The confrontation with Himori Karuta was fast and swift. He kidnapped Mouri Ran and was basically looking for Kudo Shinichi.
Just from how dense the barrage is, it was obvious how much hatred the readers had for Himori Karuta.
And then Conan naturally appears to save Mouri Ran.
Himori Karuta proceeded to run away and Akai Shuichi shot him. The last scene was a confrontation between the two of them.
"Why did you do this?"
"Why?" for popularity of course.
Himori Karuta was looking at the rising popularity on his panel while breathing heavily. He had seen no. 7 using Miyano Akemi to gain popularity. He was also in the Black side and they met in the past but didn't recognize each other.
After all, who would bother remembering the name of an ordinary member of the Winery?
But Himori Karuta would not say this.
When he set up his character, he had the options to either make him a good person or a bad person. Anyway, it's just acting for a short period of time… who would care for him?
He saw that no. 7 took a long time to gather popularity.
It was obvious that being a good person would make it hard to get popularity.
In this case, he wanted to be a bad person.
He acted normal and when Haibara Ai reacted to him, he didn't seem to care that much and instead let it be. But afterwards, he targeted Conan and followed the brat whenever he wanted to solve cases, making it extremely difficult for Conan to start any deduction.
The barrage was getting lively.
But it was slow.
That's when Himori Karuta decided to do something drastic and simply kidnapped Mouri Ran through tricking her out.
She's so pure and stupid.
And that's when the barrage started to fill the screen.
His popularity rose.
Though it was all in the negative way…
But since it's already above 1 million, then he's safe and could return to his old world.
Himori Karuta had to restrain his laughter and happiness as he looked at Conan in front of him. He was bleeding and his HP was already below 15% meaning that his character is unsalvageable.
But it didn't matter.
It was indeed possible to recreate a new character, but it cost 10 million popularity… whoever is crazy enough to do that is insane.
He simply used the popularity points to buy the best permanent pain shield that cost 1 million popularity points, which could block all pain perfectly. Even if his character is dying, he could still perform whatever he wanted to do since he couldn't feel any pain.
Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to speak.
"I'm envious of you… you can escape…heh," Himori Karuta whispered and then he saw the HP was already below 5%.
Well, moving around seemed to be a bad idea.
Before he could speak more words, he died.
Conan looked at Himori Karuta in front of him with a complicated look.
He naturally knew that the other party is a member of the organization, but it was truly incomprehensible for him to come here after kidnapping Ran.
It didn't look like he wanted to make things difficult for him.
Instead…
It looked as if he wanted to die.
…
[What? He died just like that?]
[Ahh, I want to see more!]
[Too bad that it's not possible to know more about this guy]
[He reminds me of Ireland. But eh, it seems to be pretty good.]
…
[Ding! It's noticed that player no. 5 has obtained 1 million popularity points before his death. You may receive a new identity card and choose a new place to live outside Conan's world]
Aikawa Saki looked at the notification and propped her chin with a strange expression.
Why did it seem that it's so easy to get popularity points?
No. 7 gained goodwill for his unyielding spirit.
No. 5 gained it through acting as the villain.
Well, there were still four people including her who had never made their appearance. Oh wait, that Hanada Hitomi had never appeared in the main storyline yet and Hagiwara Kenji only appeared once. Aikawa Saki didn't know what kind of case it was, though.
The barrage didn't make it clear and it was not like Aikawa Saki remembered all the cases in Conan.
There were too many of them.
"The plane has arrived… All passengers…"
Aikawa Saki heard the announcement and sighed deeply as she walked out of the airplane. Now that she's back in Japan, it was time for her to check on the mission and then check the bomber activity. After all, she didn't know whether he was still actively threatening the police officers or not.
'Mission… oh, just a transaction.'
Aikawa Saki took the prepared money, went to the transaction site with a mask as usual and then received the USB drive. She conveniently copied it and then sent it through an encryption channel to her director.
It was obvious that Shiina Akagi has become busy because of Aikawa Saki in the past few years.
Too bad that her senior, Sawada Yoshiko, was transferred to the public security and thus couldn't join her team. Back then she got along the best with him among any other colleagues. Though, they did belong to a different team.
Before Aikawa Saki could leave, there was a gunshot from a distance.
Bang!
"Get down! Take out the money! Now!"
Aikawa Saki: "..."
She swept her gaze across the restaurant and upon seeing the familiar face, she crouched down with pain in her heart.
Who can tell her why Kudo Shinichi is here?