Chapter 27: The Department Store
Two weeks later, the bustling aisles of the Beika City department store hummed with the chatter of weekend shoppers.
"Not this one, not this one either..." Natsume muttered, her fingers trailing over the smooth glass bottles lining the extensive liquor shelves. She checked the labels one by one, her eyes scanning the foreign text and elegant crests. Finally, her hand stopped on a slender, beautifully crafted bottle. "Ah, found it. There really is Dandelion Wine!"
She held the bottle up to the fluorescent lights, admiring the pale, golden liquid inside. She had not been mistaken; it was genuinely the signature vintage of Mondstadt.
Over the past few days, Conan had taken to visiting Natsume's home with alarming frequency, almost always dragging along the energetic cluster of children known as the Detective Boys. Through these constant visits, Natsume had naturally become acquainted with the rest of the Mouri household.
As their daily interactions increased, so did the sheer probability of stumbling into crime scenes. Just as she had expected, peaceful days were a rare luxury when living in the immediate orbit of the God of Death elementary schooler. In just one short week, the Primogems rewarded from her daily system commissions had piled up high enough to afford another ten-pull.
Before initiating that particular gacha pull, Natsume had stood before her bathroom sink, carefully scrubbing her hands with soap and cold water. She had prayed to whatever luck governed the system for a character equipped with genuine business acumen. The heavy maple leaf gold coins she had intercepted from Conan's recent treasure hunt were currently sitting in her system inventory, doing absolutely nothing. Technically, there was no physical dust in her digital inventory to gather on them, but the waste of capital still bothered her pragmatic mind.
Establishing a steady cash flow would make it infinitely easier to secure a hidden, secure base of operations. Her current residence was becoming far too compromised. With Conan and his friends treating her living room like a secondary clubhouse, it was only a matter of time before the boy detective's sharp eyes caught onto clues she would rather keep hidden.
Whether her thorough hand-washing actually pleased the gacha gods or not, the golden light of the ten-pull had delivered two characters perfectly suited to her current dilemma.
The first was Master Diluc. Yes, that exact Master Diluc—the uncrowned king of Mondstadt, the wealthiest man in the nation, and the sole owner of Dawn Winery.
The system had integrated his identity into this world smoothly. Here, he was recognized as a noble, specifically a Viscount from the distant Country H, and he retained ownership of an estate named Dawn Winery.
When Natsume first read his character profile, her eyes had widened with sheer envy. Not only did this man come with a prestigious noble title, but he also arrived with a fully established corporate enterprise.
Her jealousy cooled slightly upon discovering the catch. The Dawn Winery in this world was currently nothing more than an empty shell. It possessed the land and the name, but absolutely zero wine products ready for the market. The general public merely held the vague impression that the Viscount of Country H owned a winery, completely unaware of its hollow operational status. If Diluc wanted the business to actually generate profit, he would have to build the supply chain from the ground up.
Fortunately, the idle maple leaf gold coins in Natsume's inventory finally had a purpose. She transferred the entire fortune to Diluc, providing him the capital needed to return to Country H, purchase raw materials, and begin product development. She knew Diluc possessed immense wealth and flawless management skills, but she never expected him to produce a consumer-ready product in a mere matter of days.
Then again, the flow of time in Beika City operated on a logic entirely its own. Seasons shifted at random, and weeks compressed into hours. Even though the wine already had a working prototype and only required minor recipe adjustments for this world, Natsume remained deeply impressed that it had hit the market fast enough to be stocked on the shelves of a local Beika department store.
The second character she pulled was Noelle. The system had assigned her the identity of a professional maid currently employed by a wealthy local household. Her contract with that family was nearing its end, and it was already settled that she would not renew it. Once she was free, Noelle would transition to working full-time at Xiangling's restaurant on the first floor of Natsume's building. It was a flawless arrangement, eliminating the need to hire and vet outside staff.
Both of her new recruits hailed from Mondstadt. While Natsume felt a brief pang of disappointment at not unlocking a new elemental power, the sheer utility of these two characters far outweighed it. They were exactly what she needed to build her foundation.
She had even secretly asked Paimon if the floating guide had opened some sort of backdoor in the system to guarantee these specific drops. Paimon had vehemently denied it, puffing out her cheeks in offense, which meant Natsume had simply struck gold on her own luck. That realization only made her happier.
Cradling the bottle of Dandelion Wine, Natsume headed for the checkout counter. She had spent countless hours playing the game, always wondering what a beverage brewed from actual dandelions tasted like. Now that it existed as a physical object in her hands, she could finally satisfy that curiosity.
If the taste proved exceptional, she planned to have Diluc set up a supply line directly to Xiangling's restaurant. That would certainly stop Kogoro Mouri from complaining about the lack of good alcohol every time he came downstairs for a meal.
Purchase complete, Natsume stepped onto the escalator, preparing to head home.
