time, this inevitably leads to a sense of superior authority..."

As Bilan perused the medical dispute casebook in her hand, she noticed many cases involving malnourished doctors and unscrupulous pharmacists, and remarked with a sense of unease.

“That’s just a stereotype,” Mary, who is very sensitive to words, couldn’t help but correct her.

“Dai and I interviewed medical professionals in the Hoenn region before. Most doctors were already exhausted just dealing with the endless stream of patients and their families. They probably felt more numb than the authority that comes with their profession. Besides, aren't the friendly Nurse Joys at Pokémon Centers a perfect counterexample to that so-called lofty sense of authority?”

"I understand, I understand. My words were inappropriate."

Azure raised her hands in a gesture of surrender.

"Returning to the topic of the heinous poisoner, regardless of whether the perpetrator poisoned all the discarded medical supplies around Feiyun City, since this person committed such a large-scale crime through such an extreme method as poisoning, their sense of self must have been extremely strong."

The detective flicked the file in her hand—

"Just as doctors who see patients often leave a cold impression due to the heavy pressure, criminals who eventually exhibit such heinous behavior must have had conflicts in their past caused by this distorted personality."

"Everywhere you go, there will be a trace—this seems to be a line your director likes to repeat."

Officer Jenny finally finished reading the documents in her hand and joined the conversation.

"How's it going? Has the information we found been helpful to the case investigation?"

Mary asked the detective expectantly—

"Dai and Kusabi are still upstairs organizing information from even earlier times, and a new document might be released later. If we want to know about news from even earlier times, we might have to make a trip to the library or the official archives of the Alliance, since computers weren't widely available back then, and the trend of paperless offices hadn't taken off yet."

"I don't think we need to investigate documents from that far back."

Azure put down the half-stack of documents in her hand and smiled at everyone in the office—

"After all, the information we have alone is already full of countless valuable clues."

Officer Jenny nodded in agreement, "Hmph, you're quite quick-witted, Azure Detective. It seems you've also discovered that group complaint from nine years ago."

"This is all thanks to the grass turtle and the two reporters. I never expected they could find such an insignificant news story. It's truly amazing. Miss Officer Jenny, you hadn't even told them the ingredients of the poison before, had you?"

Azure picked out a printed sheet from the document and pointed to the news excerpt on it—

"Nine years ago, a new facility built by Mistral Chemicals in Snowflake City was met with complaints from local residents. The facility was intended to use pressurized quenching technology to provide a new raw material for the Unova branch of an insecticide spray company. As the incident quickly came to an end with Mistral's concession, the facility was relocated to a more remote and sparsely populated area. However, this incident did cause a minor disturbance at the time... The latter part about the disturbance was probably added by Kameya when she searched the local community forums and archived it."

Officer Jenny shrugged: "The dispute didn't escalate further, and the factory was eventually built smoothly, which means that the chemical raw material was not a problem at the time. But the fact that the facility was ultimately not located in Snowflake City suggests that the potential risks of that toxin were likely already noticed by people at the time... But we can't rule out the possibility that the whole dispute was purely a fabrication based on rumors."

"But regardless, since the murderer boasted of his cleverness in using insecticide spray as a new type of toxic substance, he must have thoroughly investigated the history of insecticide spray as a harmful substance. In the process of investigation, he could not have missed this news. The cause and effect may even be reversed, and the murderer may have simply drawn inspiration directly from that dispute nine years ago, and used it to plan the whole scheme."

The detective astutely pointed out—

"If it's the former, the perpetrator has likely also consulted other papers and reports on insecticide sprays, some of which may contain classified information that can only be accessed through official channels. We can use this clue to track the perpetrator's movements."

"But if it's the latter..."

The green-haired detective put his white gloves back on the sofa, straightened his police cap, and said meaningfully—

"If the perpetrator gets the inspiration for their crime directly from this dispute..."

Azure responded tacitly, "We must find out. From nine years ago until today, what exactly caused the perpetrator to delay this massive poisoning case, which involves a huge amount of self-assertion, for so long?"

Imprisoned? Hospitalized? Or perhaps he emigrated overseas and recently returned to United States... These are all possible reasons.

The acting director of the detective agency picked up the remaining documents on the table again—

"Other disputes that have been compiled are also very valuable for the case. For example, this toxic compound that was lost four years ago and then recovered inexplicably had several micrograms missing from its contents. Could the perpetrator have used the same method, skipping the step of purchasing insecticide spray, and directly stealing the toxic substance from the manufacturing plant?"

"There's also this case from nine years ago, where a Poison-type Pokémon was assigned to carry out a large-scale attack on wild Pokémon. The perpetrator is still at large. Although this perpetrator's methods are very different from those of the poisoning case, through this example, I realized that our previous thinking may have been limited, which was to assume that the perpetrator committed the large-scale poisoning case all by himself."

"You mean, the poisoner also used Pokémon as an accomplice?"

Officer Jenny pondered the possibility that the prisoner might have used this method of poisoning.

Generally speaking, apart from those Pokémon that have been trained by evil organizations for a long time, very few Pokémon will actively cooperate with their trainers to carry out such a horrific and inhumane scheme.

However, there are always exceptions. A very small number of Pokémon are inherently malicious and find pleasure in harming humans and other Pokémon. Trainers might also be able to use certain methods to force or trick their Pokémon into performing such actions.

“That’s what I mean,” Azure replied.

"Even if the perpetrator did not use the venom secreted by a Poison-type Pokémon as the source of the poison, the perpetrator may have still given orders to his Pokémon to search for discarded medicines and poison them. In this way, as long as the perpetrator has enough Pokémon, even if the perpetrator is just one person, it would be enough to poison all the medicines in the entire Flying Cloud City."

"And since the elves disposed of the discarded medicines along different routes, the routes would naturally intersect and overlap at forks and intersections, which further explains why the medicines that had been poisoned multiple times would appear in those locations."

"I see. So you haven't given up on that theory of widespread poisoning?"

The female detective looked shaken. She felt that the theory of the temporary detective in front of her was becoming more and more real, like a whale king slowly emerging from the water.

Meanwhile, the reporter standing nearby became even more excited—

"It seems your reasoning is progressing very quickly! Although I don't quite understand the theory of 'mass poisoning,' does this mean we can gradually narrow down the scope of our investigation into the killer's identity?"

“Final confirmation is still needed,” Police Deputy Sera replied on behalf of her superior.

"The police are testing the remaining wound medicine for its chemical composition. If, as Miss Azure speculates, it does contain trace amounts of insecticide spray toxins, then the crucial time for poisoning, which is essential for pinpointing the perpetrator, can soon be narrowed down to a very small area—and the clues you just provided can help the police further narrow down the suspects. Success or failure hinges on this."

"If only we were that lucky. I still can't believe that a prisoner would give up such a convenient way of randomly poisoning people and instead go to the trouble of filling all the discarded medicines near Feiyun City with poison."

Officer Jenny pressed her temples, trying to suppress her nervousness as she spoke.

While waiting for feedback from her colleagues at the police station, she really had nothing else to do, so she could only continue discussing the case with the detective.