The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 971: The Underground City

Sequence Potions in the stomach pouch, Sequence Potions on the alchemy shelf, and all of them in duplicate—these potions were worth enough to hire a top-ranked team for several months.

But now it seemed that Lu Li could do far more.

“Can you buy even more potions?” Kiruet asked.

“Mhm.”

“Alright, we know you’re very rich... but are you sure you want to invest all your assets into the team? I mean... the team’s earnings for a month probably couldn’t buy a single Sequence Potion from the top one hundred.”

“Not all of it.”

“How much is ‘not all of it’...?”

Yeger couldn’t help but lower his voice.

An astronomical figure, hard to put into numbers.

“Enough to buy the entire Academy of Giant Trees,” Lu Li said, “or the entire human world.”“The Academy of Giant Trees is priceless...”

Yeger suddenly fell silent, his voice filled with disbelief:

“Do you really mean that?”

“Roughly.”

The more deals the Merchant made, the more Lu Li's wealth became tied to real currency. Or rather, his string of numbers drew closer to actual existence.

“A few million, a few tens of millions?” Nasi asked cautiously.

“More.”

The Holy Light Squad struggled to steer the conversation away from Lu Li's wealth and back to their first mission.

Nasi suggested patrolling the surface buffer zone, but Kiruet and Yeger both refused.

“Outside, countless anomalies want to kill Lu Li. Going to the surface is not the best choice...”

With surface missions ruled out, there weren’t many options left: either patrolling the intermediate layer or the outer perimeter of the Forbidden Zone.

“I’ve thought of a suitable mission,” Kiruet announced:

“An investigation of the incident in Midnight.”

Midnight is the city that was relocated underground.

As a place under the Midnight Lady's protection, Midnight was surrounded by the Five Knightly Orders, and countless cults gathered there, while anomalies coveted it but could not enter.

“What do you think?”

Kiruet awaited Lu Li's decision.

“That works.”

“I'll go to the mission hall and find a suitable one.” Kiruet stood up from the round table.

Nasi jumped up in a panic:

“I'll go with you.”

“Me too... agh.”

Yeger winced, pulling at the wound on his leg and sucking in a sharp breath. Kiruet pushed him back down.

“Nasi and I will go, and you, Lu Li, will stay here,” Kiruet said, throwing on her cloak.

“Showing your face might just make those other teams even more jealous.”

“Take these potions.”

Lu Li opened the stomach pouch, rummaged inside, and just before the pouch snapped shut to digest his hand, he pulled out two bottles of Sequence Potion No. 113.

“It's a protective potion. It can block weak curses and malice. Drink it now.”

“Uh... in that case, I won't go,” Nasi said, taking off the cloak he had halfway put on, unwilling to waste another potion.

Kiruet didn't refuse, accepting the protective potion before she left. She had no doubt about the malice the intermediate course students felt toward the Holy Light Squad at that moment.

After Kiruet left the lounge, Lu Li opened the wooden box containing the eyeball. While waiting for the Merchant, Anthony, to arrive, he asked Nasi:

“Tell me about Midnight.”

Nasi was from Midnight; his family lived in the inner city.

Due to the relocation from the surface to the underground, the residents of Midnight were redistributed...

Segregated into the age-old classes.

The city center was home to influential people and the Lords of Mystic Powers; this was the core of Midnight. The headquarters of the Five Knightly Orders, the Church of the Midnight Lady, the Alchemist's Association, and the Main Trade Guild of the Mole People were all located here, and residents of the outer city could not enter.

The inner city was Midnight's nexus and its most prosperous section. Residents from both the city center and the outer city could come here. It was mostly inhabited by impoverished nobles, the majority of the cults, the middle class, and the Merchants, as well as the families of students from the Academy of Giant Trees.

The outer city was the most expansive and densely populated part of Midnight.

Every minute, people from the Gloom Plains, the Old Sewer, or more distant places relocated here, and every minute, a lucky few from the outer city became residents of the inner one. It was the place where all the poor and homeless ended up, and also the most chaotic part of Midnight.

This chaos was due to the lingering cults and newly formed churches gathering faith and nurturing deities, as well as the hidden dangers brought into Midnight by its new citizens.

But the chaos was only relative. Even the outskirts of Midnight offered a greater sense of security than the cities of the gods.

Most of the investigation missions in Midnight assigned by the Academy of Giant Trees were related to the outer city. Occasionally, missions would appear in the inner layer, but those were tasks that the intermediate or senior course students couldn't handle—the anomalies that infiltrated the inner city were obviously more complex and dangerous.

The Holy Light Squad had investigated incidents in Midnight several times before. After receiving a mission, they would go to the scene, search, investigate, and find the cause of the problem, and then either return to the Academy of Giant Trees to report their findings or stay to solve the problem.

The latter option increased the reward due to the higher difficulty, but the Holy Light Squad always chose to investigate and return to complete the mission.

This was because the Holy Light Squad lacked the strength, and also because they'd had several unfortunate encounters with anomalies during investigations—for instance, anomalies masquerading as humans, occupying human shells, or items that contained an anomaly's consciousness.

This division of labor reminded Lu Li of the investigators.

The three major organizations of the Ancient Era were divided as such: the investigators investigated incidents, while the Night Watchmen dealt with them.

Although, in the case of these investigation missions, the division of labor was due to the students' limited strength.

The Merchant, Anthony, arrived a little later than usual. Besides answering Lu Li's summons, he brought a message.

“Kris wants to see you. Right now.”

Lu Li instructed the Merchant, Anthony, to prepare another four stomach pouches and eight sets of Sequence Potions. Leaving Yeger and Nasi to their thoughts, he then left the lounge and headed for the senior course alchemy office on a lower level.

“Is that for us?”

After Lu Li had gone, Nasi's question echoed softly in the quiet lounge.

“The captain, you, me, Margaret... and the spare one, I think so, yes.”

“Lu Li is really generous...”

They were much wealthier now than when Margaret was alive. Or rather, in the entire Academy of Giant Trees, there was no team more lavishly equipped than theirs.

But their mood quickly soured.

The Holy Light Squad would have preferred that Margaret had never died.

...

Knock, knock, knock—

“Come in, darling.”

Lu Li pushed the door open and entered the alchemy office.

“You seem to be enjoying life on the Trunk Level,” Professor Kris said, looking at Lu Li in the mirror as she tended to her long hair at her vanity.

“Otherwise, why did you take so long to come see me?”

“Have the Lords arrived?”

Lu Li ignored Professor Kris's flirtatious tone.

“One more thing. The Knightly Orders found clues about a Merchant in Midnight.”

“What else?”

Lu Li didn't think Professor Kris had summoned him just for that.

“The one holding the Merchant has made a demand: they want to meet with you.”

“They?”

“A being that lives in the inner city. Not human, but it loves humans. It might say something to unsettle you, but it won't cause any harm.”

“Alright.”

The beautiful face in the mirror narrowed its almond-shaped eyes:

“Can you help me braid my hair?”

“No.”

...

When he returned to the Holy Light Squad's lounge, Kiruet was already back with a mission.

“We leave tomorrow at dawn.”