Megure Jusan looked serious and even anxious at this time. It was obvious that he was nervous because he knew about the ghoul's situation:
"Brother Takagi is already at the Legal Affairs Bureau, but it will take some time to retrieve information about all the coffee shops in Tokyo."
Hearing this, Luo Shu said calmly:
"Then investigate the ones that have opened recently. You who have read the memories of Yakumo Ohmori should remember that they have only appeared for less than a month, so only investigate the coffee shops that have opened within a month."
"In that case, how soon can you give me the information?"
Upon hearing this, Megure Jusan immediately saluted and said:
"An hour at the earliest, no, half an hour, sir!"
"very good!"
Luo Shu smiled with satisfaction upon hearing this and took a sip of his tea:
"Then I'll wait for your good news."
-
17 minutes later, as Takagi Wataru was giving a breathless report, Megure Jusan straightened his hat and said with a grim face:
"It has been investigated, sir."
"What do you mean?" Luo Shu asked.
"The suspect you asked me to investigate, 'Yoshimura Kozen', opened a coffee shop called 'Antique Coffee Shop' in Beika Town."
"The specific address is 5-chome-39, Beika-cho..."
Megure Jusan said this with an extremely embarrassed look as he stated the final address:
"——Downstairs at the Maori Detective Agency."
After hearing the specific address, Luo Shu seemed to know the reason why Megure Jusan looked embarrassed.
"It's downstairs at the Mori Detective Agency..."
Luo Shu picked up the red tea cup and sighed: "This is really a coincidence..."
Chapter 48 Antique Coffee Shop (3/3)
5-39 Beika-cho, Mori Detective Agency, first floor.
Mao Lilan, who had spiky hair and a white mask on her face, coughed a few times, and then thanked the girl with dark blue hair and a concealed hairstyle who was holding a lunch box in front of her:
"Hey~ Thank you very much, Dong Xiang. If it weren't for you, I'm afraid I really wouldn't have lunch today."
"It's okay, it's just a little extra for lunch for me."
Kirishima Touka explained to Mao Lilan in a calm tone, and then changed the subject:
"Ran, if you have a bad cold, you should rest at home. Mr. Maori won't die of starvation if he doesn't eat for a day."
Kirishima Touka said this as she handed the lunch box to Mao Li Ran.
"That being said..." Mao Lilan smiled awkwardly, took out the lunch box, and thanked again: "Anyway, Touka, thank you for making lunch for me."
"I will prepare dinner, too. Just give me some money for the ingredients."
Kirishima Touka tried her best to provide help in a way that Mao Li Ran could accept.
"this..."
Mao Lilan wanted to say something to refuse, but Kirishima Touka waved her hand and said:
"I have something else to do in the store. I'll be leaving now. Remember to wash the lunch box after you finish eating. I'll come up and get it in an hour."
"Ok."
Ran Mouri responded quickly, then watched Kirishima Touka enter the coffee shop on the first floor. She coughed a few times, then carried her lunch box and went upstairs from the side stairs.
-
Kirishima Touka entered the store, glanced at the customers who were still dining in the store, her expression paused, then she quickly walked to the bar and sat down at the bar, opposite the store manager 'Yoshimura Kozen' who was wiping glasses.
"Did you give the lunch box to Miss Maori?"
The manager of the Antique Coffee Shop, Yoshimura Kousen, is a thin, kind-faced, white-haired old man wearing a butler's uniform.
No one could have imagined at first sight that he was an SSS-level ghoul codenamed 'Owl' from another world.
Of course, this identity is not a secret to Touka Kirishima, who is also a ghoul at level S.
Sitting at the bar, Kirishima Touka picked up the coffee that had been prepared long ago, took a sip, and looked at Yoshimura Kousen in surprise:
"I didn't expect that you, the store manager, could actually cook human food."
Obviously, the lunch box that Mao Lilan had before was not prepared by Kirishima Touka, but by Yoshimura Kousen in front of him.
"When you live long enough, you will naturally learn some small skills."
Fangcun Gongshan explained with a smile, and then asked:
"By the way, Touka, Ms. Maori is on leave at home today because of a cold. Where is her father, Mr. Maori Kogoro?"
"I went to the hospital to buy cold medicine. He is a guy who loves horse racing and often plays Pachinko. I thought he would abandon his daughter, but he ran to the pharmacy first..."
Thinking of the reckless detective who hurriedly took a taxi and left, Kirishima Touka suddenly showed a surprised expression.
On the contrary, Yoshimura Kousen understood this very well and even smiled:
"After all, it's your own child~"
He shook his head and laughed, then his face became more serious and he asked Kirishima Touka:
"Have you gotten any news from Miss Maori?"
"After listening to her complaints for a while, I learned a little bit."
Kirishima Touka's expression became slightly more serious:
"It seems that due to the activeness of the famous detective Kudo Shinichi, Uncle Maori Kogoro has not received any work for two months. It seems that his previous savings have also been consumed a lot. In addition, he loves to bet on horses and play Pachinko gambling, so the Maori family's financial situation is already very tight."
"From what I heard from Mao Lilan, her family's living expenses seem to have fallen below 10 yen."
"If nothing unexpected happens, this situation can only last for half a month at most."
Hearing Kirishima Touka say this, Yoshimura Kozen wiped the glass in his hand and squinted his eyes and said:
"That being said, the Maori family's economy is about to collapse."
"The property owned by the Maori family, which is the three-storey building where our cafe is located, is an old house built more than 30 years ago and is the ancestral property of the Maori family."
"Given Mr. Maori Kogoro's gambling personality, he will probably think about selling the property when he can't hold on any longer... At that time, we can consider pooling all our money together and buying this building."
