"So in the end, they still chose to cooperate..."
"What else could they do? They probably couldn't outcompete each other, and they all wanted to get their hands on this code."
"So which side ended up taking the lead?"
"Looks like Mr. Naito was put in charge of coordinating..."
"Hmm, he did seem easier to talk to."
"I thought the three of them were more or less the same..."
Ran Mouri and Conan, trailing behind Mori Kogoro, whispered to each other as they followed the group ahead into the hotel lobby.
As Mori Kogoro led the way, he looked back at the three clients strolling behind him as leisurely as tourists and curled his lip. "You three were competing that fiercely, yet you could still discuss hiring a detective together and come catch someone together. That's not easy."
"It was because he mentioned in his email that he was handling more than one job at a time that I knew something was wrong, so I contacted some friends in the industry to ask around. That's how the three of us got together." Johei Naito, who was acting as the primary contact, explained, "The projects are indeed competitors, but we're just project managers or employees. We may have chances to work together in the future."
In other words, the competition was between products and companies. As employees, they might still have to see each other regularly in the future. There was no need to make things so ugly.
"Actually, there are more than just the three of us." Ryusuke Soma spoke flatly. "As far as I know, he only took on the three of our games. He also accepted quite a few other projects."
"He can't possibly finish all that, can he?"
"Definitely not. But the deposits were already paid in