Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 485 - 485 The empire is on the verge of collapse

485: The empire is on the verge of collapse.

485: The empire is on the verge of collapse.

The merchant didn’t stay long in the first-class carriage, but before it left, Lu Li informed it about the information on blood types.

At such times, it should be possible to save a few more people.

This time, the merchant didn’t reward Lu Li with any information.

It needed to confirm the authenticity of the blood type data, and that would take some time.

“Too bad the new discovery you’ve brought has little use for the oddities, they seldom give us the chance to transfuse blood.” Tesla lifted his coffee, hesitating as if it were a glass of high-proof liquor before setting it down, and with curiosity asked, “How did you find out?”

“The Mother of the Marsh told me,” Lu Li answered.

No one would go to an Evil God to confirm the answer, so what better than an Evil God to hide the truth.

“An Evil God?”

After Lu Li’s account, Tesla no longer held the same prejudice against the Mother of the Marsh as he did for other Evil Gods, but he couldn’t understand how the Mother of the Marsh knew something that required research to discover.

This kind of thing should have been discovered in an academy or hospital.

“It was found by her indigenous believers.

They realised after getting injured that some people’s blood would coagulate and some would not.

Subsequently, every newborn would undergo a blood fusion test, and when they grew up and got injured they could use blood transfusions to speed up healing,” Lu Li replied calmly, his face as if this event had truly taken place.

Tesla had no reason to doubt Lu Li, marveling that the indigenous people had made the discovery even before the academy professors.

The topic shifted to the Mother of the Marsh, and Lu Li took the cue to ask, “What are you going to do about the Mother of the Marsh next?”

“Nothing.”

Tesla reached into his coat, took out a folded newspaper, and slid it across to Lu Li.

“The incident at Tillage Garden has attracted the full attention of the United Organization.

You know, under the current circumstances, we simply don’t have the resources to bother with them.

Oddities like the Mother of the Marsh that don’t actively harm humans are a preposterous advantage.”

Lu Li picked up the newspaper before him and unfolded it.

The first things that caught his eye were the bold headlines from “Investigator Weekly.”

[Confirmed arrival of the indescribable entities at Tillage Garden!]

[Fog expansion at Tillage Garden]

[Senior Investigator team missing near Tillage Garden!]

[500 nautical miles around Tillage Garden marked as an anomalous zone, approach forbidden]

[A new calamity is brewing in the Barren Lands!]

[The danger from the deep sea far from the mainlands is escalating]

[A spreading epidemic on the Main Affinity Continent]

[Shadow Town destroyed, two Evil Gods in the Southern Shadow Swamp clash]

Events enough to unsettle any investigator filled the pages.

“That’s why I came to Shadow Town alone, most of our people were reassigned to help in other areas.” Tesla’s sigh rang in his ears, and Lu Li looked up to see him, slightly raising the newspaper: “They went to investigate the events listed above?”

“No, to assist investigations of some ‘minor’ incidents unworthy of the papers,” Tesla said, biting down with a hint of scorn.

“I always thought your guess was too pessimistic, even though it’s indeed getting worse.

But now it seems, we were too optimistic, this world is heading toward—”

“Cough cough…”

A light cough came from the corner of the compartment behind the chair back, and Tesla remembered there were others here, and refrained from uttering that cruel phrase, instead he said, “—an ominous situation.”

Lu Li did not respond, quietly reading the text on the newspaper.

Besides Tillage Garden, the two new incidents were the epidemic on the Main Affinity Continent and the new disaster gestating in the Barren Lands.

The former, a strange disease, was spreading in the central region of the Main Affinity Continent.

This piece of news hid near the end of the weekly report, inconspicuous or perhaps barely more conspicuous than the Shadow Town incident—it was the previous headline on the newspaper.

The origin of the epidemic was a small town in the forest that barely had any contact with the outside world, known as Sicken Town, locally called “Jungle Town,” which had a population of merely two to three hundred.

A few days ago, following tradition, the townspeople left the forest to buy necessities in a nearby town.

Locals who came into contact with the townspeople contracted the disease and within just two days, turned into ghoul-like undead creatures, with no signs of life or their former thoughts, indiscriminately attacking anything that moved.

However, those infected by the disease became extremely weak, and after transforming into ghouls, they also hardly possessed the strength to fight against adult males, only managing to harm some defenseless civilians.

But the disease carried by the ghouls could infect any civilian scratched or bitten by them, and so the Count Duke of the nearby duchy had already dispatched soldiers.

Even though human civilization had not experienced large-scale wars for hundreds of years, those solid iron full suits of armor and sharp weapons could easily combat ghouls that only knew how to bite and claw.

The disease was quickly contained within three towns, and the forest where Sicken Town was located had also been sealed off.

The local Exorcists and officials believed the epidemic was subsiding, and the Exorcist United Organization had already sent the nearest members to investigate and handle the situation.

The latter, “disaster” is a special term used by Exorcists for anomalies that could potentially destroy human civilization, often affecting all known human-inhabited areas, carrying great costs that humanity could not bear.

Like the disaster of the night, like the recently discovered evil spirit “Beginning of Extinction,” which was dubbed a plant disaster.

A third potential civilization-destroying disaster was gestating in the Barren Lands.

Locals discovered “it” a week ago in an oasis in the desert, “it” woke intermittently, shrouding its surroundings: any creature within its range that made a noise would be discovered by “it,” unleashing abhorrent beings from the Inner World.

Just as the disaster of the night eradicated those engulfed in darkness, it eradicated any life that made a sound.

On the day it was discovered, the area was declared a forbidden zone by locals, but by just the next day, every living being in a village ten miles away had died.

In just a week, the range it shrouded spread from an initial few miles to a diameter of two hundred thirty miles, with over sixty thousand civilians and three investigators who went to investigate, all within its range, dead.

Through the Merchant Guild, the Exorcist United Organization tentatively judged that “its” range would continue to spread endlessly, ultimately evolving into a new disaster that, like the disaster of the night and the plant disaster, would shroud the entire world.

As written in the newspaper text, the Exorcist United Organization had summoned more than half of their Legendary Scouts, True Vision Nightwatch, and Demon Slayers, surging toward the Barren Lands in an effort to prevent the birth of the third disaster.

After lingering briefly at the end of the news article, Lu Li’s gaze left the text and returned to the top left corner of the newspaper.

What would normally be front-page news of new disasters and ghoul outbreaks was pushed to the end by the incomparable incidents related to Tillage Garden.

Nearly the entire “Investigator Weekly” revolved around Tillage Garden, or rather, the “indescribable entities” that appeared in Tillage Garden.

While reading, Lu Li asked Tesla across from him.

“What has descended upon Tillage Garden?”