The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 360: The Death of Petra

The flickering candlelight twisted the shadows into grotesque shapes. A paste of crushed moss, like a dark green sludge, felt unpleasantly cold against his skin.

Incomprehensible, mumbled incantations rang in his ears.

Like creeping shadows, black patches spread across Petra's still-living body. His clothes and skin, smeared with moss, seemed to decay, and as the blackness consumed them, it left behind nothing but a rough, pitted surface.

The last patch of skin on his chest succumbed to the darkness.

Sara uttered the final syllables of the incantation.

Petra's chest fell still.

[All things are fleeting.]

[The light in the cellar suddenly warped. The candle flames shattered into splinters of light, then, in the blink of an eye, everything snapped back to normal, as if it had been a mere vision.]

[Only Petra's twisted head proved it had been no hallucination.]

“Don’t forget your promise.”[“Don’t forget your promise,” Petra rasped, his eyes fixed on Lu Li in the corner. His body began to slump onto the table as if melting, and in a flash, he dissolved into a black fluid that trickled to the floor, spreading across the stone slabs.]

A few drops spattered onto Lu Li's legs, but Aileen, thanks to her height, was spared.

Sara, the story's protagonist, couldn't comprehend what had just happened. Aileen stared, her mouth agape, a mixture of shock and sorrow in her eyes.

She couldn't tell if those had been Petra's own last words or if he had been speaking under the control of the Shadow Puppeteer.

There was no way to know the answer now.

For a long moment, Sara—and the story itself—paid no mind to Lu Li and the baroness by the wall. The girl was trying to process what had just occurred.

She tried to gather the "ink" that had been Petra, but the liquid suddenly crumbled into a fine, ash-like dust.

Even the drops that had spattered onto Lu Li's trousers disintegrated, turning to dust and vanishing with the slightest movement.

Sara, of course, had no idea what this meant. All she could do was collect a portion of "Petra's ashes" before continuing with her experiments.

She had enough material for today.

Lu Li was next. Sara decided to save the baroness for last.

She had questions for Aileen, and also... a score to settle.

The main course is always served after dessert.

"Vincent" removed Lu Li's shackles and led him to the makeshift altar—the table still stained with the last traces of "Petra's ashes".

Turning his head, Lu Li said to the baroness, who was growing nervous again, "Petra was a thinking man. He never gave his friend's address."

Lu Li's words were cryptic, even bizarre. Sara's mind involuntarily drifted back to Petra's final words.

Petra was a thinking man... He didn't give an address...

A glimmer of understanding dawned on the baroness, but when she saw Sara pick up a dagger, she abandoned her speculation and cried out, "You killed him! What about Petra's final wish?!"

Sara ignored the baroness's cry. Clutching the dagger, she approached the table.

Bound by the narrative, Lu Li couldn't move. He gestured for Anna to stand down and calmly watched as Sara began to smear the moss across his chest.

Remembering Petra's final words, Lu Li decided to speak to Sara. "Have you ever tried to analyze your previous experiments? To find the reason you can't seem to resurrect Adam?"

We've been going about this all wrong—that's what Petra had really been trying to say.

His final words had been a lie. He didn't have a friend who needed a message delivered, which was why he never told Lu Li how to contact him. Petra had invented the friend—or rather, the "friend" was them, and the "her" he mentioned was Sara.

Petra was hinting that they shouldn't oppose Sara, because she was impossible to defeat. Sara was the protagonist; she represented the entire book's point of view, and they, unfortunately, were on the wrong side of it.

Stories where the hero dies exist. Stories where the hero is killed by the villain also exist. But the "Book of Sarah's Death" was not going to be one of them.

Petra wanted Lu Li and the baroness to change their approach, to find common ground with Sara, to become her allies.

Unfortunately, Petra had realized this far too late. He couldn't even save himself. All he could do was disguise his true meaning in his final words, passing the message to Lu Li and the baroness while concealing it from the evil spirit.

Lu Li understood. And perhaps, so did the baroness.

Ignoring Lu Li's words, Sara continued to apply the moss, her face an emotionless mask.

The unpleasant, cold, and slimy sensation seeped through his shirt like a rising tide. Lu Li pressed on. "How did Adam die? Did the viscount kill him?"

[“You are not worthy to speak his name,” Sara said, her eyes on Lu Li as if he were a lifeless doll.]

"I never opposed you, nor did I report you," Lu Li said, shaking his head.

Sara fell silent once more, ignoring Lu Li's words as if he were already a corpse.

Emotional appeals were Lu Li's weak point. He didn't know what to say to capture Sara's attention and draw out a response. Finally, Sara finished smearing the moss over his face and began to arrange the lit candles.

"Adam must despise you."

The baroness's voice suddenly cut through the silence of the cellar.

Lu Li turned his head and saw the baroness give him a sharp nod.

She understood.

The mention of Adam finally got Sara's attention. Her face, twisted with obsession, lifted to meet theirs.

"You want to resurrect Adam, don't you? ... Leaving aside what he'd think of your methods, do you truly believe he would want his life to be subject to your whims?" As an aristocrat, the baroness understood people far better than Lu Li and had witnessed more of human nature's complexities.

While Sara remained silent, the baroness pressed on with a cold sneer, "You're so desperate to escape your cage, to find freedom, yet what you're doing to your beloved is no different from what your father did to you. You're just building a new cage for him... Stare into the abyss long enough, and you become it. You truly are your father's daughter."

It seemed the baroness was pouring out her own frustrations as well.

[“Oh,” Sara replied with indifference. In truth, a storm of hatred for herself and for her father raged within her, but she knew with bitter certainty that she couldn't stop... Adam had died because of her, and she had to bring him back, even if he ended up hating her for it...]

Sara's obsession was too powerful; the accusation that she was becoming like her father had little effect.

Most of the candles had already been set in place on the black table.

The baroness's words sparked an idea in Lu Li's mind, and he continued her line of attack. "Sara, do you remember your mother?"

[Clatter.]

[Sara dropped the candle. It rolled across the table, its edges melting as droplets of wax rapidly hardened on the wooden surface. Suddenly, she raised her head and stared intently at Lu Li.]

"It seems you've forgotten her," Lu Li said with a mock sigh.

[“What are you trying to say...” Sara’s voice was thick with suppressed emotion. How could she forget? She would always remember the day they took her from her mother... Afterward, she had often woken in tears, crying out for her mother in her sleep.]

Sara's mother was alive, and she was a "good character."

Lu Li seized the opening. "Your mother once asked Aileen and me to look after you. We failed to keep our promise."