Just as the group was enthusiastically discussing their next move, an explosion rang out from outside, drawing the gaze of every tourist.
"Look! Someone set themselves on fire up there!"
Countless people looked up at Osaka Castle. On the emerald-green roof, a man was engulfed in white flames.
Heiji Hattori rushed out immediately upon hearing this. Yuu Hoshimiya raised an eyebrow, grabbed a wet wipe to clean his mouth and hands, and then calmly instructed, "Keep eating. I'll go see what's happening."
Only then did he leisurely open his umbrella and step outside.
As expected, the case had occurred just as he remembered.
After walking a few steps and pushing past the crowd, he saw Heiji trying to perform CPR on a charred corpse.
But any normal person could see at a glance that the blackened figure was beyond saving.
Even if the fire hadn't killed him, falling from that height head-first certainly would have.
However, just to be safe, Yuu personally went up to check.
As he thought, the man was dead as a doornail. The primary cause of death wasn't the fire, but the impact of his skull hitting the ground.
"Heiji, he's gone. Call the police."
Heiji sighed and stood up. "Teacher Hoshimiya, right before he died, he reached out and grabbed this umbrella. It must be a dying message!"
After saying that, Heiji called Inspector Otaki and then ran toward the castle.
Not long after, Inspector Otaki, whom they had met yesterday, arrived at the scene.
The members of the "Sengoku Tour Group" also gathered around, holding umbrellas and watching.
The middle-aged woman, Maho Katagiri, spoke with fake sympathy: "I can't believe Mr. Kato would make such a choice. He seemed so happy during the trip!"
The bald old man, Arioto Kasuya, sighed. "It's hard to truly know another person. Perhaps he looked happy on the surface but was suffering inside."
Inspector Otaki examined the charred body carefully. Remembering Yuu's words from yesterday, he was exceptionally thorough in searching for clues.
After a while, Otaki looked up at Yuu.
"Consultant Hoshimiya, this looks like suicide. Witnesses say he climbed onto the fourth-floor eaves of the castle in the rain, set himself on fire, and rolled down while engulfed in white flames."
"He was wearing a flammable sweater, and it's raining. How could he roll down like that unless it was suicide, right?"
Hearing Otaki's deduction, Yuu scoffed internally.
This guy was just like Inspector Megure; they loved pushing cases toward suicide.
In fact, most Japanese police officers preferred this method. As long as they found a motive for suicide, they could close the case without the hassle of finding a murderer or evidence, keeping their clearance rates high.
They could just coast their way to promotions!
This was Otaki's favorite and most habitual method.
But just then, Heiji returned from searching the castle.
"Inspector Otaki, isn't it a bit early to jump to conclusions? We found this on the roof."
Heiji held up a lighter sealed in a plastic bag.
Otaki looked confused. "Heiji, doesn't that just prove it was suicide?"
Heiji shook his head. "Would a suicidal person bother to close the lid of the lighter? More suspiciously, I found a small, fan-shaped dry spot underneath the lighter. I deduce that something else was originally placed there!"
Otaki still found the deduction a bit of a stretch.
A forensics officer spoke up: "Inspector, we've cataloged the deceased's personal effects."
Everyone gathered around to see a wallet, a phone, keys, a small fragment, and a scroll.
Otaki opened the scroll to find it burnt and tattered, with only the character for "Dragon" visible.
The members of the tour group's eyes lit up when they saw the scroll.
Wearing gloves, Yuu picked up the scroll. "Let me take a look."
He opened it fully and exposed it to the rain. As the water soaked the paper, hidden information began to appear.
Heiji, Otaki, and the others gathered around in amazement.
The revealed marks looked like the shape of a gourd, with some writing on it, though the burns made the sentences incomplete and their meaning unclear.
"Wow! Consultant Hoshimiya, how did you know wetting the scroll would reveal information?"
Yuu pointed to the burnt edges. "It's simple. Although the edges were glued together, I noticed multiple layers of paper where it was burned through. Ancients loved hiding secret messages between layers of paper. I gave it a try, and sure enough, there was something there!"
Everyone looked at him with admiration.
Just then, Ran's voice rang out.
"Brother Yuu! What are you doing here?"
Tired of waiting in the restaurant, the two beautiful girls had come out.
"Why did you come out?"
Ran and Kazuha walked over under their umbrellas.
