Pokémon Detective Case Files.

"That gentleman is currently with police officers at a temporary data analysis center in the basement of the hospital ward, where they have reportedly made a major discovery."

"Understood, we'll head over now." Hugo nodded slightly.

As a hospital directly under the alliance headquarters, its coordination efficiency is quite high. The temporary command center is located in the basement of the floor where the witnesses are located, eliminating a large number of intermediate links in information transmission.

When the two pushed open the door to the underground conference room, they were greeted by a bustling scene—police officers were moving back and forth, and the electronic sounds of communicators were constantly going off.

In the crowd, a familiar figure stood out—

“Hugo, it’s been a long time.” Officer Jenny, dressed in a crisp uniform, strode over and extended her hand to Hugo. “This must be Champion Hugo, right? I’m Officer Jenny from the Alliance Investigation Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Division. Nice to meet you.”

"You must be Deputy Director Officer Jenny. I've heard so much about you."

Just as Hugo was about to shake hands, Mr. Khaki suddenly pushed his way out of the crowd, holding a data terminal in his hand.

"Mr. Champion! The call records between the kidnapper and the victim have been fully recovered!"

“That’s exactly why we’re here.” Hugo took the tablet but didn’t check it immediately. Instead, he looked at Officer Jenny and asked, “Can you trace the source of the call? What about the voiceprint information?”

“It’s a pity.” The deputy director shook his head. “We’ve tried all the electronic tracking methods, but the other side’s methods of eliminating traces are very clean. We’ve just started matching voiceprint data, but the chances are slim.”

Even the Heavenly King of Martial Arts frowned deeply: "Then what should we do now?"

The champion, however, remained unhurried: "Have the investigation bureau and the police investigated the location where the mother and daughter disappeared?"

“The location is confirmed to be near Morikawa Makoto’s detached apartment in Ssangyu City, but there’s something strange about that,” Officer Jenny said.

"Moriko Morikawa's wife, Ryouko, was a part-time housewife who occasionally taught handicraft classes as a side job. On the day of the incident, she and her daughter, Sayuri, were both at home, and logically, they should have been kidnapped at the same time. However, according to the recording, it seems that her daughter was abducted while she was out alone."

Are there security cameras near the apartment? When was the last time people saw the mother and daughter?

"The only public security camera in the vicinity had its wires cut before the incident, and the last time that camera was checked was a week ago. The kidnappers may have been targeting the Morikawa family since then."

Officer Jenny picked up a document from the table next to her—

"The police are still interviewing relevant witnesses at this stage - Morikawa Shigeki's son last saw his mother and sister this morning before going to school and did not notice anything unusual."

"How is that son doing now?"

Lian Wu inadvertently revealed a thoughtfulness that was inconsistent with his rugged appearance.

“He’s completely unaware of the situation and is currently under police protection,” Officer Jenny said calmly, not surprised by the King’s question. “However, the detective who spoke with the child sent a report saying that her mother mentioned last night that she planned to go out shopping today. However, the police visited nearby shops and supermarkets and checked surveillance footage along the way, but were unable to track down the mother and daughter.”

"It seems the kidnappers didn't give themselves away in a place like this," Hugo sighed regretfully.

"The other party may have taken advantage of the mother and daughter going out together to create an opportunity to lure them away—then they separately used force to take the mother hostage and used words to deceive the daughter. The camera was destroyed in advance for this purpose."

“A hostage situation would leave traces, right? Was there any Pokémon battle? Can you deduce where the mother and daughter went?” Lian Wu asked.

“There were no signs of a fight.” Deputy Director Officer Jenny turned a page of the file in her hand. “According to the League’s registration information, Mrs. Morikawa’s Pokémon partners are Flyke and Bumblebee, while her daughter Sayuri has not adopted any Pokémon. The forensic personnel at the scene conducted a special search, but found no fresh fur of these two Pokémon in the vicinity, so they most likely did not use their Poké Balls to battle.”

