Sodium Aluminate!

"Good morning, Tang Ze. Is this a new outfit?" Azusa Enomoto wiped down the counter, looked up to see Tang Ze coming downstairs in a British-style trench coat, and smiled at him.

"Yes. Good morning, Miss Enomoto." Having changed into casual clothes in a familiar style, Tang Ze felt fantastic. He greeted her as he picked up a rag and helped wipe the tables.

Tang Ze worked with his head down, utterly focused, but Azusa Enomoto could not help finding it amusing.

Putting the outfit of a thirty-year-old man on an eighteen-year-old boy with a baby face did not make him seem older at all. Instead, it made him look even more youthful.

Maybe because his face was cute, he wanted his clothes to look as mature as possible?

Azusa Enomoto nudged her impression of Tang Ze a little further toward "cute kid," then praised him with a suppressed laugh. "You have great taste, Tang Ze."

Completely unaware, Tang Ze cheerfully helped open the café and hung up the Open sign.

Naturally, he was not going to school today either.

He had transferred to Teitan High School for three days, and two of them had been holidays. Setting everything else aside, Tang Ze wholeheartedly supported Conan's world's holiday schedule.

After getting his equipment in order and saying goodbye to Azusa Enomoto, Tang Ze headed out toward Maru Denjirou's Palace.

Maru Denjirou was probably on edge because of last night's calling card. The Maru family residence was likely surrounded so tightly that not even water could pass through.

Unfortunately, Conan's world's sword could not cut down P5's officials.

He passed through the alleyways, rounded a corner, and tapped a button on his phone.

He stepped into the empty streets of the Cognitive World, and his figure instantly vanished into the shadows.

More than ten seconds later, the person following Tang Ze entered the same corner.

Looking at the empty alley, he raised an eyebrow without much surprise.

Tang Ze Zhao truly possessed counter-surveillance and anti-tracking abilities. Shuichi Akai confirmed it once again.

Click. A pistol was cocked.

Shuichi Akai immediately twisted aside to evade the incoming bullet and looked toward the alley behind him.

Tooru Amuro held up his gleaming HK P7M8, aiming at him with naked malice.

"Rye, why are you here?"

Naturally, Tang Ze had no idea that the two people tailing him had run into each other after he slipped past them. He happily switched into Phantom Thief form and sprinted toward Maru Denjirou's home.

The Palace owner's complete alertness had brought out a group of red-eyed Shadows, patrolling amid eerie crimson light. Maru Denjirou's Shadow was no longer swaggering around the streets either, and the gates of the Maru residence were tightly shut.

Having played games for so long, Tang Ze was not the least bit panicked. If anything, he felt the lack of BGM made things a little less exciting.

Because the Palace's layout would not change with its owner's alert level, his infiltration route was still viable. If the increased patrols led to him being discovered...

Then he would just slaughter every Shadow that discovered him!

As a veteran gamer, Tang Ze deeply understood one principle: if everyone who saw him was dead, it was still stealth.

Scaling walls, climbing rooftops, jumping, sneaking—he did it all in one fluid motion.

Perhaps it was a bonus from his awakening, but this untrained teenage body displayed one hundred percent of Tang Ze's ability in the Cognitive World: light, nimble, and brimming with strength.

Even though there were twice as many guards around the courtyard as yesterday, and the Shadows' searchlight-like gazes bathed the entire yard in red, Tang Ze still easily followed the rooftops and climbed into the inner courtyard.

The entire main residence was surrounded by countless samurai Shadows, as though wrapped in red mist. Maru Denjirou had changed into a shogun's armor, gripping a katana as he glared around the courtyard.

Damn, this atmosphere was seriously creepy.

Tang Ze braced himself against the eaves, looked down, and reached for the mask on his face.

Then he leaped.

While still in midair, the mask in Tang Ze's hand transformed into flames, and the menacing Twenty Faces rose behind him.

Stealth? What stealth?

Tang Ze glanced at Twenty Faces' fully loaded skill list, flashed his teeth provocatively at the roaring Maru Denjirou, and grinned.

Did he even understand the sheer value of a third playthrough?

Of course, he had not spent all of last night beating up Lavenza. He had taken out his fully registered Persona Compendium, packed with Personas whose skills had all been carefully optimized, then pulled out his entire savings of ninety million yen and fused at high speed for a while.

And just like that, a Twenty Faces with a completely filled skill list and attacks of every element had been born.

"Come on, trash." Tang Ze swung one hand back, grabbed a dagger, and held it before him. "Let me see what kind of garbage element you are."

His disdainful tone immediately enraged Maru Denjirou. Maru Denjirou stepped forward with a roar, and the surrounding samurai closed in.

"You sniveling little brat! I'll chop off your hands, your legs, and your head one by one, hang them before the gates to dry in the wind, and make you understand the consequences of provoking a daimyo!"

After finishing that long line, Maru Denjirou, clad in armor plates, burst apart. Black mud cracked and fell to the ground, revealing his true twisted form.

Blade after blade, long and short, wrapped around the floating armor at the center like ribs. An even longer odachi stood behind it, stabbed into the ground.

More symbols of military power and authority—gold seals and helmets—were pulled by the black mud to float around the monster of flashing blades, like a spiderweb covered in prey.

"Eugh, why is it a spider? That's kind of disgusting." Tang Ze curled his lip and assumed a combat stance. Twenty Faces gave a hoarse laugh, its black misty tentacles spreading wide. "You sure do talk a lot. You really have none of a villain's style. Get him, Twenty Faces, Persona—!"

"Huh? The meeting was canceled?" Mori Kogoro looked at the calendar, completely baffled. "Didn't Mr. Maru say that today was the only day he had time to receive visitors?"

"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Mori." Maru Denjirou's secretary gave a bitter laugh over the phone. "After dinner yesterday, Mr. Maru's home received many threatening letters. Mr. Maru is extremely nervous today and has rejected all meeting requests."

"Threatening letters?" Mori Kogoro's earlier dissatisfaction immediately turned serious. "Has he received threats against his life?"

"Well, that's a little difficult to define..." The secretary sounded hesitant. "Some people think it's a prank, while others believe a competitor is creating a smokescreen..."

"Can you tell me the details?" Mori Kogoro straightened up, as though he had caught the scent of a case. "Threatening letters are no small matter."

The letters fluttering all over the street had caused quite a commotion. After thinking for a moment, the secretary stopped concealing it. "Can you receive a fax? I'll fax the threatening letters to you. If you can help us find the person causing trouble, we would be immensely grateful."

Conan, whose ears had perked up the moment he heard "threatening letters," quietly edged over to Mori Kogoro's desk. Gripping the edge, he lifted his head up, trying to hear what they were talking about.

After hanging up, Mori Kogoro irritably gave Conan a hard knock on the forehead. The fax machine began creaking as it spat out sheets of paper.

"What is this? A calling card?" Mori Kogoro frowned at the sentences on the fax, clearly pieced together from printed newspaper characters of varying sizes.

"'Phantom Thieves of Hearts'..." Conan stubbornly poked his head up again and read the final signature on the calling card alongside him.

...What kind of cringe declaration is this letter?

The corner of Conan's mouth twitched, but he instinctively memorized the strange signature.

Ah, the Palace section really did move too fast. Fast, fast, fast—I am the King of Fast.

But there was no helping it. It was not a major case, and the process still had to be covered, so I tried to speed through it without padding things out with combat.

_(:з"∠)_ Thanks for following and for the tips, this newbie bows to everyone, bang bang bang.