Hearing this, Kirishima Touka said with some confusion:
"But, Manager, why do we have to buy the Mori family's house? Aren't those dilapidated houses where murders have occurred cheaper? And there are a lot of houses like this in Beika Town."
"It's because there are too many that we can't buy them."
Fangcun Gongshan said calmly:
"On the one hand, as ghouls, we cannot openly appear in places related to 'corpses'. On the other hand, accidents usually happen in residential areas. Stores like the Mori family are very rare, almost non-existent."
“And most of those stores are in busy areas, which are not suitable for us to hide.”
"So there are very few families like the Mori family, whose economy is about to fall into crisis and who own a property that is suitable for us. It can be said that the only choice we can make in Beika Town is this one family."
"Touka, you also know why I chose to open the antique coffee shop in Beika Town."
Kirishima Touka heard this and said with a somewhat subtle look:
"Because the frequency of murders in Beika-cho is particularly high, as long as we are a little more careful, with the ghouls' sensitivity to corpses, it is easy to find the bodies of the newly dead. In addition, the forest area beyond Beika-cho is an area with a very high suicide frequency in Tokyo."
In Beika Town, where murders occur frequently, it is very convenient for ghouls to use their physical advantages to steal corpses and store them as food.
If no body is found, even if someone reports the case, the police will only classify it as a missing case, which makes it even more secretive.
Plus the frequent suicides in suburban forests further refute their search for 'things'.
It is precisely because of these multiple conveniences that after investigation, Yoshimura Kozen decided to open an antique coffee shop in Beika-cho.
"In half a month, I will test Mr. Mao Li. If he is willing to sell the house, everything will be easy."
Yoshimura Kousen put the inserted glass aside.
At this time, Kirishima Touka, who held her chin with one hand, said unhappily:
"If we give the money from selling the house to that gambler, he will definitely spend it recklessly, and then Mao Lilan will be in trouble."
Seeing this, Yoshimura Kozen understood Kirishima Touka's concerns, but still said:
"There's nothing we can do about this. After this is done, I'll find a chance to suggest that Mr. Mao Li give the house payment to Miss Lan for safekeeping. This should be somewhat safer."
"This is the only way." Kirishima Touka sighed and put down the coffee.
At this moment, the door of the store was pushed open with the sound of tinkling wind chimes, and a woman with long black hair walked into the store. She looked at Yoshimura Kousen and nodded in tacit understanding.
Kirishima Touka turned around and saw this, raised her hand and said hello:
"Miss Xuan, you came so early today."
The person who came was Xuan Irimi, one of the only three employees in the Antique Coffee Shop, and she was also a ghoul.
"Because the morning work was completed early."
Ru Jianxuan, who had long straight black hair and looked like an ordinary urban woman, entered the door and went into the dressing room. Not long after, she changed into work clothes, walked out of the store, stood by the bar, and said in a low voice:
0
"Manager, Sifang has already found out the results of the investigation."
"Yesterday, the crematorium in Beika Town was indeed attacked, but it seemed that they were well prepared. Many of the attacking ghouls were killed on the spot, and it is said that there are still a few survivors."
Hearing this, Yoshimura Kousen's squinting eyes suddenly opened a little, revealing the scarlet color underneath.
He sighed faintly:
"Sure enough, I can't hide it..."
Both Irumi Xuan and Kirishima Touka remained silent, with complicated expressions on their faces.
The youngest of the three, Kirishima Touka, was even more angry:
"We finally came to this strange world. If those guys had just behaved themselves, the ghouls wouldn't be in such a bad situation..."
"Touka." Yoshimura Kousen shook his head at Kirishima Touka: "There's no way to avoid this. After all, most ghouls won't follow our example and feed on suicides and accidental deaths."
“The only person we can restrain is ourselves.”
Kirishima Touka understood what Yoshimura Kousen said, but she still felt somewhat dissatisfied.
A month ago, the ghouls in their antique coffee shop came together to this world that was different from the past yet similar to it. They thought they could live in obscurity in this world where no one knew about ghouls.
........ ........ 0
As it turns out, it wasn't just them who traveled through time, it seemed like all the ghouls in Tokyo had traveled through time.
In this situation, wanting to survive without being discovered has obviously become a luxury.
Kirishima Touka was well aware of this, but she always hoped that the day of exposure would come later.
Ru Jianxuan, who had just returned from investigating the news, asked solemnly:
"Manager, what should we do next?"
"Because of the ghouls that attacked the crematorium, our existence must have been exposed. Next, an official investigation is inevitable. Once it develops to the level of the original world..."
Having said this, Ru Jianxuan's expression became quite complicated.
In the original world, the CCG Investigation Bureau was established by humans to hunt ghouls specifically in order to curb incidents of ghouls eating people. Humans and ghouls became absolute enemies, constantly fighting in the dark of Tokyo.
Or rather, ghouls were hunted and captured by the larger number of humans like stray dogs.
That kind of environment was a little hard for Ru Jianxuan, who had lived in peace for nearly a month, to accept.
It was okay and bearable when I was in that kind of environment before, but now that I enjoy a peaceful environment without being hunted, naturally I don’t want to continue living that kind of bad life.
This also made Irumi Xuan, who discovered that the ghoul's situation had taken a sharp turn for the worse, become emotionally unstable.
Behind the bar, facing Rujian Xuan's question, Fangcun Gongshan, who wanted to try to live in peace with humans, could only sigh:
"I will try my best to contact various ghoul organizations and find ways to delay time, so that ghouls will not evolve into a state of hostility towards humans."
