The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 215: Revelation

Securing the hatch-like door in the ceiling of the "kitchen," Lu Li tightened his grip on the crowbar—likely the key to his survival on this ship—and headed back down the corridor, drawn by the faint scent of the sea breeze.

His return journey was uneventful. He reached the end of the corridor and found a staircase leading up.

But a strange shadow stood on the landing at the top of the stairs, crowned with a horned helmet like that of a Viking.

Lu Li couldn't discern the shadow's form; it was constantly shifting, with only the horned helmet remaining unchanged.

After a brief pause, Lu Li set his foot on the first step. He kept his head slightly lowered, watching the guardian at the top of the stairs from the corner of his eye.

As Lu Li ascended a few steps, the horned shadow turned its helmet, and the space where its eyes should have been seemed to fix upon Lu Li.

He continued upward.

After climbing a dozen steps, Lu Li reached the middle of the staircase.

The horned shadow’s constantly shifting form suddenly solidified. Its body elongated, limbs sprouting from its torso until it became a charred, dark figure still wearing the horned helmet.

It was a clear warning.He couldn't go up?

Lu Li changed his course, turning to the right. Under the horned shadow's intense gaze, he climbed a few more steps toward the edge of the staircase. He raised the crowbar and struck a protruding rivet securing one of the wooden planks.

The rivet sank deeper into the wood. As if this had been his sole purpose, Lu Li turned and started back down. With a final glance over his shoulder, he noted that the space above the staircase was still part of the ship's interior.

A low gurgle echoed from above...

But just as Lu Li turned away, the horned shadow at the top of the stairs emitted a faint, indistinct muttering.

Lu Li didn't stop immediately, and the muttering grew more frequent, tinged with displeasure.

He paused and looked up.

A tentacle emerged from the horned shadow’s chest. It extended downward, touched a lower step, and morphed into an arrow, pointing at a plank on the staircase.

There appeared to be another protruding rivet bolt there.

Understanding what the shadow wanted, Lu Li went back up the stairs and hammered the loose bolt with the crowbar.

Lu Li lowered his head. Out of his sight, several more tentacles slithered from the horned shadow’s chest, slowly reaching downward...

Thwack!

With a final blow, the bolt was driven flush into the wood. Lu Li looked up and saw that several of the horned shadow's tentacles were now pointing to different spots on the staircase, each one shaped like an arrow.

Lu Li silently continued his role as the repairman, helping the horned shadow fix the boards that might have troubled it.

Thwack!

After the last strike on the final board, Lu Li raised his head and saw the shadow's tentacles shift their positions once more.

This time, they pointed to planks where only empty holes remained; the bolts themselves were missing.

Lu Li straightened up and looked at the shadow. Before he could make a gesture, the horned shadow "spat" several bolts from its chest and, holding them with its tentacles, offered them to Lu Li.

The horned shadow was providing its own materials.

Among the bolts extended toward Lu Li was a silver chain. It was unclear whether it was payment for his work or if the shadow had simply failed to notice it.

Lu Li calmly took the bolts along with the chain, pocketed the chain, and hammered the bolts into place.

When he was finished, Lu Li looked up again. The horned shadow on the landing had returned to its perpetually shifting form.

Lu Li thought he might now be able to reach the upper deck, but as he reached the middle of the staircase, the shadow once again solidified into the charred, dark figure.

The way was still barred.

Under the horned shadow’s gaze, Lu Li struck the planks a few more times with his crowbar before descending back into the corridor.

After walking a few meters, Lu Li stopped. He pulled out the silver chain he had received from the horned shadow.

The black substance coating it almost completely obscured its true color, though he could tell it was a piece of women's jewelry.

The crowbar, the chain, the role he was playing, the locked-room puzzle...

Lu Li tried to connect all the clues he had. It didn't yield any new leads, but it did spark a new idea.

He retraced his steps, past the room with the octopus-shadow, back to the morgue where he had started.

He pushed open the ornate wooden door. The morgue was just as he had left it.

Skirting the large pool of viscous black substance on the floor, Lu Li approached the rotten wooden crate he had previously ignored and raised the crowbar.

The waterlogged planks had become rather resilient, and even with the crowbar, it took Lu Li two minutes to smash a fist-sized hole in them.

Peering through the opening, Lu Li reached his hand into the crate and, after a few seconds, pulled out a key.

It was a small brass key, clearly meant for a door rather than a padlock.

Lu Li picked up the padlock from the floor and compared them—they were indeed a mismatch.

This key had another purpose—or none at all.

This meant that, following the logic of a locked-room puzzle, the morgue door was opened by something else entirely.

Lu Li’s gaze fell upon the corpse lockers.

...

A few minutes later, every unlocked locker in the morgue stood open. Most were empty; only a handful were filled with the black substance.

Including the dentures Lu Li had found earlier, only four lockers contained anything. The other three held a pair of shoes, a lock of hair, and a seal of unknown purpose.

Compared to these items, the crowbar seemed far more relevant to the door.

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

Suddenly, from the dark depths of the corridor beyond the door, an insistent tolling of a bell rang out.

The ringing lasted for several seconds before falling silent. From the closed doors on either side of the corridor, strange, dark silhouettes began to emerge, all moving in the same direction.

The gap in the ornate wooden doorway began to slowly close.

Watching the shadows stream past the door, Lu Li decided to join them.

Leaving the strange items from the lockers behind, Lu Li gripped his crowbar, slipped out of the room, and merged with the bustling throng in the corridor.

Strange mutterings filled the air around him. Lu Li stared straight ahead, moving with the flow of the procession.

He was small and conspicuously out of place among this crowd of shadows.

Lu Li saw the octopus-shadow in the throng, communicating with a shadow that moved on two legs sprouting from beneath a barrel. He also spotted the "cooks" who had leaped from the second door in the side passage.

It seemed all the strange shadows on the ship had left their rooms to join this "procession."

Just as Lu Li had expected, the group moved forward, ascending the now unguarded staircase to the second deck.

Lu Li subtly shifted from the middle of the crowd to its edge and saw them: vertical, palm-sized pupils, like the eyes of a frog, were embedded in the dark walls, observing every shadow in the procession.

Lu Li quietly moved back toward the center of the group.