Conan: I'm really not the mastermind behind the scenes

A few minutes ago.

Somewhere in the suburbs.

The forest was shrouded in a deep, unfathomable darkness in the dead of night. All around was silent except for the occasional rustling of leaves and the occasional flickering of a few white beams of light.

“Mr. Ireland, it’s not here either.”

A man dressed in black, who looked every bit the gangster, emerged from behind a bush, holding a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other, and spoke to the person standing by the tree.

The person standing in front of him was also a man, but a foreigner. He was very tall, and his well-defined muscles were clearly visible beneath his black, form-fitting clothes.

What's most striking about him is his eyebrows, which resemble two inverted checkmarks and are very distinctive.

Several other beams of light approached one after another, and the others also passed through the trees and returned to his side to report the results to him one by one.

"No."

"I couldn't find it on my end."

"Nothing at all."

After listening to what these people had to say, the foreign man—Irish Whiskey—sneered.

"It seems he has hidden even deeper."

He turned to the other side, his eyes showing no anger, only a malice that sent chills down the spines of the others, and his smile held a hint of cruelty: "It's alright, I have plenty of time to look slowly."

……

The organization's Irish whiskey members have been in Gunma for almost a week.

However, he did not come this time on a mission from the organization.

Not long ago, the organization changed its leader.

The new leader's rise to power was very sudden, without any prior warning or internal personnel changes. He suddenly took office without any indication, and many members even thought that spam had finally broken through the organization's antivirus program when they received the notification.

For Irish whiskey, it doesn't matter who the leader is—no matter who the leader is, the organization will continue to lurk in the shadows, and its overall style will not change.

The problem is that on the very day the new leader took office, Pisco, whom he regarded as a father, died.

He was killed by Gin.

The reason given was that Pisco was accidentally photographed by a reporter while committing the murder, and the photos circulated widely and could not be deleted, so they were removed according to regulations.

Ireland naturally heard this, and he found it hard to accept, utterly unable to believe such a coincidence. Just as he was about to investigate secretly, Rum approached him and told him about another possibility.

"Pisco was deliberately silenced by Gin."

"The last phone call the former leader made before he died was to Gin. Pisco happened to be next to him at the time and may have overheard something."

When he said this, Rum's tone was sinister, filled with utter hatred.

Ireland knew that the new leader had taken over, and the former second-in-command was certainly unhappy. He didn't fully believe what Gin said and wanted to verify it with him.

Then he received a cold shoulder from Gin. Power transitions at the top are always accompanied by turmoil, especially for criminal organizations without moral or legal constraints.

Rum wasn't the only one suspicious of the new leader's rise to power; other high-ranking members of the organization also harbored doubts. During this time, Gin had endured countless tests and attempts to elicit information, with everyone wanting to know what the former leader had said in his last phone call.

Gin was naturally not friendly to the Irishman who had come up to him with this question for who knows how many. He warned him to be careful and not to violate the taboos of certain organizations and end up like Pisco.
Ireland already disliked Gin, and now, with the death of his adoptive father—regardless of Pisco's true cause of death, it was definitely Gin who killed him—his hatred for him reached its peak upon hearing those words that seemed like a reminder but were actually a mockery.

So when Rum approached Ireland a second time, offering to help him take revenge as a bargaining chip to recruit him, Ireland agreed.

Joining Rum's ranks naturally meant starting to work for him; revenge couldn't be carried out so quickly. Ireland soon received his first mission from Rum: arriving in Anchu City, Gunma a week earlier, to communicate with the currently hospitalized Chairman Takeuchi about the successor.

The Takeuchi family in Gunma Prefecture are supporters of the organization, and the chairman is an old friend of Pisco. Ireland has met him more than once and they are acquaintances.

Because of his wife, this chairman had a deep relationship with the organization for forty years. Also because of his wife, he didn't let his children know about the organization's dark existence. Neither his mediocre eldest son nor his two other outstanding children knew anything about it.

Over the years, Rum had seen many parents who did dirty work and then wanted to clean up their act when they were about to pass it on to their children. To prevent this from happening to this large conglomerate with which he had a long-term partnership, he sent an Irishman who was familiar with the other party.

This is both communication and a warning.

After meeting with the chairman, Ireland initially planned to stay at the organization's local base. However, after visiting once, he changed his mind.

That base was highly classified, with a research institute inside, and he didn't even have access to many of the rooms.

There weren't many members in the base. Some were the lower-ranking members that Rum had mentioned he could command, while most wore white coats. They came and went in a hurry, not even greeting him before passing by.

This made Ireland realize that there might be another controller behind this base. And this controller probably looked down on Rum, and even on those Rum sent.

Ireland tentatively asked Rum about it. Rum didn't deny it, but only told him to be careful and not cause trouble in the base. Ireland was dissatisfied with the current organization, but having been there for so many years, he knew what it meant, so he only went that one time and then stayed in the hospital and the safe house near it.

In the following days, Rum said he would also come to Anzhong City, but did not mention when.

Ireland waited patiently, and things remained peaceful until an unexpected incident occurred.

One day, he heard from a low-ranking member that there were bears in the forest and local hunters' bear traps. Considering that the location was not far from the base, he went to check the area that night and encountered a young man with long silver hair.

The other person seemed to be lost, looking around in the woods.

Ireland later admitted that he acted impulsively, but at the time, when he saw the long hair and back view that resembled Gin, he was overcome with passion and drew his gun to fire.

The other person wasn't Gin; he was just an ordinary person. Upon hearing the gunshot, he not only failed to dodge but also slipped and fell down the hillside, breaking his neck on the spot.

Ireland went down to investigate, and only when he saw the face clearly did he realize he had made a mistake. He dragged the other person's body into a bear trap, cleaned up his tracks, and left.

This was just a trivial incident for him and every member of the organization, like eating an ordinary meal at noon, which would be forgotten in a few days.

Ireland only remembered this matter when Chairman Takeuchi mentioned it to him this morning.

"Rum sent word that the FBI has sent people."

-

It's too late, I can't finish writing... (End of Chapter)