The Game Case
"Haibara, are you okay? Are you feeling unwell?" Ayumi noticed Haibara's behavior and asked, a note of worry creeping into her voice.
Haibara shook her head, signaling that she was fine.
"Then come over here, Haibara! Klee's brother brought a new game — let's all play it together!" Hearing that she was all right, Ayumi relaxed and cheerfully tugged Haibara over to Genta's side, pointing at the thing in his hands.
Ran and the others drifted over out of curiosity as well, and Sonoko, ignoring Genta's protests, snatched the game's packaging right out of his hands.
She glanced at the description on the box and felt a flicker of disappointment. Wasn't this just some ordinary logic-puzzle game? No handsome leading men, so it was bound to be boring. Figures only little brats would like this kind of thing.
Sonoko handed it back to Genta. By now, Albedo had already loaded the game onto the device, and Mitsuhiko and Klee had taken up their controllers, ready to begin.
It was a two-player game called Case Investigation Guide — a title about as unremarkable as they came.
The two players took the roles of a seasoned, meticulous veteran detective and a rookie who had only just joined the force — well-meaning but careless, prone to the occasional blunder. According to the setup, the department's mission was to train the rookie, so the veteran had been assigned to mentor him for a while. As it happened, a string of cases had recently broken out, and their superior put the two of them on the job: find the killer.
A thoroughly clichéd premise. Conan watched the opening and quickly lost interest — compared to that, he was far more curious about the newly arrived Diluc and Albedo.
But those two clearly cared more about Klee's mood than anything else. Even Diluc, expressionless as ever, stood off to the side keeping an eye on how Klee was enjoying the game.
Conan couldn't very well do much at a moment like this, so he resigned himself to turning back and seeing how Mitsuhiko and Klee were faring. Maybe he could even drop them a hint or two.
The game's opening exposition was over by now, and its two protagonists were investigating the first case.
The moment a case appeared on screen, Conan finally perked up a little.
What the two in-game detectives had stumbled onto was a murder — a body dumped and abandoned. Mitsuhiko, controlling the veteran detective, was in charge of examining the crime scene, while Klee, controlling the rookie, was tasked with questioning the person who had reported it.
Conan could see that, presumably because this was a game made for children, the art style had been softened — the scene looked nothing like as gruesome as the real thing would have.
Not that he thought it mattered. Given the nerve these kids had shown in the past, even a perfectly authentic crime scene probably wouldn't have fazed them.
Under the chattering, overlapping guidance of Genta and Ayumi, Mitsuhiko soon finished combing every clue out of the scene.
The victim carried no clothing or identification that might reveal who he was. Beyond that, the collectible clues totaled four: a tattoo on his ankle, a red cord anklet, three playing cards tucked right up against the body, and the pattern of lividity on the corpse.
Then the game presented a choice, asking Mitsuhiko which of the four clues he wanted to pursue first.
"I think the anklet matters most," Ayumi said. "It's the only thing on him. How could it not have something to do with the killer?"
Mitsuhiko didn't think too hard about it. Following Ayumi's suggestion, he selected the anklet first.
Conan opened his mouth, then stopped himself — but after glancing at the other adults present, he swallowed the words.
Unfortunately, after an exhausting search you finally traced the anklet to its source — only to find it was a cheap, ordinary trinket the victim bought on a whim. It holds no meaning whatsoever. Investigation progress delayed.
Ayumi slumped a little at the wrong answer.
"See? I told you we should've picked the tattoo," Genta piped up. "It's gotta have some special meaning."
"No way!" Ayumi shot back. "You never said anything about the tattoo just now! And besides, now I think the playing cards are way more suspicious than some tattoo."
Haibara stayed out of the discussion entirely, edging as far away from Hondo Eisuke as she reasonably could.
Hondo Eisuke watched the children debate the game's clues with all the gravity of real detectives, his eyes gone slightly vague. Was this seriously the level kids' games had reached these days?
"I think those three playing cards are pretty suspicious too, honestly," he offered. "By all logic, they're either a calling card left by the killer or a clue the victim left pointing to the killer. What do you say, Conan?" He laid out his analysis, then smoothly passed the conversational ball to Conan.
Conan stroked his chin, thinking. It was true — three playing cards turning up right beside the body felt jarring. The five of diamonds, the king of spades, and the jack of spades... what could they stand for?
Numbers? Converted, that would be 5, 11, 13...
Letters? Going by the order of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet — E, K, M. He turned it over in his head for a while, but nothing particularly meaningful came of it.
"Yeah, Conan! A dying message like that — you'd have figured it out in no time back in the day!" At Genta's words, expectant eyes swung toward Conan as well.
"Haha, come on — those were all just coincidences. Heh. Coincidences." With everyone's attention now squarely on him thanks to Genta, Conan laughed awkwardly and waved his hands.
"Still... I think the playing cards are suspicious too."
He supposed it was better not to speak up too freely — saved Haibara chewing him out later — but in the end, Conan couldn't resist offering his two cents anyway.
Mitsuhiko scratched his head, wavering. Which of the remaining three options should he pick? Was the very first choice supposed to be this hard?
Suddenly, inspiration struck him like a lightning bolt. He whipped his head around toward the person patiently coaching Klee from behind her and called out, "Mister Albedo!"
Albedo looked over at Mitsuhiko, his gaze asking what the matter was.
Having impulsively shouted for someone he barely knew, Mitsuhiko felt a twinge of regret — but the other's gentle demeanor put him at ease. He relaxed and asked whether Albedo happened to know any hints for the game.
"I'm afraid not," Albedo said. "This game was a gift from someone else. I honestly don't know its contents — I've only heard her say it was based on real events."
Then he turned to Diluc. "Diluc, your thoughts?"
Every eye in the room — Conan's included — swung curiously toward Diluc.
Diluc's manner came across as somewhat cool, but he answered Albedo's question in earnest all the same. "I don't have any particular insight. It's just that these clues strike me as awfully flashy. For all we know, none of them mean a thing."
Kaeya clapped his hands. "Master Diluc is absolutely right! Who ever said the things found beside a corpse have to be useful? Maybe the killer just fumbled and dropped them."
For some reason, even though Kaeya was ostensibly agreeing with Diluc, everyone in the room detected a distinctly barbed edge in his voice.