Chapter 76: It Smells So Good, It Must Taste Amazing!
At the Mouri Detective Agency, Natsukawa sat comfortably on the sofa, listening as Kogoro Mouri enthusiastically recounted the details of Dr. Ogawa's commission.
"I see." Natsukawa hadn't expected Dr. Ogawa to act so quickly. He'd assumed the doctor would at least investigate Uncle Mouri's background and reputation first before committing to hiring him.
However, this swift action demonstrated just how seriously concerned Dr. Ogawa was about the mysterious packages.
Natsukawa felt slightly embarrassed by Uncle Mouri's profuse gratitude.
Even if he hadn't specifically mentioned Mouri to Dr. Ogawa, the doctor would have inevitably been drawn to Kogoro Mouri's Detective Agency anyway by the inexorable gravitational pull of Conan's case-attracting magnetism. Natsukawa had merely accelerated the timeline slightly.
The contribution was minimal, but it remained highly useful for deepening his relationship with the Mouri family.
"Yes, I really must thank you properly, Natsukawa!" Kogoro Mouri raised his beer glass, waved it ceremoniously in Natsukawa's direction as a toast, then gulped down the entire contents in one go.
"Ahhhh~ So refreshing! Premium craft beer really hits different when you drink it right!"
Kogoro Mouri's tongue lolled out in an expression reminiscent of a certain electric mouse mascot, his face flushed bright red—clearly already well on his way to being thoroughly drunk.
Four or five empty beer bottles cluttered the table alongside two or three small appetizer dishes.
Kogoro was enthusiastically downing the beer, while Natsukawa didn't particularly enjoy alcohol and wasn't very interested. He'd politely consumed one bottle before diplomatically declining further drinks.
Glancing at the earthenware pot he'd brought, then at Conan who had just finished his shower, Natsukawa felt a surge of anticipation.
"Conan, it's time to take your medicine! Your immune system is at its weakest—I mean, strongest—right after a hot shower, so the medicinal effects will be most potent now."
"Uh..." Conan paused mid-motion while drying his hair, swallowing nervously. Every single hair on his head seemed to stand on end with sudden alarm.
Strange. I have an incredibly bad feeling about this.
Looking at Natsukawa's smile, Conan felt something was fundamentally wrong. His detective's sixth sense was screaming at him not to consume whatever was in that pot.
But why?
Why shouldn't I drink it?
Trust your intuition. Doubt your intuition. Approach everything with healthy skepticism but also willingness to experiment.
Conan immediately manufactured an excuse for himself, pushing his intuitive warnings aside. Uncle Natsukawa was such a genuinely nice person—he definitely wouldn't deceive or harm him.
Besides, it smelled absolutely divine.
"Okay~" Conan answered in his high-pitched childish voice, completely sealing his fate.
Knock knock knock~
A sudden rapping on the door interrupted the moment.
"Who could that be at this hour?" Ran opened the door curiously, looked around at eye level, then glanced downward to discover a pink-haired child standing there.
"Oh, it's Anya!" Ran immediately squatted down and embraced Anya, who was adorably holding out both arms requesting a hug.
Anya is definitely cuter than Conan, Ran thought. At least when she acts cute, it's actually adorable.
"Anya, what brings you here? Didn't you need to take Bond for his evening walk?" Natsukawa asked with genuine curiosity.
He glanced toward the doorway but didn't see the massive precognitive dog anywhere.
"Ah!" Anya made an exaggerated surprised expression. (￣△￣;)
"Bond said he can handle the walk by himself! Anya doesn't need to go!"
In reality, Bond had been thoroughly bribed with premium sausages and was currently taking himself for a walk while carrying his own leash in his mouth.
Anya absolutely would not miss the momentous occasion of Conan consuming Aunt Yor's legendary cooking.
Whether the problem resided in her own physical constitution, Aunt Yor's culinary methodology, or contaminated ingredients from an unscrupulous merchant, the definitive answer would soon be revealed.
Her telepathic superpower still hadn't returned yet, which genuinely worried her.
Could Aunt Yor's stew really permanently erase superpowers? That's absolutely ridiculous.
Okay, honestly, superpowers weren't actually that important right now. Her primary objective was witnessing Conan make a complete fool of himself.
"Conan, you haven't eaten it yet?" Anya's eyes darted back and forth between Conan and the ominous earthenware pot. She breathed an enormous sigh of relief upon confirming he hadn't consumed any yet. Perfect timing!
"I was just about to eat. You wouldn't possibly—"
Conan's expression went completely deadpan.
This Anya... did she come here specifically to steal his medicinal food?
