Pokémon Detective Case Files.

"N has already confessed to Group Plasma's crimes in front of the reporters, so why is Hugo summoning people involved in the case again? What is the detective up to?"

On Route 20, west of Liyong City, Douzi, wearing a pink and white baseball cap, walked backwards in front of Bilan, his steps light as he moved forwards and backwards, seemingly oblivious to the risk of falling.

The two were walking far from the city center, where there were few pedestrians or vehicles. Within a hundred meters, the only moving object was the insect baby crawling leisurely in the grass, so Douzi's backward walking was still barely considered safe.

The rising sun pierced through the thin mist, casting a purple glow. From where the girls stood, they looked out over Liyong City. The skyline of this industrial city was, as always, filled with straight columns of smoke rising into the sky, like prison bars trying to prevent criminals from escaping, or a beacon tower desperately trying to send vague messages to the outside world.

Hearing Douzi's question, Bilan was equally unable to predict the detective's intentions, so she could only guess and say, "Hugo spent the whole night at the Liyong City Police Station yesterday. He must have found some clues again, right?"

"Hmm, that does make sense."

Douzi nodded, reluctantly accepting this explanation.

After saying goodbye to Manager William yesterday, the two girls spent the night at the Pokémon Center, while the detective stayed at the police station all night. It wouldn't be surprising if Hugo discovered something that night.

"Speaking of which, it seems that besides us and the police, Hugo also gathered Telt, Arno, and Factory Manager William at this gathering, right? Although the number of people was not large, almost all the people involved in the case were present."

The girl with the high ponytail suddenly became interested again and asked her senior with great interest—

"Do you think at that gathering, the detective might suddenly say something like, 'The real culprit is among us,' and then catch the criminal who's been hiding until the very end right there?"

"Such plots only exist in novels and movies, right?"

Azure sighed, rubbing her forehead. She felt she couldn't keep up with her junior's leaps of thought. So she turned to inquire about the Plasma Cluster—

"Douzi, do you think that once N returns to Team Plasma, he will immediately expose William's misdeeds of using Pokémon to generate electricity? If he does that, all of William's and the police's efforts to cover up the truth will have been in vain."

"Probably not." The girl with the high ponytail answered without hesitation. "Didn't Sister Blue already explain Director William's predicament back then? In that case, he shouldn't continue to pursue this matter. Otherwise, N wouldn't have taken the initiative to admit guilt on behalf of Team Plasma."

“I always felt he wasn’t someone who was easily persuaded,” Bilan said, frowning. “That guy always spoke passionately about rights and equality, as if he didn’t care about sacrificing everything for his ideals. I think there’s something dangerous about that kind of person.”

"N is just a bit stubborn."

The girl, walking backwards, skipped and hopped along, nonchalantly defending her friend—

“I discovered a long time ago that N’s self-perception might be different from that of normal people. He may not be able to understand that humans and Pokémon are actually two different species, which is why he is surprised or even angry when faced with things that we take for granted.”

Perhaps because they were discussing an important topic, Douzi finally turned around and walked alongside Bilan again. This finally relieved the latter.

The girl with the high ponytail continued, "I think N's distorted perception is not meaningless. It is not a disease that needs to be corrected. On the contrary, our world needs people like N to exist. They will remind us to pay attention to the relationship between humans and Pokémon, so that the world does not become so bad that we all become bastards who bully Pokémon without realizing it."

Then, Douzi changed the subject, saying, "But he really went too far this time. Although Team Plasma is nominally on the side of Pokémon, judging from what they've done, they're completely an evil organization that uses the banner of Pokémon liberation to plot evil deeds. Even so, N still chose to compromise with those people, trying to achieve ultimate justice through dirty means—I think N must have been more heartbroken than anyone else when he made this decision... Little Blue, why are you looking at me like that?"

Bilan stopped in her tracks, looking at Douzi in surprise as he analyzed her friend's personality. She never expected that Douzi, who lived almost entirely on intuition, could produce such an insightful psychological profile.

If she had to describe how she felt at that moment, the assistant felt as if she were watching a Psyduck explaining the theory of relativity to her…

"Hey! Don't stare at me like you've heard a duckling talking about quantum mechanics!"

Only Douzi, whose intuition was frighteningly accurate, loudly protested. The two of them walked all the way to their destination.

That was the meeting place the detective had told them about—the Pokémon Graveyard in Tachibana City, located on the outskirts of Tachibana City, adjacent to Route 20.

It is said that the electric-type spirits who died in the explosion are buried here.

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Bilan and Douzi arrived at the cemetery twenty minutes early, only to be surprised to find that everyone else had already arrived.

