Officer Shiratori lowered his head and looked at his watch. "..." How long had it even been since they arrived at the scene? A bizarre case like a corpse hidden inside secondhand furniture—just hearing about it was enough to give people a headache—had actually already been solved.
...Good thing he had been clever enough just now and hadn't proposed another bet, or he would have embarrassed himself twice today.
In the time it took him to mutter a couple of things in his heart, Jiang Xia and the others walked over and stopped at the shop entrance.
The detective who made people both love and hate him glanced inside the shop, then asked offhandedly like a leader who had come for an inspection, "What's the situation here?"
Sato Miwako happened to be passing by. Hearing this, she stopped and explained, "Here's what happened. A group of graduate students were having a meal here, and they were also celebrating one student's birthday. But right after the candles were blown out, just as they were about to cut the cake, the birthday girl suddenly collapsed and couldn't get up..."
An hour earlier.
Okiya Subaru arrived right on time at this semi-self-service Specialty Hotel, holding the backpack of his that was both bulletproof and bladeproof, deeply unwilling.
To be honest, he didn't want to attend any kind of banquet at all. But today's reason for the gathering was to celebrate the birthday of a senior schoolmate from the lab. If he refused...
In Okiya Subaru's mind, an image appeared of that senior schoolmate shouting, "You actually dared to refuse me? Are you looking down on me?!" while stabbing at him with a knife, along with a scene of her simp shouting, "I love her so much, and you actually dared to refuse