The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 725: The Sky

The wind swept over the silent, gloomy wasteland.

"The clouds have covered the sky," Katerina remarked, lowering her gaze from where she had been looking up at the entrance to the mine.

Lu Li emerged from the mine shaft and also glanced upward. The sky was shrouded in clouds, and a dim light filtered down onto the bleak landscape.

"Has the anomaly fog dispersed?"

"No, it's Mantistown protecting the surrounding area," Katerina explained, pointing away from the city. "The fog can't get in, so it stays on the outskirts. We need to head in this direction."

Katerina led Lu Li away from the surface structures of the mine.

A faded wooden sign with the words "Kolayen Mine" hung crookedly by the entrance. As they walked away, the inscription grew increasingly illegible.

Once they were clear of the mine, Katerina put away her light source. Even the contaminated understood how dangerous it was to carry a light in the wasteland.

Although the dim light revealed only the barest outlines of things, it was just enough to keep from being swallowed by the night's darkness.

After about two miles from the Kolayen Mine, Katerina, who had been cautiously scanning her surroundings, began to relax. Her pace quickened, and she no longer seemed to fear stepping on the loose gravel."The closer we get to the city, the safer it is. No anomalies will appear around us," Katerina told Lu Li, who was walking behind her.

"The anomalies won't come near?" Lu Li continued his unhurried pace.

"No, I've never heard of it happening," Katerina replied confidently. "The church of Mantistown is in its prime right now, and the ten miles around it are a safe zone. Besides, there's the church, the hunters, and those who've sold themselves to clear the area."

"I'm a hunter, too, though of the lowest rank."

Without Lu Li, Katerina's future had been a foregone conclusion: contamination, a contract with the city, spending all the money she earned from selling herself, and then death in the wasteland.

"In its prime? Do evil gods grow, too?"

"Don't call 'Him' that! If the church finds out, they'll sacrifice you," Katerina warned Lu Li. "They don't age, but we usually use that word to describe cities with different atmospheres."

"A city in its prime is full of energy and resolve, like an exorcist who rejects all anomalies. As long as the deity doesn't die, the city's surroundings will be completely safe."

"A 'young' city is usually a newly founded settlement. Just like the word implies, it's new, weak, and struggles to protect its surroundings. It can be so weak that anomalies might even slip into the city itself."

"'Middle-aged' usually refers to most cities. Like middle-aged people, they compromise with unpleasant things. Such cities aren't as firm in their convictions as those in their prime. They allow anomalies into the safe zone, and even into the city itself, as long as they don't harm people."

"'Old' cities are the worst..." Katerina's voice grew quieter. "I saw one such city die. It couldn't hold back the anomalies; it was like a sieve. The anomalies poured into the city as if for a festival, killed everyone they could find, and then tore apart and devoured the deity..."

"And that's not even the most terrifying part. In some old cities, the deity absorbs too many contradictory beliefs and powers from anomalies. It loses its purity and becomes like one of the contaminated... It starts attacking people. In the end, a human settlement turns into a den of anomalies."

According to Katerina, there were many such cities that had devolved into "anomaly dens."

It is always easier to fall than to maintain one's purity.

Katerina continued her story while Lu Li listened in silence.

Mantistown was founded by survivors from one such "anomaly den." In Midnight, they had found a church without a settlement, its deity on the verge of being born. They joined together and came to the edge of the gloom wastes to establish Mantistown.

So, strictly speaking, Katerina had survived both an old city and an anomaly den before finding refuge in Mantistown.

When she finished, a silence settled between them, as vast as the wasteland itself.

Katerina didn't want the conversation to end on that note and couldn't help but ask, "Are you still angry?"

"Angry about what?" Lu Li replied from behind her.

"Well, back in the shelter, when I said you ask too many questions..." Katerina still remembered it. "I wasn't actually mad at you for talking a lot, but you really do have a lot of questions."

Katerina didn't want to ruin her relationship with Lu Li. Whether he was an exorcist from the past or a pure-blooded human, his standing in human society would be far higher than that of a poor wretch like her, who wasn't even a resident of the city.

In other words, she was trying to get on his good side, however clumsily and awkwardly.

"I was just thinking," Lu Li answered calmly, then asked, "Can one city have multiple churches?"

Visibly relieved, Katerina answered quickly, "Yes. New churches stay in the city until their deity is ready to be born. Then they leave to find a place for their own settlement."

"And what if the deity is born within the city?"

"It depends on their relationship," replied the hunter, who, despite never having left the gloom wastes, was quite knowledgeable. "Some cities are founded by sister-deities, but that's rare... In the gloom wastes, there's only one Twin City with two deities."

Lu Li and Katerina were getting closer to Mantistown. They could already see the city's lights, five or six miles away.

Those lights stood in stark contrast to the dangerous silence of the wasteland. They were an irresistible beacon.

Just as Katerina had said, everyone wanted to become a resident of a city, to no longer have to risk their lives in the treacherous wasteland.

"What was the world like before?" Katerina asked, her eyes filled with curiosity and hope.

Lu Li gave her a brief account of the time before anomalies had invaded the world.

He spoke of cities with millions of inhabitants, of bustling and lively ports, of exorcists who traveled everywhere solving problems, and of a peaceful life.

"Millions...? Mantistown only has a few thousand..." Katerina couldn't even fathom such a number. All she knew was that it was a lot. "I know about ports. They say Vinnelag is as bustling as it was before the Age of Anomalies."

Lu Li neither confirmed nor denied it.

It was unlikely that Vinnelag was as busy as it used to be, but it was comforting to know that a familiar city still stood in this Age of Anomalies.

At least Lu Li still had familiar places left in this world.

As they drew nearer to Mantistown, dim, moving lights began to appear in the wasteland. They were people entering and leaving the city. Some carried fluorite, others oil lamps and torches.

Katerina made no move to approach them. The reason was simple.

Humanity's enemies were not just the anomalies, but also other humans.

Just as they could begin to make out the silhouettes of people in the city, the clouds that had been obscuring the sky began to slowly part.

Katerina stopped, and she and Lu Li stood in the middle of the wasteland, looking up at the sky.

Instead of a sky, a ceiling of rock stretched high above them. Flecks of fluorite, like stars, emitted a faint glow. In the center of the vault, the stones converged to form a circular opening, like a moon.

Lava flowed along the edge of the opening, forming a ring of fire, and fell in viscous drops into the wasteland below.

They were in a massive underground cavern.