The cemetery appeared to have been cleared out; no residents had come to mourn the elves, and the original staff of the cemetery were nowhere to be found. Only the police and a handful of people involved in the incident were present.

In the open space ahead, Detective Hugo, dressed in his signature white coat, was surrounded by police officers in the center of the crowd, chatting and laughing.

At the entrance, Factory Manager William and the burly bearded breeder, Telt, stood side by side, but remained silent and motionless, showing no intention of exchanging words.

"That man must be Arnault, right?"

With keen eyes, Bi Lan spotted a short-haired woman in the distance, dressed distinctly from the police. The woman wore a women's business suit and black-rimmed glasses. Although she wore light makeup, her face still showed signs of exhaustion, with heavy dark circles under her eyes, suggesting she hadn't slept well for several days.

"Was that the female engineer who first warned William? She doesn't look too well."

As if infected by the weariness of the object of his observation, Douzi yawned and commented bluntly—

"Perhaps she is the real killer in the bombing, and her so-called alibi is just a clever deception. Hugo gathered everyone here to catch that guy red-handed..."

"Don't apply the plots from mystery novels to real-life cases!"

The assistant interrupted Douzi's irresponsible speculation with a curt tone. From the perspectives of motive, timing, and method, Ms. Arnaud was completely unsuitable to be the perpetrator in this case.

Bilan had previously wondered why Hugo had never invited the landlady to work part-time as his assistant, given that Douzi's abilities were equally outstanding. Now it seems that, regardless of Douzi's own wishes, Hugo probably wouldn't want an assistant who speaks without thinking.

"Look! Hugo has picked up the megaphone! He's seen that we're all here! Looks like he's about to announce the final answer!"

The girl, who spoke without thinking, started chattering again, but this time, Azure didn't complain that she was bringing plots from mystery novels into reality.

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"ladies and gentlemen."

The detective cleared his throat, held the megaphone in front of his head, and emitted a clear sound that covered the entire area.

"We are gathered here to commemorate the factory explosion that happened half a month ago. In that tragedy, the residents of Rikyu City lost their clean air, Factory Manager William lost his power plant, the power plant employees lost their jobs, and a group of Electric-type Pokémon also paid the most tragic price."

The sound from the loudspeaker echoed over the cemetery, solemn and cold, even prompting a few candle spirits to quietly peek out from their burrows.

"We now know that the direct cause of this explosion was the instigation and misleading by the leaders of Team Plasma. As for the root cause, it is not a secret among us either. Those Electric-type Pokémon became flammable and explosive under the pursuit of profit by humans, and ultimately became tools for ambitious people to overthrow everything."

Then, the detective launched into a lengthy account of the cause and course of the explosion, covering everything from the truth about the bio-powered zone to the police infiltration incident.

"...Although Team Plasma has almost taken full responsibility for all the crimes, I still hope that everyone here will not forget this matter, will not forget the mind that became blinded by the pursuit of economic benefits, will not forget the roar that the Pokémon were willing to ignite their souls for, and will not forget the earth-shattering explosion that is etched on the monument of Lishui City."

Hugo paused here for a long time, as if truly giving everyone present time to reflect and introspect. Only then did he continue speaking—

"As most of you here know, I am a detective, commissioned by someone to thoroughly investigate the cause and effect of the explosion. During the investigation of the power plant explosion, I introduced to Inspector Officer Jenny the three principles upon which my reasoning is based: 1. The fact that the deceased is dead will never change, and this can be used as the starting point for reasoning; 2. Only evidence that has been personally investigated has credibility, and even if the evidence has been tampered with, the change itself is still meaningful; 3. Only rigorous scientific theories can connect the truth."

"However, I must apologize to Officer Jenny here. Those three principles were never my own basis for solving cases. They were just a few universal rules that I made up to buy time. Nevertheless, these made-up laws are still the result of my years of reasoning and solving cases. Even if they cannot be used as a universal key, they should be able to handle most cases. That is why I readily taught Officer Jenny these 'three reasoning methods'."

There was some commotion in the crowd. Whether they were police officers or other involved parties, they were all somewhat confused about the meaning behind the detective in the white coat's words.

Maybe he really just wanted to apologize to Officer Jenny?

"Sister Xiaolan, what do you think of the rules Hugo mentioned?" Douzi quietly asked Bilan beside her. "Does a universal key really exist that can construct an absolutely correct line of reasoning?"

"I think it's largely true," Azure said after a moment's thought.

"If the victim's death, physical evidence, and scientific principles are the basis for reasoning about the case, the truth will be almost unshakeable. However, the scarcer the reliable evidence, the more difficult it is to build a logical chain of reasoning. That 'three-item reasoning method' is probably hard to implement in reality."

