Conan: Science Cartoonist Kudo Yuji

"It seems that the scandal of the Sheng Hai Zhi Xing case a year ago has finally been completely covered up."

Sitting at the dining table, Yuuji glanced at the newspaper next to Kuromaru and started reading. When he noticed that the photo of the masked detective who had been wanted by the government had finally been taken down from the newspaper after a year, he waved his chopsticks with a smug look on his face.

"Now the masked detective can finally be reborn! Trash politicians, I helped them solve the case, and they turned around and issued arrest warrants for me. Are these people brain-dead?"

“You have to look at the social situation. Those politicians and capitalists are eager to marry their daughters to the second or third sons of some American politicians. As a result, General George was killed by a dancer of mixed American and Japanese descent. Then their demands are finished.”

Kuromaru took the fried pork cutlet rice that Marina brought him. Feeling that it was a bit greasy, he picked out the pork cutlet and then ate it with some pickled vegetables.

"They could have easily covered it up, but you rushed in wearing a mask and delivered a fluent deduction that utterly humiliated them."

General George was invited to the ball by local Kyoto politicians, and they were the ones to blame. Unsurprisingly, these politicians and their families ended up on General Douglas's blacklist, and then harbored a deep grudge against a certain masked detective.

Unable to speak out of helplessness, the four of them settled down to eat. Only after washing the dishes did they sit down on the sofa and slowly sip their coffee.

"Mr. Yamanaka just called each of the students' homes to say that this school trip will be to Tokyo, and we will meet at Tokyo Tower at 1 p.m. tomorrow."

Unlike decades later, when only schools for wealthy students would organize school trips, and students wouldn't take the Shinkansen (bullet train), since the first Shinkansen wouldn't open until 64, most trips would be organized by school buses or by groups of students taking streetcars. Few families would drive there.

Marina was writing the script for the novel she was going to find Taro and Yuuji to play that afternoon when she got down to business. The four of them had come to the Kuromaru family's vacation villa for the weekend. If they decided to go on a school trip, they would have to pack their things and head to Tokyo tomorrow. If they didn't go, they would have to call their teacher to let them know.

“My father wasn’t very willing to let me participate, saying that Tokyo wasn’t very safe, and that his friend had encountered a murderer there at night.”

"A serial killer?" Jintaro and Yuji, who came from Tokyo, looked over curiously.

"Yeah, I heard they killed five people, and the police still haven't solved the case."

Marina sighed. She really wanted to go. To be honest, she even considered dragging Yuuji to find that murderer.

"If that's the case, why did the school choose Tokyo as the destination? The beach would have been so much better." Shintaro, who had just transferred from Tokyo, didn't see anything interesting there. "Well, who knows?" Yata shook his newspaper. "But it's a good thing; it means we can visit Fujimine-kun's house."

"Please call me Mr. Kudo."

"This guy hasn't given up yet." Jintaro rolled his eyes.

"Hmph, that's a title you'll never get."

Yuuji took the script from Marina and couldn't help but scoff at the ugly scene of two people fighting over a stinky coconut. He picked up a pen and changed it to him spitting into the coconut to monopolize it, and then Jintaro retaliated, resulting in the two of them ending up with a coconut full of saliva but no water to drink.

“This is disgusting…” Marina glared at Yuuji with disgust.

"That's what makes it dramatic. We can then arrange for them to accidentally wander into a savage tribe on the island and steal water later."

“But what I want to write is a love story between a wild princess and a male protagonist. A male protagonist like that would be too strange.” Marina noticed that the two of them were secretly looking this way whenever the topic of romance came up, so she asked for their opinion.

“That’s right, the protagonist should be more upright and give the coconut to someone else. He had no water to drink and just happened to meet a wild princess with water, but he was too thirsty to drink it…” Jintaro shamelessly sided with Marina.

"Then the princess's servant said that this person could no longer drink water, so there was no other way but to put him in a pot and stew him." Yuuji pointed at Jintaro.

"You're not going to make it so that the main character is a prince who exchanges tokens with a wild princess, only for someone else to take the tokens, and then the prince returns to his country while the second female lead brings the tokens back—that kind of plot is going to be a long story..."

As soon as Yuuji finished speaking, he saw the other three staring at him in surprise.

"How did you come up with such a novel plot?" Marina asked curiously.

"...Haven't you seen The Little Mermaid?" (End of Chapter)