The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 374: Saving Oliver

A match scraped, flared, and died in an instant, falling into the wastebasket.

Lu Li fitted the wind guard over his oil lamp and returned to his desk. He poured a cup of hot water and slid it across to Jojo.

The young woman sat across from him, a towel draped over her head. Her clothes, wrung out and hastily folded, lay beneath a blanket.

Sounds drifted from the bedroom—Anna was mopping up the rainwater.

“My brother worked for the Iva Trading Company,” Jojo began, her rain-pale hands wrapped around the warm cup.

The Iva Company handled transport between the mainland and the Allen Peninsula. They would load up with spices and artisanal goods on the mainland, then haul them to the peninsula for sale. On the return journey, they picked up local wares from the Allen Peninsula to sell back on the mainland. Occasionally, they also took on private delivery contracts.

There were many companies like it, including major trading firms with their own fleets, capable of shipping cargo directly from inland ports to Port Roadster.

The owner of the Iva Company was a fairly prosperous merchant. While he didn't earn the vast sums of shillings that the larger trading houses did, his income was steady.

But after the onset of the Night Calamity, all transportation became more expensive. Caravans had to carry several large crates packed with torches and kerosene.

Moreover, the deteriorating conditions meant workers sometimes vanished into the darkness and bandit attacks grew more frequent. Wages had to be raised just to attract people to join the caravans.The merchants soon realized they needed guides who knew the land intimately.

The Iva Company was no exception.

Oliver was drawn to the stable, well-paying work. He had plenty of competitors, but fortunately, he was a sociable man. His boast that he knew "more than half of Belfast’s residents by name" was likely an exaggeration, but he truly had met a great many people.

Accustomed to life on the lower rungs of society and skilled at dealing with strangers, Oliver quickly became a guide for the Iva Company. The success of his very first trip cemented his position.

Oliver naturally felt a twinge of regret that he couldn’t work alongside a rising star in the world of exorcism like Lu Li, but a steady job that allowed him and his sister to eat properly and afford her studies was more important.

The caravan made the journey between the mainland and the peninsula roughly every five to seven days. They usually sold their goods along the route, in the various cities and towns. As a result, in the two months Oliver worked as a guide, Jojo had only seen her brother two and a half times.

The "half" was the time she'd rushed out after her classes to meet him, only to catch a glimpse of his caravan disappearing down the road.

Although Jojo rarely saw her brother, it was the most peaceful and carefree time of her life. Sometimes, out of boredom, she would take on small errands to earn a bit of extra money.

Oliver sent his earnings back with friends. After paying for her tuition and small living expenses, Jojo saved the rest, dreaming of the day they could buy a new two-story house in Belfast. And so it went, until disaster struck two days ago.

As it so often goes in stories, just when the heroes are enjoying a spell of good weather, a storm is already gathering on the horizon.

The caravan leader came to Jojo, asking about Oliver's whereabouts. Jojo, who hadn't spoken to her brother in ten days, knew nothing. After questioning the man, she learned that the entire caravan had vanished.

Jojo knew her brother wouldn't just disappear. Alarmed, she and the caravan leader began searching for Oliver. When all of his friends said they hadn't seen him in ages, her anxiety mounted. That’s when she turned to Lu Li for help, and on his advice, went to the police.

The Tenebrae police launched an investigation and discovered something strange: no one along the route had seen the caravan, and there were no wheel tracks on the road. It seemed they had never left Tenebrae at all.

Jojo waited anxiously for news at the Belfast police station. At midnight, the quiet station erupted in a commotion. A report had just come in: fifteen minutes ago, all communication with Tenebrae had been abruptly cut off.

Jojo, already suspecting that Tenebrae had fallen prey to something supernatural, went to Lu Li again, but he refused to help. She then spent the entire night tracking down her brother's friends.

Most of them said they couldn't help, but a few confirmed her fears, saying Tenebrae had been attacked by some supernatural entity, just like what happened to the port of Zenster.

Over the course of the night, Jojo collected a handful of terrifying rumors about Tenebrae: “They’ve seen strange figures in the swamp,” “You can hear a long, deep breathing from under the ground near the town,” and “The streets are littered with corpses—everyone’s dead!”

Lu Li understood that the incident in Tenebrae, even if it wasn't the direct work of the Mother of the Swamp, was undoubtedly connected to her.

He opened his desk drawer, retrieved the letter from the figure in the bird-beak mask, and, skipping over the extraneous details, focused on a single line: "Remember, do not go to Tenebrae until the mark is gone. Something is wrong there."

What had she discovered there?

The letter reminded Lu Li of one of the "door’s" variations: how it had imitated Anna, trying to lure him back to the hut in the swamp.

He raised his eyes to Jojo, then glanced toward Anna. She was sitting at a desk in the bedroom, chin propped in her hand, watching them. Anna smiled and gave him a little wave.

Lu Li put the letter away and asked Jojo, “Do you think he’s still alive?”

Jojo froze, her hands tightening around the cup. She pressed her lips together and met Lu Li’s gaze, her own eyes serious. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to be tormented every night by the thought that my brother might still be alive—trapped somewhere, dying in despair because I didn’t come for him.”

“I don’t want to live with that guilt and regret. If you won’t help me, I’ll go by myself. I have to know if my brother is alive, even if it means dying there.”

She doesn’t want to have regrets, either...

Lu Li met Jojo’s determined gaze and said calmly,

“Find a carriage that can handle this weather. Pack whatever you think you’ll need, and be back in two hours.”

“I’ll go get ready right now!” Jojo leaped from her chair with a sharp scrape of wood against the floor. The cup of water tipped over, splashing hot water onto her hand, but she paid it no mind. She rushed toward Lu Li to embrace him in gratitude, but something unseen, like a solid wall, stopped her short.

Jojo guessed the cause, took a step back, and bowed deeply. “Thank you, Lu Li.”

This time, her gratitude was entirely different from the night before.

“Go get ready,” Lu Li said.