"We waited forever for you! We finished eating, so we came to check. We were planning to go to the next spot. Did something happen again?"
Ran leaned close to Yuu, looking at the tattered scroll with confusion. "Brother Yuu, what is this?"
Heiji and Conan stared at the pattern, deep in thought about its meaning.
Yuu chuckled. "This? It's the Scroll of the Dragon. Toyotomi Hideyoshi's treasure map! The wealth of the man who united Japan centuries ago is hidden within this scroll!"
Hearing this, the faces of the tour group members changed instantly. Greed and excitement flashed in their eyes as they stared at the map.
Otaki's face changed as well. "Consultant Hoshimiya, are you serious? Is there really a clue to a treasure in there?"
Yuu shook his head.
"Of course not. I was just teasing my girlfriend."
"Didn't the Tokugawa clan seize all of Hideyoshi's wealth? How could there still be a treasure?"
"Brother Yuu, you're so mean!" Ran pouted playfully.
Otaki looked disappointed, but Heiji spoke up: "That might not be entirely false, Teacher Hoshimiya."
"To purify the water in the Kinmei Well in front of the castle, Hideyoshi once threw in massive amounts of gold bars. That's recorded in history books."
Heiji's eyes shone. "If he did something that extravagant, it's possible he really did set up a treasure—the legendary 'Golden King'!"
He picked up the fragment with a handkerchief. "Teacher Hoshimiya, there seems to be gold dust on the inside of this shard."
Seeing the shard, Kazuha recalled what she had overheard while dozing off the night before.
"Huh? This corpse has a shard too?"
"I remember hearing Dad and Uncle Heizo talking in the car last night. The charred body found in the drainage canal thirteen years ago had a shard, and the one found recently in the east canal had the same kind. Now this body has one too? That's way too weird!"
"I remember the shard had the number 848 on the outside."
"Dad was going to ask for your opinion on the case last night, Teacher Hoshimiya, but he seemed to forget after losing the match."
Heiji realized the connection instantly, as did the members of the tour group who were familiar with Hideyoshi's history.
The ceramic shard, the gold dust, and the gourd shape on the scroll—all three were connected.
Ran glanced at the scroll with her violet eyes and said, "Could this treasure be the Sennari Gourd that Hideyoshi called the Golden King?"
Everyone looked at her in surprise, amazed that this seemingly innocent beauty knew such obscure trivia.
Ran was a genuine honor student, after all.
Especially in history, she was far superior to Yuu, a "fake" Japanese who only studied to pass exams and had zero interest in the subject.
The Sennari Gourd was the great standard Hideyoshi placed before his horse. For every victory, he would hang a gourd filled with gold on the staff. Only when he reached a thousand did he call it the Sennari Gourd—the Golden King.
Based on the size of the gourds and current gold prices alone, the gold would be worth six or seven billion yen. With its historical significance, the value could be even higher.
No wonder these treasure hunters refused to let go after more than a decade!
However, the Sennari Gourd, which the Japanese valued so highly, was worthless to Yuu.
In terms of pure monetary value, while substantial, it was pocket change compared to the Suzuki Group's assets.
Furthermore, Yuu was developing other industries.
The Tokiwa Group alone was bringing in billions of yen a year and growing rapidly.
As for its value as a historical artifact, he had zero interest.
However, Heiji's eyes flashed with excitement.
"848 is definitely a number within a thousand. So the Sennari Gourd might be real!"
"The victim from thirteen years ago, the one Chief Toyama mentioned, and now this one—all three had these pottery shards."
"Perhaps all three were after the Sennari Gourd treasure and were killed by someone who wanted it all for themselves. If that's the case..."
Heiji signaled Otaki with his eyes.
Otaki understood immediately and turned to the tour group members. "If you are members of the same tour group as the deceased, the police need to ask you some routine questions. Is that alright?"
The four nodded, but the bald old man spoke up: "Routine questions are fine, Officer, but we skipped lunch to look for Kato. We're starving! Can we go back and eat first?"
The long-chinned man added, "And with the sudden rain, my clothes are soaked. I want to go back to the hotel and change. Is that okay?"
The middle-aged woman with glasses agreed eagerly.
seeing that all four were insisting, and since it wasn't confirmed whether the death was suicide or homicide, Otaki had no choice but to agree.
The four members of the Sengoku Tour Group opened their umbrellas and left.