The next day.
Afternoon.
On a road through the forest, a car drove slowly along.
Inside the car, Kurosawa Hoshino sat in the middle of the back seat, with Ran and Sonoko on either side. They looked out at the scenery and exclaimed, "Hoshino, Ran, the snow is so thick here!"
"Yeah, there's no snow where we are, but here it's already piled up in a thick layer."
"It's all right." Kurosawa Hoshino was very calm. He'd experienced winter snow one day and summer heat the next—he was long past being surprised.
"Honestly, why did we come all this way? The roads are terrible. I wouldn't have come if I'd known," came the grumbling voice from the front—Kogoro Mouri, who was driving.
The car was also rented by Kogoro Mouri, specifically to bring Kurosawa Hoshino and the others here.
Beside him in the passenger seat, Conan heard this and thought sourly, Ran gave you next week's allowance in advance, that's why you agreed to drive them. You're acting like you volunteered.
Ran smiled sweetly. "So, Dad, do you want to back out? If you do, give me back the allowance and I'll give it to you next week when it's due."
Kogoro Mouri said righteously, "I may complain, but I'm a man of my word. I won't give up halfway."
He paused, then changed the subject. "By the way, that castle we passed on the road earlier was pretty nice. It looked big, too. I wonder what kind of rich people like to build houses in a deserted place like this."
Hearing that, Kurosawa Hoshino also thought of the castle they'd passed. It gave him the feeling of the castle from the "Blue Castle Exploration Case." Of course, it might just be similar—it wasn't necessarily that exact castle.
"It was all right." Sonoko sounded uninterested. "If you guys want to see a castle, I can take you to one my family bought someday."
"As expected of a rich girl," Kurosawa Hoshino teased.
"I'm immune to your comments by now." Sonoko suddenly reached out and snatched the hat off his head. "We're deep in the mountains now. You don't need to wear this anymore."
"I'm just afraid your online friends will be scared when they see me," Kurosawa Hoshino said, snatching the hat back and putting it on again.
Ran laughed. "I think as long as someone doesn't have a guilty conscience or isn't about to commit a crime, no one would be afraid of you."
"Heh~" Kurosawa Hoshino smiled and didn't explain.
He remembered this episode. Before the story began, the culprit had actually already killed someone.
The plot was something like this: an elderly magician used his granddaughter's account to chat with a group of magic enthusiasts online. One day, he heard some people talking about him and mocking his signature escape trick. So the old man, ignoring his frail health, performed the escape trick himself one day. But due to lack of stamina, the trick failed, and he died accidentally.
His granddaughter, while sorting through his belongings, learned what had happened. At first, she was just sad—not yet at the point of murder. But when she logged into his account and checked the chat group, she found two members talking about her grandfather, and not in a nice way.
And so, those two members were marked by the god of death, and this magic enthusiast gathering came to be.
"Finally here." Kogoro Mouri said in relief, slowing the car to a stop in front of a suspension bridge.
Kurosawa Hoshino got out. He looked at the bridge, then at the villa on the other side, and asked the two girls who got out after him, "Does this feel familiar?"
"Mm." The two nodded in unison.
How could it not feel familiar? It was all too familiar—especially for Sonoko, who felt a bad premonition. Back when her sister had a class reunion at a villa in the mountains, the scene had been much like this.
Ran said weakly, "There won't be a case today, right?"
"Definitely not," Sonoko said, as if cheering herself on. "They're all strangers from the internet. At most, there'll be a little arguing. No one would actually come all the way offline to kill someone over something like that, right?"
Kurosawa Hoshino glanced at the girl and thought, Prophet? Someone kill her. Of course, it was just a joke in his head.
"Cough~" He cleared his throat, pulled his thoughts back, pressed down his hat, and asked, "So, what do you say? Do we cross?"
"What's there to be afraid of?" Kogoro Mouri spoke first. He tilted his head back to stare at the sky, not looking at the bridge beneath his feet, spread his arms to grip the ropes on both sides, and walked forward stiffly, step by step.
"Pfft~" Sonoko couldn't hold back her laughter. "Haha, Ran, your dad is hilarious. Crossing the bridge like that!"
Ran said helplessly, "My dad has a fear of heights. Being able to cross a suspension bridge like this is already pretty good for him."
"Let's go too." Kurosawa Hoshino said, following behind Kogoro Mouri.
Before long, everyone had crossed the bridge, stepped onto the thick snow, and arrived at the villa's entrance.
"I'll ring the bell." Sonoko said, striding forward and pressing the doorbell.
Before long, the door opened, and a middle-aged man appeared, followed by two men and two women who were all curiously sizing up Sonoko.
Sonoko said politely, "Hello, I'm here to attend the gathering."
"Welcome. My online name is the Taciturn Ventriloquist. I'm the owner of this villa. My name is Arata Yoshinori. May I ask, is your online name Detective Queen?"
"Ah hehe, that's me." Sonoko blushed, a little embarrassed—mainly because that online name had just been heard by Ran and the others, and it felt mortifying.
"As expected, I knew you were young. My online name is Phantom. My real name is Kuroda Naoko." A woman with glasses behind Arata Yoshinori spoke up, then teased, "So, our Queen, didn't you say you'd bring your Emperor? Is he here?"
"He's here, he's here!" Sonoko said hurriedly, walking back and pulling Ran forward. "She's my Emperor, Ran Mouri. Oh, my name is Sonoko Suzuki. You can just call me Sonoko."
"Uh—" Ran shot her best friend a look, then greeted everyone. "Hello, you can call me Ran. I'm just here accompanying Sonoko."
"Heh." Kuroda Naoko's smile grew more meaningful. "So the Emperor is a girl too. I thought the Emperor you mentioned was the young man down there in the hat."
"No, no, he's just here with me too," Sonoko said with a laugh.
"Um, have I seen you somewhere before? I feel like you two look really familiar. Oh, my name is Tanaka Kikue. My online name is Trickster Kid."
After saying that, Tanaka Kikue looked the two girls up and down.
"Huh, now that you mention it, Miss Tanaka, I feel like I've seen you somewhere too. You look kind of familiar," Ran said.
"I remember now! You're—"