“It seems that the trail here has gone cold for the time being.” Hugo shook his head in frustration. “Even if we can find traces left by the perpetrator, it will be difficult to deduce the hostage’s current location. The police can continue to search the scene and look for possible eyewitnesses from that time, but it’s best not to have too high hopes—we must be prepared that the perpetrator has a very high level of counter-surveillance awareness.”

“We’ve never let our guard down,” the deputy director said sternly, handing Hugo and Lian Wu each a listening earpiece. “I guess you two probably need these more right now.”

"Have you checked the call recordings?" Under Lian Wu's bewildered gaze, the detective smoothly navigated the Bluetooth settings, connecting the headset to the tablet. "Any findings?"

Officer Jenny spread her hands: "The data has just been extracted. Although some agents have begun to analyze the audio information, like the voiceprint data, no results have been reached yet."

"Alright, let's not delay, I'll listen too."

Hugo held the large headphones close to his ears, his fingers hovering above the play button.

The fighting game king frantically fiddled with the equipment, only to see that the champion had already clicked on the decisive recording...

The recording is roughly the same as Morikawa's description. The speaker's gender is unclear. Although the sound of an electronic synthesizer cannot be heard, it has obviously been specially processed.

Judging from the background noise, the speaker's location was relatively quiet, a stark contrast to the noisy environment at the airport bombing site—further supporting the possibility of a remotely controlled crime.

The recording of Mrs. Morikawa and her daughter Sayuri was clearly played on a different device, with consistent noise frequencies and roughly the same volume.

It is noteworthy that although the mother Rinko's screams were heartbreaking, they were not the wails of someone being abused, but rather the terrified screams of someone facing mortal danger.

Presumably because the kidnappers needed to record the conversation, her voice was not interrupted. Rinko seemed to be pleading for something, but the audio was selected by the criminals and abruptly stopped just as her mother was about to utter the key words.

In addition, although the kidnappers played two audio recordings of Morikawa's daughter, there were obvious gaps in Sayuri's emotions, indicating that they were recorded at different times.

Hugo speculated that the reason the other party didn't record a whole segment of Sayuri's screams or cries as they had with Mrs. Morikawa was because the girl had suffered too much of a shock and thus fell into a state of self-isolation and silence in an unfamiliar environment.

To make the threatening phone call clearly demonstrate that he had a second hostage, the perpetrator added a recording of himself luring the girl before he started sobbing.

Therefore, although the two hostages in the hands of the kidnappers are in a state of extreme fear, they may not have actually suffered physical torture yet—this may be considered good news, but based on this information alone, it is still impossible to determine the whereabouts of the two hostages.

Just as Hugo was about to take off his headphones and discuss his deductions with Officer Jenny, his train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the excited actions of King Wu.

"I heard it!" The fighter yanked off his listening earpiece, stood up, and shouted, "There's the same echo in the second recording between the mother and daughter!"

“Echo!” he emphasized again. “They might be in a cave!”

Chapter 384 Echo Wall

Skilled fighters often possess keen hearing, which gives them an advantage in hand-to-hand combat and Pokémon battles—the rustling of an opponent's clothing, changes in breathing rhythm, the soft sound of toes grinding against the ground, the tapping of a Poké Ball… When their eyes are blinded by defensive actions, they must use these sounds to construct a three-dimensional battle scene in their minds, thereby predicting the direction of each of their opponent's attacks.

In such intense clashes, filtering is more important than gathering information—filtering out irrelevant noise in the noisy street battle, hearing the trembling of fear in the opponent's feigned calm breathing, and discerning the enemy's next move amidst the deafening sounds of Pokémon attacks...

Lian Wu possessed this combat intuition, which is why he was able to detect something amiss in the recorded conversation between the kidnapper and the victim.

"A cave? Are you sure?"

Deputy Director Jun Sha almost instinctively raised her eyebrows, then immediately realized her lapse in decorum and quickly apologized to Lian Wu.

"I apologize, verifying this should be our job, please excuse my poor work."

She quickly turned to the analysis team and called out the names of several senior investigators: "Extract the background sounds from those two recordings and see if there are any traces of echoes."

