"Could it be—because Daido Katsumi is a NEVER modified body—?"
Philip seemed to think of something when he heard that, and turned to face the whiteboard.
He crouched in front of the whiteboard, picked up a black marker, and started writing and drawing on it.
"Hey, Philip, what are you talking about?
What's NEVER?"
Seeing this, Shotaro hurriedly asked.
"It was a forbidden project backed by Foundation X.
By implanting a special substance called AX Cells, it could revive a heart that had already stopped beating.
And grant the ability to never die—"
Sudo Kirihiko explained after hearing him.
"Wait, you're saying Daido Katsumi was a dead man brought back to life?!!"
Hearing that answer, Shotaro's hand trembled, his face full of disbelief.
If that technology really existed—if it really could bring the dead back to life—
He thought of that figure who had fallen in the night, that man who had taught him to wear a hat, who had taught him what a detective was.
"Don't think about it, Shotaro.
That technology came with a price.
The price of revival was that one's human emotions would dry up over time.
They would lose their sense of taste, their sense of pain, and in the end even compassion and love would be worn away.
In other words, although they possessed the memories from when the dead were alive, in essence they were just walking corpses wearing human skin."
Philip seemed to see through his partner's thoughts and spoke up to explain.
Shotaro closed his eyes and forcefully pushed down that absurd thought in his mind.
So that was how it was—the old man definitely wouldn't have liked that kind of rebirth.
"That's right, but it was precisely because of that distorted body structure that Daido Katsumi was able to achieve