Chapter 133: This Is What Happens When You Don't Study
Behind Natsukawa, Conan came striding down the stairs with purpose.
"Uncle Mouri, let's go check the situation at the bottom of the cliff!" Conan spotted Kogoro as soon as he descended and immediately called out.
"I know!"
Kogoro nodded solemnly.
He'd just checked the area—there was a stream below the cliff. If Shunian and Tennei were lucky enough to fall into the water, they might have survived.
Conan felt somewhat relieved. Although Uncle Mouri was unreliable most of the time, he never hesitated when it came to serious matters like murder cases.
After the two left, Natsukawa thought for a moment and said to Ran, "Ran, contact the hospital. Falling from that height, even if they're not dead, they'll be severely injured. It's better to call an ambulance just in case."
"Got it."
A dozen minutes later, at the edge of the grassy area below Mountain Mist Temple, Natsukawa held up a flashlight to illuminate Kogoro's path.
The grass, thanks to abundant moisture, was growing exceptionally well—reaching almost as tall as Conan. However, this made it much harder to locate Tennei and Shunian, who had fallen.
Kogoro, bent over and searching, finally found the inflatable boat after more than ten minutes of groping through the grass.
"Seriously, what the hell happened? Why did Tennei and Shunian fall off the cliff?"
Kogoro was still completely bewildered by the situation.
While providing illumination, Natsukawa explained everything, recounting Conan's entire deduction process and adding his own observations to fill in the details.
"So Abbot Tennei was the murderer who killed Tunnian two years ago?"
Natsukawa shook his head, then nodded. "There shouldn't be any mistake. Conan's reasoning was all learned from you, Uncle Mouri. The case logic is sound and self-consistent, so the deduction should be correct."
Kogoro focused mainly on the phrase "learned from him," laughing and scratching the back of his head somewhat bashfully. "Well, after following me around for so long, it's natural he'd pick up some of my real skills! No wonder I always bring him along when solving cases—he's finally becoming useful! It seems Conan has real potential after all!"
"..."
Natsukawa remained silent, his lips twitching slightly.
Conan's choice of Uncle Mouri as his Sleeping Kogoro subject wasn't without reason—the man's confidence and narcissism were truly unmatched.
Fortunately, it was still dark, and Kogoro was focused on searching for Tennei and Shunian, so he didn't notice anything odd about Natsukawa's expression.
"Uncle Mouri, Natsukawa-san! I found Abbot Tennei!" Conan, carrying his own light source, had been searching independently when he suddenly looked up and shouted.
Natsukawa glanced over. Conan was close to the stream but still several meters away from it, forming a straight line with the kayak and the meditation room above.
However, if Tennei hadn't landed in the water, his chances of survival were practically zero.
After all, falling from the meditation room—which was forty or fifty meters high—would have resulted in him being smashed to pieces if he'd hit solid ground.
Despite being somewhat mentally prepared, both men still frowned slightly upon seeing Abbot Tennei's mangled body. It was rather gruesome.
"Abbot Tennei should have died five or six hours ago. He was probably strangled beforehand, then they planned to hang him from the beam to fake a suicide."
Conan stood beside the corpse without flinching, carefully examining it and occasionally turning over the somewhat deformed body.
On the surface, there was a very obvious ligature mark around Abbot Tennei's neck.
The mark was purplish-blue, indicating that the time of death wasn't recent.
"Abbot Tennei's body is here. Shunian was expelled by the water before him, when the pressure was even greater, so he probably landed a bit further away." Natsukawa's gaze fixed on the stream, but he didn't find any traces of blood.
"The stream is too shallow. Anyone who falls into it probably won't survive."
Natsukawa shook his head and sighed, picking up a branch from nearby to test the water depth.
The water was about fifty centimeters deep. At that level, even landing in the stream would mean certain death.
Finally, Shunian's body was found by the three of them five meters across the stream.
Perhaps due to his greater body weight, Shunian's death was even more gruesome.
His expression before death was filled with terror, and his wide-open eyes revealed his desperate attachment to life.
He'd obviously broken through the drainage panel intending to wait for the water to recede before escaping through that opening, but he hadn't considered that breaking the panel would cause him to be swept away by the torrent.
Or perhaps he'd overestimated himself, thinking he could withstand such a violent current.
"This is what happens when you don't study properly. He probably didn't realize that breaking the panel would create a current strong enough to sweep him away!"
Natsukawa glanced back at Yor standing at the edge of the grass—or more precisely, at Anya in Yor's arms.
Did you hear that? Without proper education, even committing crimes is full of mistakes, and even escape attempts end in suicide.
Anya: ─━_─━
Natsukawa's deduction was confirmed by Conan.
As expected from someone who could connect the meditation room to a water reservoir concept—his reasoning ability was impressive!
Shunian, at eighteen, had already been a monk for a year. He certainly hadn't received much formal education in the years before that, so it was perfectly normal that he didn't understand water flow dynamics and pressure. He might not have attended school at all.
The police arrived half an hour later.
Inspector Megure entered the temple leaning heavily on a cane that doubled as an IV stand, with a bottle of what appeared to be glucose solution hanging from it.
Anyone who witnessed this would call him a model worker. No wonder he was an inspector.
"Inspector Megure, what happened to you?" Kogoro asked with genuine concern.
As former colleagues, he and Inspector Megure had a particularly good relationship, so naturally he felt both curious and worried.
"Hmph!" Inspector Megure didn't answer, instead waving his hand to signal his officers to examine the bodies.
Meanwhile, the interrogation proceeded smoothly, and the remaining three monks in the temple were all summoned.
Dragged out of bed, Kannen immediately blurted out, "Officer, this has nothing to do with me! I've been sleeping the entire time—you only just woke me up! I know nothing about any of this!"
Tunnian and Munen looked confused. They still had no idea what had happened and were wondering why Shunian and Abbot Tennei hadn't appeared yet.
"Wait a minute, Senior Brother Kannen—I heard Shunian calling out earlier and wanted to go check on him, but you told me to go back to sleep. So why are you out here now?" Munen was completely bewildered, wondering what his senior brother was playing at.
Could the police's arrival be related to Senior Brother Kannen?
Inspector Megure sighed. "This is just routine questioning. Masters, please don't be nervous. We've already roughly identified the culprit—we just need your cooperation in giving your statements."
Inspector Megure then briefly recounted the details of the case.
Tunnian and Munen were completely dumbfounded. Their master was gone, and their junior brother was gone too?
This... this... this is too sudden!
Amidst their shock and fear, a restless desire stirred within them. Well then, Master Tennei is dead. Now the important question is—who will inherit Mountain Mist Temple?
Although Mountain Mist Temple was located in a remote, sparsely populated area, it still had its share of worshippers and pilgrims. If they could inherit the temple, they wouldn't have to worry about their livelihood for the rest of their lives.
The monks cooperated fully in giving their statements, while Kannen remained visibly terrified throughout the entire process.
However, Inspector Megure didn't seem particularly concerned. Perhaps the deaths of both the abbot and his junior disciple were too much of a shock for him—that would be normal. It only demonstrated how close the master and disciples had been.
"Inspector Megure!" A junior officer stepped forward and whispered a few words in Inspector Megure's ear.
The case was now quite clear.
(End of Chapter)
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