The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 431: Anna's Final Resting Place

Traveling alone through the wilds after dark was never a good idea.

Lu Li's previous nighttime journeys had almost always ended in some sort of trouble.

This time, however, luck seemed to be on his side. He reached Khimfast before midnight without incident.

The drizzling rain that had persisted for days had finally stopped that afternoon, but the lamp-lit streets were still deserted. There was hardly a soul in sight.

Even the homeless who usually huddled beneath the streetlamps were gone. Perhaps the local authorities had taken care of them, or perhaps...

The clatter of hooves echoed on the wet cobblestones as the carriage pulled up to number 66 in the Terraces district.

A light glowed in the windows of the elegant building. A woman's silhouette flickered behind a curtain, pulling back its edge for a moment before vanishing. A heartbeat later, the white wooden door opened to reveal Mery.

Anna materialized and drifted into the house. Lu Li tied the reins to the railing, picked up his suitcase and the oil lamp, and stepped into the warm, well-lit interior.

Mery closed the door behind him and padded off to the kitchen in her fluffy slippers to fetch the coffee she had been keeping warm.

Lu Li set his suitcase down by the sofa and took a seat.Mery returned with two cups of coffee. She handed one to Lu Li and offered the other toward Anna, but then, as if suddenly remembering, she sadly placed it down in front of herself.

"Warm yourselves," Mery said, quickly composing herself. "It’s been so cold lately, as if autumn has come early."

"Perhaps it has," Anna replied.

Now that plants had stopped growing, it was no different from the autumn when they withered.

Mery smiled, her gaze warm as she looked at Anna and Lu Li. "Do you really want to go with me to the Lennon Archipelago?"

"Yes. It's safe there," Anna answered.

Mery asked a few more questions, as if trying to bridge the distance between them. Lu Li had no intention of answering, leaving Anna to accept Mery's kindness with a touch of awkwardness.

But when Anna asked if she was ready to leave, Mery looked at her in surprise and shook her head. "You want to leave right now? No, that’s impossible. It’s forbidden to leave Khimfast alone at night."

Having been silent until now, Lu Li finally spoke. "Did something happen?"

"Yes..." Mery replied, a note of anxiety in her voice. "Many people have gone missing lately. The police haven't found any culprits, so it's most likely they've run into anomalies."

Anna now understood why the guards at the gate had given Lu Li such a strange look when they entered the city.

"Are there other ways to leave the city?" Lu Li asked. As an investigator, he could easily ignore the ban, but he needed to gauge how strictly it was enforced.

The stricter the ban, the more dangerous it was outside the city walls.

"...You can join a merchant caravan," Mery answered hesitantly. "That's the only way to leave the city freely."

It seemed there wouldn't be a problem.

Still, Mery believed it was better to leave in the morning. "We can stay the night and set off early. It's safer during the day, and it will be easier to buy ship tickets."

"The tickets are already bought," Anna answered on Lu Li's behalf. "We're leaving tomorrow evening on the ocean liner Avitanis, which will arrive in Port Roadster. The postman will deliver the tickets to the agency as soon as we get back."

Mery glanced at Lu Li with surprise. Though he had been silent and expressionless since he arrived, she could sense an urgency behind his actions.

"Alright, I don't have much to pack. When are we leaving?" Mery asked, no longer insisting. Anna and Lu Li wouldn't harm her, and they surely had their reasons for being in such a hurry.

"We need to be in Belfast by early morning tomorrow," Lu Li replied.

"Then I'll go pack right away," Mery nodded and looked at Anna. "Anna, will you come with me?"

It seemed Mery wanted to speak with Anna alone.

Anna followed Mery, while Lu Li remained in the living room, warming himself with the coffee.

Just as Mery had said, she only needed to grab a few things she had already prepared.

Ten minutes later, footsteps sounded from the upper floor, pausing at the turn of the stairs.

Lu Li looked up and, through the gap between the banisters, saw Anna and Mery talking.

"Do you want to go back to the estate?" Mery's quiet voice drifted down to him.

"...I've forgotten much of that life," came Anna's slightly detached reply. "There's nothing left there that I hold dear."

"Oh... Anna, you've changed so much... Since our first meeting, since last time..."

"Perhaps."

The conversation ended quickly, and they returned to the living room.

Mery had changed into a loose, light-gray dress suitable for travel and was carrying a dark red suitcase.

There was bread and chicken soup with mashed potatoes left in the kitchen. Mery packed them into a paper bag.

The wall clock showed ten. If they left now, they would reach Belfast by dawn.

But before they departed, there was something Lu Li needed to do, and something he needed to ask.

"Did Anna die of an illness?" he asked Mery.

"Anna's health was always frail," Mery answered, a little uncomfortably. "When the epidemic started, she fell ill quickly, and the doctors couldn't help her..."

"Where is she buried?"

"In the cemetery by the church in the west of the city, next to her mother."

...

Holding the oil lamp, Mery stood by the carriage near the cemetery entrance, watching them in silence.

A tall, dark church loomed silently in the background, behind two figures—one corporeal, the other spectral.

Low, crooked headstones surrounded them like silent figures.

[R.I.P.]

[Anna Bessy]

Anna's remains lay beneath this headstone.

Carved into the tall, pointed stone was an inscription that stung Anna's eyes.

"Why are we here?" Anna asked. She didn't understand and couldn't articulate her feelings.

Seeing one's own grave was hardly a pleasant experience.

"Just decided to stop by," Lu Li replied, taking in the peace and quiet that permeated the cemetery.

The dead were undisturbed; they continued to sleep.

"Let's go," Lu Li said, turning away. The lamp flame flickered, and his shadow fell across Anna's grave.

It's unlikely this was just a casual visit, Anna thought. Lu Li never did anything without a reason.

Perhaps he wanted to know if her death had been an accident or something more.

Or...

To remind her that she was once human, so she wouldn't forget her true nature?

Following Lu Li along the path toward the cemetery exit, Anna mulled over these questions, then quietly shook her head.

Lu Li was wrong.

Anna knew for certain that she had always remained herself. No other entity had tried to possess her consciousness. Well... there was the vengeful spirit in the alley, but she had rejected it in the end.

All her changes had happened gradually, like a person whose behavior alters under the weight of successive misfortunes.

If you gradually replace every plank on a ship, it still remains the same ship.