"Strange, why did only you children come back?" The Doctor tilted his head, looking at the five kids.
Where did Tsuneo go? Did he get lost?
"It's nothing. I'm sure he'll make it back before lunch no matter what..." Conan looked up at the sun.
That man's stomach is more accurate than any clock.
"Eh?"
"A limestone cave?"
"There might be treasure inside?" Akemi was listening to Ayumi recount what had just happened.
Why do these children always run into these kinds of things...
"There isn't that much treasure in this world." Haibara didn't believe a word of it.
Since Akemi had prepared all the ingredients beforehand, there wasn't much work to be done. Everyone sat together chatting, waiting for Tsuneo to return so they could start eating.
"Why isn't he back yet?" Only Genta kept staring in the direction of the cave, looking anxious.
His stomach was already starting to growl.
"Should we go take a look? Nothing bad happened, right?" Mitsuhiko checked his wristwatch and realized nearly thirty minutes had passed.
Just going in for a quick look shouldn't take this long.
"It'll be fine. Let's just start grilling the meat. He'll come back as soon as he smells it." Conan stretched lazily.
The probability of him having an accident is lower than the probability of us running into a tiger while sitting here.
"Walk faster."
Just then—perhaps summoned by the words 'grilling meat'—Tsuneo's voice drifted over from the direction of the distant stone cave.
Everyone stood up and looked over curiously. Who is he talking to?
Did he catch some kind of animal?
Soon, a scene that left them dumbfounded came into view.
A significantly lengthened belt was tightly cinched around the waists of three strangers.
It was obvious that the belts from all three men's trousers had been buckled together to form a tether.
The state of the three men was quite interesting.
The man walking in front had a center-part hairstyle and wore a suit, looking every bit the villain.
The two men behind him, however, had their heads lolling to the side, blood streaming down, their status—dead or alive—unknown. They relied entirely on the 'villain' in front to drag them along like an ox pulling a plow.
"I already said I'd come quietly! Why did you have to take my belt?!" The center-part man glanced at Tsuneo, yet dared not raise his voice, revealing only a look of deep resentment.
Because his two companions behind him had no belts, their pants had been dragged down to their ankles, exposing four bare thighs scraping along the ground.
The center-part man was in a similar predicament, constantly hitching up his pants, sweating profusely. Dragging two full-grown adults had him on the verge of collapse.
"How do I know you won't try to trick me?" Tsuneo walked alongside them, carrying a man who was thoroughly dead with a bullet hole in his forehead, while three handguns were tucked into his waistband.
"I..." The man with the center-part wanted to curse, but he didn't dare.
This guy was like a ghost. Bullets couldn't hit him. It was absolutely terrifying.
He hadn't even shown his face before two of the man's companions had gone down.
Recalling the sound of the wind as those two fist-sized rocks flew through the air, the center-part man felt his scalp go numb.
After his partners fell, he had shone his flashlight and fired his gun wildly, only to result in... taking seven or eight massive slaps to the face until it was swollen.
The center-part man suspected that if this guy didn't need someone to act as a pack mule, he probably would have been taken out by a rock too...
Seeing this scene, Conan rushed straight out from the campsite.
"What on earth is going on???" The famous detective first glanced at the two men tied to the center-part man. They had head wounds and were bleeding, but they seemed to be alive.
As for the one the handyman was carrying, he had taken a shot to the forehead. He was as dead as one could be, staring at the ground with wide, unseeing eyes.
"Bank robbers again..." Tsuneo didn't know what was wrong with the banks in this world; they were just too easy to rob.
Do people just have nothing better to do?
Bored? Go rob a bank. It's not like there are consequences... usually.
"Did they kill their partner over an uneven split of the loot?"
"Was it inside that limestone cave?"
"Which bank did they rob?"
The famous detective had a lot of questions.
"Eat!" Tsuneo kicked him aside, then tied the three half-dead robbers to a large tree near the campsite.
Go interrogate them yourself somewhere else; Big Brother is going to eat meat!
"Tsuneo-kun, I've already called the police." There was no signal deep in the mountains, so Dr. Agasa had driven out for a loop until he found reception to make the call.
Naturally, in addition to the police, he had also called for an ambulance.
Dr. Agasa felt that those two bleeding criminals might still be salvageable...
The three Detective Boys ate their food while constantly turning their heads to look at the three criminals and the corpse in the distance.
This backdrop... gave off a very strange feeling...
"Luckily we didn't go inside. That was really dangerous!" Ayumi patted her little chest as she looked at the three pistols Tsuneo had tossed aside.
"It seems Haibara was right. There really aren't that many treasures in the world." Mitsuhiko nodded in agreement.
"Barbecue!" Genta was eating roast meat, having already forgotten everything else.
The meat prepared by the Doctor and the others was indeed delicious and of high quality.
Of course, the best food in the world is still eel over rice!
"You all should take this as a warning. The opposition had three guns. Even with this guy going in, there was a high chance he might never have come back," Haibara said, glancing at the famous detective.
"Hey, hey, hey..." Conan gave her a side-eye.
I have some combat ability too, you know?
Armed robbers captured, and one dead. This was no small matter, and the police arrived quickly.
"Brother Tsuneo, you've been a huge help again!" The one arriving on the scene was our old acquaintance, Inspector Megure.
The paramedics had already checked the two unconscious robbers with head injuries; there were no major life-threatening issues.
"It was nothing. Inspector Megure, have you eaten?" Tsuneo held the tongs, the meat sizzling on the grill in front of him.
When Dr. Agasa called the police, it was right at noon. They had likely rushed over without eating.
"No need, I grabbed a bite in the car." Inspector Megure smiled, turning to take the prisoners back to the Metropolitan Police Department.
The handyman was in the middle of camping, so the detailed statement would have to wait until later.
Though, come to think of it, are you getting too close to that jinx, Mouri? Even taking kids camping results in this kind of incident.
"By the way, today is a holiday. Did Dr. Araide call?" Tsuneo suddenly remembered something.
He had orchestrated a little scene specifically to increase Vermouth's workload. He wondered if she was happy about it.
"Yes, I've made the arrangements. They should have met by now." Inspector Megure nodded.
Dr. Araide really is a good man!
Conan looked at Tsuneo and Inspector Megure with curiosity. There seems to be something going on between these two that I don't know about.
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