Slacker Assassin's Multiverse Daily

As long as his alibi held up, he could dispose of everything he had not had time to deal with before leaving.

He had anticipated the police's reaction, but he had not anticipated Jiang Hang showing up uninvited.

What he had not expected even more was that Jiang Hang would crack his method after merely looking around the crime scene for a few minutes.

From the time he killed Suwa Michihiko to the police solving the case, the entire process had taken less than two hours.

If only the time Jiang Hang had spent at the crime scene was counted, it had been no more than ten minutes.

Matsuo Takashi had worked on detective programs for many years. Dozens of people called "great detectives" had appeared on his show, but after knowing so many so-called great detectives, he had never expected this rookie detective, who had only recently debuted, to leave the deepest impression on him.

Remembering the other man's calm, offhand manner, as though he had not been worried in the slightest that his assumptions might be wrong—

Even Matsuo Takashi could not help sighing inwardly.

The Eagle-Eyed Detective truly lived up to his name.

As far as Jiang Hang was concerned, there was not much to say about this case.

Matsuo Takashi had killed someone, then deliberately put on such a grief-stricken expression before the live cameras. Just thinking back on it made Jiang Hang feel somewhat uncomfortable.

Even though solving the case had brought him a monetary reward of tens of millions of yen, along with an intermediate skill training book, it had not improved his mood by much.

Jiang Hang had even received even more troublesome news from Conan.

He had never imagined that he had deliberately left Jirokichi Suzuki a chance to show off, having Conan explain the entire case to him so the wealthy old man could get a taste of being a "great detective" on television and be more willing to part with his money in the future.

Yet this old man had actually forgotten his lines and frozen up while solving the case live in front of the cameras. In the end, Conan had to keep prompting Jirokichi Suzuki from the side in the same way he usually prompted Kogoro Mouri before they could barely finish the live case-solving broadcast.

Although Jirokichi Suzuki claimed afterward that he felt he had performed well, with only a tiny flaw at the end—

It was easy to imagine that once viewers across the country saw him freeze up and get frantically prompted by a child beside him, let alone restoring his reputation, anti-fans might even turn that segment of Jirokichi Suzuki's frozen live broadcast into a meme video on streaming sites the very next day.

And since Jirokichi Suzuki had become dead weight in other people's eyes, the remaining attention naturally focused on Jiang Hang.

The case of the famous detective program host shooting a top producer had become a live broadcast because of the television station's bizarre stunt. Within an extremely short time, the news had climbed to the top of the trending charts, with news about Jiang Hang solving the case at lightning speed directly beneath it.

Even Imai Midori, Jiang Hang's number-one fan, called him at once.

"Mr. Jiang Hang, I just watched the television station's live broadcast. Did you solve another case at the station? I saw people at the scene saying on the forums that you used a method called the 'Hypothetical Principle' to solve the case. Is that true?"

The moment the call connected, Imai Midori bombarded Jiang Hang with questions—about the details of the case and whether that "Hypothetical Principle" was a version of the hypothetico-deductive method improved by Jiang Hang.

Jiang Hang had never expected that simply making a few assumptions would result in the forums actually creating something called the Hypothetical Principle for him.

In the stories written by Imai Midori, that "Jiang Hang" would probably gain another detective technique called the Hypothetical Principle after his famous line, "Then there can only be one answer."

Just answering his female fan's questions had already cost Jiang Hang quite a bit of energy, not to mention all the gossip reporters and media outlets that came rushing over after hearing the news.

So, over the following days, Jiang Hang simply closed his detective agency and spent every day on the art museum rooftop, building rapport with Altair.

The connection range of Shared Eagle Vision also advanced by leaps and bounds during those days. Having gradually mastered the knack, Jiang Hang extended its maximum connection range from two meters to several dozen meters.

Once that number exceeded one hundred meters, Shared Eagle Vision would be useful in cases.

