Bungo Stray Dogs: Dazai's Entrance Exam

Chapter 3

The president said calmly, “Then he means to destroy our good-standing?”

“I would say as much.”

The Agency had overcome more than its fair share of difficulties over the years. We refused to surrender to levels of violence even divisions of well-seasoned soldiers could not handle.

But we were still a commercial enterprise, and we were kept afloat by our clients’ trust in us. We could not afford to fall prey to this scandal. If the news that we failed to defuse this bomb had spread too far and we had ended up facing judicial intervention, the Agency’s reputation would have plummeted, and our name would have been forever soiled by this situation we had been driven into.

“Our immediate goal must be to determine the bomb’s location.”

“The office staff will look into locations from where an explosion could cause upwards of a hundred casualties. But Yokohama is filled with train stations, skyscrapers, and the like; it will be next to impossible to search them all in our time limit.”

“How about tracing the security footage back to the source?”

Certainly, as it said in the letter, the criminal must have needed to capture footage in order to broadcast the Agency’s failure to the public. That meant hidden equipment, as in the previous case.

However-

“If the recording equipment, or even wiretapping equipment, is of the new battery-powered variety, then it’s possible it can record video and sound for a few days without charge. The equipment could also be as small as a pen or a die, and even then it could still transmit data right up to the explosion. It could very well prove to be harder to find than the bomb itself. But for the sake of caution, let us ask the manufacturers about any large purchases of these objects-”

There was no good solution to our plight.

“Does this ‘Azure Apostle’ title correspond to any criminal that we’re aware of?”

“Not that I know of at the moment.”

The “Azure Apostle”. This case differed from the first by the culprit identifying themselves as such. I did not know if this carried any significance.

To review the situation, this “Azure Apostle” person was someone with a large knowledge of bombs and a plan to cause the Agency’s downfall for some reason.

“For the time being, I am having a bomb expert be contacted and a list of those with grudges on the Agency drawn up.”

“Have you not spoken to Ranpo yet?” Dr. Yosano asked.

Yes, the president himself should have contacted Ranpo, but-

“We cannot reach him right now. He is in the middle of a case in Kyuushuu. There are plans for him to return to Yokohama, but it will be challenging for him to arrive in time to help,” the president said, crossing his arms.

This “Ranpo” that Dr. Yosano mentioned was none other than Ranpo Edogawa, an ability user known as the Agency’s best detective. He had a marvellous ability called Super Deduction which allowed him to spot the truth in any case, be it a murder, assault, or abduction. Were Ranpo present, this case would have been solved in minutes. However, he was unfortunately occupied in Kyuushuu in a case for a government official. He could not immediately return to Yokohama until he completed the bizarre murder case he was currently embroiled in, in which a white-haired corpse came to life and murdered both its wife and dear friend.

The president spoke up once more. “Is there no way to question the taxi driver while he is in police custody?”

“He is currently on the police’s specialty air transfer craft. They are holding him in isolation to keep him safe from Mafia assassins, so it would be a trick to meet with him.”