I am in Mihua, and the ladies all like me

There is no headlight illumination, only the dim light from the square warning lights that appear at regular intervals on the floor and the walls on both sides, which highlight its general outline, making it look particularly creepy in such a depressing environment.

"It feels like if we keep going like this, we'll really end up in some hell..."

Yuanzi deliberately lowered her voice and whispered in her best friend's ear using the tone often used by vicious old witches in cartoons.

She always knew that Xiaolan was afraid of ghosts, so she deliberately scared her like this.

But what Sonoko didn't expect was that Xiaolan actually teased her back with a smile.

"Hey~ Can we still meet the legendary Izanami?"

"Probably?" Miss Suzuki was slightly stunned. "By the way, Lan, why aren't you afraid at all? If I remember correctly, Lan, shouldn't you be very afraid of ghosts?"

"Well?"

Xiaolan put her index finger on the corner of her lips and thought about it seriously.

"But the rumor is that there are armors here that can move on their own, right?"

"Uh……"

Ahahaha~

Conan beside him twitched his lips silently and narrowed his eyes silently.

Sonoko didn't understand the logic, but he did.

Because ghosts are intangible things and cannot be attacked with karate, they are afraid of them.

But the armor is physical, and you can use karate to deal a lot of violence to it, so there is no need to be afraid.

This makes sense.

So the boys and girls continued to move forward as if they were participating in a test of courage.

But an exhibition hall is just an exhibition hall after all, and it is impossible for it to grow into a tunnel through a mountain. Soon, the five people arrived at the final treasure trove.

Hanging in the center of the wall at the end of the exhibition hall is a huge painting called "Divine Punishment". In the picture, a dying demon is pierced by a knight's sword on the war-torn city wall behind him. The knight turns and leaves, with the demon's blood stained on his armor. The expressiveness of the picture almost overflows the frame.

The placement of this painting is also very subtle, because it is placed at the end of "Hell", and the knight in the painting is walking outwards. There are countless demon statues on both sides of the picture, which means that those who want to escape from hell need to kill countless demons before they can really leave.

It’s very meaningful…

Conan was thinking this in his mind when he suddenly realized something was wrong.

Tick.

A faint sound of liquid dripping was heard in the dark space. It was slightly different from the sound of water dripping on the ground, in that it was a richer and more viscous liquid.

At the same time, Serabelle's voice came from above.

"Oh haha, I finally found it."

"...What did you find?" Conan asked subconsciously.

"Corpse."

! ! ?

The news of the explosion caused the four people's pupils to tremble violently, and for a moment, several gazes in the small space gathered together at the same time.

Serabelle looked calm and composed, raising her thumb and pointing to her right.

In the darkness less than thirty centimeters to the right of his right shoulder, a fat corpse that had completely lost all life stood side by side with them, its head lowered and pupils dilated, a huge knight's sword piercing its throat, and thick, fishy blood was dripping from the corners of its clothes onto the floor below.

It was the owner of the museum who had appeared in the first exhibition hall and had ambitiously stated that he wanted to transform the art museum into a hotel.

But he was dead now, completely dead.

After two seconds of polite silence, the two young girls, Xiaolan and Sonoko, covered their mouths with their hands at the same time, and then burst into the world's top soprano voices.

"ah!!!!!"

……

Fifteen minutes later, all staff gathered in the exhibition hall on the first floor of the art museum, with sirens wailing outside the gate.

The police officer who came was an old acquaintance, it was Inspector Megure who came to investigate the toilet murder case at the Rice Flower Cafe last weekend.

He was still wearing the same brown suit and a round hat of the same color. He was round in shape, except for his fat face, which made him look intimidating without even showing any anger.

Inspector Megure walked straight up to Director Ochiai, who was standing in the middle of the front row, and spoke with a serious expression.

"So, has anyone seen anything about the murderer's appearance?"

"We've checked everyone, and they all said they didn't see it." Director Ochiai shook his head slightly.

But this is also the expected answer.