In the distance, Hugo, holding a megaphone, spoke again—

"The 'three-item reasoning method' is sufficient to handle most real cases. Even if it cannot directly lead to the answer, it will not lead the reasoner astray because the three theories supporting it are rigorous enough—that was my original thought."

"But reality is often more complex than anyone expects. When I used this method of reasoning to try to solve the first crime—the Liyong Power Plant explosion—I suffered a crushing defeat. Yes, one of the three principles that form the cornerstone of reasoning completely failed in this case."

As Hugo said this, he pointed to the cemetery behind the group.

Looking over each other's shoulders and the backs of their heads, the guests present could clearly see that several police officers had already left the gathering and were now standing next to the graves where Electric-type Pokémon were buried...

Each of them held a gray-black iron shovel in their hand!

"What failed in this case was the first of the three rules—death is irreversible!"

As Hugo finished speaking, several shovels simultaneously shoveled at the mound of earth forming a bulge, utterly destroying the rounded shape of the mound without any reverence.

After some digging, the first wooden coffin suddenly appeared in everyone's sight!

Next, the officers took out a nail pryer they had prepared beforehand and awkwardly pried open the nails on the coffin. The coffin made a hollow sound as the officers worked.

Azure frowned; she had already realized that something was wrong with the sound coming from the coffin.

Finally, the officers, who had been busy for a long time, removed the nails and inserted the flat shovel into the gap of the coffin lid, cleverly using the principle of leverage to press down the end of the shovel.

Amidst the grating sound of wood scraping, they opened the first coffin, which was supposed to contain a mischievous grenade. Although the audience was some distance away, they could still clearly see what was inside…

There was nothing inside.

The coffin stood empty.

In the silence, the Candle Spirits, who had witnessed the whole thing from a distance, let out a cold laugh.

It's like the mockery of death itself.

Chapter 161 The Final Answer—Seventy-One Coffins

In the cemetery, as police officers deployed handheld sprites to participate in the excavation, the speed of opening and examining the coffins immediately increased significantly.

One by one, coffins broke through the mounds of earth, like ninjas emerging from their summer hibernation, appearing in droves once more. But when the officers pulled out the nails and pried open the coffin lids, they were all, without exception, empty inside, like the hollow shells of evolved shedding-shell ninjas…

The officers seemed to have already learned something from the detective, so they weren't too surprised by this astonishing reversal and just kept their heads down and did what they were doing.

However, the people involved in the case who were gathered here were different. They could no longer hide their astonishment. Their eyes darted wildly between the seventy-one Pokémon graves, and their faces were full of disbelief.

Ms. Arno, with short hair and glasses, jumped out from the crowd and was the first to confront the bankrupt power plant manager: "William, what's going on? Where are the Pokémon's remains? Have you gone so far as to try to make up for the factory's losses by selling the corpses of dead Pokémon?"

Black market transactions, organ trafficking... all sorts of unsettling speculations surfaced in the woman's mind.

"No, I have absolutely no idea what's happening right now... Why did things turn out this way?"

William slowly shook his head, a clear look of confusion on his face.

"The burial of the elves killed in the factory was entirely handled by the police. Since the explosion, I only saw them once more when the fire department was carrying away the bodies. I never even considered profiting from their corpses. What... exactly happened?"

"Perhaps after the police buried the Thunderballs, someone stole the bodies again?" Douzi muttered to himself irresponsibly, but then immediately dismissed his guess—

"No. Although the management of the cemetery in this area is lax, it's not lax enough to allow grave robbers to openly dig up all seventy-one graves in succession. Moreover, judging from the condition of the iron nails on the coffins, no one should have pried them open before the police."

“Then there’s only one answer.” Azure said to her junior, “Dead Electric-type Pokémon are never placed in their coffins.”

“I understand now what Hugo’s earlier statement meant…” the assistant murmured.

In this case, the rule that "death is irreversible" has failed!

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"The reason I still have doubts about the final outcome of Electric-type Pokémon, even though this incident seems to have been settled, is because even now that Team Plasma has confessed, there are still many suspicious points in the case that give off an odd feeling."

The detective in the white coat calmly paced through the crowd, explaining his reasoning.

The woman beside him, Officer Jenny, had a solemn expression, like a Bodhidharma statue turned into stone, silently watching her subordinates' work.

Police were opening the last coffin that was supposed to contain the Magneto. With a final, teeth-grinding sound, the wooden coffin lid was pried open with a shovel, revealing its interior—also completely empty.

