Karasawa glanced around Beika Shopping Street and took out his phone to snap a photo.
It was, after all, a well-known location. This quiet little street probably had no idea what was coming for it in the near future.
Then again, considering he was living above Café Poirot, he hardly had the right to mock any place for harboring an ominous aura.
With a sigh, Karasawa wandered casually into a clothing store.
He did need to stock up. The seasons here had a way of shifting unpredictably, and it never hurt to have more everyday outfits on hand.
Sure, his inventory already held quite a few clothes—but they were all stat-boosting gear. Wearing that stuff in daily life felt weird, and besides, they didn't match his usual style.
He wasn't actually a high schooler, after all. His taste leaned more toward suave-casual: trench coats and jackets in khaki or charcoal, inner layers in muted tones—black, white, grey.
Shame about his baby face. It didn't quite pair well with a more mature look.
After half-heartedly checking off the shopping objective, Karasawa made his way to a newsstand, intending to pick up a couple of papers. He wanted to get a sense of any recent criminal cases—see if Shinichi Kudo had made any breakthroughs—and figure out where to head today. Maybe he'd just "accidentally" run into the little Grim Reaper.
That was when someone suddenly stumbled out of a nearby second-hand shop and nearly fell into him.
Karasawa instinctively stepped back and raised his arms in a boxer's guard, only to see it was just a thin, middle-aged man who'd been shoved out the door, staggering backwards.
"Watch it." Realizing it wasn't an attack, Karasawa reached out to steady the man, who was on the verge of falling flat on his back.
"I told you to stop bothering us!" bellowed a rotund shop owner who had followed the man out, hands on hips and voice full of venom. "The buyer already claimed the sword. There's no way we're handing it over to you. How many times do I have to say it?"
"But the pawn agreement with Maru Denjirō hasn't even expired yet! You don't have the right to sell Kikuchiyo!" The man, with a gaunt face and a pair of thin mustaches above his lips, flushed with anger as he argued, "This is a breach of contract!"
"You pawned it to him, not to me! Not my problem!" the owner barked back, voice booming. "Set one foot in my shop again and I'm calling the cops!"
With that, he turned and slammed the door shut behind him.
The man Karasawa had helped clenched his fists and glared at the shopfront, chest heaving. He was clearly struggling to contain a storm of emotions.
Seeing that he could stand on his own, Karasawa let go of him.
The man noticed Karasawa's curious gaze and managed a strained smile before murmuring a thank-you.
He then turned and headed for the street corner. Karasawa watched his hunched back, those dangling hands curled into fists, his posture betraying a kind of restrained, simmering fury.
"Maru Denjirō…" Karasawa muttered under his breath, fingers pinching his chin as he struck that classic detective pose. "That name rings a bell. Was he a victim? Or maybe a killer?"
Before he could dredge up the details, the phone in his pocket buzzed twice.
Weird. He had it set to ring, didn't he?
Puzzled, Karasawa pulled it out and glanced at the screen—and his pupils narrowed.
Smack in the middle of his display, the red-and-black navigation app shimmered and opened a new window.
[Name: Maru Denjirō]
A Palace? Maru Denjirō has a Palace?
That wasn't good. He needed to find a more discreet location—if he actually triggered an entry, turning into a shadow self in the middle of the street would be one hell of a spectacle.
Karasawa looked around quickly. Once he was sure no one had eyes on him, he ducked into the narrow alleyway between two shops.
Alternate World Navigation. As the name implied, it was an app that let one enter another world.
In the Persona 5 universe, there exists a realm shaped by the collective unconscious of humanity. When someone harbors a desire strong enough to distort the perception of reality, their psyche detaches from that collective and forms a personal cognitive domain—a Palace.
Such people unconsciously reshape real-world places into something symbolic, projecting their warped view onto that location. The Palace manifests accordingly.
That's why you couldn't just activate the app on a whim. You needed to input three specific parameters: the target (who the Palace belongs to), the location (what place they've reimagined), and the distortion (how they've mentally reshaped it).
If the app reacted to Maru Denjirō's name, then it meant the man had a Palace.
Karasawa searched his memory more carefully. Based on the argument he'd just witnessed, he soon connected it to a specific case.
Maru Denjirō—a wealthy man who owned a company—had a rather twisted side hobby: loan sharking. He had a habit of selling off people's collateral even before they defaulted on payments. The furious man from earlier was likely the murderer in that case: Suwano Yuuji, a kendo master. Maru had sold off Suwano's heirloom katana, Kikuchiyo, and the enraged swordsman had responded by driving the blade straight through him.
But as ridiculous as Conan cases could be, the most absurd part was always the dying messages.
Like in this case: even after getting stabbed in the back, Maru Denjirō somehow managed to drag himself to a cabinet and carve the killer's name into the wood—with the same sword! It was a cabinet taller than a person! If he had that much strength left, maybe he could've just stabbed the attacker back. Or at least crawled out the door for help!
Anyway, Karasawa figured he didn't have much time. Once Mouri Kogorō was hired and arrived on the scene, the moment that walking disaster zone stepped in, even a god wouldn't be able to save this Palace's owner.
Now that he recalled the gist of the case, Karasawa tried inputting:
[Location: Maru Residence]
No error message. That was the one.
Only one question remained: What did Maru Denjirō mentally turn his house into?
Karasawa tested a few guesses: bank, vault, safe—no luck. Tried some nightlife venues like clubs or bars—still nothing.
"Ugh, wild guessing's a pain," he muttered to himself, still thinking it through.
He remembered that the Maru family was clearly well-off—they lived in a traditional Japanese house with a courtyard and had multiple servants. That suggested old money.
If it was a traditional-style house, maybe the mental image was rooted in historical architecture?
Taking a different approach, Karasawa experimented a bit, paused, then keyed in:
[Cognitive Image: Daimyō Manor]
As the final character entered the box, a robotic female voice spoke from the speaker:
"Location confirmed. Navigation initializing."
Karasawa's vision shimmered—barely perceptibly. He exhaled, cautiously peering out from the alley.
Sure enough, the once-bustling shopping street outside was now empty. Utter silence. After scanning for a moment, Karasawa stepped out, now free to mutter aloud.
"A loan shark who sees himself as a feudal lord. Shameless, Maru Denjirō."
Clicking his tongue, Karasawa glanced at the navigation screen that now displayed a route. He started walking.
What he didn't know was that, a hundred meters away, a man in a nearby building had eyes fixed on the alley Karasawa had just disappeared into. Shuichi Akai's frown deepened.
With the precision of an elite sniper, Akai was certain: there was no one in that shadowed alley anymore.
[Target lost visual. Do we have other units in position nearby?]
[Yes, but all have lost sight as well. Target likely detected our surveillance. Operatives may have been compromised.]
[Pull them back. He probably spotted us and slipped the net. No point continuing a tail. Leave the monitoring to me.]
Issuing the order, Akai still didn't relax his brow.
Just how had Karasawa managed to shake off every tail in mere minutes—including a sniper with full elevation and line of sight?