As she reached the ground floor and walked toward the exit, a loud, booming voice echoed from the outdoor plaza. A massive crowd of cheering children surrounded a brightly lit stage hosting a Kamen Yaiba promotional event. Natsume's eyes easily picked out Genta's large, distinct frame towering over the other kids. Sure enough, Ayumi and Mitsuhiko were right beside him.
And right in the middle of the pack was Conan.
"Go, go! Go, Kamen Yaiba!" Conan shouted, pumping his fist in the air with exaggerated enthusiasm. He blended into the crowd of elementary schoolers perfectly, his high-pitched cheers matching theirs beat for beat. Natsume watched him with dry amusement. The teenage detective was truly adapting to his shrunken reality with terrifying ease.
However, amusement quickly gave way to a cold, pragmatic calculation.
If Conan was here, attending a special event at a department store, it meant a criminal case was about to erupt within these very walls.
A department store. Kamen Yaiba.
Natsume's eyes narrowed as the memories of the anime's plot surfaced. It was the hijacked department store case. A gang of armed robbers intended to disguise themselves in the Kamen Yaiba stage costumes to steal the store's high-value merchandise. She also recalled a crucial detail: one of the department store employees was an inside man working with the gang.
Unfortunately, the exact identity of the insider and the total number of robbers eluded her memory.
Still, a case meant Primogems. Since the opportunity had practically dropped itself into her lap, she had no intention of walking away.
She glanced down at the glass bottle in her shopping bag. A hostage situation and a potential firefight were terrible environments for fragile glass. She decided to head home first, safely store the Dandelion Wine, and return. She fully intended to savor that drink tonight, and she refused to let a gang of petty thieves ruin it. Besides, the robbers wouldn't make their move until the store closed and darkness fell. She had plenty of time.
Without bothering to greet the cheering Detective Boys, Natsume turned on her heel, bypassed the noisy plaza, and slipped away down the street.
'Huh, was that an illusion?'Conan lowered his fist, his sharp eyes catching a familiar silhouette disappearing around the corner of the plaza.'I thought I just saw Natsume. Is she shopping at the mall today instead of doing commissions?'
His brow furrowed in thought. He had been observing her closely over the past two weeks. She seemed to handle odd jobs almost every single day, ranging from tracking down lost cats to delivering obscure packages. Yet, she possessed no formal office, no advertising, and he rarely saw clients approach her directly. How did she maintain such a consistent stream of work?
Conan remained entirely unaware of the system's existence. He had no way of knowing that Natsume simply followed a digital prompt, located the designated target, and spoke a few words to trigger a quest.
Before his analytical mind could dig any deeper into the mystery of Natsume Natsuki, Ayumi tugged excitedly on his sleeve, dragging his attention back to the men in spandex fighting on stage.
Hours passed. The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in deep shades of violet and black.
By nightfall, Natsume stood in the quiet, empty alleyway behind the department store. The building was dark, its massive glass doors locked tight for the night.
She tilted her head back, scanning the upper floors. There, painted in crude, desperate strokes across a high window, were the letters 'SOS'. The distress signal Conan and the children had left behind.
Natsume scaled the exterior fire escape, moving with practiced silence until she reached the marked window. She rapped her knuckles against the glass. A dull, heavy thud echoed back. It was reinforced, thick enough to withstand a heavy blunt impact.
She pressed her palm flat against the cold surface. Tapping into her core, she called upon the Geo element. A heavy, earthen pulse surged down her arm, channeling directly into the glass. The elemental vibration struck the structural weak point of the pane.
With a sharp, satisfying crack, spiderweb fractures exploded outward from her palm. The entire window shattered inward, raining crystalline shards onto the carpeted floor inside. The method was brutally effective.
Natsume slipped through the empty frame, her boots landing softly in the dark corridor. She had memorized the building's emergency evacuation map during her shopping trip earlier that day. The main security room, which controlled all the surveillance cameras and electronic locks, was located on the second basement floor. The robbers would absolutely need to control that room to monitor the police and hunt down the children.
She handled the pitch-black stairwells with ease, descending deep into the building.
Approaching the B2 security room, Natsume pressed her back against the wall and peeked around the doorframe. The room was bathed in the pale blue glow of dozens of monitor screens. Only one robber sat at the main console, his back turned to the door as he watched the camera feeds. The rest of the gang must have already dispersed to hunt down Conan and the kids.
Lined up against the far wall sat the hostages. The night security guards and the young elevator attendant she had seen earlier that afternoon were bound tightly with thick rope, their mouths gagged and their eyes covered by blindfolds.
With the odds heavily in her favor, Natsume did not hesitate.
She stepped into the room, her footsteps completely silent against the linoleum floor. She closed the distance in three long strides. Before the man at the monitors could even register the shift in the air behind him, Natsume struck. A precise, heavy chop to the back of his neck sent him slumping forward. His forehead bounced off the control desk before he slid out of the chair, hitting the floor completely unconscious.
Stepping over the downed thief, Natsume walked toward the row of bound hostages. She crouched down, her eyes sweeping over their terrified, trembling forms.
She knew one of these people was the inside man who had orchestrated this entire robbery.
Now, she just had to figure out exactly who it was.
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