These folk remedy dishes were all concentrated medicine. Supposedly, consuming too little wouldn't produce the proper therapeutic effects. He absolutely could not allow Anya to succeed in her food-thievery schemes.
"Uncle Natsukawa explicitly said that girls can't eat this particular type of medicinal food. They can't even smell it safely," Conan reminded her pointedly, determined to protect his portion from Anya's notorious appetite.
"Hmph~ If you just want to eat it all yourself, then say so directly! But I, Anya, am not the kind of person who would accept handouts or steal food. You can eat it without any worry—I absolutely won't take even a single bite from you."
"That's good to hear." Conan muttered under his breath, clearly recalling several unpleasant experiences from school. Anya had quite the established history of stealing classmates' food!
Anya made an innocent face: (✿◠‿◠)
I'm not eating any. I'll just watch you eat it. Let's see exactly how many bites you can manage before collapsing.
Anya can only say—I'm doing my absolute best to play along with this tragic performance~
The Taste Test Begins
Natsukawa ceremoniously removed the lid from the earthenware pot, and an inexplicably strange aroma immediately sobered up Kogoro Mouri, who had been thoroughly drunk just moments before.
"Eh~ What is this stuff? It actually smells pretty appetizing!" Kogoro Mouri looked thoughtful, his nose twitching repeatedly as if attempting to identify the specific ingredients through scent alone.
However, after several rounds of heavy drinking, his sense of smell had significantly deteriorated. Despite prolonged sniffing, he still couldn't determine the contents.
The more he thought about it, the more Kogoro Mouri's appetite intensified. He reached for his chopsticks, fully intending to sample the dish and evaluate its quality personally.
He mentally assured himself it wasn't that he wanted to eat it—he'd just received ten million yen in childcare expenses from Conan's mother and absolutely had to fulfill his guardian responsibilities properly, which obviously included taste-testing potentially dangerous food!
"Dad! This is Conan's medicinal food! If you eat it, the therapeutic dosage won't be strong enough for him!"
Before Ran could finish her protest, Kogoro Mouri had already captured a generous portion of stew with his chopsticks and was noisily chewing it.
"Whoa~"
Kogoro Mouri's tongue lolled out again, but his facial expression was now completely different from his previous drunken satisfaction.
Then, quite suddenly, he lost his balance entirely. A disturbingly familiar scene manifested before both Conan and Ran's shocked eyes.
After swaying unsteadily several times like a collapsing tower, Kogoro Mouri plopped down dramatically onto the sofa. One hand draped limply over the armrest, his head drooping forward at an unnatural angle, and he remained completely motionless.
"..." ×4
Natsukawa's lips twitched involuntarily, and he quickly attempted damage control. "Uncle Mouri appears to be... extremely drunk. Yes, definitely just drunk."
It's confirmed.
The problem was unquestionably Yor's cooking methodology. The ingredients had been carefully selected and were definitely not contaminated, yet the effect after consumption was functionally identical to receiving an anesthetic injection.
The root cause had been identified—it was definitively confirmed that Yor's stew was the culprit.
It smelled absolutely wonderful, but the undeniable fact remained that it caused immediate unconsciousness and acute food poisoning.
However, he'd already promised to test it using Conan, and a man had to keep his word.
"Conan, come here! It's time for your medicine."
Natsukawa picked up the earthenware pot and approached Conan, looking as kind and paternal as possible. He even blew on the contents several times to ensure the temperature was perfectly safe before positioning it near Conan's lips.
"Uh, Uncle Natsukawa, you're being far too considerate! There's really no need for that level of service."
Conan felt genuinely uncomfortable. It had been many years since anyone had fed him like a small child, and this scene triggered powerful nostalgic memories.
Back then, when he was actually a child, his parents were both alive and present, and his life had been incredibly comfortable and carefree.
Comparing that golden era to his current situation created a world of difference. Now he regularly had to endure Uncle Mouri's "loving" iron fist corrections—it was practically unbearable.
Uncle Mouri's alcohol tolerance really isn't impressive today though. He passed out cold after only four bottles.
"I'll feed myself," Conan insisted, accepting the pot from Natsukawa.
After all, he was actually a seventeen-year-old high school detective. His sense of dignity and shame absolutely compelled him to maintain some degree of independence and self-reliance.
"Yeah, let Conan do it himself! He's such a big, responsible boy now~" Anya chimed in sweetly, staring with intense focus, her lips curving into a knowing smile.
Conan settled onto the sofa, glanced at his unconscious future father-in-law with exasperation, rolled his eyes dramatically, and picked up the soup spoon.
