The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 744: The Meeting

"A thief?" the innkeeper asked, glancing at his assistant.

"He really did run out of the huntress's room," the man replied.

Disgust washed over the innkeeper's face. He waved a dismissive hand. "Sell the scoundrel to the sewers."

None of the patrons objected. The assistant, acting as if this were a common occurrence, calmly dragged the unconscious body out of the tavern.

The table was righted, the shards of pottery and spilled wine were cleared away, and the tavern's lively buzz quickly returned.

The innkeeper called out to the huntress, "Sting! Someone's here asking about what happened to the caravan."

"Who?"

Katerina tucked her bounty and her dagger into a pocket and approached the bar.

The innkeeper didn't even need to make an introduction. Katerina's face lit up with joy when she saw Lu Li standing at the bar.

"You're alive!" Undisguised excitement filled her voice."I was about to ask you the same question," Lu Li replied calmly.

The fact that Katerina was alive felt strange, implausible, as if he were still trapped in the Emerald Dream. But the Emerald Dream wouldn't leave such an obvious loophole.

"It cost me... something." Katerina's excitement faded. As if struck by a realization, she stared at Lu Li with mistrust. "But how can I be sure... that this isn't my Emerald Dream, or yours?"

The same doubts were tormenting Katerina.

"After I escaped the Emerald Dream, I gained a Cursed Title," Lu Li said, his voice low enough for only Katerina to hear. "Beacon."

All the information about the Beacon Cursed Title surfaced in Katerina's mind.

"You faced the Emerald Dream and..." Katerina's doubt in reality deepened, but she quickly realized it was a pointless exercise.

This was not the place to talk. Katerina tossed to the innkeeper, "You're not getting a commission for this one," and led Lu Li toward the stairs.

"There's always next time," the innkeeper replied, not the least bit upset.

Once they were upstairs, Katerina closed the door, slid the bolt home, and pressed herself close to Lu Li, whispering, "Are you still... clean?"

Standing so close, her words laced with subtext, Katerina was deliberately creating ambiguity. This wasn't Mantistown, and she didn't trust anyone here.

"I should be," Lu Li answered.

Using Beacon several times in the Emerald Dream hadn't diminished his humanity; after the enhancement, it remained just over two units. His Mind Level was impossible to measure, but he knew it was above its maximum threshold.

"Excellent. Our arrangement is still on, then..." Katerina whispered, hooking a finger in Lu Li's collar.

She was a poor actress, and her unnatural voice and stiff movements had nothing to do with genuine flirtation.

But if the walls had ears, it was enough.

The return of her "treasure" thrilled Katerina, but the fear that this was all just another illusion of the Emerald Dream made her hesitate.

Lu Li felt the same way. Despite having the Cursed Title bestowed by the Emerald Dream, there remained a minuscule chance that he was still asleep.

Perhaps it was worth checking.

Lu Li's mind was made up. He asked Katerina for her dagger. "Close the curtains."

Katerina drew the curtains and turned back to see him pressing the dagger to his chest. "What are you doing?!"

"Testing something."

The sharp dagger pierced his skin, and beads of blood welled up on the blade, but the radiance of humanity did not flare.

Just then, a startled shriek echoed in the room.

"What are you doing?!"

Next to the fluorite lamp, a little rag doll man was pointing at Lu Li.

But unlike Katerina's tense cry, this one seemed to be purely for mischief, hoping to startle Lu Li and make him flinch so he would cut himself.

"Those are the rules of the City of Phantoms," Katerina reminded him, alarmed.

Its prank having failed, the little rag doll man scampered toward the curtains. Katerina pulled them aside, but it had already vanished.

So that wasn't the real way to activate Beacon, then?

Lu Li returned the dagger to Katerina. Now he was certain he had escaped the Emerald Dream.

"The Emerald Dream isn't that simple. You can't escape it just by harming yourself," Katerina said, putting the dagger away.

"I was testing something else."

Lu Li replied, then asked what had happened after the caravan was attacked.

"The Eternal Night lasted for eleven days," Katerina began to recall, her voice slow.

This Eternal Night had been an especially long one. After paying a certain price, Katerina had managed to reach the City of Phantoms and report the attack to the count. When the Eternal Night finally ended and the Light Stealer returned the sky, the men sent to the site of the attack found nothing but wreckage. There were no survivors.

Katerina's last hope had been crushed, and so she had come to the Cape of Good Hope tavern.

"It's good that you're alive... Help me testify before the count."

"Testify to what?" Lu Li sat down at the table. Outside the window, the sky was shrouded in clouds. It was impossible to tell if the light came from lava on the cliffs or a change in the sky itself.

"The count lost his entire shipment, and he didn't fully believe my story. I wasn't put under arrest, but I wasn't allowed to leave the City of Phantoms, either. Otherwise, I would have been back in Mantistown long ago, far away from these annoying..." Katerina trailed off.

Lu Li tapped the table lightly, reminding her of something.

"...creatures that pop out and scare people. You know what I'm talking about."

A soft sigh of frustration came from a corner of the room.

"Your title will explain everything. The count will believe that the caravan was truly attacked by the Emerald Dream, and he'll let us go. He might even take an interest in your... identity."

Neither Lu Li nor Katerina needed to rest, so they immediately went downstairs to check out of the room.

Lu Li glanced around at the tavern's patrons and suddenly heard a piercing cry for help.

"Help! I'm drowning!"

A little clay man was flailing in a mug of beer, its body half-dissolved.

The patron who had been chatting with a friend cried out and tried to pull the little clay man out, but it clambered out of the mug on its own. Ignoring its lopsided eye and missing left leg, it pointed at the patron and said mockingly, "You lose. Get out of our house!"

The patron realized what had happened and looked around. Everyone in the tavern was watching him with pity.

He had just cried out, and according to the rules of the City of Phantoms, that meant he would be thrown out, never to be allowed back in.

The patron walked out of the tavern, all hope lost.

"Another customer lost," the innkeeper muttered with a sigh, wiping a mug.

It was just a small episode. After leaving the Cape of Good Hope tavern, Lu Li and Katerina headed for the count's manor.

The mansion was almost identical to the one in the Emerald Dream. A butler greeted them. From their conversation, Lu Li learned that the count was not a ghost, but an ordinary human.

When Lu Li revealed his Cursed Title, the butler believed their story, lifted the ban preventing Katerina from leaving the city, and offered Lu Li the position of captain of the guard.

As expected, Lu Li turned down the high-paying job. Katerina, on the other hand, showed some interest, but the butler paid her no mind.

Katerina hesitated but ultimately didn't ask if the count was interested in pureblood humans.

She couldn't trust them.

Besides, Midnight was already close.