Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 260 - 260 One hundred and seventeen

260: One hundred and seventeen.

Coming in droves.

260: One hundred and seventeen.

Coming in droves.

Lu Li was writing, Anna was feeding.

Several minutes later, Lu Li finished writing the last part of his thank-you note to the “Library Ghost.” The crow, no longer interested in the food at its feet, bowed its head to preen its wet black feathers.

It had eaten its fill.

Anna put the bread back, and when she came out of the kitchen, she saw Lu Li rolling up the note he had written, tucking it into a circular shape and plugging it into the mailbox.

“Thank you for your trouble,”

he said, opening the window above the sofa.

“Ah—”

As if in response, the crow let out a piercing cry, spread its wings, flew out the window, and became a black dot leaping over the rooftops.

Some passersby looked up in surprise, but by the time they turned their gaze back to the window, it was already closed.

“Can it understand what we’re saying?” Anna said somewhat dejectedly, regretful that she hadn’t had the chance to touch it.

“I don’t know,”

Lu Li, having closed the window, returned to his desk, put away his notebook and pen, cleaned the desk, and then picked up the telephone to dial a number.

“Is this Lu Li?”

After a short wait, Tesla’s distorted voice came through the receiver.

“Can you tell me about the Evil Spirit?”

“Did you get the message?”

“The crow just left.”

“I see…

Okay, but I don’t know much about the Evil Spirits.

They’re too mysterious, differing from the aberrant, somewhat like Evil Spirits and Evil Gods but not quite the same.

Hmm…

let me think, according to what I know so far, Evil Spirits possess the ritualistic nature of Evil Spirits and the sanity of Evil Gods, overall leaning towards chaos.

That is to say, they can think like humans and can communicate.

Some bear malice towards humans while others are well-meaning, like the one you encountered,”

This description made Lu Li momentarily think of the umbrella-holding girl he had met before.

“How can I find out more about what I want to know?

Is the library the only place?”

In the library, Lu Li could only find relatively normal books, the information about the aberrant was not there.

“Go to the merchants.

They are part of our three major organizations and a good place to buy information.

You can buy the news you want directly from them with assets, information, or contribution points.

A less smart way is to ask other Exorcists, but be careful they don’t try to fleece you.”

“Speaking of which, you already know about the merchants, right?”

Contribution is equivalent to another type of currency internally.

“Yes,” Lu Li answered, catching the particular content in Tesla’s words: “They?”

“You’ll find out eventually.”

After a few more words, Tesla invited Lu Li to visit his home when he was free, and the call was ended.

The True Library was out of reach, there was no commission to work on, and Lu Li, accustomed to being busy, found himself surprisingly at leisure.

It was genuinely a time of having nothing to do.

An Apprentice Investigator’s base salary of 350 shillings per week meant that Lu Li could earn 50 shillings every day even if he didn’t do anything.

Lu Li couldn’t find commissions every day, nor did every commission come with a high reward.

“Healthy and happy every day,” Marcus hadn’t been in touch with Lu Li for a while, possibly because he had been caught and thrown in jail, or perhaps there were more Exorcists or fewer clients, so there was no need for Lu Li.

Oliver had almost faded from sight, only Mrs.

Slav’s intermittent love letters reminded Lu Li of him.

Her sister also hadn’t visited for a long time.

The Blood-Colored Tentacles in the depths of the clouds remained at four.

They hadn’t increased, decreased, or moved.

The matter concerning Richard had been handed over to the Detectives, who would resolve his situation with the Blood-Colored Tentacles.

All Lu Li needed to do was wait patiently.

The doors followed the same principle, and the investigation agency that had the general information would research countermeasures for Lu Li.

The Sanity Value would have to wait for Raimy siblings’ reply and arrival.

Full-time event would have to wait for the Detective Agency base to release a mission.

The shopping list proposed to the merchant last time would have to wait until their next visit, but it was unclear when that would be.

This rare idleness continued for Lu Li until ten o’clock in the morning, several hours later.

Lu Li went out to buy ingredients, considering there was nothing else to do and with the improvement of Anna’s cooking skills and meals, he bought three ounces of carrots and some spices this time to enhance the flavor.

Having brought them back to the Detective Agency, Anna started preparing a combination of breakfast and lunch in the kitchen.

About a dozen minutes later, there was a knock at the door, as the postman delivered today’s newspapers.

On all three newspapers, the related news about the hurricane had unanimously disappeared.

The front-page headlines were all different.

The front-page news of the Daily News was about the successful germination of artificially cultivated greenhouse plants.

The headline of the Arlen Principality Gazette reported that the Kodasselson was still missing, Tillage Garden was still unreachable, and the Navy of the Lennon Archipelago Duchy would soon arrive near Seaview Cape of Tillage Garden where the lost ship disappeared.

The lead story of the Walson Post focused on Baron Joseph’s lawsuit, where the plaintiff was preparing new testimony and evidence after Baron Joseph presented compelling evidence.

The rest of the news comprised the usual reports found in newspapers: an unidentified corpse discovered somewhere, identity indeterminable.

One family of three on Elm Street in Belfast vanished in the dark due to a sudden oil lamp failure; the author advises that one must ensure to have more than one lit oil lamp at night.

A sperm whale washed up on the beach of Crescent Bay, highly decomposed and long dead, wrapped in a black viscous substance.

The kerosene price in the Ailen Peninsula area is stable, and a company that had been watering down its kerosene has been taken away by the police for investigation.

When there was one page left unread in the last newspaper, there was another knock on the door.

It was still the postman in the dark green uniform; this time he had brought two letters.

Could they be the replies from Raimy and Jimmy?

Lu Li took the letters, closed the door, and before he could turn away, a letter suddenly slipped from between his fingers and stuck to the floor.

At this point, Lu Li still had two letters in his hands.

Lu Li bent down to pick up the letter; Anna peered out from the kitchen door, asking curiously, “What happened?”

Lu Li held up the envelope and asked thoughtfully, “Can you see it?”

Anna shook her head.

“How about these two?”

Anna promptly nodded.

“Door” had once again mixed in among them.

He prioritized opening the letter from “Door” which, in Tesla’s tone, assigned Lu Li the task for his full-time assessment—

“Door” was still advancing with the times.

Returning to his desk, Lu Li opened the drawer, placed it with the previous letters, and then opened the second letter.

The letter paper was strange, as if it had been torn from a notebook, the edge was jagged and uneven, and on the back, something was written with clumsy and sloppy handwriting.

This scene was filled with déjà vu.

Lu Li turned to the back of the sheet and looked at the few lines of clumsy handwriting.

[…The adults said there seems to be a swamp ahead… what’s a swamp?

April 12th.

I’m so sad… I don’t know what happened, my father and mother rushed in frantically and carried me as they ran, they took me into the woods…]

Lu Li lifted his gaze, his eyes looking profoundly toward the kitchen door.

The pleasant humming of Anna drifted out from the kitchen.