The investigators immediately complied. After a brief analysis and discussion, one of the female investigators, wearing black-rimmed glasses, stood up—

"After a specialized analysis by the technical team, a slight echo was indeed found, but... this could also be microphone interference caused by the phone being used for speakerphone calls."

The sound waves output by the speaker may be picked up a second time by the microphone. The audio signal picked up by the microphone is amplified by the speaker and then captured and amplified again by the microphone. This process repeats itself, just like the echoes that are constantly reflected between walls. This is what is known in the professional field as the "positive feedback of sound and electricity".

This phenomenon can cause a teeth-grinding shriek when the speaker and microphone are placed close together, and can produce an echoing noise when the phone is played aloud in an open space.

"Have you compared the recordings from other time periods?" Seeing that the two sides' accounts were inconsistent, Officer Jenny frowned slightly and asked her subordinates.

"Of course."

The investigator adjusted his thick glasses and turned his computer screen towards the crowd—

“In addition to the two recordings pointed out by King Wu, we also sampled the kidnapper’s own speech and the background audio when he was abducting the girl, and there were similar slight echoes. This is not an isolated case but a common phenomenon. That’s why we judged that the echoes were most likely caused by the kidnapper’s phone being played aloud during the call.”

The deputy director was a little undecided, so she turned her attention back to Hugo and Lian Wu.

"To be honest, I don't really understand professional analysis..." After listening to the investigator's statement, Lian Wu touched the back of his neck, his tone hesitant, but he still insisted, "But those two recordings... always remind me of echoes in a dark cave."

"What do you think of Hugo's championship?" Officer Jenny pressed.

The detective stared at the curves on the screen for a long time before finally asking the investigator, "Are the echoes from those two audio recordings as loud as the echoes from the other parts?"

"Ah, this... there is indeed a little something fishy about this part." A hint of panic appeared behind the investigator's black-rimmed glasses. "The audio echo phenomenon that Tianwang pointed out is slightly larger, but that's just a difference in the degree of equipment error, and we don't think we need to worry about it..."

"No, the existence of this error is already quite telling. Miss Investigator, please be sure to conduct further analysis on this audio."

"Just because of those 'errors'?" the investigator asked hesitantly.

“Never underestimate the intuition of an Elite Four Trainer,” Hugo said seriously, then turned to Officer Jenny, “Director, please allocate some personnel to immediately gather information on all caves, tunnels, and abandoned mines near Twin Dragons City.”

"That's simple, we can just retrieve the data from the database," the deputy director said crisply. "Do we also need to dispatch patrol teams from the corresponding jurisdiction to conduct a search?"

"No, the number of manpower that can be deployed around Shuanglong City is limited. We need to narrow down the search area further, otherwise it will just be a waste of police resources."

"Can you pinpoint the location even further? Just based on these two phone calls that combined take less than ten minutes?"

Officer Jenny felt that all the possible parts of the phone conversation had been thoroughly analyzed. Did this champion really want to find the murderer based solely on this audio recording?

"After all, the audio analysis team found new clues."

United Champions stroked his chin with his fingertips—

"I find it hard to believe that a kidnapper with such strong counter-surveillance awareness would put his phone on speakerphone for no reason. And if we rule out that possibility, the remaining faint echo needs a new explanation."

"Do you have a clue?" Lian Wu asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Rather than a clue, it's more accurate to say that I've figured it out." The detective snapped his fingers lightly.

"The reason for the second echo is that when the kidnapper was on the phone, he was also standing in a similar enclosed space—although the location was slightly different from where he recorded the conversation with the mother and daughter to avoid interference. He might have been speaking into the open entrance of the cave, or there might have been enough obstacles nearby, so the echo recorded by the communicator would be smaller," Hugo explained, explaining the principle behind the echo difference.

“That’s a reasonable guess,” Officer Jenny nodded. “But how do we pinpoint their location?”

Let's review the current information—

"First, the kidnapper was in a closed or semi-closed space when he made the call; "

"Secondly, according to Lianwu Tianwang's intuition, that area might have the feel of a cave."

