No one understands the laws of Collider better than me.

However, just as Kidd reached the ceiling, Hakuba Saguru suddenly appeared below the infrared beam, took out his pocket watch, glanced at it, and said:

"September 3rd, 8:56:18:53 PM, that's it, Phantom Thief Kid! Although you weren't my target, you're quite a good appetizer before the main course. In the end, your existence was nothing more than bait."

As soon as Hakuba Saguru pulled the switch, the hypnotic gas he had prepared beforehand gushed out of the ventilation ducts, soon filling the entire basement. However, Kidd, clinging to the rope, couldn't move around carelessly; if he touched the infrared beams, he would probably attract a large group of police officers.

Seeing that Kidd was unresponsive, Hakuba Saguru assumed he had run out of tricks and laughed:

"What's wrong? Phantom Thief Kid, it seems you can't get past the trap I set in advance."

After saying that, Hakuba Saguru took out a gas mask, but just as he was about to put it on, something knocked it away.

"Heh, Detective White Horse, you should have worn a gas mask from the start."

After putting away his playing card gun, Phantom Thief Kid took out his grappling hook again, hooked Hakuba Saguru's gas mask, and put it on himself.

Just as Hakuba Saguru was mentally cursing the shameless thief, Kaito Kid climbed down again and immediately began groping Hakuba Saguru, who still had a sliver of consciousness.

"show me!"

"No! Kidd!"

Just as Kaito Kid was putting on something even more exciting than the new game for Hakuba, the media outside were still wondering why Kaito Kid hadn't appeared yet, which made Sonoko, who was waiting in front of the TV to cheer him on, extremely anxious.

After letting Hakuba Saguru get on board, Kidd took off his coat and deerstalker hat, leaving him with a shirt and pants. Then, while still in Hakuba Saguru's guise, he opened the ceiling, which was the floor tiles of the first-floor exhibition hall.

The scene of the hypnotic gas gushing out was like a stage effect created with dry ice, while Kid, disguised as Hakuba Saguru, emerged from the smoke and, in front of the cameras, imitated Hakuba Saguru's cool demeanor, saying:

"At 9:04:18:53 on September 3rd, I have arrested Phantom Thief Kid!"

To avoid being noticed that his hair was still black, he coolly adjusted his deerstalker hat and gave the camera a cryptic smile.

"Kid has been knocked unconscious by the hypnotic gas I set up. Inspector Nakamori, I'm counting on you!"

Without a shred of doubt in his son-in-law's words, Inspector Nakamori immediately ordered all the police officers on the first floor to rush to the basement. At this point, only the media, Kid, and Inspector Nakamori, who was wondering why the person who caught Kid wasn't him, remained at the scene.

"Detective Hakuba, please share your thoughts on catching Phantom Thief Kid."

"Um—actually, it's nothing, it's a trivial matter."

Facing the camera, Kidd touched his head with his right hand and took out a button with his left hand, pressing it directly. Then, a hot air balloon slowly inflated behind him.

"Um, what's that hot air balloon behind you?"

Although that's what the reporter asked, she already had a rough idea in mind and was looking forward to the surprise that the 'White Horse Scout' in front of her could give all the audience.

"Well, I think—now is about time for me to begin my performance."

Chapter 271 Hmph! Trying to escape?

"Inspector, the person who was drugged in the basement is Detective Hakuba! The person upstairs is Kaito Kid!"

What?!

Everyone present heard the police officer's warning to Inspector Nakamori, and Kidd stopped pretending and jumped onto the head of the bronze statue, which depicted a middle-aged warrior holding a sword and shield with a resolute face and a distinctly European appearance.

Now, however, Kidd is sitting on its shoulder.

After shedding Hakuba Saguru's clothes, Kid revealed himself in a white suit and mouthed "Good evening" to the camera again.

Wow--

This unexpected transition shocked everyone, but Nakamori Aoko, sitting in front of the TV, was caught in a dilemma—as a young girl, she thought Kid was really cool and perfectly matched her fantasies; but as a daughter, she began to worry that Kid might steal something again, causing her father to get scolded again.

After attaching the fully inflated hot air balloon to the head of the bronze statue, Kidd waved to the camera as he felt the statue gradually rise. Kidd, who had intended to use the buoyancy of the hot air balloon to lift the statue, suddenly stopped in mid-air. He looked down and saw that the bottom of the bronze statue was actually tied with iron chains, making it impossible to move the statue no matter what.

"Sigh, it seems someone has chained the treasure. Unfortunately, I don't have the key to open the birdcage. Goodbye, everyone."

