The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 224: Bewilderment

The line of shadows, swaying in time with the ship, turned their heads toward Lu Li in unison.

An extra one...

At that moment, the shadow that had taken Lu Li's place nodded at him with a familiar air, as if they were old acquaintances.

"You've come."

It was the voice of a young woman.

The moment she spoke, the surrounding shadows leaned forward slightly.

In that same instant, the figure threw back her hood and raised her hands—in each, she held a Spirit Gun.

Lu Li took half a step back, his hand dropping to his belt as he drew his own Spirit Gun.

Raising the weapon, he aimed it at the heads of the two nearest shadows and pulled the trigger.

Bang!Bang!

Two loud shots, like the roar of a dragon, echoed across the deck.

The heads of the two shadows, along with most of their necks, shattered into pieces, and the shadows themselves dissipated.

In the same moment, Lu Li threw his Spirit Gun. The weapon spun through the air, grazing the woman's hair as it flew past her to destroy a shadow approaching from behind.

Clink.

Clink.

Only then did the faint sound of falling shell casings become audible.

"You have no luck with pistols. I ought to teach you how to use them properly," the woman remarked to Lu Li. But then, mirroring his action, she threw her two Spirit Guns, destroying two more shadows.

She reached into her cloak and pulled out two new Spirit Guns.

Bang!

Bang!

Gunshots cracked through the night air, and two more shadows vanished.

Lu Li swung his first Spirit Gun like a club, striking the nearest shadow.

He had learned this trick when he fell into the sea and was ensnared by seaweed. Using an Anomaly in the conventional way caused his Mind Level to drop at a normal rate. But if he used it unconventionally... the drain on his Mind Level was also slower.

If holding the grip and pulling the trigger drained his Mind Level at a rate of one point per second, holding it by the barrel cost him only 0.3 points per second, or even less, though he couldn't unleash the Spirit Gun's full power that way.

Only by using an Anomaly as intended could one unlock its true potential and suffer its full negative effects.

The technique was useless against a powerful opponent, but against a horde of weak enemies, it was indispensable.

Fortunately, these shadows were surprisingly weak. They couldn't even withstand a blow from a regular Spirit Gun.

Looking up, Lu Li glanced thoughtfully at her heavy cloak while covering her retreat from the encircling shadows.

"To the cabins."

"To the wheelhouse."

The two voices spoke at the same time, then fell silent just as quickly.

After a few seconds, Lu Li said, "We can't hide from the black wave in the wheelhouse."

The woman once again threw her empty Spirit Guns, destroying two more shadows.

More than half of the shadows remained. They advanced slowly, unhurried, as if indifferent to the destruction of their comrades.

"What black wave?"

Under Lu Li's gaze, the woman reached into her cloak again, produced two more Spirit Guns, and eliminated the two nearest shadows.

"A black substance that can flood the entire ship."

"It won't be coming anymore. The shadows are the ones who create it."

Lu Li understood instantly.

The shadows weren't standing on the deck to hide from the black wave, but to summon it. They were summoning the black wave to consume everything on the ship.

Except for themselves.

"They won't go into the cabins," Lu Li said again.

This woman might be an Investigator, but out of caution, Lu Li had no intention of following her plan.

This time, the woman didn't throw her Spirit Guns, perhaps because all the nearby shadows had already been destroyed.

"Of course. They can't interfere with what's in the cabins," she replied, looking at Lu Li with curiosity. "You want to go back to the cabins?"

"Let's go to the wheelhouse."

Lu Li turned and ran for the wheelhouse, scooping up a discarded Spirit Gun on his way.

The pistol had most likely been thrown by the woman, but now it was his.

When they returned to the wheelhouse, the shadows that had been pursuing them on deck suddenly milled about like headless flies before resuming their strange, repetitive actions.

"They're too weak," Lu Li remarked, wiping the black substance from the glass to observe the deck.

"Their purpose isn't to fight, but to contaminate," the woman said lazily, sinking into a chair without a second glance at the black substance. "And they can't be killed. They'll regenerate from the blackness after a while."

Lu Li turned and peered at the shadow beneath her hood. "Who are you?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

The woman spread her hands as if Lu Li had asked a foolish question.

Lu Li, of course, knew the answer, but he needed to be certain. So he asked, "Were you the one in the refrigerator?"

The question brought a hint of irritation to the woman's voice. "If you hadn't locked the door, I would have been out long ago."

"If you had identified yourself, you would have been out long ago," Lu Li stated coolly. "When did you notice me?"

"When you locked me in. I wanted to warn you, but I was so tired I decided to get some sleep," the woman settled more comfortably into her chair, still hidden beneath her hood. Even her hands were wrapped in bandages. "So, you think I was standing among them on purpose?"

"Something like that. Your mission is to investigate, and mine is to protect you. I couldn't find you in the lower cabins, so I came up to the deck. I've been looking for you for a very long time."

"Do you know where we are?"

"On a ship of returning souls."

The woman's words made Lu Li narrow his eyes.

"Surprised? Did you think we were on some ghost ship?"

Lu Li nodded.

"You can hear the toll of a funeral bell from the Underworld. Every time it rings, the shadows summon black filth from the Underworld to defile this ship, until it's completely mired in it and sent down to the Underworld."

"Are we already dead?"

Lu Li recalled being pulled from the water along with a haul of dead fish.

"Not yet, because we woke up before we truly died. Think about it, isn't everything you've experienced on this ship a lot like life?" the woman asked flippantly. "But if we don't get off this place in time, we really will die."

Escaping the conveyor belt leading to the "furnace," getting out of the "refrigerator," encountering the ghostly shadows...

Just as the woman had said, everything Lu Li had experienced on this ship felt like a countdown on his life.

However...

Lu Li narrowed his eyes. "How do you know what I've been through on this ship?"

"I already know this is a ship of returning souls. Am I the captain?"

"Books?"

"Yep."

Investigators were typically erudite, so Lu Li stopped dwelling on the woman's identity and asked, "How do we get out of here?"

As if expecting the question, the woman answered immediately: "The moment dawn pierces the darkness, jump overboard."