The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 798: The Spirit of Delirium

Mayor Matteus Nox stared in horror at the silhouette hanging from the ceiling.

It was just a step away from the bed.

— Don't get too close, Mr. Lu Li, — the mayor's assistant cautioned, blocking Lu Li's path into the room.

— It's alright. It's a spirit of delirium, an anomaly from dreams, — the old woman said, baring rotten, yellowed teeth. She brazenly approached Lu Li and took a deep breath, her serpentine tongue flickering. "It was drawn by the wonderful scent of this exorcist."

— Scent? — Prusius sniffed the air deeply, recalling that she might be talking about humanity.

The old woman began her exorcism ritual. She paid no mind to the onlookers at the door as she sprinkled a powder resembling bone meal around the bulge, raised her spine staff, and slowly, ceremoniously, tapped it on the floor.

Thump!

A strange ripple, visible to everyone, spread from where the spine staff struck. It touched the scattered powder, which suddenly erupted in a malevolent, dim-yellow flame that brought on a wave of nausea and dizziness. The fire billowed and spread like blooming flowers, floating in the air and clinging to the bulging silhouette, spreading like oil.

The suddenly intensifying nausea made their skulls throb, and they involuntarily stepped back from the exorcism ritual.

Katerina closed her eyes to block the sight. Prusius was unaffected. The Merchant wasn't there; he always came and went without a trace, disappearing and reappearing in a flash.Lu Li only felt a slight discomfort.

A moment later, everyone present simultaneously heard a piercing shriek that faded into nothingness.

Deprived of its fuel, the malevolent flame died out, and the ash scattered into glowing embers.

Then, something astonishing happened. The old woman dropped her staff, crouched to the ground like an animal, and, with her thin tongue extended, greedily licked up the ash that had fallen on the bed and floor.

The wrinkled skin of her face, covered in mysterious patterns, slowly relaxed and smoothed out. The old woman rose from the floor, picked up the spine staff lying beside her, and, leaning on it, returned to the doorway.

— It is dead.

— Thank you for your work, Miss Rosanna, — the mayor's assistant said respectfully.

The old woman, addressed as Miss Rosanna, said nothing. She only gave Lu Li a look filled with an almost greedy desire before departing, the light tap of her spine staff echoing on the floor behind her.

— Miss? — Katerina asked the mayor's assistant.

— Rosanna is only twenty-six. She became like this because of the power of anomalies, — Mayor Matteus Nox explained himself. "This is why we dislike anomalies... contact with them always comes at a price."

Lu Li remained silent, wondering if the old woman would have been harmed if he had touched her with his left hand.

— So, Vinnelag is the same as Midnight?

Prusius was disappointed. He had thought Vinnelag would be different, the purest human sanctuary.

Even though he himself was now part anomaly.

— The difference is vast. For example, we do not actively use the power of anomalies. — Some things Matteus Nox couldn't say himself, so the mayor's assistant conveyed them: "And our primary personal combat force isn't them, but the Steam Knights of the Inquisition."

The assistant's words made Matteus Nox sigh, and he silently glanced around.

New problems awaited him.

Although the anomaly had been eliminated, what had happened was impossible to hide. Before dawn, word would reach all the councilors and aristocrats. Then it would be published in newspapers owned by his political opponents and spread throughout Vinnelag.

The only silver lining was that the mayor's office had handled the problem itself, and the situation wasn't serious enough to require dispatching the Steam Knights.

The Inquisition, Vinnelag's other pillar in the fight against anomalies besides its battleships, was even more crucial than the battleships—ships couldn't tread on land; they could only sail the seas.

The Steam Knight Order was the combat division subordinate to the Inquisition. They answered only to the mayor, fought only anomalies, and were fully armed, much like the Night Watchmen of the Old Era. But they were more extreme—even more extreme than the Night Watchmen.

When Lu Li had first arrived, the Inquisition had been among those who actively invited him. But upon learning that Lu Li was accompanied by anomalies, the commander of the Steam Knight Order went to the Inquisition and bluntly rescinded the invitation.

In a way, this wasn't a bad thing. Combat units needed that extremity to maintain their purity.

The distorted ceiling, stretched and sagging over the bed, still hung there like a corpse.

Just in case, they moved Lu Li to a guest room, far from the one where the incident had occurred.

This one had a better view. Not only could you see the distant port and half of Vinnelag, but also the industrial zone from a side window, though people on the street below could also see in.

Mayor Matteus Nox quickly excused himself and left. The sky was just beginning to lighten, and he had to deal with the remaining problems.

When everyone else had left, only Katerina and Prusius remained in the room, and a whimpering cry came from Lu Li's hood.

The Elder Sister, rubbing her eyes under her mask, was feigning tears, complaining to Lu Li that he had jostled her when he got up.

It was more a petulant complaint to someone familiar than a demand for an apology.

Soon, the mayor's assistant appeared at the door and said that something had happened around the mayor's residence last night, but that Lu Li shouldn't worry.

The anomaly fog slowly retreated into the deep sea, and Lu Li walked over to the window. Morning mist shrouded the streets, the damp, cold air condensing into dew.

He saw busy people on the streets, and deep furrows surrounded by them, as if plowed by an anchor, with overturned flagstones and mud.

This was what the mayor's assistant had been talking about: destruction caused by creatures from the anomaly fog, their tracks stretching intermittently from the port to the industrial zone.

Workers hurried with repairs, preparing to restore the streets to their original state before the townsfolk appeared.

Before turning away from the window, Lu Li saw a squad of strangely dressed figures approach the furrow. They wore cloaks resembling monastic robes, but imprinted with complex, dark-gold runes.

It was the Inquisition the mayor had mentioned.

The spreading tracks of destruction had alarmed the Inquisition, and they had come to investigate the source of the trails.

The members of the Inquisition on the street had no idea that Lu Li was watching them from above.

— Was anyone in Midnight attacked last night? — Lu Li turned his head and asked.

— Uh... fewer than usual, — the mayor's assistant said, choosing his words carefully.

— Does it happen often?

— ...Anomalies don't like this place, but problems still arise from time to time. You know, many anomalies are elusive and leave no trace, like the spirits of delirium.

Spirits of delirium, moving through dreams, were indeed difficult to prevent, and those attacked were hard to awaken from the outside. If not for the Beacon, Lu Li would have slept until the spirit of delirium touched him.

And it was always unavoidable, unless Vinnelag adopted the methods of the Wastelands. But then, Vinnelag would no longer bear the name "Glory of the Past."

Was this also part of the "filth" Mayor Matteus Nox had spoken of?

— Is there any new information about the Shadow Maiden and the Merchant? — Lu Li asked.

— Not yet.

Only one lead remained: the Cat from the Hillerwig Mountains.

Lu Li asked again about the status of the large ship's repairs.

It was very resilient, but the damage was more severe than it looked. The entire engine room was flooded, and most of the lower compartments were also filled with seawater from cracked portholes. If it hadn't been an anomaly, but an ordinary vessel, it would have been lying at the bottom of the sea long ago.

The mayor's assistant said the repairs could take a week, and that wasn't counting upgrades and rust removal. He also mentioned they were investigating exactly which ship this large vessel was.

— That's too long, — Lu Li said.

— What do you mean? — the mayor's assistant asked, perplexed.

— I'm leaving tomorrow.