novelraw Chapter 288: The Awful Giant
Chapter 288: The Awful Giant
Lu Li knew perfectly well where Remi and Jimmy came from.
They were characters from one of the chapters of the "Investigator trial," which was once an adventure novel with an unknown title.
Or, to be more precise, an evil spirit whose essence was an adventure novel.
[The "Investigator trial" is an evil spirit. Yes, just as you guessed, created by the first spirit hunter. Its essence is a gamebook with many chapters. People who use its stories for the trial usually receive letters from the characters of the chapters they've completed within a few days. Don't worry, it just sends letters, otherwise we wouldn't use it for the trial.]
Those were Tesla's words after the test had ended. Like the other trainees, Lu Li had received a letter, but he had continued to receive more afterward—a clear deviation from the normal outcome.
The Trader's hint, though brief, covered everything: Remi and Jimmy, through their constant communication with Lu Li, were detaching themselves from the evil spirit's book and truly emerging into this world.
But beyond that, Lu Li wanted to know how the Trader knew these details.
Was it really just because of the letter with his handwriting?
How did he do it?
Who was the Trader?Why was he called that?
"Do you still wish to send this letter?" the Trader asked again.
Rainwater dripped from the hem of his cloak, pooling at his feet and soaking a small patch of the floor.
Pulled from his thoughts, Lu Li looked up at the shadow beneath the Trader's hood. "And if I insist?"
"Your reason."
"They're my friends," Lu Li replied.
"How noble!" Anna whispered softly from somewhere nearby.
The Trader silently tucked the envelope into his enormous backpack and zipped it shut.
"Anything else you wish to trade?" the Trader asked.
"What's the current price for Deep Sea Stone?"
"9,120 shillings."
The price kept rising.
"Can you cut the Deep Sea Stone?"
"Not for free."
"And grind it into a powder to mix with cement?"
Lu Li recalled the dreary gray walls he had seen in the wealthy district.
"That's also possible," the Trader replied, but immediately added, "Deep Sea Stone doesn't set as hard as cement, and impurities will nullify its properties."
"So it can only be used as bricks?"
"Yes."
This made Lu Li abandon the idea of using Deep Sea Stone as cement.
The two massive stones were finally handed over to the Trader. Lu Li asked him to cut them into ten-centimeter cubes—with precision, he stressed—and to grind the remnants into a powder to use as mortar for the joints.
"How are you going to take two stones this size?" Lu Li asked, having paid the 1,000 shillings for the processing.
"I'll manage."
The Trader shouldered his enormous backpack, crouched in front of the Deep Sea Stones, and lifted them.
As easily as if they were two empty cardboard boxes.
Only the floor of the detective agency groaned pitifully under the weight.
Hoisted nearly three meters high, the stones almost scraped the ceiling. Lu Li opened the door and looked at the Trader, but before he could say anything, the man headed for the exit, stones in hand.
"Wait..."
Anna barely had time to cry out before she clapped a hand over her mouth.
She saw the Trader walk straight through the two-meter-high doorway while carrying the nearly three-meter-high stones.
In that instant, it seemed as if the Trader and the stones had simply vanished from this space.
"How did he do that?" Lu Li looked at Anna.
"I don't know..."
"Can you sense his aura?"
"I can't sense anything..."
After a moment's hesitation, Lu Li called out to the Trader, who had stepped into the hallway. When the figure stopped and turned back, Lu Li asked, "How did you do that?"
"Passage through the In-Between."
"What's that?"
"That information costs 100 investigation points."
"Goodbye."
After watching the Trader until he disappeared around the corner of the hallway, Lu Li returned to the detective agency.
Anna was gone. Lu Li looked around and, walking toward his desk, said, "It won't work for you. You're a spirit."
Just as he finished speaking, Anna's soft cry of "Oh!" came from an empty spot in the living room.
And then she appeared.
"What does the In-Between look like?"
Lu Li asked her, sitting down at his desk.
Anna floated back to the sofa, smoothed the hem of her dress, and said after a moment of thought, "It's gray and dilapidated. There's no color, just gray, black, and a sort of dingy white... as if no one has been there for centuries. And you can't see anyone, you can only sense their auras."
At this, she gave a slightly embarrassed giggle. "But I memorized your aura a long time ago. I'll never mistake it or lose it."
"My aura? What's it like?"
"I don't know how to describe it... I just feel that you're there. And the Spirit Gun—its aura is very bright, too."
The surface world was unique, the realm where humans lived, and simultaneously the core of countless other layers of reality. At the very least, the landscape in the In-Between corresponded to the surface world.
The In-Between itself had countless layers, and not even the most ancient spirit hunter knew how many truly existed. The layer of the In-Between where Anna resided was just one of them, and she wasn't alone; almost all ghosts existed on that same layer.
Listening to Anna's murmuring, Lu Li picked up the copy of the Investigator Weekly with the damp corner.
He had barely unfolded the newspaper when the text and image on the front page made his pupils contract sharply.
[Awful Giant Appears in the Port of Zenster!]
[The phenomenon was observed at midnight on Saturday, one to two kilometers from the coast. The Spirit Hunters Association could find no information about this anomaly in its records and suspects it to be a projection from the In-Between of some incredibly terrifying and dangerous entity.]
[Investigators have begun to investigate the Awful Giant phenomenon.]
[Warning: Anyone who views the Awful Giant in reality will inevitably be subjected to a "trial ritual." Any movement toward the giant, regardless of the distance, will also trigger the "trial ritual." We have spent a great deal of time ensuring this source of contagion does not appear in the newspapers. (The photography team and editorial staff, seventeen people in total, died as a result of the "trial ritual." Let us pray for the sacrifice of these exorcists: Tuze Dover (female), Chris Enstein (male), Charlie...)]
[The appearance of the Awful Giant has already led to the deaths of nine-tenths of Zenster's population. Currently, the northwestern part of the Allen Peninsula and the eastern city of Skoda in the Kingdom of Ellen are under complete lockdown. If your rank is below Agent, do not approach this zone under any circumstances!]
The Port of Zenster was in the northwest of the Allen Peninsula, while the Shadow Swamp was in the southwest. Only a narrow strait of ocean, a few dozen kilometers wide, separated it from the mainland. That was precisely where Remi and Jimmy had landed when they arrived on the Allen Peninsula.
To the right of the terrifying text was a photograph of the culprit—the Awful Giant.