Conan, I'm an actor

Chapter 298 The Competition Begins

"What do you want to do?" This time, Curaçao did not immediately reject Stout's suggestion.

Stout patted the backpack next to him. "There's a drone in here. It was originally intended for surveillance and tracking, but with some temporary modifications, it should be usable as a suicide drone."

"You're planning to use a drone to raid that bar?" Curaçao said, staring at the ruins. "Don't forget, there are London police and firefighters there. If they find us, we won't be able to escape."

“I know how incompetent the London police are,” Stout chuckled. “Have you heard the saying? In Europe, the places with police are the safest, because police don’t go to dangerous places.”

"You mean..."

“Once the bomb on the drone explodes and gunfire erupts inside, the London police will immediately distance themselves and cordon off the area.” Stout spoke as he began to act. “At that point, no one in the pub will escape.”

It wouldn't have been easy for the drone to fly into the tavern, since there were glass walls all around, but the explosion shattered all of them.

Gunshots rang out the moment the drone stormed into the tavern, followed by a violent explosion.

After doing all this, Stout quickly left the spot with Curaçao, while inside the tavern, Gin and a dozen or so men who could still get up immediately got up and left the tavern through the back door.

Upon hearing the gunshots, London police officers took cover almost immediately, and when the explosions rang out, they dropped to the ground almost instantly.

Several minutes later, a police officer poked his head out to observe the situation inside.

Half an hour later, the area was completely cordoned off.

Soon, officers from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team arrived at the scene with specialized equipment. After inspection, they determined that the explosion was caused by a suicide drone. The seriousness of the situation was immediately escalated, and the entire block was placed under lockdown.

The surveillance network finally paid off this time, quickly locating Gin's position and surrounding him.

This amateurish blockade certainly won't stop professionals like Gin, but it has certainly caused them a lot of trouble, at least preventing them from having time to cause trouble for New Town in the short term.

Stout hadn't expected his "unintentional act" to have such a great effect; otherwise, he would have definitely boasted about it to his two cronies, Masaaki Okakura and Yusuke Sakata.

After the two returned to their base, Stout was sent back to the submarine, where he purchased a batch of supplies before boarding.

Curaçao then began reporting the details of the operation to Shinjo. When she mentioned that Gin and his team intended to abandon electronic devices, she said with some concern, "If this continues, our advantage will gradually diminish, and once the intelligence capabilities of both sides..."

"Don't worry, Gin was able to succeed this time for two reasons. First, because we didn't know about it." Shinjo tapped his fingers on the table. "As for the second reason, it's because we're in London."

What's the difference between London and Japan?

“Karen hasn’t been idle these days. Before the ocean buoy was destroyed, she had already backed up the ocean buoy system,” Shinjo said with a smile. “And she took advantage of Japan’s open interface to implant a backdoor in the surveillance network.”

"That……"

“All of Japan’s police cameras can become our eyes,” Shinjo said with considerable pride. “As long as they show their faces on camera, I can know where they are.”

Curaçao frowned and said, "But we're still in London."

“Gin and the others are busy hiding from the London police right now. By the time they let their guard down, we’ll have already left Japan.” Shinjo stroked his chin. “But we need to figure out a way to kill Vodka.”

“Vodka?” Curaçao frowned upon hearing the name.

This guy is Gin's shadowy follower, knows a lot of secrets about Gin, and most importantly, he often reveals some rather important information. Such an enemy, more trouble than good, is sometimes more important than an undercover agent; she didn't quite agree with Shinjo's decision.

“I know what you’re trying to say.” Shinjo shrugged. “I just think this guy’s luck is off the charts. He always manages to stumble upon some really important information. Also, this guy is quite important to Gin, and I want to see how Gin will react if I take him down.”

"Aren't you afraid of Gin's retaliation?"

“He can retaliate anytime he wants,” Shinjo shrugged. “As long as he can bear the consequences.”

Curaçao's eyelids twitched; Shinjo's meaning couldn't be clearer. Whether it was Sakata Yusuke, Okakura Masaaki, or even the recently recruited guys, they could all be discarded. All he could do was avenge them after their deaths.