"Third, the geographical environment of this area must be complex enough, with at least three distinct spaces serving as separate locations for the two hostages and the prisoner to make phone calls—"

"The reason I believe the hostages were not held together is because Ms. Lingzi's voice was not heard at all in the recording when her daughter was crying. If her daughter broke down and cried in front of her, the mother should not have been indifferent."

Hugo methodically pieced together the connections from the vague clues—

"Of course, it's also possible that the kidnappers made the mother lose consciousness while recording, but that would be too much trouble for the kidnappers. From the morning of the kidnapping to the time of the threatening phone call, it was less than five hours. I don't think they could have done such a complicated operation in that time."

"In other words, the hostages may be being held in a cave with sufficiently complex terrain, and given the short duration, the location should be near Shuanglong City where the kidnapping occurred?"

Officer Jenny walked slowly to the investigator who was searching for information about the cave and asked a concluding question.

“Yes, and considering that the prisoner would have had to walk slower when he was holding two hostages,” Hugo added, holding up a finger. “The cave is likely located near a road that cars can drive on.”

"Then we should filter out these conditions..."

Seeing that his subordinates had finished the search, the deputy director took over the computer keyboard, his slender fingers rapidly typing on the keys.

With a series of key clicks, the data analysis system restarted.

The next moment, the number of densely packed red markers on the screen was reduced by half, leaving only terrain of sufficient size.

Next, Officer Jenny entered the command again: "Secondary filtering: only keep points within 500 meters of the highway."

With the Enter key pressed, only two flashing red markers remained on the map on the screen.

"........."

Upon seeing those two place names, the air in the conference room instantly froze.

"The training hut on the west side of Shuanglong City, and..." Even Wu Tianwang couldn't help but gasp, "...the Path of the Champion!"

“It can’t be a meditation hut,” Hugo and Officer Jenny said at the same time.

"Although it is close to Highway 10, a landslide occurred there not long ago."

The deputy director opened the database, and a photo full of rocks appeared on the screen—

"According to reports from trainers training nearby, the area around that entrance appears to have collapsed due to a battle between powerful Pokémon and is now completely blocked by boulders and rubble."

"Moreover, this cave has no exit. A meticulously planned kidnapper would not choose such a place as a hiding place."

The detective then pointed out—

"But the Champion's Road, which was originally transformed from an iron ant nest and has a network of routes, is located at the foot of the Alliance headquarters. It doesn't have this problem. In addition, this location can also explain the source of Lian Wu's intuition earlier - presumably, King Lian Wu once cultivated in the caves there, which is why he subconsciously remembered the echoes in the caves."

"Doesn't this mean... those two hostages are currently on the Champion's Road nearby?"

Lian Wu's forehead veins bulged, and he suppressed his anger as he spoke—

"Not only did they target the car that transported Carlos to the championship, but they also took the driver's family hostage right under the league's nose... Just how far will that person go to humiliate the United States!"

At the league headquarters after Mr. Alderk stepped down as champion, no one valued the glory of the United States League more than Lian Wu.

The fighting-type champion strode towards the hospital, but Hugo stopped him—

"Although this medical center is close to the Champions Road, the criminal has been on the run for at least half a day with two hostages. Chasing after them now would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. It would be more reasonable to have the police and investigators seal off the entrances and exits and then conduct a thorough search."

"But at this rate, how long will it take to find the hostages?"

The fighter stared at the Unova Champion blocking his way like a seasoned construction worker—

"I'm familiar with the terrain of Victory Road and can send Pokémon to assist in the search. Even so, are you still going to leave me here on the sidelines?"

"No, I have someone more suitable."

Hugo's hand remained in front of Lian Wu.

“As the champion of the Unova region, I know the recent movements of all the high-level trainers in the league. Among them, there is one who has been training on the Champion Road in the north of Twin Dragons City ever since she failed to challenge Mr. Ardek. She is in those caves and can find the hostages sooner.”

The detective raised the phone with his other hand, and the call connected at that exact moment.