"In short, confess your identity, then tell Kogoro what you know, and have the police officer behind you help find people," Ryuji said, pointing at Misato standing behind Mira; who was yawning and preparing to go to eat which made her stunned for a moment, then looked over curiously.
"What's going on?"
Explaining things to her took some time. Leaving out the resurrection part, Misato was completely bewildered after hearing everything, but the information Ryuji offered also made her realize this was indeed a good opportunity.
"Mm, I more or less understand, but police departments won't openly help with something like this. I can help file a report, but what happens after that I don't know and it's best to do it quickly. Things like this always benefit from speed; nobody wants to see it dragged out."
Misato couldn't help but complain as she spoke.
"And anyway, it sounds so weird, right? Saying there's treasure hidden in the royal crown or clues about it.... this is just too strange."
She'd always thought the queen was killed purely for the throne, but now it turned out to be for some treasure...
"Mm, it's not just for that. It's also because of the ore. In the Vespania Kingdom we discovered a kind of ore that shouldn't appear on the surface, but it came up after an earthquake, and this ore can completely mask radar and a series of telecoms... totally making things invisible and paralyzing local electronic signals..."
Mira spoke, pressing her lips together before continuing.
"Because of that, the extraction difficulty is high. My uncle must have coveted the treasure because of this."
Her tone carried a touch of melancholy. If it were just Ryuji, she would have told more secrets, but not in front of Misato.
Because their crown contained a secret treasure that only the king could open, and in the prophecies passed down inside their kingdom there had been mention of a relationship between the crown and this ore now called Vespania ore.
It's just that the previous kings simply didn't believe it actually existed.
And because of the special properties of Vespania ore, conventional exploration methods were useless; it required endless screening and then manufacturing.
As for the Vespania Kingdom itself, due to environmental protection and such, infrastructure work was pretty weak, and industrial strength wasn't developed because the previous queen had advocated environmental protection. So relying entirely on themselves to mine, smelt, and manufacture missiles was absolutely impossible.
They could buy production lines, but that required money. A small South American–style country that sustained itself through cultural tourism and agriculture.... buying an entire industrial system would be astronomically expensive.
So it made sense that Mira had lied a little.
"I thought something like this would only attract the U.S. military, but unfortunately, that's not necessarily the case in this world."
Ryuji couldn't help but grumble; he had just checked, and it supposedly could make stealth aircraft and missiles completely invisible, making it impossible to trace who had attacked.
But honestly...
"This thing is actually just a useless thing in this world."
China had mastered nuclear fusion technology; who knew what technologies the United States possessed. And once nuclear fusion became a reality, the core of development for superpowers would no longer be Earth, it would be the competition for resources outside of earth.
At that point, so-called "complete invisibility" wasn't that important to superpowers.
And saying "you can't trace whose missile it was" was just plain nonsense.
The missile's range and parameters, there were only a handful of countries capable of launching intercontinental missiles. A quick investigation would reveal who fired it. The missile and aircraft might be invisible, sure... but the pilots, the airfields, and the missile bases weren't.
This sort of thing was just a way for big nations to bully small nations... shamelessly at that. And for small nations to fight big ones with it? Totally useless. At best, it might give one small country an advantage over another small country but even then, what difference would that make to the global picture?
And if everyone already knew Vespania had that kind of ore, who wouldn't suspect them after an attack like that? Just check Vespania's trade records and problem solved.
"But on Earth, it would be different… If this were the real Earth, the U.S. military would probably already be knocking on Mira's door. It's only in this world that they're pretending not to see."
Ryuji crossed his arms behind his head, muttering to himself, then a thought struck him.
This thing might be useless in this world but in other worlds? It could be extremely useful right?
Thinking that, his curiosity was instantly piqued.
"Well, that's something to worry about later. First, we need to bring Ran back. Otherwise, things could get messy."
Ryuji stood up. Ran had met Princess Mira in the women's restroom of a hotel when Mira was on the run, and that was how they'd swapped identities without anyone noticing. It wasn't exactly the same as the original story, but by now Ran should have already told them or more likely, she'd been discovered the moment she appeared in front of the bodyguards.
He had already forgotten most of the original plot, but if he hadn't been so impatient, and hadn't realized that the other person was not Ran after he entered inside her, then he would've been able to recognize she wasn't Ran just by looking at her temperament and expression.
"Yes… although I told Ran that she wouldn't be in trouble if she just revealed her identity, but..."
As she said this, Mira clenched her fists.
She already knew the full truth from her conversation with her mother.
Her mother and brother hadn't died the way the official report said: that her brother accidentally shot the queen during a hunt and then killed himself. In reality, her mother had replaced all the bullets with blanks beforehand because she despised hunting... calling it a "sport" when it was really just slaughter for amusement. So she replaced the bullets. The bullets in her brother's gun were all blanks! It couldn't have killed anything!
And the only other person present was her uncle, the same uncle who'd constantly urged her mother to begin large-scale mining of the ore and then start a war!
"Yeah. We should move quickly," Ryuji said, stretching lazily.
But just then, the TV which had been on but no one was watching, suddenly broadcast a piece of news.
"Breaking news: Hundreds of unidentified armed individuals have surrounded the hotel where Princess Mira of Vespania is staying. A fierce gun battle has erupted on-site…"
Ryuji nearly spit out a mouthful of water.
Hundreds of armed men??
A full-scale shootout with Japanese police in Tokyo?
Ryuji thought for a moment, remaining silent and then sighed in resignation.
Well… it is the Conan world, after all.
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Author's Note:
Originally, I planned to include Akako Koizumi and the other girls who look like Ran, plus Miwako Sato the policewoman and the rest but that would've made things drag on too much. So this world arc will wrap up after Eri Kisaki and a few of the Sailor Moons are in the bag (in harem).
As for Tobiichi Origami (from Date A Live), that world's power level is too high. So for now, she'll continue to be unlucky for a while.
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