After all, the art museum's business was not doing well to begin with, and in order to save costs they did not hire too many people. And in order to be able to close smoothly in ten days, almost all the staff in the museum were busy packing up artworks today, going from one exhibition hall to another, and [Hell Room] was the last exhibition hall in line.

"But I think the cameras in the museum might have captured it."

Iijima, a staff member of the museum who had been in the exhibition hall two hours ago, standing together with Director Ochiai to denounce the unethical behavior of Boss Manaka, stepped out and said, while pointing to the high-definition cameras that were arranged at a 45-degree angle downward at regular intervals along the four sides of the ceiling in the exhibition hall, covering the entire venue without blind spots.

"In order to prevent artworks from being stolen, we have installed quite a number of cameras in the venue, including in the Hell Room, which may capture the criminal's face."

"Are there cameras?"

When Inspector Megure caught the key words, his eyes lit up.

"Great, take us to see it!"

So the case location was quickly moved from the exhibition hall to the monitoring room. More than a dozen people were crowded in the small space, staring at the screen in front of them which was divided into more than 20 small sections, not daring to make a sound.

Retrieve surveillance video and click to start playing.

The scene is the familiar "Hell Room".

In the video, it seemed that Boss Manaka was invited here alone. When he appeared in the surveillance video, he looked around. After confirming that the person who had invited him had not arrived yet, he took out a cigarette from his pocket and put it in his mouth, ready to smoke.

But before he could light the cigarette, a horrifying scene suddenly happened.

The medieval armor in the posture of a knight holding a sword behind Boss Manaka suddenly moved on its own, swung the knight's sword and chopped it down on the back. As blood gushed out, the armor leaped forward swiftly, and slashed at the chest with another sword. The last one grabbed the neck of Boss Manaka, who was seriously injured and unable to resist, and stabbed him in the throat, piercing him to death next to the famous painting "Divine Punishment".

Even the final execution action completely corresponds to the scene in Heaven's Condemnation.

How bloody and brutal!

Even Inspector Megure, who was used to seeing dead people, couldn't help but slightly shift his gaze away with a phantom pain.

Sera Masumi's eyelids were also twitching from the chopping: "Who on earth would be so cruel as to kill someone like that..."

"I bet 50 cents that the culprit is Director Ochiai."

After saying this, Serabelle thought for a moment and added calmly.

"Forget it, one piece, no more."

Chapter 22: The Ultimate Spear

Serabelle's voice wasn't loud, but in the small monitoring room it was loud enough for everyone present to hear clearly.

With almost no hesitation, Iijima was the first to stand up and loudly deny the former's assertion.

"Impossible! How could Director Ochiai do such a thing? You are talking complete nonsense!"

Although his face was full of indignation, he still maintained a considerable degree of politeness in his words, and did not let his personal emotions affect his professional qualities as an art museum staff member.

At the same time, several other museum staff members in the monitoring room also cast unfriendly glances at him. It was obvious that in their minds, Director Ochiai was indeed an excellent leader who was truly respected and admired.

Anyone would feel dissatisfied if the person they admire and pursue is slandered as a murderer.

"That's right, the curator is not that kind of person!"

"You have evidence to prove what I'm saying!"

Such dissenting voices were heard constantly in the monitoring room, as if a criticism meeting was being held.

Xiaolan and Sonoko also looked a little worried, not knowing what to do with the current situation.

Conan even pinched his chin, frowned and looked thoughtful.

Only Sera Masumi had no reaction at all, she just stared at the screen with her eyes wide open.

Based on her understanding of Serabelle over the years of living together, she knew very well that this guy's thinking was always like a straight highway, extremely fast but never complicated. If he said something so certain, it must be because there were some extremely obvious flaws.

But where exactly is this so-called flaw? Damn it! If only I were Lee Sin, I could spot the flaw immediately...

"Okay, okay, everyone, stop arguing."

Seeing that the situation was about to get out of control, Inspector Megure stepped out to temporarily calm the situation. He then turned to Serabell, who was standing next to the girl with tiger teeth, with her hands in her pockets as if she didn't know what an opponent was, and spoke in a slightly serious tone.