He didn't immediately put it in his mouth but first brought it close to his nose and inhaled deeply.
"It smells absolutely incredible! This must taste amazing!"
"Yeah, I completely agree~" Anya said quietly, maintaining her innocent expression.
She'd been thoroughly deceived by Aunt Yor's olfactory deception yesterday.
The intertwined aromas of various ingredients created a rich, complex, and refreshing fragrance that genuinely stimulated the appetite.
That's precisely why yesterday she'd taken such an enormous, enthusiastic bite—and that single bite had nearly killed her.
"Then I won't hold back anymore!" Conan clapped his hands together in a traditional pre-meal gesture, scooped up a generously large spoonful, and blew on it carefully to cool it down.
Slurrrrrp!
Conan's eyes rolled back dramatically in his head. For the first time in his life, he experienced exactly how unbearably heavy his usually brilliant brain could feel.
Is this precisely how Uncle Mouri feels every single time I shoot him unconscious with the tranquilizer watch?
So this is what it's like...
THUD!
Conan's head landed squarely in the earthenware pot with a wet splash, the spoon clattering loudly to the floor. The pot's contents bubbled and gurgled ominously around his submerged face.
Natsukawa quickly extracted Conan from the pot—it would be somewhat problematic if the protagonist actually suffocated by drowning in medicinal stew.
"What just happened to Conan?! Could it possibly be...?" Ran looked from her unconscious father to the equally unconscious Conan, her heart flooding with worry. Countless question marks materialized in her confused mind.
This was supposed to be therapeutic medicinal food! How could he collapse face-first into the pot after consuming just one bite?! This wasn't remotely normal!
"Everything's perfectly fine," Natsukawa assured her with a dismissive wave.
He indicated that medicinal food sometimes had these dramatic effects, then casually extracted a medicine bottle from his pocket. Pouring out two capsules, he fed them to both unconscious males.
These were antidote capsules he'd strategically obtained from Dr. Ogawa beforehand. Taking these capsules immediately after food poisoning would rapidly neutralize the toxins.
Anya had spent far too long at the hospital yesterday. Between the various tests and examinations, nearly an hour had elapsed before she'd received medication. Some toxins had already been partially broken down by her digestive system, which explained why she'd needed to remain hospitalized for a full day.
"This is the medicinal primer. Administer another dose in exactly two hours, and the treatment will be complete. It should also help Uncle Mouri sober up considerably," Natsukawa explained, handing the bottle to Ran.
"R-really?" Ran remained deeply skeptical. She accepted the bottle and examined it thoroughly for several minutes but couldn't locate any medicine name or identification anywhere on it. Something definitely felt suspicious.
Natsukawa had already torn off the pharmaceutical label, rendering it completely anonymous.
"Of course it's legitimate."
Natsukawa touched Conan's forehead experimentally. "Look—the fever's already completely gone! The effect is immediate and dramatic. Next comes the detoxification phase. Just remember to administer the second dose in two hours, and all the pathological symptoms will completely disappear after he uses the bathroom."
It genuinely did possess fever-reducing properties. Natsukawa himself was thoroughly shocked. Miss Yor's stew is incredibly powerful! Is this the miraculous power of existing in Conan's scientific universe? This is far too unscientific!
"Is it really that therapeutically effective? But..." Ran trailed off uncertainly.
"Fighting poison with poison—it's a traditional remedy principle! Conan's condition is already significantly improved, isn't it? Don't worry at all. My folk remedy methods are absolutely guaranteed effective." Natsukawa gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up, radiating complete confidence.
Ran frowned. "What I actually meant was... Dad didn't even have a cold in the first place, so why did he faint too?"
"Ahem, Uncle Mouri moved far too quickly earlier. I genuinely didn't have sufficient time to stop him from consuming it." Natsukawa rubbed his nose sheepishly. "This particular remedy absolutely shouldn't be consumed by healthy individuals without illness."
Kogoro Mouri had been impossibly fast just now—he must have utilized his full drunken reflexes—but it wasn't a catastrophic problem.
"Don't worry! It definitely won't kill anyone. Just remember the two-hour medication schedule, and he'll be perfectly fine. Maybe have him eat extra fruit tomorrow to supplement his vitamins and aid recovery."
Ran: "..."
Natsukawa spent considerable time helping Ran transport both males—one large, one small—to the bedroom for recovery.
Anya followed the entire process with rapt attention. At some point, she'd produced her camera and held it ready. Natsukawa hadn't observed the exact moment, but he suspected it had materialized right when Conan had lifted that fateful spoonful.
(End of Chapter 76)
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