The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 804: On the Road

Early morning at Vinnelag Central Station.

Gray-black figures moved across a platform of the same bleak tones.

The colors of Vinnelag were never bright. Its people seemed to favor grays and blacks, casting a somber pall over the rainy, fog-shrouded port city.

Still, it was better than the anomalies of the Wastelands.

Hiss...

A plume of steam vented from the side of the locomotive.

In the VIP car, Lu Li pulled his gaze away from the white mist creeping along the ground and looked at the plush seat opposite him.

Seated there were the three anomaly-users Mayor Matteus had arranged for them—or rather, two of them.

The third was in the adjacent first-class car, tasked with watching out for the "Lure".

Every hour, he would enter their car to inform Lu Li that the Lure was a fake—a backup plan, in addition to the Trader.Shadow, the Fallen—such were their names, or rather, their codenames.

For those who stood against anomalies, revealing one's true name was as foolish as selling the rope to be used for your own hanging.

The reason Lu Li, despite being known to all and never hiding his identity, had never been cursed was simple: no one knew if "Lu Li" was his first name or his surname.

Shadow was tall and thin, only slightly shorter than the Trader. The Fallen was grotesque, his features recognizably human but twisted into a monstrous caricature.

Prusius couldn't help but think that if Lu Li touched the man with his left hand, the Fallen might actually be injured.

The last of the anomaly-users had yet to appear; he was scheduled to enter the VIP car in an hour.

Shadow and the Fallen were sizing up Lu Li, their gazes devoid of respect. Theirs was not a casual curiosity, but a more direct, analytical appraisal.

"Why do you look so young?" The sound emanated from the part of the Fallen's face that resembled a mouth.

Lu Li didn't answer, instead sliding a newspaper toward the Fallen.

"I'm illiterate." The Fallen's yellowish eyeball shifted half a centimeter upward.

"Mr. Lu Li was trapped underground after he resolved the Hour of Silence. He only returned to the surface twenty-four years later," Prusius answered, knowing Lu Li disliked speaking unnecessarily.

"Resolved it? But the Hour of Silence still exists. It appears every ten days or so."

A foul-smelling gas seemed to escape from the Fallen's mouth.

The sarcastic words made Prusius frown, his good manners compelling him to hold his tongue. Katerina, however, had no such patience. She scoffed in reply:

"Turning 'Silence' into the 'Hour of Silence'—isn't that a solution?"

The Fallen's eyeball swiveled toward Katerina:

"You have powerful connections, too?"

Clearly, Lu Li and his companions were not getting along with the anomaly-users.

"The train hasn't left yet," Lu Li said calmly, his eyes fixed on the Fallen.

Tap, tap, tap.

Shadow tapped the table with a thin, broom-like palm and said impassively:

"The Fallen must maintain his inner darkness to sustain his power. He isn't being deliberately antagonistic. As for me, I am incapable of expressing emotion."

Lu Li nodded, no longer considering dismissing the unstable elements.

The hostility Katerina and Prusius felt toward them, however, would not be so easily dispelled.

Hiss.

Another jet of steam erupted, and the car gave a slight shudder.

The massive grandfather clock on the platform showed the hour was exact.

The steam engine slowly pulled away from the platform.

Whooo.

Thick smoke billowed from the smokestack. Lu Li looked out the window again as the full expanse of Vinnelag gradually came into view, its dim reflection ghosting across the glass.

Screech.

The wooden door to the VIP car slid open. Lu Li pulled his gaze away from the window and raised his hood to conceal his face. Katerina did the same; traveling with Lu Li meant attracting a great deal of attention.

A waiter carrying a coffeepot set down a fresh newspaper, the ink still damp, poured coffee for the passengers, and left.

Lowering his hood, Lu Li picked up the paper.

"Exorcist Lu Li Survives Assassination Attempt, Appears in Public to Announce He is Unharmed"

"Exorcist Lu Li Attends City Hall Gala in the Evening"

"Hospital Director Weinstein Declares Mr. Lu Li Fully Recovered"

Just as everyone said, Vinnelag was more fanatical than anywhere else.

Even a week after Lu Li had revealed his identity in Midnight, he remained the center of attention.

Then again, an assassination attempt on an exorcist was a major event.

Besides the attempt itself, the search for the killer, and Lu Li's condition, some pundits were taking the opportunity to accuse Mayor Matteus of negligence, claiming his lack of attention had led to the attack.

Skimming through several papers, Lu Li found they contained little news besides stories about him. They had practically become special editions.

He set the paper aside. The train, swaying on the tracks, had nearly left the bounds of Vinnelag.

The coffee in his cup sloshed, its surface rippling as the Vinnelag cityscape gave way to a landscape of tree stumps.

The train had entered a logging district.

Before the clearing, this had been a forest, but the trees themselves had, of course, died long ago.

Endless stumps, like tombstones, stood silently on either side of the train.

"Once we're through the logging district, we'll be out of the city."

Shadow was the first to speak, breaking the silence, but his impassive face lent a harshness to his voice.

Leaving Vinnelag was like leaving a small town in the Wastelands to face the real world.

But the steam engine, like a caravan, had its own defenses: ancient marks.

These were irregular runes, similar to pentagrams, engraved on the metal cars.

Lu Li had seen such marks a few times in Vinnelag, always by chance. Sometimes he'd spot them on a piece of paper carried by the wind, other times carved into the doors of buildings.

The ancient marks had been discovered in the Old Era. They could repel anomalies—or more accurately, they prevented anomalies from approaching.

Crafting them was harder than it looked. The irregularity was itself part of the mark's function; if it was too perfect or too distorted, it was nothing more than a childish, ineffective scribble.

This made carving the ancient marks a matter of chance. You never knew if one had worked, nor if your survival was a result of its power.

Fortunately, creating one required no complex alchemical materials or procedures. A pen, a finger, a sharp object—anything that could draw the shape on any surface would suffice.

Thus, a popular draft paper called "Old Times Paper" came into existence, along with its more expensive counterpart, parchment. Up to a hundred ancient marks were drawn on them.

One of them was bound to be a correct ancient mark.

This was the method of the poor.

The wealthy, on the other hand, could purchase ancient marks from masters with a higher success rate, who claimed their "power" had already been verified.

The ancient marks clearly had some effect; otherwise, the Main Continent, which lacked any divine protection, would have fallen long ago.

Lu Li and his companions all had badges engraved with ancient marks, gifts from Mayor Matteus.

Prusius had tried to draw them himself, dipping his paw in water to trace the shapes on the floor. No one knew if they were genuine or clumsy forgeries, but in any case, they vanished once the water dried.

Lu Li's destination remained unchanged: the last stop on the railway line, Wigtown Station.

It was the closest point to the Hillerwig Mountains.

Barring any unforeseen events, they would arrive tomorrow afternoon.

The train wouldn't travel at night. In the evening, it would stop at the settlement of Majiao, at the foot of the Serma Mountains.