Originally, Jiang Hang had thought the Sherlock Holmes fan gathering Conan had mentioned before sounded rather uninteresting. But now that gossip reporters were driving him crazy, all he wanted was to find a quiet place and return to his slacker life.

Holmes Fan Gathering

The sky had not yet brightened.

Jiang Hang drove his AE86, speeding along the coastal road with Conan.

He had wanted to imitate the Mount Akina Speed King by placing a cup of water on the dashboard and preventing a single drop from spilling while racing, thus displaying his superb driving skills.

However, his current driving skills were not even as good as Koharu Yoshino's, and his so-called speeding was really only a little over eighty kilometers per hour.

"I thought you were going to hit two hundred. You had me a little nervous, but this is it?" Conan rolled his eyes at Jiang Hang from the passenger seat.

When Jiang Hang had said he was taking him racing, Conan had genuinely panicked. Who would have thought that, to Jiang Hang, eighty kilometers per hour already counted as speeding?

"Ahem. Anyway, we're not in a hurry. There are countless roads, but safety comes first. You have to remember that and never forget it."

"When the chance comes, you'll know that the 'Beika City Speed King' is no empty title," Jiang Hang answered, feeling slightly guilty.

He had not acquired any driving-related skills yet. Strictly speaking, his driving ability was only at the basic level at most.

He wondered whether the system would classify driving as one of the skills an assassin needed to master.

Jiang Hang stopped thinking about what skills he might be able to obtain from the system and turned his attention back to the road ahead.

They were currently on their way to that Sherlock Holmes fan gathering.

The organizer of the gathering had actually said that he could gather everyone together and then drive them all over to his place.

But because the television station incident was still trending, Jiang Hang had Conan tell the gathering's organizer about the situation in order to ensure that boring gossip media would not discover this gathering. He then decided to drive there himself before dawn.

Jiang Hang had called Koharu Yoshino to the art museum over the past few days to help him come up with ideas, while Shizuka Sakaki had another new voice audition scheduled.

As for Conan, Kogoro Mouri had no interest in a Sherlock Holmes fan meetup. Ran Mori had been somewhat worried, but since Jiang Hang had always proven himself reliable, she ultimately felt at ease sending Conan over to him.

For this fan gathering, Jiang Hang had only brought Conan, who was registered for the event.

Although the gathering was being held within the Tokyo metropolitan area, it was still quite far from central Tokyo and located on an extremely remote stretch of coastline.

Jiang Hang had left by car at four in the morning. By the time his destination gradually came into view, it was already nearly nine o'clock in the morning.

"Do rich people these days really like building inns in places like this?"

He had previously asked Koharu Yoshino to investigate the organizer of this fan gathering, who was also the owner of this hotel, Kanatani Hiroyuki.

After all, a man who dared to invite Conan to a gathering was probably either planning to use the gathering to kill someone, or was going to be murdered by the culprit during it.

Jiang Hang was far too familiar with this pattern. He felt there was at least an eighty percent chance his guess was right.

According to Koharu Yoshino's investigation, Kanatani Hiroyuki, now fifty-one, was somewhat similar to Jirokichi Suzuki. When he was young, he gave up inheriting the family business and took a sum of money to live a carefree life.

Of course, the Kanatani family was nowhere near the level of the Suzuki Conglomerate, so Kanatani Hiroyuki had merely used that money to build a hotel named "Mycroft" in this remote place.

Anyone familiar with Holmes would naturally know that the hotel's name came from Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes's elder brother, who was said to be even smarter than him.

This naturally showed that Kanatani Hiroyuki was also one of Japan's foremost Holmes fans. Every six months or so, he invited the core Holmes fans from across Japan to gather at his hotel. He had even published a book analyzing Holmes last year.

While sitting in the car, Conan had roughly read through Kanatani Hiroyuki's book, titled Aileen Adler's Mockery.

Conan's response to the book was, "The viewpoint is quite original, but I don't agree with what it says."

