The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 563: The Past of Michael Tesla

The corrupted knowledge of the Visible Song, the Swarm of Sufferings, and the Beheaded Spirit wrapped around Lu Li like a dark shroud. Deep within his mind, a whisper from the In-Between echoed.

Kig Fule paused, knowing that a constant influx of such distorted knowledge could take a toll on one's mind and Level of Reason.

However, Lu Li recovered more quickly than he had anticipated. Thanks to the Book of the Apocalypse, he possessed attributes that surpassed those of ordinary people. The whispering gradually faded away.

“Is it my turn to tell a story now?” Rod asked, leaning back against a warm stone.

Muffin poured himself some rum. The shadow of the dark golden liquid fell across the stones. “I hope you have a good story to end our gathering,” he said.

The night was growing more dangerous by the hour. Their previous gathering had ended at nine o'clock, but tonight, they had to conclude by eight.

“Of course,” Rod replied, straightening his posture as the weariness vanished from his face. “I'll tell you a story about my uncle, Michael.”

Rod's gaze settled intently on Lu Li.

“Michael Tesla, a member of the Tesla exorcist family from the Kingdom of Ellen, is my uncle. I lived with him when I was a child.”

The young Michael Tesla never wanted to be an exorcist.He never did.

Perhaps it was because his parents had been killed in an encounter with an anomaly when he was just a boy.

At fifteen, Michael was sent to live under the care of Rod's father. Rod himself was only three or four at the time, and the world of adults and anomalies was still a mystery to him. So, he would often run off to play with his "uncle," who was more than ten years his senior.

Rod already understood that his Uncle Michael's parents had left this world forever. Children have their own special way of comforting one another: simply by being there.

Michael, navigating his teenage years, was withdrawn and rejected any attempts at comfort—except from Rod, who was a constant presence. Rod's parents saw this and allowed the two of them to spend as much time together as they wanted.

In time, Michael began to interact with others again, and a smile would occasionally grace his face. But only Rod knew that his uncle had never truly recovered from his parents' death.

By the time Rod was nearly ten, his family's teachings had given him more knowledge of the world—and of anomalies—than most children his age. Michael had grown from a boy into a young man, but he still remained at home, rarely venturing outside.

Or, to be more precise, he rarely left his room.

Rod couldn't comprehend the depth of grief Michael must have felt, a grief that had kept him locked away for six years.

One day, as he passed his parents' study, Rod overheard them discussing Michael with deep concern. Poor Michael had witnessed his parents' murder at the age of ten, and had then lived alone for five years before they took him in.

His parents' deaths had left a deep wound in Michael's soul, and the years of solitude had only allowed it to fester.

Even the care of Rod's family had only managed to piece his heart back together, not truly heal it.

Michael resisted the family tradition of becoming an exorcist. His mental state wouldn't allow him to choose that path, so he instead went to work in the family business, choosing a profession he found appealing: a mortician.

He prepared the deceased for their final journey.

Rod, however, began his training like most members of an exorcist family. He never forgot about his uncle, of course, and one winter evening, he went to visit Michael, bringing a gift with him.

Michael had been drinking heavily. Rod had never seen him in such a state. He later learned that it was the anniversary of his parents' death.

Drunk and delirious, Michael recounted the story of that nightmarish day: a giant stone hand the size of a house, covered in vines and moss, had reached out from an abyss and seized his family. His father had opened a black umbrella to shield them, while his mother, realizing what was happening, shoved Michael away, her eyes filled with tears as she cried, “I love you.”

The hand seized Michael's parents, crushing them... until they became a formless pulp.

The hand vanished back into the abyss, the mighty will that had awakened it sinking back into slumber. Michael was rescued by family members who had rushed to the scene.

Michael was only ten years old at the time.

Rod didn't understand why his uncle had been taken on a mission involving an anomaly at just ten years old. The other family members explained that Michael had been a prodigy. He possessed incredible intuition and a powerful will, which allowed him to resist the influence of the In-Between and maintain his Level of Reason far better than ordinary people.

But no one could have predicted that his future would be shattered at his most vulnerable moment.

Rod continued to visit his uncle often, even after he officially became an exorcist at the age of fifteen.

The distance didn't harm their relationship, though Rod's increasingly busy schedule made it harder for them to see each other.

One day, upon returning from a mission, he learned from his parents that his uncle had gotten married.

His parents were clearly unhappy about it, and Rod, not understanding their reaction, started asking questions. That was how he learned the truth: Michael's wife... was a ghost.

The Tesla family had a history spanning centuries, dating back to the founding of the Spirit Hunters Association. More than ninety percent of its members had died at the hands of anomalies or in related incidents.

Fire and water cannot mix without destroying one another.

The family couldn't accept Michael's choice, but their feelings were complicated. Everyone knew the story of how the family's most promising prodigy had been extinguished in an instant.

Other families allied with the Teslas, such as the Muffins and the Fules, did not condemn Michael.

Eventually, a compromise was reached between Michael and the family: Michael would become an exorcist and leave the Main Continent, so that he could be with his wife.

Before he left, Michael met with a seventeen-year-old Rod.

Michael expressed his regret that he wouldn't be able to attend Rod's coming-of-age ceremony, and Rod was saddened by his uncle's departure.

He met his uncle's wife, a kind woman named Adamfiya. Michael had encountered her ghost while preparing her body for burial. In life, she had been the daughter of a wealthy but otherwise ordinary family.

This, it turned out, was the reason for the compromise: it was an equal exchange.

The Tesla family gained stable financial support, Adamfiya's family no longer had to fear anomalies, and Michael and Adamfiya could be together, free from prejudice and hostility.

After moving to Belfast on the Allen Peninsula, Michael didn't sever his ties with the family. They exchanged letters every few months, and word of his accomplishments eventually reached them.

The only regret was that, due to the agreement, Michael could never return home.

Not even when the family no longer objected to his ghost wife.

Such was the law of the continent: anomalies were the enemies of humanity.

“That's why I'm not like those two,” Rod said, gesturing toward Muffin and Kig Fule. “Like my uncle, I hold no prejudice against anomalies.”