Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 602 - 602 One hundred twenty-one

602: One hundred twenty-one.

Before Departure 602: One hundred twenty-one.

Before Departure Lu Li was good at planning ahead, as evidenced by the establishment of the refuge.

So, he began to prepare for their departure the day after tomorrow, with most of the tasks being handled by Anna.

Lu Li and Anna needed to leave the cliff top for at least three days, during which they had to prepare enough “food” for Jimmy and the children.

Due to Tesla’s warning, Anna avoided the heretics and strange servant creatures, hunting on the edge of the Elm Forest while looking for a wheelchair for Lu Li—he didn’t want to be carried by Anna when appearing in the city.

The vitality increased slightly four times, and soon after, Anna returned with two monster corpses, but no wheelchair.

When she planned to search deeper into the city ruins, Lu Li refused her.

They would pass Himfast on their way to the council meeting, where they could buy a wheelchair.

Or they could stop at Baron Joseph’s manor, where perhaps there was a spare wheelchair of Allen’s stored there.

After eating some food, Lu Li went back to the refuge to rest in the afternoon.

Sleep helped the body and soul to merge, and it would be great if he could fully recover before they set off.

During the night, Lu Li woke up a few times feeling thirsty, then fell back into a deep sleep.

The next morning, Lu Li slowly awoke.

The strange fog outside the refuge had receded, and the gloomy grey sky hung over the earth.

Anna helped him walk out of the cliff top to the entrance of the cave, where the damp sea breeze blew over the cliff, fluttering Lu Li’s clothes.

Looking down beside the recliner, a tiny curled sprout had broken through the soil.

It hadn’t changed much from the day before, perhaps because Lu Li hadn’t spent much time on the recliner.

Anna went to check on the young shoot transplanted on the other side and gently shook her head at Lu Li, “It has withered.”

If planted farther from Lu Li outside the cave, it might have died a long time ago.

After obtaining the Doomsday Apocalypse, Lu Li’s “humanity” finally became able to influence the surrounding environment, with incredibly wonderful effects.

“Put them in flowerpots,” Lu Li said.

It could be foreseen that if Lu Li kept them with him, they would one day thrive into weeds or saplings—either way, it meant rebirth.

There were no flowerpots on the cliff, and Anna planned to bring some back while hunting later.

Due to the miraculous influence of humanity, Lu Li’s rest under the recliner shifted from in front of the cave to under the Annie Tree.

Only the instinctual Annie celebrated Lu Li’s approach joyously, and the Elm Forest surrounding the cliff top also emitted a cheerful aura.

Perhaps soon, Lu Li and the others would see new buds sprouting from the withered trees.

Approaching noon, Anna left the cliff top to hunt, while Lu Li sat in the recliner with Jimmy, who was no longer weak but had grown accustomed to leisure, quietly listening to the Exorcists’ broadcast.

Before long, Anna returned.

The huge body she carried with her fell, stirring up a cloud of dust on the cliff top.

“It’s like hunting an elephant,” Jimmy marveled at the size of the prey, which would be enough for them to eat for a week.

However, Lu Li suddenly frowned and muttered, “It’s not dead yet.”

During the time Anna was away, he had not noticed any increase in vitality, and the enormous creature before him was certainly not of the “slight” category.

At the same time, Raimy, who had approached the prey, sensed something and instinctively bared her teeth, emitting a banshee-like ear-piercing howl.

In an instant, Anna appeared in front of Lu Li, shielding him.

Ominous, invisible waves radiated from Raimy as the center point, expanding outward in all directions, but by the time they reached Lu Li and the others, they had weakened to only a slightly sharp noise.

The bizarre corpse beside her wasn’t so lucky.

The Banshee’s Howl forced a phantom shadow out of its body, which, like a newspaper shredded by a torrential downpour, vanished in an instant.

Raimy stopped howling, took a breath, turned around, and said to Lu Li and the others, “Anna didn’t kill it.

It was that specter controlling the oddity, it had parasitized this strange body.”

Anna, momentarily thrown into panic, looked towards Musu, worried that her oversight might bring a disaster upon Lu Li.

If the refuge was no longer safe, they would have nowhere else to be safe.

It was only with matters concerning Lu Li that Anna struggled to maintain her indifference.

“It’s fine, it’s not a servant, it won’t expose our location,” Lu Li didn’t feel the disquieting sensation of being watched.

This hunt served as a wake-up call for Anna—she realized that oddities don’t die like prey in the natural world, dead and gone.

They possess countless inscrutable and incomprehensible powers; “strong” is merely a label humans have affixed to them, but it doesn’t apply.

In any case, she didn’t need to hunt until she returned from the council.

Raimy planted the withered sprouts and the untouched sprouts into the flower pot, placing it beside Lu Li, envisioning the scenery that would one day emerge on the cliff top: Elm Forest bursting with vitality, the summit covered with dense green grass and vines, all from the full upgrade.

Sometimes she wondered, if Lu Li’s humanity were increased tenfold, a hundredfold, would everywhere he passed burst into sprouts rapidly breaking through the soil, vines snaking forth like serpents, withered shrubs shedding their greyness, dead trees regaining life?

At that time, Lu Li might become…

divine.

As evening drew nearer, three colossal black mountains of flesh, cobbled together from gory parts, rose from the sea.

Squirming, a strange fog began to spread, drifting towards the shoreline.

When Strange Mist enveloped Rhodest Port, now nothing but ruins, Lu Li returned to the refuge with the flower pot.

The flower pot was set on the desk beside the bed.

The withered sprout regained vitality, while the other had almost fully unfurled it soft leaves, with fresh, small foliage beaded with droplets from a recent watering.

The Strange Mist completely enshrouded Elm Forest, seeping into caves, until stopped near the refuge by the light of the fireplace and the dim glow of the oil lamp.

The night fell.

Anna had prepared everything.

A suitcase contained a set of Lu Li’s clothes, three Spirit-Calling Guns, two cans of beef, and a kettle filled with boiled drinking water.

Shillings were all carried on her person.

Before order completely collapsed, it could still serve as currency in human gatherings.

But as time passed, bartering would inevitably replace these meaningless pieces of paper.

[…

Arlen Kingdom’s Royal City will hold the Exorcists’ Council in three days …

the largest scale and possibly the last gathering of all Exorcists …]

Anna wound the radio’s spring to the end and turned the volume down to where one had to listen carefully to make out the words.

She walked over to the bed and pulled the blanket up to Lu Li’s chest.

“Goodnight.”

Anna gently kissed Lu Li on the forehead.

The night in the mountain cave was silent and peaceful.

The children slept huddled together outside of the refuge, with a faint candlelight glowing in the Jimmy Siblings’ cabin outside the mountain.

Occasionally, distant, bizarre sounds cut through the night sky, malevolent whispering rose in the darkness, and screams from the city ruins were carried by the wind.

But all the malice struggled to approach the dark little room deep inside the cave.

Because it sheltered Lu Li, safe and sound asleep.