Chapter 387: The Mysterious Organization's Assassin
Spider's mind raced, panic clawing at his chest. What in the world was going on? He strained against his own muscles, but his body refused to obey. A biting, unnatural chill seemed to lock his joints in place. When had this mild-mannered assistant made her move? More, what exactly had she done to him?
A few steps away, Toru Amuro and Conan watched the world-class illusionist suddenly freeze mid-action like a malfunctioning clockwork toy. The blonde detective and the young boy exchanged a swift, uncertain glance, silently communicating their mutual suspicion.
"What happened to Mr. Gunter?" Amuro asked, shifting his questioning gaze toward Ganyu. His posture remained relaxed, but his eyes were sharp, calculating the distance between them.
Ganyu offered a soft, entirely harmless smile. "Just a little special trick."
In reality, she had swiftly deployed her Trail of the Qilin, leaving behind an Ice Lotus cleverly concealed from their line of sight. The sheer cryogenic energy radiating from the construct was more than enough to paralyze an ordinary human.
"This can only trap him temporarily," Ganyu continued, her tone as placid as a calm lake. "Mr. Amuro, please use this rope to tie him up, lest he tries to escape once he regains his mobility."
As she spoke, she casually pulled a thick coil of heavy-duty rope from the bottom drawer of a nearby lounge cabinet.
Conan stared at the coil. '...Why on earth is there a heavy-duty binding rope casually stashed in a corporate lounge?'
Amuro remained silent for a long moment. He stared at the rope offered to him, his lips parting slightly as if to voice the exact same question echoing in Conan's mind. Ultimately, he decided against it. He took the rope with practiced ease and approached the paralyzed illusionist.
Ganyu's timing was impeccable. Barely a minute after Amuro finished securing the knots with professional, inescapable precision, the biting chill dissipated. Spider's mobility returned in a rush.
However, with his arms and legs now tightly bound, the sudden return of sensation threw off his equilibrium. He pitched forward with a heavy thud, nearly smashing his face directly into the polished floorboards.
Unable to bear the pathetic sight, Ganyu stepped forward. She gently grabbed Spider by the shoulder, rolling him over and supporting his weight so he could sit upright against the cabinet.
Spider, however, had absolutely no appreciation for her kindness. He let out a harsh, cold laugh, his expression twisting into a grimace as he glared at the blue-haired woman.
"I certainly didn't expect a small-time company like the Jade Chamber to be such a den of hidden dragons and crouching tigers," he spat, his voice dripping with venom. "Even a mere assistant possesses such lethal reflexes. And that Ningguang and Keqing... they hardly look like simple executives either. I highly suspect your true identities are far from ordinary merchants, aren't they?"
Recalling the humiliating sequence of events, Spider ground his teeth together. He hadn't even faced Ganyu in a direct clash. Her terrifying reaction speed to his sudden attack, coupled with that bizarre, invisible trick that left him completely paralyzed, was more than enough proof. This woman was a monster masquerading as a secretary.
Resentment and sheer indignation boiled in his chest. He was an elite. How could he fail so miserably in such an unassuming place, ending up trussed like a turkey? The most unacceptable part was that the person who effortlessly captured him alive was the very woman he had completely dismissed as collateral damage just moments prior.
If he was going down, he was going to drag her down with him.
Spider's sharp intuition as a top-tier assassin for his mysterious organization flared to life. He was absolutely certain that Ganyu's background was steeped in blood, and the same logic undoubtedly applied to Ningguang and Keqing, the core pillars of the Jade Chamber.
He leaned forward, continuing his malicious analysis with a triumphant sneer. "I can tell you the truth right now. I am an assassin. Since Miss Ganyu can subdue a professional killer like me without breaking a sweat, what could her true identity possibly be? Could she also be an assassin from some dark, mysterious organization?"
He snapped his head toward Amuro and Conan, adopting the tone of a benevolent victim offering a dire warning. "You two had better contact Detective Mouri while she hasn't reacted yet. Otherwise, watch your backs. People like her will kill to keep you quiet."
Both the blonde cafe worker and the bespectacled brat had close ties to the famous Sleeping Kogoro. Spider waited with bated breath, eager to see how Ganyu would panic now that her dark secret was exposed to the light of day.
To Spider's utter bewilderment, his grand revelation fell completely flat.
Ganyu simply blinked, her expression entirely unbothered. Even more baffling, neither Amuro nor Conan showed a single trace of panic, fear, or even mild surprise.
Spider stared at them, completely lost. Normally, when ordinary citizens heard that the polite woman standing next to them was a highly trained assassin, they would scream, run, or at least show some baseline level of suspicion. Why were these two reacting like he had just commented on the weather?
And that brat... it was one thing for a kid to be too stupid to feel fear, but what was with that incredibly awkward, strained look on his face?
If anyone had the right to feel awkward right now, it was him. He had just delivered a dramatic, damning monologue, and his audience was giving him absolutely nothing.
After a long stretch of suffocating silence, Ganyu finally broke the quiet. She looked down at Spider, her voice carrying the patient tone of someone correcting a confused child.
"Mr. Gunter, you have truly misunderstood the situation. I am indeed just Miss Ningguang's assistant. And Miss Ningguang and Miss Keqing are indeed just simple merchants."
She paused, tilting her head slightly. "As for the combat skills you mentioned, they are decent, I suppose, but far from being considered 'good.' Many of my colleagues back home are vastly stronger than I am. I still have much to learn."
Speaking of skills, Ganyu genuinely did not understand why the illusionist's entire focus was solely on her. She turned her gentle gaze toward the blonde man standing nearby.
"Besides, Mr. Amuro's skills are quite exceptional as well. Why don't you suspect him of being an assassin from a mysterious organization?"
At those words, the awkward expression on Conan's face intensified tenfold. He stared rigidly at the floor, a bead of cold sweat rolling down his cheek.
On the other side of the room, Amuro froze. An almost imperceptible twitch of discomfort flickered across his handsome features. The emotion vanished in a fraction of a second, buried beneath his usual easygoing facade as if it had never existed.
However, while Spider was busy glaring at Ganyu, Amuro quietly shifted his gaze toward Conan. His eyes narrowed slightly, carrying a deep, probing intensity.
'This child's reactions,'Amuro thought to himself,'from the moment this started until now... have been very interesting.'
Completely oblivious to the complex emotional shifts happening between the detective and the undercover operative, Spider scoffed, waving off Ganyu's point with a casual air.
"Toru Amuro is the direct disciple of the great detective Kogoro Mouri. Isn't it perfectly normal for him to possess such self-defense skills?"
Ganyu was momentarily speechless. She looked at Amuro, taking in his innocent, smiling face, and gave him a very subtle, deeply meaningful glance.
"You have a point."
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