Conan: I've been linked to the tech tree system.

The driver shifted into gear and slowly pressed the accelerator.

The bus started moving slowly, advancing at a very low speed.

The robber shifted his position and looked out the car window.

"Listen, as soon as the traffic light ahead turns red, contact the bus station immediately."

"Yes."

After completing the simple control, the two robbers looked at each other and slowly nodded.

The hostage-taker in charge of holding the hostages wore a pink hat, seemingly to distinguish himself from his companion who wore a blue hat.

He moved the gun back and forth between the passengers on the bus, and when he saw that no one dared to stand up and resist, he smiled with satisfaction.

“Very good, that’s right…” he said in a preschool teacher’s tone, “Now, all of you who have mobile phones on you, hand them over obediently.”

He put down the ski bag he was still holding, freeing his left hand to put away his phone.

"You'd better not try anything funny." The robber in the pink hat walked up to a few passengers in the first row. "Anyone who dares to try anything funny will never be able to make a phone call again."

The passengers in the front row remained silent, handing over their phones with expressions of fear.

The pink-hatted robber slowly put away his phone, and the moving bus slowly pulled up to the traffic light.

Sweating profusely, the driver carefully took down the walkie-talkie hanging above his head, which allowed him to communicate directly with the bus station.

"I am Kobayashi from car W707, Kobayashi from car W707." He repeated according to the rules, "Now I am..."

Before he could finish speaking, the walkie-talkie in his hand was snatched away by the blue-hatted robber.

"We have now hijacked your company's bus! We have only one demand: the immediate release of Kunio Yajima, who is currently in jail!"

The robber revealed his purpose.

"If you don't agree, we'll shoot one passenger every hour!"

"If you understand, immediately inform the police! I'll contact you again in 20 minutes, so you'd better be prepared before then!"

The robber abruptly slammed the walkie-talkie shut.

Wow, they're quite sentimental.

In ancient times, this would be like a bandit storming the execution ground—using a passenger's identity and safety to threaten others. It's utterly despicable.

Moreover, it's too far-fetched. Even if they achieve their goal, they will only be hunted down even more fiercely... And public opinion, which usually criticizes the government and sympathizes with murderers, will probably turn overwhelmingly in favor of the police because they have endangered public safety.

At this moment, the pink-hatted robber had already crossed the back door in the middle of the bus and walked to the front of the back row where Tohru Tono was.

Tohru Tono casually picked up a rather old model and handed it to him.

"Hey, does your girlfriend have a cell phone?" The pink-hatted robber took what he considered to be a fairly modern model of a phone, and glanced at Shiho Miyano, whose face was still pressed against the window and could not be seen clearly.

"Ah, she gets carsick, so she usually doesn't bring any communication devices when she gets on the bus. I'm the one who carries them." Toru Tono glanced at Shiho Miyano, who didn't seem to be reacting, and explained casually.

He seemed to remember that there was such a thing in Detective Conan.

Two bus hijackers hijacked a bus to threaten the police in an attempt to break into prison... but unfortunately, they ended up on a bus carrying members of a black-clad organization, an FBI agent, and a "death god" elementary school student.

That's incredibly unlucky; in a way, such luck makes them seem like the chosen ones.

The robber in the pink hat sized him up a few times, then snorted coldly, "You'd better not have any ulterior motives."

After saying that, she moved on to the passengers in the next row.

Toru Tono glanced subtly at the passengers behind him.

If he remembered correctly, the woman chewing gum behind them was an informant, a member of the criminal gang, responsible for blending in with the crowd and alerting them to any unusual behavior.

So the robber only symbolically took the phone; he wasn't really worried that anyone would use it to secretly contact the outside world.

Conan, sitting in the second-to-last row of the bus with Professor Agasa, watched as the robbers took away Tohru Tohno's phone, who was cooperating obediently. He then searched his mind for the name "Kunio Yajima" that he had just heard.

Kunio Yajima is a member of the gang of robbers who carried out the bomb attack on the jewelry store last month.

At the time, the police only arrested Kunio Yajima, the main suspect in the robbery; the other three accomplices are still at large.

Yajima himself was also a gem dealer.

'So that's how it is. They robbed the jewelry but had no way to sell it, so they wanted to use this opportunity to rescue their boss...'

Conan, who enjoys watching the news and has a lot of information, easily exposed the true nature of the "outlaws."

'Perhaps, only Kunio Yajima knows the location of the treasure, which is why they want to rescue him to find out more...'