"Holmes once said that he had failed four times—three times to men, once to a woman. Although he never specifically named those people, and theories about the four have endlessly emerged ever since, the mainstream view at present is that Aileen Adler was the woman who defeated Holmes," Conan said, sharing his thoughts on the book with Jiang Hang.

"This book claims that Holmes's failure was an error in judgment, and I'm not very satisfied with its analysis of Aileen Adler either."

As he said this, Conan shook his head.

"No matter what, Aileen Adler was a woman Holmes respected greatly. How could she mock Holmes... I simply cannot agree with that."

Whenever Holmes was mentioned, Conan became especially animated. If Jiang Hang had not stopped him from continuing, he probably would have talked nonstop all the way to that remote hotel.

"This place really is remote. Even on Moon Shadow Island, my phone signal wasn't this bad..."

After arriving at their destination, Jiang Hang glanced at his phone signal and could not help complaining.

With a signal like this, even making a call would probably lag, never mind doing anything else on the phone.

At the same time, he activated his Eagle-Eyed Detective ability and swept his gaze over the surroundings.

This hotel had actually been built atop a cliff by the coast.

Although one could see the sea not far away directly from the cliff, if they truly wanted to reach the shore from here, they would probably have to take a detour for most of the day.

Jiang Hang estimated that even for him, it would take several hours to walk from here to somewhere inhabited.

Combined with the fact that there were practically no other buildings nearby, if anything really happened in this hotel, all of them would likely be trapped inside with no way to contact the outside world.

Then Jiang Hang instantly thought of—

Wasn't this the "Snow Mountain Villa Mode" popularized by that "granny," Agatha?

Who would have thought that Kanatani Hiroyuki, this thick-browed, earnest-looking guy who called himself a "core Holmes fan," had secretly been pulling this kind of stunt behind the scenes.

A Holmes fan gathering, a hotel built for Snow Mountain Villa Mode, and Conan, the god of death, arriving in the end—if nothing happened at this hotel, then I, Jiang Hang, would change my name to Jiang Xiaobai today!

A Reunion with Heiji Hattori

When Jiang Hang stepped into the hotel, its owner, Kanatani Hiroyuki, came forward to greet him.

"Welcome, welcome! Mr. Jiang Hang, the Eagle-Eyed Detective! I never expected you to attend this gathering as well. This truly is an honor!"

Over the past few days, even people with no interest in deduction had heard Jiang Hang's name here and there. For mystery enthusiasts, there was naturally no need to say more.

Jiang Hang briefly greeted him, then looked toward the hotel, which still seemed particularly deserted. "Has no one else arrived yet?"

Before Kanatani Hiroyuki could answer, a voice carrying a Kansai accent came in from outside.

"According to the original schedule, they probably won't arrive until after dark tonight."

Conan turned around in surprise and saw the dark-skinned teenager who had appeared behind them.

He had not expected that, so soon after their last encounter, Heiji Hattori—the Kansai high school detective from Osaka who kept insisting that he would find Shinichi Kudo—would appear before him again.

It had only been around ten days, hadn't it?

Conan muttered to himself inwardly.

He still remembered the look of shock and disbelief on the other boy's face when he had been calmly having afternoon tea at that diplomat's house, only for the police to suddenly show up and announce that someone had turned himself in.

And since Heiji Hattori's father was the chief superintendent of the Osaka Prefectural Police, Conan had more or less ruled out the possibility that he was a member of the Black Organization.

Jiang Hang, meanwhile, was not surprised at all.

In fact, when he had gotten out of the car and scanned the area with Eagle-Eyed Detective, he had already spotted this guy secretly observing from the side, as though he had been deliberately waiting for someone to arrive.

Now, it seemed that he had been waiting for them.

He nodded at Heiji Hattori. "Conan signed up for this gathering and was selected. Mr. Mouri and the others weren't interested in it, and I happened to have time, so I volunteered to bring Conan here."