"Brother Shiliang, when it comes to identifying a criminal, words are not enough. We still need evidence."

"evidence?"

Serabelle let out a breath silently, raised her hand and poked the air with her index finger at the time in the upper right corner of the surveillance screen in front of her where Boss Manaka was stabbed to death by a sword, then turned to look at Iijima and others who were breathing heavily.

"Look, the deceased was killed at nine o'clock in the morning. Tell me, what were you doing at that time?"

"What else to do? Of course I'm packing up the artworks." Iijima frowned.

This is the truth, because the museum will be closed in ten days, so they expect to finish cleaning up all the exhibition halls within five days.

After all, there are still many other things to pack and take away.

The first exhibition hall contained some relatively light art paintings, so it was relatively easy to put them away. However, the following exhibition halls were filled with solid sculptures, etc., and even four or five adult men might not be able to lift them easily. Each one would take a lot of effort, and the construction period was very tight, so it was impossible to fish in troubled waters.

"Great, packing up your art supplies, right?"

Serabelle pushed aside the people in front of her and came to the monitoring console. She operated the monitoring software to reduce the monitoring screen of the Hell Room, and then called up the monitoring screen of the second exhibition hall [The Earth Room] at the same time.

In the picture, Iijima and others are working together to lift a huge ceramic jar onto a cart.

Then he gently moved to the right, and the next surveillance picture showed Sonoko and others who were visiting the "Space in the Sky" at the time, including Serabelle herself.

Everyone is present in both pictures, except Director Ochiai.

"Okay, do you understand now?"

Serabelle took two steps back and yawned lightly with her hands covering her mouth.

"There's no need for any reasoning. It only takes two steps. First, we need to be sure that the boss Manaka in the picture was obviously invited to Hell, and the most likely person who could have invited him here is Director Ochiai."

"Then use the process of elimination to rule out the possibility that you were busy collecting artworks at the time of the crime, and then rule out the possibility that we happened to be strolling in the sky, and finally rule out the possibility that Inspector Megure and the others just arrived... Okay, I can find the murderer for you even if I have to tie up a Border Collie."

"..."

"..."

There is one thing to say, indeed.

Although the process is very simple and crude, just like forcibly using the addition and subtraction learned in elementary school to solve a linear equation learned in junior high school, you can't say he is wrong.

"…No, there's another person who's not there!" Iijima suddenly said, "Kubota! Kubota doesn't appear in the picture either! That means he's a suspect too!"

"What? I didn't kill anyone!"

Kubota, who was blocked outside the crowd and couldn't see anything because of his small physique, thought that nothing would happen to him. Unexpectedly, his name was called without any warning. He couldn't help but defend himself loudly.

"But you are still a suspect!" Iijima turned and shouted angrily, "Don't think I don't know that you and that guy Manaka also have a grudge! Manaka knew that you secretly took the works from the art museum out and sold them privately for money, so he used this as an excuse to blackmail you for a large sum of money, right?!"

"This, this..."

Kubota was suddenly stuck.

Serabelle sighed again, raised her hand as if taking something out of a bag, and put her arm through the gap between the crowd. She grabbed Kubota who was blocked at the outside, and pulled him in easily like picking up a monkey and pushed him in front of Iijima.

"I'm wondering if you're a pig. Do you want to take another look at the crime scene? That's medieval armor. Not to mention whether this guy can walk after wearing it, his height doesn't fit. Can his feet reach the bottom of the boots after wearing it? Can his head stick out of the collar? Can he see anything? Will he really not be hung in the middle by the review outline of the Groove-Butt Theorem? And even if he can see, if he makes a big move like jumping, splitting, and leaning over in the picture, are you sure that the helmet won't fly off because it's not worn firmly?"

"This is basic common sense, my friend," Serabelle added.

"..."

Now Iijima was also stuck.

In fact, the truth is already very clear at this point, but the police still require solid evidence when investigating a case.

So Inspector Megure coughed again and said, "Having said that, brother Sera, regarding this evidence..."