While he was thinking, the pink-hatted robber had already collected all the phones and was standing in front of him.

Because they are children, they can easily get away with saying "I'm a child, I don't know how to use a mobile phone" by pretending to be silly and cute.

The robbers didn't suspect him much, since he and the other kids who didn't have cell phones looked like they were together, so they turned around and went to the last row.

"Hey, what are you doing? Hurry up and get it out!"

He shouted at the men wearing masks in the last row.

Tohru Tono turned around and glanced back.

Knitted hat, white face mask, yes, it's Shuichi Akai.

I silently gave the robber a thumbs up in my heart.

Since Shuichi Akai joined the Black Organization, no one has dared to speak to him like that, right?

So it seems you're quite brave, huh?

Toru Tohno hopes that, if possible, he can tell the robber Shuichi Akai his true identity so that he can judge whether he is really that brave.

However, this is just wishful thinking; no robber would be foolish enough to confront a secret agent or assassin head-on.

"I'm sorry." Shuichi Akai coughed violently while wearing a mask, looking like a frail, sickly tuberculosis patient.

"I don't have a mobile phone."

"Tch, so he's just a poor kid."

The robber looked at him with disdain.

After all, mobile phones were not very common in Japanese society at that time, so it was understandable that some poor people or old-fashioned people did not use them.

Moreover, the robbers weren't afraid that the person sitting next to their companion was secretly contacting the outside world, so they didn't say anything and turned to the next person.

Chapter 188 The visitor is evil

"Hey, old man over there, what's that on your ear?"

The pink-hatted robber pointed his gun at the head of the old man sitting next to Shuichi Akai in the last row.

"This is a hearing aid," the old man said with a look of horror. "My hearing wasn't very good when I was young, so..."

"Tch." The robber ignored him and turned to another woman chewing gum. "Hey, stop chewing! It's so noisy!"

"That's what chewing gum looks like." The woman's behavior was in stark contrast to the old man's. Not only was she not afraid, but she also dared to retort to the robber while chewing gum, "I advise you to stop now. You'll definitely be caught in the end. You should just give up and find a place to hide."

The woman seemed emboldened and continued to provoke the robbers.

The next instant, a loud gunshot rang out from inside the sealed carriage.

Conan was startled and turned around abruptly.

"I understand, I'll do as you say."

The woman chewing gum, who had previously looked arrogant, began to tremble with fear as she stared at the robber, not even daring to look back at the bullet hole in the seat next to her.

"Heh, it would have been better if they had just listened from the beginning." The robber left smugly.

Tohno glanced at the two and immediately recognized them as actors.

The woman was actually one of the robbers. It was probably pre-arranged that she would pretend to be indifferent on the bus, then have the male robber fire a gun so that she could scare the passengers with the idea that "robbers really can shoot."

It's an interesting tactic, and it might actually work on ordinary people.

Unfortunately, the passengers on this bus were not "ordinary people".

The pink-hatted robber, having completed his planned "intimidation of passengers," looked triumphantly at the terrified expressions of the passengers around him as he walked forward.

Before he could take two steps, he suddenly felt his foot kick something.

My left foot, which was moving forward with inertia, suddenly stopped, and a feeling of weightlessness immediately swept over my whole body.

He lost his balance, yelled "Ahhh!" and fell face down to the ground with a thud.

"?"

The passengers were all confused by this sudden situation.

Why did the once arrogant robber suddenly lie on the ground?

I just want to laugh.

The robbers' elaborate scheme was ruined by such a small stumble.

"What's wrong? Are you alright?"

The hijackers controlling the driver were startled by the noise and instinctively turned around only to find it was a false alarm.

"Hmm." The pink-hatted robber stood up angrily, rubbing his throbbing forehead, and turned to look at the woman who had tripped him. "Damn it!!!"

The blonde Judy was looking down at her knees, as if nothing was happening to her.

Seeing this, "Akira Tomoaki" beside her whispered worriedly, "Judy..."

"Ok?"

Judy looked up as if she had just realized what was happening.

Seeing the robber staring at her menacingly, she instantly switched to an exaggerated expression.

"Oh, sorry!" Judy pretended not to know Japanese and spoke in English.

"My God, what have I done? Are you alright?"

Judy warmly approached the pink-hatted robber, grasping his gun-wielding right hand with both hands: "I'm used to sitting with my legs crossed, you..."

The robber, being a native Japanese who respected boundaries, couldn't stand the foreigner's inexplicable enthusiasm and quickly shook off her hand.

"Fine! Go back and sit down!"