The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 654: The Shelter

The next morning, Jimmy was relieved of his duties as a digger.

The newly expanded cave now resembled a spacious hall. Although lining it with Deep Sea Stone would significantly reduce the space, it would no longer be as cramped as before, when a bed, a wardrobe, and a table left no room for anything else.

The cave walls were covered in a dense pattern of scratches, like the tracks of a wolf, as if it had once been a lair.

Anna carried the debris outside. A gust of wind cleared the dust from the cave, and she smoothed over the clawed-up walls.

All that remained was to fit the Deep Sea Stone against the walls and seal the cracks.

The stone neutralized Anna's power, making it impossible for her to lift. So, they had to ask Jimmy for help again.

“The very thought of it makes me sick...”

“Is it that bad?” Remi guessed the Deep Sea Stone had a more potent suppressive effect on her brother.

Jimmy nodded grimly. “Yeah. Just thinking about hauling all of it into the cave makes me feel breathless with exhaustion.”

Remi rolled her eyes at him. “We have to help Lu Li set up the shelter.”“I know, I’m just venting,” Jimmy replied. He glanced at his claws, worn down from the work, and headed down the slope to haul the half-ton slabs of Deep Sea Stone.

He also found time to help Lu Li crush some of the leftover stone from the temporary shelter, mix it with water, and use the paste to seal the gaps between the Deep Sea Stone slabs.

Two hours later, the construction of the shelter deep inside the cave was complete.

The shelter was about the same size as Aileen’s bedroom. Even the bed, table, and bookshelves had been brought over from her estate.

Unfortunately, there was still no door, but they could order one from the Traders in a few days.

A few extra slabs of Deep Sea Stone were stacked on either side of the entrance, which at least mitigated some of the risk of not having a door.

The shelter extended two meters deeper than the old hideout, making the interior feel less cramped and gloomy. At the very least, the foot of the bed no longer bumped against the wardrobe, and the headboard didn't press into the table.

Only the fireplace now seemed tiny, and no matter how high the flames burned, the shelter never felt stuffy.

If the weather continued to grow colder, the temperature inside the cave could drop below a comfortable level.

They needed a new fireplace.

“I’ll take one from Aileen’s estate when I go hunting,” Anna said.

“We can buy one from the Traders,” Lu Li replied.

“I have to go hunting anyway,” Anna said softly.

Her reason was flimsy; she didn’t need to go that far to hunt, and buying from the Traders was practically free for them.

After looking calmly at Anna for a few seconds, Lu Li silently agreed. He opened his desk drawer and added a line to the letter for Aileen:

[And one more fireplace]

The previous short entries listed a table, dishes, bookshelves, food from the cellar stores, and so on.

Voices drifted in from the cave entrance. Remi and Adamfiya had brought the children to see the renovated hideout, though Remi preferred its new name: the shelter.

“I feel a little breathless,” Adamfiya said, pressing a hand to her chest as she stood at the shelter’s entrance, frowning.

She was only a ghost, and the shelter, constructed from a hundred cubic meters of Deep Sea Stone, made her uncomfortable.

It was no wonder the children huddled fearfully by the entrance, not daring to step inside.

Remi, however, liked the feeling.

The pressure was like a physical weight, making her feel almost human.

“Jimmy,” Remi called to her brother as if he were a servant, “bring a chair and a table!”

Soon, Jimmy brought a table and chair into the cave and set them up outside the shelter.

Fighting through her discomfort, Adamfiya inspected the shelter before stepping back out. She liked it very much. The color of the Deep Sea Stone was subdued and mysterious, a good match for Lu Li. The floor was now level, without any of its previous bumps. She heard Anna was planning to lay a carpet over it. Not to mention the furniture brought from the baroness’s estate, which looked like works of art.

Remi wheedled a few cubic centimeters of Deep Sea Stone out of Lu Li for her collection. If it could be sold, she would become instantly rich.

By noon, Anna had prepared a pureed soup with meat and potatoes.

Lu Li ate lunch, took a walk with Anna around the cliff to curry favor with the elms, then returned to the summit. Anna left again, this time to hunt in the ruins of Belfast.

Amper lay outside the shelter; he liked it here. Not so much because of the Deep Sea Stone, but because the cave in front of the shelter had also been widened. It was less cramped for Amper now, and it was warm.

It was time for afternoon tea. Remi and Adamfiya sat at the table outside the shelter, reading. Jimmy was there too, as Adamfiya, like an adult entertaining children, was reading stories to him from a book.

Jimmy wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest; after all, he hadn’t even turned nineteen when he died.

After reading for a while, Remi went into the shelter to see Lu Li.

Lu Li was also reading. Remi glanced at the title—it was no longer “Voice of Sorrow.”

“There’s a lot of Deep Sea Stone left. Why not stack the extra slabs around the cliff?” Remi asked.

The logic was obvious: the more Deep Sea Stone, the stronger the suppressive effect.

Several hundred cubic meters of Deep Sea Stone could ward off many anomalies.

“It would be too conspicuous,” Lu Li answered calmly.

“What do you mean?”

“Anomalies can sense Deep Sea Stone.”

Remi suddenly understood what Lu Li meant by that concise statement.

Deep Sea Stone suppressed the power of anomalies. But it clearly didn’t have a “repellent” property that would make anomalies recoil in disgust upon sensing it.

Its function was to block and weaken anomalies, not to drive them away.

If they lined the top of the cliff with Deep Sea Stone, the place would become as conspicuous as an oil lamp in the night.

Besides, Deep Sea Stone could hardly suppress an Evil Spirit-level anomaly; otherwise, the Rope of Descent wouldn’t have become a prison warden.

“Then we could make the shelter walls two, or even three, meters thick.”

Lu Li had enough spare Deep Sea Stone for that.

“The cave wouldn’t hold,” Lu Li said.

He didn’t understand structural mechanics, but it was obvious that the fewer supports there were, the higher the risk of collapse.

The cliff face housing the cave was not very high—only about ten meters, like a small hill.

They were already pushing the limits. They could probably add another meter to the walls, but the price would be pushing the cave to a critical state.

Understanding this, Remi didn’t press the issue. After a moment of silence, she voiced the real reason she had come to see Lu Li.

“Actually, I’m ashamed.”

Her face, which retained the look of a young girl, fell. “We can’t help with anything,” she sighed. “You two are the only ones making an effort to protect everyone, to make the cliff safer, to help Jimmy find food...”

Lu Li shook his head. “I’m the same.”

In fact, Lu Li was even more helpless than Remi and the others.

Their powers were limited, but they weren’t weak. As anomalies themselves, they didn’t usually attract the attention of other anomalies.

Lu Li... was different.

He was a weak human.

And humans were the best prey for anomalies.

Even the strongest, most knowledgeable human could only fight anomalies with the help of tools.

And Lu Li, on top of that, possessed an immense Humanity that anomalies craved.

Without Anna to conceal his aura, he couldn’t even leave the cliff.