Conan immediately plastered an innocent, childish smile onto his face, but his mind was racing at a thousand miles per hour. Looking at the two strangers in that impossible space, he felt a profound sense of vertigo.
He had simply wanted to go upstairs to bed. But when he opened his bedroom door, he hadn't found his bed—he had found a void.
Am I dreaming? Could this be a secondary hallucination from that Black Organization drug?
"Holy crap! Conan?!"
Just as Conan was about to retreat and find Dr. Agasa for a psychiatric evaluation, the person in his "hallucination" called out his name with shocking familiarity.
And... he was staring.
Conan subconsciously covered his backside, a cold sweat breaking out as he forced a strained, high-pitched laugh. "Heh... heh... Uncle, I'm just going to sleep now. Goodbye!"
His intuition—honed by a hundred murder scenes—screamed that staying here would lead to something catastrophic. He took a calculated step back and slammed the door shut.
It was only then that he realized his ordinary bedroom door had briefly transformed into a blocky, pixelated wooden slab. He had never seen craftsmanship like that in his life. However, as soon as the latch clicked, the "wood" vanished, replaced by the familiar grain of his own door.
What was that? A hallucination? Or some kind of advanced holographic projection?
As a detective in a world governed by logic, Conan refused to consider supernatural powers; to do so would make his entire profession meaningless.
Just then, the door to the next room opened. Ran walked out, rubbing her eyes. "Conan? What was that noise? I thought I heard a bang."
Conan snapped out of his trance, waving his hands nervously. "N-nothing! I just closed the door a little too hard. Sorry, Ran-neechan! You should go back to sleep."
Ran scrutinized him for a moment, and after confirming he wasn't hurt, she nodded. "Well, don't stay up too late. Tomorrow we're going to the Beika Museum with Dad, remember?"
Conan flashed his best "good boy" act. "I understand!"
Once Ran was gone, Conan stared at his doorknob. He reached out cautiously, his heart hammering against his ribs. He turned the handle. This time, the door revealed only his messy bedroom.
"Phew... it really was a hallucination. That drug is definitely still affecting my brain. After I deal with Phantom Thief 1412 tomorrow, I'm going to the Doctor for a full check-up."
Back in the Overworld.
"W-was that... a child?"
If not for the new wooden door standing stubbornly on the far wall, Eri would have assumed his sanity had finally hit zero.
Sylas reached down and plucked an Oak Sapling and a crisp Apple from the grass. "That was indeed a child. Specifically, Edogawa Conan."
"Conan? You know him?" Eri stepped forward, intrigued. "Is that a Japanese name?"
"You could say that," Sylas replied, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the door. "I didn't expect the Overworld to connect not only to the Backrooms but to other universes entirely. Things are getting interesting."
Sylas planted the sapling. He had only managed to secure two saplings from the first tree—not great odds, but enough to keep the cycle going.
"Eri, get some rest. I'll keep watch."
Eri didn't argue. He had been awake for over twenty hours, most of which were spent fleeing for his life. The grass blocks were surprisingly soft, like a thick, springy carpet, and the temperature in the Overworld remained a perfect, artificial constant. He fell into a deep sleep almost instantly.
Hoo... pshhh... hoo... pshhh...
Sylas glanced over. "He even snores."
He turned back to his work. He opened his Inventory and processed the logs into 16 Oak Planks, then hammered four of them together to create a Crafting Table.
In the logic of this world, the Crafting Table was the altar of progress. Without it, he was just a man with a stone tool; with it, he was an engineer of fate.
"First things first: a Furnace."
He had a theory to test. He placed the table on the grass and used eight blocks of Cobblestone—mined from the depths earlier—to craft a stone furnace.
He opened the UI. Three slots: Input, Fuel, and Output. He placed the remains of the metal shelf he'd scavenged from Level 1 into the top slot and tossed his remaining wooden planks into the bottom.
The fire icon flickered to life. Sylas's heart raced.
"Excellent. It can actually smelt 'real-world' metal into game-logic materials."
He thought of the endless miles of copper piping, steel rebar, and industrial machinery in Level 1. The Backrooms wasn't just a maze; it was a sprawling, multi-layered iron mine.
The smelting was slow, but when the first Iron Ingot materialized in the output slot, Sylas felt a surge of pure greed. A single shelf yielded three ingots.
Long live the shelves, he thought darkly.
By the time the wood burned out, he had over twenty Iron Ingots.
"Iron Pickaxe first. Then a Chestplate, Leggings, and Boots." He paused, tapping his chin. "Wait... I need an Iron Bucket."
He could handle being "naked," but he couldn't survive without the utility of a bucket. It was the ultimate tool for fluid management and "clutch" saves.
He spent three ingots on the bucket and the rest on his armor. As he slotted the Iron Chestplate and Leggings into his equipment screen, he felt a strange, metallic weight settle over his skin. There was no visual change to his blue T-shirt, but the invisible barrier of "Armor Points" now thrummed with protective power.
With one ingot left, he looked at the new door—the one leading to the world of the pint-sized detective.
"Should I pay him a visit?"