The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 1017: The Spiteful Spirit

"Well... if you want to be my father, that's not entirely out of the question..."

Claire peeked at the enormous round bed behind the bedroom curtain, scanning for any suspicious figures or signs of a mess.

"The attic."

"What?"

Following Lu Li up to the attic, Claire soon realized that his "temporary stay" meant just that—staying in their house for a while, not sharing her mother's bedroom.

"No wonder Mother sent me on an assignment in Midnicht. She wanted me to come back and check on things."

Claire walked over to the windowsill, admiring a green sprout nearly as thick as a finger in a flowerpot. Then she crouched down, her curiosity piqued, to examine the shoots that had pushed up through the wooden planks around the bed.

The budded twig she'd plucked had withered quickly. After being treated with alchemy and cultivated, it had transformed into a contaminated plant, losing its original purity.

"So, plants just grow when you're nearby?"

"It seems so."And even, to some degree, cross the blurry line between life and death. Even the wood of the floorboards was sprouting anew.

"The Lord of the Land of Light... an embodiment of light itself. How beautiful."

Claire quickly shook off her reverie and asked Lu Li:

"Have you just been staying here this whole time? You haven't gone out at all?"

"Only to get food from a restaurant."

"So you haven't really gone out at all," Claire remarked, pushing herself to her feet with her hands on her knees.

"I've taken an assignment for a case in the inner city. Want to come along? Don't worry," she added with a smirk, "I'll protect you, 'father'."

Lu Li ignored her teasing and, after a moment's thought, gave a slight nod.

He really did need a "break."

The consequences of absorbing too much knowledge for too long were beginning to manifest—faint auditory hallucinations that would surface in the quiet moments.

Sometimes it was a cough, seemingly from behind a wall. Sometimes, voices from an empty chair. Sometimes, screams from the fireplace, or the gurgling of wet mud.

But the footsteps were the most disturbing.

Any time, any place, waking or sleeping—the sound of footsteps would draw Lu Li to the window, his eyes fixed on the nearest entrance.

The curse of the "Door."

He'd been in Midnicht for two months now, and the "Door" could manifest at any moment—

This was also why Lu Li needed to live in the attic with its west-facing window. The Allen Peninsula was to the west, and the stairs would give him warning, slowing the "Door's" approach.

After Lu Li put on his cloak and uncorked a vial of perfume potion—making Claire pinch her nose at the smell—the two of them left the house.

Midnicht — Inner City — The Old Golden Fragrance District

"Four days ago, renowned lawyer Kennyva began suffering from frequent delusions and hallucinations visible only to him. An examination revealed no signs of contamination. A psychologist attributed it to extreme stress, ruling out any anomalous cause. Kennyva, however, disagrees."

"Assignment: Investigate the source of Kennyva's hallucinations."

"Advanced Objective: Fully resolve the issue."

"Hint: The day after the hallucinations appeared, Kennyva was scheduled to act as counsel in a court hearing."

"Basic Reward: 5 academic credits or 5 team points."

As Claire read the incident report, she heard a voice beside her.

"You let them off too easy. Being sacrificed to the deity they worship might even be an honor for those cultists."

"Death is a release, but also a punishment; usually, it means the latter," Lu Li said calmly.

For example, Professor Spit Haig certainly didn't want to simply vanish, nor did he wish to be sacrificed to some so-called "Lord."

"Perhaps you're right."

The academic badges worn by Lu Li and Claire, combined with the scent clinging to them, made people subconsciously give them a wide berth. They reached the Old Golden Fragrance District without incident.

Knock, knock, knock—

The door opened to reveal the victim: Kennyva.

He was well-built, but the aura of exhaustion and panic rolling off him was palpable.

"It's alright, Ryan. It's the students who've come to help," his wife murmured, gently trying to soothe him.

"Students? Just students? I need the Knightly Orders! I need the Midnight Church! I need an exorcist! What is that smell... Dammit, it stinks! Did Mad Pete take a crap on our doorstep again!"

Kennyva's wife quickly soothed him, guiding her distraught husband back into the living room.

Claire took the revealing potion Lu Li offered, waved away a protective one, and after a quick scan of the surroundings, followed him inside.

"I'm so sorry... The delusions have him so terrified that his nerves are frayed, and he can barely keep his composure."

She settled her husband, who had just taken a sedative, onto the sofa, offering another apology.

"Tell me what's been happening, from the very beginning," Claire said, her chin slightly raised.

"Very well... Ryan's hallucinations began four days ago..."

On that day, she had been cooking in the kitchen while Kennyva was upstairs in his study, preparing for a court hearing the next day. As she was washing a pot, he suddenly screamed and came running downstairs, claiming an anomaly had appeared in his study. The frightened couple fled the house and called for the city guard. A local knight arrived to investigate, but found neither the "flowing" figure Kennyva described nor any trace of contamination.

Kennyva had to force himself to believe it was just an illusion. Then, shortly after lunch, he saw a second head sprout from his wife's shoulder. Terrified, she quickly turned away, and the head vanished.

The horrifying visions became frequent after that. Letters on the page would come alive and snap at him viciously. Countless hands would materialize on the ceiling. One night, he rolled over in bed to find a swollen, rotting head lying on the pillow beside him.

Plagued by these delusions, Kennyva was forced to miss his court hearing the next day and seek treatment at a psychologist's clinic—after all, he was the only one seeing these things.

As it happened, the two medications the psychologist recommended proved effective for Kennyva.

The sedative slowed his descent from nervous exhaustion into madness, while the sleeping pills granted him pleasant dreams.

Even so, his condition continued to deteriorate. If the source of the problem wasn't dealt with, Kennyva would be left with deep psychological scars, even if the delusions stopped.

"Sounds like a spiteful spirit."

Claire turned to Lu Li, and a nod from within the shadows of his hood confirmed her suspicion.

Spiteful spirits are a type of phantom that feeds on fear and terror. They don't physically harm their victims, but those they target usually go insane or are driven to suicide from the psychological torment.

Spiteful spirits crave novelty. They feed on the fear they create, and once a victim becomes numb and stops reacting, they move on to someone new—

And Lu Li, clearly, was the perfect bait to draw it out.

"Take us to the bedroom."

Kennyva's wife led them up the stairs. As they reached the second-floor hallway, the revealing potion took effect, and a residual image flickered past—

Suddenly, there was a loud crash in the hallway. A cloud of gray dust exploded with a "poof" in front of Claire's clenched fist, then dissipated in a sudden draft.

"...It's too fast. I can't get a lock on it."

Claire lowered her hand apologetically, shaking off the torn bandages that had bound it. She turned to the frightened woman and said:

"It's dealt with."

As Kennyva's wife began to thank them, Lu Li spoke up quietly:

"Spiteful spirits typically roam the outer city. It would be nearly impossible for one to enter the inner city."

Kennyva had never left the inner city.

"You think someone set this on him?"

Claire understood Lu Li's implication and recalled the court hearing Kennyva had been forced to miss.

"Have the police department bring them in for questioning. That should make everything clear."