Chapter 115: Finding the Killer
"I... I don't really know..." Mouri Ran blinked, her voice dipping a little lower. "But if it were possible, I think I'd want to meet them again — at least to say a proper goodbye. Waiting is just so long, especially when you don't know how long the wait will be. I wouldn't want the person I love to go on living with a longing that has no hope in it..."
"Grown-ups are so weird. Why are the two of you so different?" Moroboshi shook his head, then turned curiously to the other adult in the group. "Then what about you, Xia Yu... ahem, Miss Xia Yu? If it were you, what would you do?"
He had been about to call her by name outright, but the moment he met Xia Yu's razor-sharp glare, his survival instincts kicked in and he swapped to honorifics mid-sentence.
"Me, huh..." Xia Yu considered it for a moment. She had never known what it felt like to miss someone, so the closest thing she could imagine was projecting the feeling onto that good-for-nothing brother of hers — the one she couldn't so much as catch a glimpse of.
Everyone watched as Xia Yu pondered for a beat, then let out a cold laugh, her voice sinking low. "Me? I'd move heaven and earth to see that person one more time. Hah, forget about me and start over? Not a chance! And if I showed up and they didn't recognize me — or had already forgotten me — I'd beat them black and blue until their whole body remembered. Then I'd keep beating them on the regular, so it sticks even better."
Everyone: "......"
Cold sweat beaded on Conan's head. That last line in particular, paired with what he knew of Miss Xia Yu's combat prowess, made him break out in a nervous sweat all over again.
Conan: Ran really is the gentler one after all... No idea who Miss Xia Yu was just thinking about, but whoever it was must be pretty impressive to have survived this long.
Once the idle chatter died down, the group talked things over a little longer and agreed that their first move should be to find the guild president, Marcel; Vacher could wait until they turned up more leads.
Just as everyone was about to set out, that familiar time acceleration swept over them again.
Having been through it once before, no one panicked the way they had the first time. They simply stood in place and waited, and before long it was late morning of the next day — two days since they'd arrived in the game, by their count. Which meant tomorrow was the day of the courtroom showdown with the Hydro Archon.
The clock was ticking closer with every step, and yet all they had so far was a single thread on the missing girls case — let alone any way to solve the prophecy. A thread of anxiety, impossible to suppress, crept into everyone's hearts.
But there was nothing for it. All any of them could do was gather clues as fast as humanly possible.
When they reached the guild president's home, bad luck struck — the man was out. Questioning his servant, they learned that Marcel was currently at the cemetery beside Poisson, paying respects to an old friend.
Left with no alternative, the group hurried to Poisson once more. Fortunately the distance wasn't far this time, and they arrived in short order.
Beside the graveyard, they spotted two figures: a girl with long, curling golden hair dressed in a gorgeous yellow-and-black gown, and a somewhat older middle-aged man. That man, presumably, was the very Marcel they had been searching for.
Having found him, they didn't rush over brazenly; the plan was to wait until the memorial visit ended before approaching with their questions.
But the girl noticed Xia Yu's group lingering nearby, and connecting them with the information she'd already gathered, guessed that they had business with her and Marcel. She waved them over.
After a brief round of introductions, the group learned the girl's name (honestly, too lazy to invent one — it doesn't matter here anyway, so let's just say her name isn't Navia), along with the fact that the person they'd come to mourn today was the girl's father — and Marcel's dear friend.
Then, under a tag-team interrogation from the group — with the girl, once she understood the situation, lending her own help — they finally flushed out the culprit behind the missing girls case: none other than guild president Marcel himself. He was also the mastermind who had framed the girl's father, Callas, and indirectly driven him to his death.
Marcel, cornered by their questioning, had let the truth slip out of his own mouth — but he wasn't particularly rattled. After all, Xia Yu and the others had no evidence, and the proof held by that supporting performer was hardly enough to establish that he was the one behind the missing girls.
The girl had believed her father's name was finally about to be cleared, but Marcel's words stoked her anger in an instant. She had never imagined that the man who had always looked after her so kindly was the very culprit who had destroyed her father — and now that he'd been found out, he sat there shamelessly confident, protected by the lack of proof. She could never have imagined a person could change so fast. Acting on pure impulse, she started arguing with Marcel right there.
And in the middle of that argument, Conan and the others learned, to their shock, that Marcel wasn't actually a Fontainian at all — and that his true name wasn't Marcel either. It was a name they'd already heard before, from the pure-water spirit: Vacher.
With such a crucial piece of intelligence in hand, Conan and company hesitated over whether or not to tell him about the pure-water spirit.
After all, Genta and the others had promised her they would never let Vacher see her. But time was running out now, and this was probably the only way to force a quick confession. Whatever it took, they had to try.
For safety's sake, it was Xia Yu who stepped forward to separate Marcel and the girl, then asked him point-blank: "Do you have a lover who was dissolved by water, just like this?"
Marcel's eyes went wide with astonishment. "How do you know that? I erased every record — and I never said a word about it just now. Which leaves only one possibility. You people..."
Xia Yu nodded. "That's right. We've met her."
"What?! Really?! You've SEEN her!!!" Marcel cried out, and then, his face flooding with desperate worry, he pleaded, "Then how is she now? Can you tell me where she is? If you'll just let me see her — just once — I'll turn myself in, I swear it!"
Watching Marcel's reaction, Conan understood: the man still clearly loved the lover who had vanished from his life. Which made it all the harder to comprehend why he would lay hands on innocent girls, condemning them to the very same tragedy his beloved had suffered.
He darted over to Xia Yu's side and demanded, "Then first tell us — why? Why did you do it? Why did you hurt those innocent girls!?"
At Conan's question, Marcel froze for a moment, then twisted his mouth into a stiff smile. "Innocent? Oh, they were innocent, were they... Then was Vernier not innocent?! Vernier dissolved in front of me. I watched her turn to water with my own eyes — watched her seep into the ground, and no matter how I reached for her, I couldn't hold on. Do you have any idea how much that tore me apart?!"
"No! You don't! None of you — not the shadow patrols, not the Gardes, not a single one of you — you don't know! No one believed a word I said. Everyone took me for a liar. To all of you, Vernier had simply gone missing on some adventure, and I'd started raving because I couldn't accept it."