At this moment, seventy-one coffins were neatly arranged in front of everyone, each one empty, making the cemetery seem like a newly opened open-air coffin shop.

Seeing the coffins arranged so neatly, the detective seemed to have received some confirmation, and his tone of reasoning became increasingly certain—

"First, there is the most direct and obvious contradiction. When the police arrived at the scene of the explosion, they saw Electric-type Pokémon lying scattered on the ground. However, both the on-site evidence and Mr. Telt's statement proved one fact—the Pokémon maintained their usual formation after the explosion."

"This contradiction seems insignificant, but it was enough to pique my curiosity—my initial thought was that since the change in the distribution of the elves did exist, the time when their state changed could only have occurred between the time when Telt left and the time when the police arrived."

"In that case, if we just use our brains for a moment, we'll find that the person who had the opportunity to tamper with the scene can be easily identified—at that time, the police and fire department hadn't arrived yet, Plant Manager William was evacuating employees, the Plasma Group executives had no reason to risk returning to their crime scene, and Arno was having a gathering with a publisher of dubious identity. The only person who could have altered the scene could be Mr. Telt, the former training consultant for the Rikyu Power Plant!"

As soon as Hugo finished speaking, everyone's eyes were drawn to the bearded breeder.

"Mr. Telt concealed some crucial facts in his testimony to me. When he saw the elves dying en masse in the power plant area, he didn't suppress his nausea and flee the scene in a daze—this thick-skinned shrew is not that sensitive or sentimental!"

"When I came to this conclusion, I didn't actually realize the seriousness of the problem—after all, Telt was the factory's breeding consultant, and it was reasonable for him to try first aid on the spot when he saw the elves he was taking care of lying dead."

"Moreover, rigorous logical reasoning can also prove that this is exactly how reality unfolded—in the forensic reports from the police, there were traces of medicine sprayed on the wounds of some Electric-type Pokémon, but they were covered by later scorch marks, so they were judged to be medical marks before the explosion and did not attract attention. But as long as we understand the situation of the factory before the explosion, we can find out a simple reality: no Electric-type Pokémon were injured on the day of the explosion, and it was impossible for anyone to spray medicine on the Pokémon before they self-destructed."

So it was for emergency rescue... Douzi and Bilan realized at the same time that they had met Telt face to face at the open-air bar. At that time, he deliberately exaggerated his reaction and tried to act like a rude and irritable person in front of the detective, which was probably to cover up this incident.

"But this still leaves something puzzling—what about the new scorch marks on the elf remains? There are no traditional power generation devices in the bio-power generation zone, which is why the fire and secondary explosion did not affect the bio-power generation zone where the elf corpses were displayed after the explosion. So why did the elves' bodies have new scorch marks after Telt used the healing medicine?"

"Through a detail provided by Officer Jenny, I had a near-fantasy hypothesis. This hypothesis helped me clarify everything. At the police station last night, I met with the forensic doctor in charge of handling the bodies of Electric-type Pokémon. The doctor told me that shortly after they completed the identification of the Pokémon's remains and transported them back to the police station, a group of power plant employees appeared, requesting that they bury the Pokémon! Since the police had already decided to classify the whole incident as an accident, the bodies should naturally be returned to the Pokémon's trainers according to procedure. William, as the Pokémon owner, was unwilling to respond to the incident at the time, so having the enthusiastic factory employees handle it on his behalf became the most appropriate method."

"It was at this point that you moved those Electric-type Pokémon and buried the Ethereal Coffin—right, Mr. Telt?"

Unbeknownst to him, Hugo had already made his way through the crowd and arrived in front of the breeding consultant.

"The reason you've gone to such lengths is because those seventy-one Pokémon are still alive, right?"

Chapter 162 The Final Solution—Allotropic Objects

Apparent death, also known as mild death or deep coma.

In this state, the organism's circulation, respiration, and brain function are highly suppressed, and its vital functions are extremely weak. No vital signs can be detected by general clinical examination methods, resulting in a state where it appears to be dead but is actually still alive.

After a period of apparent death, if the organism receives active treatment, it can be temporarily or permanently revived.

No matter where in the world, there have been cases in history of humans who appeared to be dead for a long time and then "came back to life"—such as a hanged person who had lost vital signs and was buried but was accidentally revived by grave robbers; a patient who was pronounced dead by a doctor but was awakened by the low temperature when being sent to the morgue; an elderly person who was about to be pushed into the crematorium but suddenly sat up and escaped death... Such horrifying reports exist tenaciously everywhere, to the point that they have become a general understanding of the concept of "resurrection".

...However, it is precisely because of its almost miraculous randomness that people talk about it so much, isn't it?

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