Chapter 13
Who says a nail gun isn't a gun?
After setting up the trap by the living room window, Jonah blinked and fell into deep thought in the face of Conan Edogawa's sudden question, but shook his head after a moment.
"I didn't find it. It's been raining, and the marks on the body have almost disappeared, but I examined the mound on the body, and it should have been cut off by an axe."
"Conan, you can't run around like that. That man is dangerous."
"Of course I know he's dangerous; he's already killed and dismembered people."
"He dismembered the body too quickly."
"Huh?" Conan Edogawa was also taken aback when he heard Jonah's words, and then he instantly realized the point that he had overlooked.
The gap between the bandaged monster kidnapping Ikeda Chikako and them catching up and finding her body wasn't long. Yet, the bandaged monster managed to dismember Ikeda Chikako and scatter the remains everywhere in such a short time. This was rather strange.
Why would the bandaged monster do that?
With this question in mind, Conan Edogawa subconsciously followed Jonah to the back door with the materials in hand, and immediately saw the muddy tiles and slippers at the back door.
"Hmm? These slippers..."
"I found it here when I checked earlier."
"When was 'before'?"
"Before I returned to the living room to prepare dinner."
"That is to say, it was before we discovered the Bandaged Monster."
Pushing up his glasses, Conan Edogawa felt increasingly uneasy. He could instantly tell that the slippers belonged to Chikako Ikeda. In other words, while Chikako Ikeda claimed to have returned to her room to rest because she was tired, she had actually secretly left the villa through the back door.
Knowing that there was a very dangerous, bandaged monster outside the villa who attacked people with an axe, cut the telephone line, and slashed the suspension bridge, why did Chikako Ikeda still choose to secretly leave the villa?
Seeing Conan Edogawa standing to the side, deep in thought, Jonah, unfazed, took the materials, locked the back door, and then skillfully began setting up the trap.
"Sister Xiaolan, all the doors and windows on the first floor are closed and traps have been set. Don't go near them. I will remove the traps when I get up tomorrow during the day."
"Okay, thank you for your hard work, Jonah."
Smiling, Sonoko Suzuki walked up to Jonah and ruffled his hair. She then handed him a box of strawberry-flavored yogurt, which made Jonah's eyes light up.
Exhausted, the group didn't chat anymore. After a quick dinner, they went upstairs to their rooms, locked their doors, and prepared to sleep.
In the room of Ran Mouri, Conan Edogawa, and Jonah, Conan and Jonah originally shared a bed, but Ran insisted on squeezing in and saying that everyone should sleep together.
Conan Edogawa didn't mind, but Jonah felt it was inappropriate and gave up his spot.
"Why doesn't Jonah want to be with me... uh."
Ran Mouri, who had originally wanted to hug the adorable Jonah, awkwardly withdrew her invitation after seeing Jonah pull a knife from under his pillow and a nail gun from under the covers.
Given Jonah's current wary state, Ran Mouri felt that it was indeed inappropriate to invite him to sleep in the same bed.
Having lived together for so long, Ran Mouri has come to understand Jonah better. Jonah is usually well-behaved and obedient, but once Jonah feels that the surrounding environment has become dangerous, his habits as a child soldier will take over his other personality traits until Jonah feels that the environment has become safe again and then he will return to normal.
Ran Mouri also wanted to help Jonah change this situation, but obviously the effect was not very significant. After all, fundamentally, Ran Mouri could not convince Jonah that their lives were safe and that they would not encounter too much danger.
As Ran Mouri slowly fell asleep, the room finally quieted down.
At first, Conan Edogawa was still thinking about the bandage-wearing man and Chikako Ikeda's various anomalies, but he was quickly distracted by Ran Mouri lying next to him, and his mind became less sharp.
Just as Conan Edogawa was cautiously observing Ran Mouri's sleeping face, Jonah in the next bed suddenly sat up, startling Conan.
"I don't..."
He instinctively wanted to speak up and explain, but Jonah's fierce gesture to silence him made Conan bite his tongue. However, Conan quickly realized what was happening and, like Jonah, looked towards the floor-to-ceiling window of the bedroom balcony.
With the kitchen knife in his mouth, Jonah picked up the nail gun, turned it on, rolled off the bed, and, using the bed as cover, aimed the nail gun at the French windows.
A moment later, a dark figure appeared through the curtains of the French windows. Then, the locked French windows were opened from the outside, and the bandaged man who had been on guard walked in, holding an axe.
Without the slightest hesitation, the moment the bandaged man entered the room, Jonah pulled the trigger of the nail gun, accurately shooting the flying nails at the bandaged man's right shoulder where he was holding the axe.
Jonah ultimately remembered his principle of not killing anyone and causing trouble for Ran and the others, so he avoided more dangerous places and focused on control rather than directly killing the bandaged monster.
"what!"
The sudden attack caused the bandaged monster to scream in pain. The intense pain made him unable to even lift the axe, which crashed to the floor with a thud.
Seeing this, Jonah did not let his guard down and continued firing the nail gun, hitting the bandaged monster's legs with nails from the magazine, causing the bandaged monster to fall uncontrollably.
The heart-wrenching screams woke Ran Mouri from her sleep and also alerted everyone else in the other rooms. Sonoko Suzuki immediately ran over and knocked on the door to ask what was wrong.
"Xiao Lan, Xiao Lan, are you alright!"
Sonoko Suzuki pounded on the door, anxiously calling out to Ran Mouri. She only breathed a sigh of relief when the door opened and Ran appeared in her sight.
"Xiaolan, what's wrong... hmm?"
Subconsciously glancing into the room, Sonoko Suzuki's eyes widened in surprise. The bandaged monster they had always feared was lying on the floor, his left hand pinned to the floor by a kitchen knife. The person kneeling on him was Jonah, holding another kitchen knife. Conan Edogawa was behind Jonah, desperately holding him back to prevent him from continuing his attack.
The scene was so chaotic that Sonoko Suzuki lost her ability to analyze the situation for a moment, while Ayako Suzuki, who was standing behind her, was the first to react.
"Is he that bandaged weirdo? He attacked you again, Ran?"
"Well, I don't know how he got up there, but Jonah knocked him down."
With a smile and a nod, Ran Mouri breathed a sigh of relief as she watched Jonah finally calm down after being persuaded by Conan Edogawa and giving up on further impairing the bandaged monster's mobility.
"I see. Jonah is really amazing."
"Yes, Jonah is really amazing."