"You probably didn't happen to have time—you were forced to come here because the media had been bothering you too much. Otherwise, you could've just taken the transportation arranged for this event. There was no need to rush here from Tokyo before dawn," Heiji Hattori said with a smile.

"A few days ago, you helped the police solve a case at a television station. News like solving a case live on air and finding the real culprit in ten minutes has been spreading all over Osaka these past few days."

As Heiji Hattori said this, he sighed. "I just never expected a Tokyo television station to dare broadcast something like that live, nor did I expect that host who cried on camera and said he would find the killer for the victim to actually be the murderer..."

"Brother Hattori, why are you here too? Did you also come for this Holmes gathering?" Conan resumed his act of pretending to be a child in order to fish for information.

He had heard from Jiang Hang that Ellery Queen was the detective the other boy liked. Why had he come to a Holmes fan gathering?

Heiji Hattori greeted Conan before explaining, "After I returned to Osaka, I thought about Kudo's matter for a long time. I still felt that I needed to keep investigating. I looked into him and learned that his dream was to become 'the Holmes of the Heisei Era.' Then I heard about this gathering of Holmes fans, so I wanted to come and see whether I could find any information related to him."

"Mr. Kanatani happens to be a friend of my father's, so I asked him to let me look over the list of applicants for this event."

He smiled and rubbed the back of his head. "I checked the list of participants for this gathering and didn't find any information on that Kudo guy. I originally wasn't planning to attend, but then I suddenly found out that you two were coming, so I decided to stay."

"And after learning you'd be arriving early, I estimated roughly when you'd set out and figured you'd probably arrive around this time, so I came out this morning to wait for you." As Heiji Hattori said this, he looked somewhat puzzled. "But you arrived an hour later than I expected. Did something happen on the road?"

So you stood around in that little woods outside for over an hour just so you could suddenly appear behind us when we entered the hotel and greet us?

"Ahem, perhaps because I'm usually a cautious person, I pay extra attention to safety when driving." Jiang Hang coughed and changed the subject.

"By the way, are you still looking for Shinichi Kudo?"

Heiji Hattori shook his head. "I haven't found anything useful lately. I just thought this gathering might be an opportunity, but I still couldn't find any clue about him."

Listening to Heiji Hattori, Jiang Hang couldn't help sighing inwardly. Heiji Hattori really was Shinichi Kudo's true love!

The last time they had returned to Tokyo, he'd said Shinichi Kudo might really have met with some kind of accident. Yet barely ten days had passed, and upon hearing there was a Sherlock Holmes gathering here, he'd come running over purely on instinct despite having no clues whatsoever.

What was even more damn ridiculous was that he had directly found the shrunken Shinichi Kudo both times. He just hadn't discovered the truth yet.

Jiang Hang remembered that in the original story, after meeting Conan a few times, Heiji Hattori seemed to have figured out Conan's true identity. But he couldn't remember exactly how.

Jiang Hang also didn't know whether, with his presence changing things, Heiji Hattori would still be able to uncover Conan's true identity.

He glanced at Conan beside him and could tell from the expression on his face that he felt equally helpless.

At that moment, Kanatani Hiroyuki asked curiously, "By the way, how did you two meet?"

Of course, he knew Heiji Hattori's identity. Heiji's father, Hattori Heizo, had helped him in the past, and for that reason, when he learned that Heiji Hattori wanted to investigate information about the participants of this gathering, he had readily invited him over.

But he had no idea how Jiang Hang and Heiji Hattori had come to know each other.

"Back in Tokyo, I received his guidance. He made me realize the flaws I had as a detective. I originally planned to meet him again after finishing my own training, but when I saw he was coming to this gathering, I couldn't resist following him here." Heiji Hattori frankly admitted that he had learned quite a lot from Jiang Hang.

Jiang Hang immediately felt goosebumps rise all over his body.

Could this guy Heiji Hattori have transferred the attitude he once had toward Shinichi Kudo onto me?