After saying that, Kidd removed the gem from the statue's eye, held it up to the moon to see that there was no Pandora inside, and then put it back.

Then Kidd raised his hand and fired a shot, the steel playing card piercing through the glass window above his head. After throwing down a smoke grenade, he disappeared.

"Damn it! Kidd!"

The live broadcast ended with Inspector Nakamori being completely fooled, amidst thunderous cheers.

However, when Kidd arrived at the rooftop of the museum, he suddenly felt a chill, as if something was watching him. Just as he was about to sneak away from the roof, he turned around and saw a man floating in mid-air. The man was wearing a strange helmet with three lenses arranged in the shape of the Chinese character "品" on it, which were flashing with an eerie red light and could rotate.

Kaito, who was being targeted, stared blankly at the helmet of the uninvited guest, as if possessed by something.

Just before Kaito lost consciousness, the stun gun in his pocket was suddenly activated. The sudden electric current jolted him awake.

"Kid, retreat immediately! That man is the zoo killer Hakuba Saguru is tracking—Spider!"

The man's public identity is Günter von Goldberg II, a world-renowned illusionist skilled in illusions. He has a spider-shaped tattoo on his left eye, so it seems that the medium that triggered the illusion was being looked at directly by that strange helmet.

boom!

Kitahara Masaki, already seated in the helicopter, fired a shot. Two of the three hypnotic mirrors on the Spider's helmet shattered, grazing his head. This startled the Spider, causing him to roll backward several times before quickly taking cover under the water tower.

Kaito Kid, who had also heard the gunshot, looked up and saw Kitahara Masaki giving a thumbs-up inside the cabin.

Knowing that things had escalated to the point where gunfire would be necessary, Kaito leaped from the rooftop, landing on the heads of fans at the museum entrance. This also helped Kitahara Masaki clear the obstructing crowd from the scene.

"Prophet, turn on the spotlights."

After receiving Kitahara Masaki's instructions, Haibara immediately turned on the spotlights near the museum. These high-powered spotlights were transported to the top floor of a nearby building by Kitahara Masaki with great effort before today.

These spotlights are designed to eliminate all shadows at night, so even if he used some advanced technology, he would have nowhere to hide and naturally wouldn't be able to make any more moves.

And that was indeed the case. The spider had originally planned to use a 'paper doll' (fake doll) to divert attention after being suddenly caught off guard by this incident, but it became a complete joke under the light of the high-powered spotlight.

boom!

Masaki Kitahara declared himself a magician tonight, and magicians naturally have to abide by the three laws of Thurston. One of these laws is that magicians should never tell the audience what they are going to do before the performance. This so-called "surprise" is very important.

And the gift, of course, is sniper bullets.

boom!

The second shot shattered his puppet, and the spotlight left him nowhere to hide, completely destroying his illusion.

The third shot destroyed the mechanical spider he had brought. His mechanical spider was supposed to help him weave webs to bind enemies, and it even contained many magical artifacts. Even though the mechanical spider used materials invisible at night, it was a giant target under bright light. Before it could even be used, a bullet pierced its head, turning it into a piece of scrap metal.

At this point, Spider realized that someone was plotting against him; a sniper in a helicopter had been forcing him to escape.

This is also part of the plan devised by Kitahara Masaki—to use his financial power to recreate a police helicopter, and then rely on his mobility and altitude advantages to completely crack the Spider's survival methods.

Using money is certainly easy, but it cost more than 200 million Japanese yen to prepare a helicopter that is exactly the same as the police helicopter. With the addition of large spotlights and other equipment, the total cost exceeded 300 million yen.

This massive expenditure is all for the purpose of catching the spider once and for all. If he were to investigate afterward, he would surely uncover many of the fake companies that Kitahara Masaki used to cover up the flow of money. If he were skilled enough, he might even find that 'detective agency'.

Therefore, Kitahara Masaki never intended to let him escape.

After Spider's props were mostly destroyed by three shots, he immediately used the rope he had prepared to rappel down from the top floor. Once on the first floor, he ran straight to the parking lot. To conceal which car he was going to get into, he threw out all the smoke grenades, creating a massive cloud of smoke that enveloped the entire parking lot. He then changed back into another set of clothes and fled for his life.

Unfortunately—the system's drone was already glued to him. After the spider got into the car and started the engine, Kitahara Masaki sniped out a tire, then used a rope to rappel down and boarded another car to continue tracking him. If Kaito had been gone for some time, the helicopter still parked there would easily be noticed as suspicious.

"Vermouth, this helicopter is yours."

