The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 398: Oliver's Struggle

Hideous, blood-red clouds choked the sky. A crimson rain fell, soaking the withered trees and the earth, tracing scarlet veins across the land. Not a single sign of life stirred.

An absolute, dead silence had fallen over everything.

The bloody rain fell without a sound.

— Hah... Hah... Hah...

Then, from beneath a low hillock in the swamp, came the faint sound of ragged breathing and shuffling feet.

The footsteps quickly grew clearer, and suddenly, a figure scrambled out of a dark opening in the hill and collapsed.

Oliver fell into a mire of mud and bloody rain. A matchbox slipped from his hand, and two matches tumbled out into the muck.

— Gasp... Hah...

Oliver rolled over, his breath coming in ragged gasps, and stared in terror at the dark passage from which he had just emerged.

Within the dark, lifeless passage, a grim and malevolent presence—one that inspired an instinct to flee without a second thought—was reluctantly receding.Oliver lay motionless for a long time, waiting for the frantic rhythm of his breathing to steady. Only then did he feel certain that nothing else would emerge from the dark passage.

Splat.

Oliver, drained of strength, collapsed back into the mud.

The ground, slick as a slug; the stench of rot and mire in the air; the tangle of dead tree roots—everything confirmed where Oliver was.

This was the Shadow Swamp.

A place the locals spoke of only with dread. The six-limbed creatures and the shadow people that terrorized Tenebrae, along with countless other monstrosities, had all crawled out of this place.

In his desperation to escape one danger, Oliver had plunged straight into the heart of the monsters' lair.

"It's okay... It's okay... I can make it to the Swamp Road and get away from Tenebrae. Oliver, you must stay calm. You have to make it back to JoJo alive..."

Urging himself not to give up, Oliver scrambled to his trembling feet, pulling himself from the foul-smelling mud.

After wiping the filth from his hands and picking up the fallen matches, Oliver raised his head to the sky.

The bloody clouds still hung overhead. Oliver didn't know how far they stretched, but he knew one thing for certain: it wasn't safe anywhere beneath them.

"North... To the right..."

Oliver got his bearings and began to trudge toward the Swamp Road, stumbling and sinking with every step into the bog.

The cold mud slowly leached the warmth and strength from Oliver's body. Each step was a monumental effort, a struggle to pull his legs free from the grasping mire.

He suddenly understood why the six-limbed creatures crawled instead of walked.

Worse than the mud were the treacherous bogs scattered everywhere. They were perfectly disguised, ready to drag him under the instant he set foot in one.

The branch Oliver carried had saved him from a grim fate more than once, keeping him from becoming fertilizer for the Shadow Swamp.

But a single branch wasn't enough. Some of the bogs were cunningly concealed within the mud. They felt no different from solid ground when stepped upon, but they would slowly drag you down, and by the time you realized what was happening, it was already too late.

All Oliver could do was avoid the deceptively flat and open patches, sticking as close as possible to the gnarled tree roots that broke through the surface.

It took him several minutes just to cover a hundred meters.

To make matters worse, after half an hour, Oliver realized he was lost.

Based on his pace, he should have reached the long, straight road minutes ago—the one that sliced the swamp into northern and southern halves, connecting the heart of the continent to the Allen Peninsula.

But all that surrounded him were the hazy silhouettes of dead trees, a dead silence, and the unnerving sensation that he was being watched.

It felt as if something was lurking in the darkness, watching him.

Oliver had no energy to dwell on it. The struggle to simply move forward demanded every last ounce of his strength and concentration.

He was utterly drained.

And yet, fortune had not completely abandoned him.

Just over ten minutes later, when the combined weight of exhaustion and the constant feeling of being watched had pushed Oliver to his breaking point, the silhouettes of houses materialized in the distance.

These houses were unlike any Oliver had ever seen. They were built on stilts, like treehouses, rising high above the ground. Suspension bridges of vines and wood connected the houses. In the gloom, where only their outlines were visible, vines hung down from every structure like snakes or ropes.

Oliver recognized the place. Everyone who traveled the Swamp Road knew of it.

The abandoned village of the Shadow Swamp, which lay right beside the Swamp Road.

To see it meant that he was close to the road at last.

A strength called hope surged through his exhausted body. Gasping for breath, Oliver drew closer to the village.

However, he deliberately gave it a wide berth. There were many dark rumors about the abandoned village: tales of ghosts, of six-limbed creatures.

An abandoned, uninhabited village was somehow more terrifying than the open mire.

But it seemed the goddess of hope had averted her gaze once more.

The ground began to tremble, as if a great, ancient heart were beating slowly deep within the earth.

Oliver knew what it was.

He crouched among the tree roots, pressing himself against a trunk, trying to hide.

A roar of unknown origin echoed across the Shadow Swamp, a stark reminder that monsters were near and that this place was teeming with danger.

Shuffle-shuffle.

Suddenly, something darted past in the distance, and whispers seemed to stir all around him.

A knot of anxiety tightened in Oliver's stomach. His hiding place was not secure...

He looked at the quiet, abandoned village, where not a sound could be heard.

Was it safe there?

Oliver gritted his teeth, rose from behind the roots, and limped toward the abandoned village.

A dead silence reigned among the houses. The ladders leading up to them had likely rotted away long ago, and Oliver had no time to search for one.

The dark, doorless openings stared down at Oliver, and the unsettling feeling of being watched returned.

Oliver's breathing was shaky—whether from fear, fatigue, or the pulsing heartbeat of the land, he couldn't tell.

He scrambled up into the house at the center of the village. It looked to be the largest and most stable.

His boots were long gone, swallowed by the swamp, and his bare feet squelched and creaked on the damp, cold planks.

There were no strange noises. The floor held. The situation, at least, had not gotten worse.

Oliver curled up by the doorway, a spot where the darkness couldn't completely swallow him, but where he wouldn't be visible from the outside.

He waited in silence. A few minutes later, the slow, crushing pulse from the earth finally ceased. Oliver's own heart, as if freed, began to hammer in his chest.

— Someone, help me...

With his back pressed against the cold wall of the hut, Oliver sank into despair. Tears streamed down his cheeks, carving clean paths through the grime.

He wanted to blame someone, but he didn't know who.

Oliver couldn't even begin to understand why any of this was happening. But at least he hadn't died in despair, ignorant to the end, like the other townsfolk.

— What am I going to do...

Suddenly, Oliver's choked sobs and mumbled words died in his throat.

He turned his head slightly, listening intently.

From the swamp beneath the abandoned village came the sound of squelching footsteps.

Something was close.