The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 299: The Next Carriage

"The rain is relentless..." Anna lifted her head, letting the drops pass through her ghostly face.

She had never seen such a prolonged downpour.

The ceaseless rain showed no sign of letting up, day or night. Fortunately, most cities on the Allen Peninsula were situated on the coast, and the few inland towns were built on high ground, which eliminated the risk of flooding.

The roads, however, were becoming increasingly impassable.

A few kilometers from Himmfast, the ground had turned into a muddy mire. The wheels of the long carriage carved deep ruts into the earth.

Anna sat by the curtain, one hand resting on Enni's trunk, silently sensing her weakening breath.

She had tried to envelop Enni with her own energy, but it only seemed to drain the tree's already fragile life force, so she had been forced to stop.

The carriage pressed on through the pitch-black, rainy night. There might have been other vehicles nearby, but the roar of the downpour drowned out every other sound.

After about an hour of relatively peaceful travel, the horses suddenly came to a halt.

Anna raised the oil lamp and saw a dark carriage blocking the road ahead. It had appeared so suddenly that she and Lu Li only noticed it after the horses had stopped.Lu Li and Anna exchanged a look. Anna shook her head slightly. "I don't sense any energy."

That meant the carriage—or whatever was controlling it—was not a ghost.

There were no horses visible in front of the carriage, and the lamplight reflected off its wooden body.

"We'll go around it," Lu Li said.

"Alright."

Anna took the reins and guided the horses around the strange, driverless carriage. She kept her body turned toward it, shielding Lu Li, until their own carriage had put some distance between them. Then, it jerked to a stop again.

Another carriage was blocking their path.

Anna, who had still been watching the first carriage, quickly moved to shield Lu Li again. "Another one?!"

"It's the same one," Lu Li said, his gaze shifting from the carriage to Anna's back. "Are you sure you didn't notice anything?"

"No..."

"We'll go around again."

Lingering on the road was pointless, especially when faced with an unknown anomaly.

Once more, their carriage steered around the driverless one and continued on its way. Anna remained protectively in front of Lu Li, her eyes scanning the road ahead.

Just as Lu Li and Anna had expected, the carriage came to another halt a few minutes later.

The driverless carriage was once again barring their path, but this time it was parked sideways across the road, completely blocking their way.

"I'll check it out!" Anna exclaimed, a cold aura beginning to radiate from her.

Lu Li shook his head, curbing her impulse. "No need. We'll take the shoulder."

"It's following us," Anna said reluctantly.

"That's precisely why we shouldn't give in to it."

In any case, the fact that the carriage had blocked them three times clearly had a purpose—perhaps to lure them out to investigate.

That was exactly why Lu Li had no intention of playing by someone else's rules, even if the anomaly meant no harm.

Right now, it was crucial that they not waste any time.

Anna nodded thoughtfully and steered the carriage onto the shoulder, using her power to keep it from tipping over on the uneven ground.

The long carriage passed right beside the one blocking the road. Lu Li didn't even glance at whatever lay behind its curtain. Once back on the road, their carriage continued on.

This time, nothing else impeded their progress.

"Did we lose it?"

Anna turned around, but all she could see was the back of their carriage and the wooden box containing the tree's roots.

"Looks like it."

Anna looked away, her clear eyes filled with confusion. "What was that?"

"It's best not to dwell on it," Lu Li replied. "Anomalies defy logic."

It was just like the "Cries for Help in the Alley" case: neither running away nor trying to save someone was the right answer. You had to follow the ritual to survive. And that was for relatively predictable ghosts—at least it was known that vengeful and evil spirits had rituals.

Thinking back, traveling at night hadn't been this dangerous just a month ago.

Now, it had become an extremely risky endeavor.

Anna's presence helped Lu Li avoid some trouble. The cold auras of other ghosts lingering nearby would retreat upon sensing her stronger energy, taking it as a sign of another's territory, and would silently vanish into the surrounding darkness.

At one point, Anna noticed Lu Li turn his head slightly, as if listening for something.

Sensing Anna's gaze, Lu Li answered her unspoken question. "There's something behind us."

"Should I take a look?"

"Yes."

With his permission, Anna took another oil lamp, rose into the air, and passed through the carriage roof. The lamp bumped against the ceiling, but as it fell, an unseen force caught it and pulled it outside.

Once on the roof, Anna caught the lamp and held it high above her head.

In the pouring rain, the lamp illuminated only a small area, so Anna let it go, and it floated toward the back of the carriage.

A few meters away, a silhouette emerged in the lamplight.

The black carriage, blending into the night's darkness, was following them. There were still no horses, yet the carriage bobbed up and down, as if pulled by an invisible steed.

The sight was both eerie and unsettling.

"That carriage is following us!"

Anna's cry reached Lu Li through the roof.

"Let it follow," Lu Li replied.

His increasingly sharp intuition told him that if they stopped or paid any attention to the carriage, they would lose.

Anna gave the carriage a cold look, returned inside, and sat with her back to Lu Li, facing the rear of their carriage and the strange vehicle following them.

The muddy road and heavy cargo slowed their long carriage, but the pursuing one still couldn't catch up.

Along the way, they passed a slow-moving freight caravan. The drivers, spotting the strange carriage, pulled on their reins in terror and stopped at the side of the road, not daring to move.

The strange carriage followed them for nearly an hour before the sounds of its pursuit began to fade, eventually disappearing completely. After a while, Anna flew outside to check, but the carriage was nowhere to be seen.

This time, they had truly shaken their pursuer.

Lu Li wrapped himself in a blanket and dozed off, leaning against the cold wall of the carriage, while Anna drove the horses and kept watch on their surroundings.

Nothing else out of the ordinary happened.

Lu Li awoke around five in the morning. The sky was just as dark as it had been hours earlier.

They were already at the foot of the mountain and might just reach Belfast before dawn.

Though in this world, Lu Li had never truly seen a sunrise or a starry sky.

Except for that one moment when he had leaped from the ship of the dead and returned to the world of the living, seeing the sun rise over the sea.