Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 544 - 544 Sixty-three

544: Sixty-three.

The last host 544: Sixty-three.

The last host […The fog has not dispersed…

wandering in the Mist of Strangeness…

rustling…

Although the day is relatively safe…

the United Organization does not recommend that the public go out…]

A severely disrupted noisy broadcast emanated from the radio.

The fog outside the window was tinged with the light of morning, yet the Mist of Strangeness still enveloped Belfast.

Dong——Dong——

The dawn bells of the cathedral echoed overhead.

The city had awakened with the arrival of dawn, and from behind the walls of the Long House, the sound of conversation, children speaking, and the lighting of stoves seeped into the Detective Agency.

People woke up early in the morning as usual, to toil away the whole day for just enough food to scrape by.

When night’s calamity came, they were used to it, and would continue to be so.

Unless things became so severe that they were beyond salvation.

Anna picked up the envelope that had been shoved under the door and sat down behind the desk to open it.

Anna glanced at the sculpture beside the coat rack, then at the black cat curled up in the dry towel.

[You damned bastard, you belong in hell!]

At the start of the letter, Lu Li could imagine Richard cursing loudly.

[Do you realize what you’re doing!?

Poor Little Richard tried so hard!

He did everything diligently and with hard work, waiting like an innocent little boy for his seed to sprout.

But now, you’ve ruined everything!

You are a sinner despised by all!]

[I warn you, stop messing around like a bad child.

Consider this a warning—If you interfere with me again, I will cause trouble in a way that’s even more chilling.]

[I am serious!]

[—The person you certainly don’t want to provoke]

Rustle——

After setting down the letter and pondering for a moment, Lu Li passed the letter to Anna, who had come up beside him.

As Anna’s gaze fell upon it, her breath became unstable as she absorbed the content, but as time passed, her breathing returned to normal.

After finishing the letter, Anna looked up and said, “He seems very angry.

And he actually believes he is right.”

“So, he’s a patient from the Asylum.”

“Can you trace where this letter was sent from?” she asked, waving the letter.

Lu Li shook his head.

There was no stamp, no postmark; this letter was delivered privately, possibly even personally by Richard.

The timing was recent, specifically after the resolution of the Human Pus incident at the port.

Richard’s tone made it sound as though Lu Li had once again foiled his plans, suggesting that the Human Pus incident was more than just an entanglement for Lu Li.

“Human Pus…”

Lu Li muttered to himself.

How did Richard create them?

Chunks of flesh?

Eyeballs?

Or Blood-Colored Tentacles?

Or other infectious agents…

Anna was somewhat worried that Lu Li’s kindness might lead him to abandon his pursuit.

Fortunately, Lu Li’s kindness was not foolish, and he did not give up on tracking Richard.

They refilled the oil lamps that provided light in the Detective Agency, filled their canteens with water, and taking silver-plated bullets and a parchment map, Lu Li and Anna left the Detective Agency.

On the fog-laden street that no longer required oil lamps for lighting, the few people there still carried their oil lamps while riding carriages, to avoid something emerging from the mist next to them.

Lu Li gazed at the imaginary Blood-Colored Tentacles hanging in the layers of mist; their location had not changed since nightfall the previous evening.

That was west of Belfast, the direction of the commercial district, Kael’thas Cathedral, and the Oak Forest on the outskirts.

Rolling up the map of Belfast City, Lu Li took out the map of the Main Affinity Continent.

He had something he needed to confirm—

The vastness of the Main Affinity Continent was second only to the Barbaric Lands, and it was also the cradle of civilization’s development.

The lineage of nobility and kingdoms could be traced back as far as a thousand years in history.

The sheepskin map, densely marked with place names, lay before Lu Li, who used a magnifying glass to inspect it under the glow of an oil lamp, tracing circles from the entrance of Marsh Road towards the center.

It didn’t take long for Lu Li to find his target; two minutes later, he halted the moving magnifying glass, and at its center appeared the name of a small city called Tafeng City.

The place of testing experience.

This city was not an illusion; it truly existed on the Main Affinity Continent.

It was just unknown whether what Lu Li had experienced was real as well.

Tafeng City was located on the southeastern edge of the Main Affinity Continent.

It wasn’t very far from Marsh Road, about three hundred miles away, but the journey could span four to five hundred miles if one had to circle around the long mountain range in between.

Given the current circumstances, it was difficult for Lu Li to journey there to uncover the truth.

“Tafeng City…

what’s happened here?”

Anna was unaware of the ordeal of the test.

During a break in their travel, Lu Li shared his experiences with Anna.

Perhaps because Lu Li sat unharmed by her side, Anna remained calm as she faced the dangers recounted from his story.

“To know that you can’t change anything yet still choose to do it…

should I say it’s just like you?” muttered Anna softly.

As time passed, the fog thinned out, allowing one to hazily make out the scenery a few dozen meters away.

The number of people on the road increased—as much as they feared the Mist of Strangeness, they feared the prospect of starvation without pay even more.

Anna believed the host of the Blood-Colored Tentacles might be hiding in the outskirts’ Oak Forest, but as they passed by the church, Lu Li slowed the carriage, looking up towards the sky.

The Blood-Colored Tentacles under the cloud cover were hanging down into the church.

“The church…” Anna murmured thoughtfully, having just heard the stories about the church and redemption.

The carriage stopped outside the church cemetery.

Lu Li, with Anna hidden away in the Inner World, stepped down from the carriage.

Behind a low wall only a meter high, a forest of gravestones stood solemnly in the cemetery.

A light fog hovered about, silent and peace-filled, as if the church were cut off from the world.

Lu Li walked into the cemetery, his footsteps on the cobblestone path disturbing the tranquility around him and the peace of the departed.

It was faint, barely noticeable, a sense of being observed descended upon Lu Li, as if it were just an illusion.

Assisted by his supernatural perception, Lu Li believed it was the former rather than the latter.

This sensation of being watched seemed intimately connected to the Mist of Strangeness.

Anna, on the other hand, noticed nothing, perhaps because she wasn’t the one being watched.

The magnificent main door of the church was slightly ajar, and the Blood-Colored Tentacles rested at the church’s pinnacle, behind the church.

Lu Li walked along the cobblestone path and reached the outside of the door, where a nun was quietly sweeping the church floor.

Swoosh, swoosh—

Under the special architectural structure, the sound of sweeping resonated as if coming from all directions.

Lu Li found the Confessional on the left as he conversed, but to his disappointment, both the church and the Confessional differed from those in his experience.

Without disturbing the nun silently sweeping facing the doorway, Lu Li, finding no trace of the Blood-Colored Tentacles, retreated and walked around the church’s stone brick outer wall to the back.

The Blood-Colored Tentacles were in the cemetery ahead.

Shielded by Anna, Lu Li approached the Blood-Colored Tentacles.

He hadn’t gone far before the sound of a spade shoveling earth came through the thick fog ahead.

As Lu Li drew nearer, the shoveling grew louder and more distinct.

At the end of his line of sight, a vague figure wielding a spade emerged.