"Good thing you didn't fall for it."
After hearing Jiang Xia recount what had happened, the apprentice Female Magician let out a fearful sigh. "We've come here in previous years too. The manager said that forest is full of terrifying swamps. There's been plenty of rain lately, so if you step on one, you'll sink straight to the bottom. If you'd accidentally stepped into one..."
Jiang Xia said, "Looks like I got lucky."
Conan kept shaking his head. "Even if it ended well, you were way too reckless."
Jiang Xia said, "...?" Never mind everyone else—was he really qualified to say that about him?
He vigorously rubbed the Fake Elementary School Student's head, then tossed his dizzy classmate aside and said seriously, "The Hell Puppeteer is more aggressive than we imagined. We should uncover his true identity as soon as possible."
At the mention of this, Officer Sato sighed. "Without modern tools, there are simply too few clues we can obtain... However, judging roughly from past experience, the corpse that suddenly appeared on the stage in place of the puppet should have died fifteen to twenty minutes before it appeared."
"?!" The Magic Troupe members' expressions changed drastically when they heard that estimate. "Fifteen to twenty minutes... Doesn't that mean Yurama was already dead before the 'Living Doll' act even began?!"
Officer Takagi looked at them in confusion. "Yes. What's wrong? Is there a problem with that?"
"Of course there is!" Mermaid Princess blurted out excitedly. "The person scheduled to perform the 'Living Doll' tonight was Yurama himself!
"We thought he was killed by the murderer hiding in the ceiling after the show ended. But if he died before the performance even started... then who was controlling the 'Living Doll'?"
"Obviously, the Hell Puppeteer," Jiang Xia reassured her. "Didn't we