"Do you think it's appropriate to say something like that to my face?"

"So, is lying interesting?" Shinjo yawned. "You should go back first. There's a match tomorrow, and I need to get a good night's sleep. Oh, and when you get back, have Chengshi perform surgery on you guys to implant a biochip."

"what is that?"

"A new technology, for location tracking. With it, Karen can directly pinpoint your location and provide you with support."

After hearing New Town's explanation, Curaçao finally breathed a sigh of relief. Thankfully, this guy wasn't really indifferent to everything.

Before I knew it, it was the morning of the second day.

As agreed, Xincheng arrived at the stadium and soon saw Ares. However, to his surprise, the Minerba family had also come along.

"Aren't you the coach?" Xincheng asked, looking at the somewhat embarrassed Ares. "If the students and their parents see you suffer such a crushing defeat, won't your coaching reputation be ruined?"

"I'm so sorry, I thought..." Ares thought that New City didn't want others to see the game, so he apologized hastily.

“It’s okay.” Shinjo pointed to the other side of the stadium. “There are still spectators there.”

"How do you know Ares will lose when you haven't even played?" Minerva was very annoyed by the arrogant guy in front of her. She knew better than anyone how strong Ares was. Although his three shots at Wimbledon were impressive, a powerful serve doesn't equate to a good game, and such a serve isn't sustainable.

“I’ve only been playing tennis for three months,” Shinjo said with a smile. “But before that, I watched a lot of your match videos and studied your playing style. If you were to play against me, you would have a very difficult time.”

Minerva frowned. This method of studying opponents' match videos was popular among athletes, and in her opinion, it was commonplace and nothing to brag about.

Both sides quickly entered the court, with New City gaining the right to serve, and Minerva acting as the referee.

Xincheng immediately started his serve, and Ares stared intently at the guy in front of him. This guy was very strong.

The next second, he felt something fly past his ear. He turned around and saw a tennis ball lying there quietly.

Minerva was also stunned. She hadn't noticed before, and now she could only watch the replay. Fortunately, they had considered this when choosing the tennis court, and high-speed cameras were set up all around.

After reviewing the video replay, Minerva announced with some resignation, "15-0".

"Since I can't see it clearly, I'll just slow down." Shinjo served at high speed again.

Ares reacted, but the ball was too fast; he couldn't reach it at all. He only took two steps before the ball hit the ground and flew out of play.

“30-0.” Minerva stared at New Town’s arm.

The ball speed on these two serves was much slower than that on Wimbledon. Was this guy deliberately suppressing his ball speed in order to generate more high-speed serves? This is not good news.

Before the match, Ares had discussed it with her. The opponent's ball speed was very fast, and normally he wouldn't be able to win her serve unless her arm was overloaded, causing the ball speed to decrease. Therefore, their strategy was to hold their serve, play a long game, and overload her arm.

However, Xincheng is now deliberately suppressing his ball speed to reduce the load on his arm, making it more difficult for him to play a prolonged game.

"40-0."

"New City wins this game."

As Xincheng decisively won the first set, Ares's expression turned grim. Although he had anticipated this, facing it in person was a different story. In the first set, his physical exertion wasn't high, but the mental pressure was immense…

"Go Ares!" Apollo's voice rang out from the stands.

Ares looked in that direction and nodded in acknowledgment. They were still watching; at least they couldn't let themselves lose too badly.

Ares started serving, hitting the ball directly to the baseline. However, to his surprise, Xincheng had already moved to the ball's landing point before he even hit it.

Seeing this, he tried to change his serve position, but Xincheng appeared in the position he had anticipated. This made him question his life choices, and it was too late to change his serve again; he immediately made a service error.

In the audience

"What's going on? Ares shouldn't be playing like this," Apollo said anxiously.

If the opponent's serve was too fast and Ares didn't have time to react, that would be understandable. But even so, it shouldn't have resulted in a serve error.

“I think it’s possible that Mr. Ares is changing the landing point of the tennis ball,” Conan said, staring at Shinjo on the court. “He just changed his position twice, and those two positions should both be where the tennis ball should land.”

