Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 366 - 366 Two hundred twenty-three

366: Two hundred twenty-three.

Basement 366: Two hundred twenty-three.

Basement “`

Whispers and a rhythmically contained breath were blocked by the wooden door.

“Aren’t we going down?” Anna instinctively lowered her voice to avoid disturbing whatever presence was in the cellar.

“She asked us to deliver the cellar’s items to the investigator, not to fetch them ourselves.”

Lu Li said, returning to the table to pick up the oil lamp and leaving the house of the Bird Beak Mask figure.

The figure reappeared outside the building.

Lu Li passed through the alleys amidst the ruins to the adjacent Theory District, where he entered a faded red telephone booth and dialed a number.

It took a long time for the call to be answered, and it wasn’t until a hazy mist appeared on the glass of the booth that the call connected.

A lazy, dreamy female voice came from the receiver, “Who is it?”

The regional investigator in charge of Belfast, Rachel.

It was her turn to be on duty at the base this week.

“This is Lu Li.”

“…Oh, I remember now, the black gem, right?”

Ignoring Rachel’s strange association and adjectives, Lu Li told her about the Bird Beak Mask figure’s letter and the situation in her cellar.

“Okay… I know what you’re talking about now.

Can you bring it to me?” The voice from the other side was still lazy, one could imagine a female figure lying languorously on a velvet bed, casually holding the receiver.

“Cannot.” Lu Li answered.

“Got it… I’ll head over right now.

Damn, where are my shoes…” Rachel let out a resigned sigh, then complaints drifted away from the receiver before the call was hung up.

Lu Li hung up the receiver and suddenly became aware of something, turning his head towards an empty space.

“It’s a woman, isn’t it?” Anna’s seemingly casual question echoed in the confined space.

“Yes.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Um.”

Anna suddenly didn’t know what to say and fell into silence.

Stepping out of the phone booth, a chill hit them.

Lu Li opened an umbrella and went back under the eaves of building 16 in the Old Cozy District to wait for Rachel.

Perhaps it wasn’t so urgent, or maybe she had just been woken up and had gone back to sleep, or possibly it was just a woman’s nature, but an hour later, the sound of an approaching carriage in the rain was tardy.

A luxurious carriage bearing a family crest stopped in front of the building.

A servant dressed in a black evening suit opened the umbrella and drew back the curtain to greet a pale arm reaching out from the carriage.

The arm extended for a few seconds without receiving any support, prompting Rachel to duck her head and emerge from the carriage.

She was dressed in an opulent gown that fell to her calves, as if she were about to attend a noble ball, not visit a dreary ruin in bleak weather to enter a murky abandoned house and descend into a gloomy cellar.

With two crisp clicks, Rachel’s heels hit the ground, and she took the umbrella from the servant.

“Hmm-hmm…” An ambiguous humming came from thin air beside Lu Li.

“You wait here for us,” Rachel told the servant, her eyes narrowing slightly toward the empty space beside Lu Li.

“My assistant,” Lu Li knew what she was looking at.

“Hmm-hmm.”

Rachel tilted her head slightly upward and followed Lu Li into the building.

Coming to a halt in front of the storeroom door, Lu Li stopped, “The item is inside there.”

Rachel grasped the doorknob, opened it, and the pervasive malice and murmuring sounds reemerged.

She nonchalantly wiped her palms with a handkerchief and reached out to Lu Li.

Lu Li placed the handle of the oil lamp in her pale hand.

Rachel, holding the oil lamp, took a step as if to enter the cellar.

“Be careful.”

“`

“You’re wearing high heels,” Lu Li suddenly said, adding as Rachel turned back, “You’re wearing high heels.”

Rachel laughed lightly, unconcerned, and stepped into the cellar with the oil lamp in hand.

Lu Li stayed outside the cellar door, watching the graceful figure and the crisp sound of footsteps descend the stairs and turn into a corner he couldn’t see.

Only a faint light extended out from the edge.

After a few seconds of silence, a sharp scream suddenly echoed up to the ground, merged into the void, and vanished.

A few seconds later, Rachel returned, holding something in her other hand.

As she approached, Lu Li saw it was a strange wooden animal sculpture, its mouth agape as if in horror.

“The rest is yours.”

Rachel returned to the ground floor, passed the oil lamp to Lu Li, left behind a light laugh and a comment, and turned to leave the house.

The unsettling breathing and whispering that had been in the cellar were now gone.

Lu Li turned his head to look out the window, where he saw Rachel getting back into the carriage on the street, before the wheels turned and it moved away from the building.

“She seems quite capable…” Anna materialized, muttering softly to herself.

“Perhaps.”

It was difficult for an exorcist to measure strength solely in terms of being “capable or not.” Humans were fragile, exorcists alike.

They could neither withstand more damage nor afford extra lives.

Their abilities depended on the homogeneous items they possessed and their knowledge.

The former usually only applied to a very small portion of the oddities that could be directly harmed.

Knowledge represented the true power of exorcists.

After all, when facing oddities that could inflict instant death, knowing what they are is far more important than anything else.

Take the Shadow Thief of Fire, for instance.

It extinguishes the light around people and plunges them into the despair of darkness.

But if you know what it is, a light step on its shadow will make it retreat on its own.

Forcing a door is always the most foolish and time-consuming method; the clever seek the key—or pick the lock.

The cellar still held an unsettling chill, perhaps the aftereffect of the evil entity that Rachel had removed, or maybe there was something else in the cellar.

However, since Rachel had left it alone, it likely meant that whatever was left couldn’t harm Lu Li.

Holding the oil lamp, Lu Li stepped down into the increasingly cold cellar.

His footsteps echoed off the stone floor of the cellar as Lu Li looked around and lit the candles on the sconces.

The dim candlelight rose, adding some brightness to the cellar, now lit by two light sources.

The cellar was small, with a low ceiling from which hung an unlit chandelier.

Lu Li approached the desk and, almost instinctively, his gaze was drawn to something in the corner of the desk.

A diary lay there, its black cover coated in a layer of dust.

A voice inside Lu Li’s head prompted him to pick it up.

After a brief hesitation, Lu Li’s attention moved to another item on the desk, a black stone box of a familiar texture, similar to matte obsidian — a deep-sea stone material.

What was sealed inside could somewhat be imagined.

A few pieces of parchment lay scattered across the desk, their content a chaotic jumble that seemed to be mere doodles at first glance.

The wooden box in the corner was empty, save for a few used tools piled at the bottom.

Beyond these items, there was nothing else in the cellar.

“We can’t use any of these,” Anna sighed, sounding defeated.

“And they aren’t worth anything.”

“On the contrary,”

Lu Li disagreed.

“They’re quite valuable.”