"Yeah, we definitely have to bring that guy back."

Haha, of course!

Chapter 272 A Simple and Honest Way to Catch a Spider

With its tires punctured, the car would naturally slow down considerably, and with a drone tracking it, Kitahara Masaki certainly wouldn't lose track of it.

However, Spider was in a terrible state because his tires had been shot out before he even got off the plane. But if he got off to change cars and was delayed, he might not be able to leave at all. Not to mention the mysterious sniper, there were also many police officers near the museum!

So he gritted his teeth, slammed on the gas, smashed through the barrier, and sped away. He planned to switch to another car after shaking off the pursuers, but Kitahara Masaki had no intention of letting him chase after him relentlessly.

After running several red lights, Spider suddenly saw several motorcycles chasing him in his rearview mirror. Just as he was worried that they might be working with the sniper, the motorcyclists pulled out submachine guns and started firing bullets at the cars in front of him like they were free. The popping sound made Spider slam on the gas pedal even harder. As he was about to check his right rearview mirror to see how many pursuers there were, a bullet hit the mirror, and the glass shattered, cutting Spider's cheek.

Damn!

He kept weaving through the road, using other vehicles as cover, and the pursuers even stopped firing when they couldn't hit his car, seemingly very concerned about accidentally injuring civilians.

Spider, believing he had found the pursuer's weakness, kept weaving between the cars. As a skilled assassin, his driving skills were naturally excellent. At another turn, he used a drift to throw his car behind a large truck.

With this fancy move, he sped down the next straight and found that there were no more motorcycles chasing him. He seemed to have shaken off the pursuit of that mysterious force!

Ha ha ha ha! ! !

As expected of me, I am the world's most powerful illusionist! Although I didn't catch Phantom Thief Kid, I did manage to detect a mysterious force. It seems that's the force that took down Snake!

Damn it, those guys actually smashed all my magic props this time. Even if I want to fight back, it will take me a while!

Spider, believing he had escaped Kitahara Masaki's pursuit, was already plotting how to use illusion magic to bring the sniper to his knees. Unfortunately, this arrogant magician was still under Kitahara Masaki's surveillance, as Kitahara Masaki had already had Haibara infiltrate the area's surveillance system and had also deployed drones to track him. So the poor Spider could only continue his comical performance.

Kitahara Masaki drove slowly behind, two kilometers away, quietly waiting to see where the spider would take him.

This was also Kitahara Masaki's plan—first, to use the height advantage to snipe the spider, then to have his men, who had been lying in ambush nearby, further pressure the spider, creating the illusion that he had been outmaneuvered by his driving skills, and finally, for Kitahara Masaki to personally finish it off.

To kill the spider, Kitahara Masaki could blow his head off with the first shot. In a situation where the enemy is caught off guard, a sniper can take a life with just one bullet.

However, the current objective is to interrogate Spider in a quiet place and force him to reveal all the information about the zoo. That's why Kitahara Masaki used his financial resources and numerical advantage to set a trap for the assassin, making him believe he had escaped death, after which he would naturally flee to what he considered the safest place.

Once Spider realized there were no pursuers behind him, he immediately pulled over and parked his car. After all, driving a vehicle riddled with bullet holes would be too conspicuous, so he stole another car from the roadside and then drove around Tokyo.

Kitahara Masaki couldn't help but laugh when he saw the spider's counter-surveillance maneuvers. This is the modern world. Those so-called anti-tracking maneuvers might be somewhat useful when being tracked, but when facing surveillance cameras and drones, moving slowly is simply courting death.

So at this stage, Kitahara Maki isn't in a hurry; he's just waiting two streets away to see when Spider's patience will run out.

And so it went on until evening, and even Kitahara Maki could hear Haibara yawning through his headphones.

"It'll be soon; that guy won't be able to resist going back to his lair."

"Haha, it just so happens that it's also called a spider, so calling it a nest is quite fitting."

Just as Kitahara Masaki had predicted, the spider finally ended its pointless counter-surveillance and was heading towards a place that Kitahara Masaki could never understand.

"Hey, hey, his destination can't be that!"

"Hmm, it's very likely that newly built amusement park."

"Does that amusement park have a Ferris wheel?"

"Um, I think so, yeah! Yes, it's quite big."

Oh no, this suddenly feels like a theatrical film.

As we all know, in the world of Detective Conan, Ferris wheels in neon amusement parks are basically only considered qualified Ferris wheels if they are blown up, bombed, or strafed by armed helicopters.

"Hey Vermouth, is the helicopter parked yet?"