“How is that possible!” Apollo retorted immediately. “He’s not a computer, how could he possibly do something like that!”

"Apollo, be quiet and focus on the game." Just then, Mrs. Gino spoke up to tell her youngest son to shut up.

Ares' expression hardened on the field. His second serve landed directly on the baseline, and the two immediately began a rally. This rally lasted for eight minutes, culminating in Ares scoring a point with another shot hitting the baseline.

Ares took a deep breath, calmed himself down, and began his second serve.

Minerva, sitting on the referee's bench, was worried for her boyfriend. She could tell that the guy named Shin-chan had deliberately lost that last goal.

That guy knew Ares very well, even better than she, his student who spent every day with him, understood Ares' habits. At the very least, she couldn't predict where Ares's balls would land. Before Ares even hit the ball, he had already moved to the ball's landing point. Clearly, Ares was expending more energy than Ares.

Xincheng's prosthetic eye began analyzing the data again. He had indeed deliberately let the opponent win that last goal, since they were going to play a match, not shut out their opponent.

An hour later, Ares managed to win the set with difficulty, and then lay down on the court.

"Aren't you going to fight anymore?" Shinjo asked, looking at Ares lying on the ground.

"Why continue? I'm no match for you," Ares said helplessly. "If you hadn't gone easy on me, I wouldn't have won this round at all. Continuing to play would only make us a laughingstock."

“Not necessarily,” Xincheng said, stroking his chin. “In the second half, you deviated from your usual routine and played as you pleased, which made it quite difficult for me to calculate.”

"Calculate?" Ares looked up, somewhat bewildered.

“That’s right. By observing the changes in the muscles in your arms and thighs, I calculated where you wanted to hit the ball,” Shinjo said seriously. “However, you played very relaxed later on and didn’t consciously control the ball, which made your muscle changes less obvious, and the calculated data also deviated, increasing the possibility of the ball landing point.”

Ares wanted to get up from the ground, grab the guy's collar and ask him what kind of monster he was, but he gave up in the end because he was too weak.

"Why don't you participate in tennis matches? With your strength, reaching the top shouldn't be difficult." Ares sat up abruptly from the ground.

He couldn't keep this to himself; those ranked ahead of him should also experience this exhilarating feeling. He was already planning in his mind that if Xincheng agreed, he would arrange a schedule for him to challenge all the top players in the world.

"No need." Shinjo gripped the tennis racket's net with his ten fingers, applying slight pressure. "I'm just having a little fun; I have no intention of entering the tennis world."

Just then, Minerba walked over from the side, now dressed in sportswear and holding a tennis racket.

“You didn’t seem to have used up much energy just now,” Minerva said bluntly. “I want to fight you, tomorrow is fine too.”

"Minerva," Ares said anxiously. Both sides had been very exhausted in the last game, and even with New City resting for a day, Minerva's victory still seemed somewhat unfair.

“I heard that your previous target was Ares, or me.”

“That’s right.” Shinjo nodded directly. “If a match isn’t enough, let’s play a game. One game will decide the winner. You serve.”

Chapter 299 The Curtain Falls

Minerva did not reject the new city's proposal, after all, she was suspected of using a strategy of repeated attacks.

Shinjo wanted to experience the world's number one level, but his heart and arms wouldn't allow it.

That kind of match really drains the battery in my heart; in just one hour, it dropped from 97% to 72%. I definitely won't be able to last a whole match. Unless he finishes quickly and shuts out his opponent 6-0, but that would be too much of a blow to Mineba.

After an hour's rest, the match began soon afterward.

It started with a long tug-of-war, which is often the most tense and exciting part. However, after the hour-long tug-of-war, the audience had lost interest in it.

"Ares, why did you go and challenge that big guy, sister?" Apollo asked, somewhat puzzled.

My sister doesn't think she's the type to take advantage of someone in distress. That older man just fought Ares and was exhausted. Besides, that big guy saved Mom; she shouldn't be challenging him at this time.

“Seeing an opportunity, Minerva might be trying to figure out his playing style,” Ares said, staring at the new city on the court. “Tennis is based on data analysis, and if you want to break through your limits, he should be the best sparring partner.”