Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 817 - 10. Abandoned Shelter

Chapter 817: 10. Abandoned Shelter

Wooden signs, supports, mine tunnels.

The appearance of human traces means Lu Li has truly left the unknown underground area.

Lu Li can follow the mine tunnel straight back to the surface.

If the mine tunnel hasn’t collapsed.

Apparently, this mine called Coleen or this No. 13 mine shaft has been abandoned for a long time—

The tunnels are littered with collapsed supports and blocking rubble; no miner would dare work in such an environment.

The only relief is that the collapse hasn’t entirely blocked the tunnel, and there are still gaps that Lu Li can pass through.

Old oil lamps hang on the walls, long dried out and unusable, so Lu Li can only illuminate the tunnel at the expense of burning his humanity.

Indeed, the No. 13 mine shaft is an abandoned mine.

Lu Li thought after seeing the signpost of the No. 12 mine shaft.

Though the No. 12 mine tunnel is equally shabby, there are no longer terrifying collapses so common.

Lu Li extinguished the lighthouse in front of the wooden sign, letting darkness envelop him. There were no spine-chilling stares or whispers; the evil spirits still couldn’t affect this place.

The underground is safer than above, but it’s harder to survive.

The cities of the "previous generation" used to be environments without flaws. The lava sea offered light, warmth, and fuel, while the dark river provided essential water and food.

But everything was destroyed when the two collided.

The No. 12 mine shaft connects to the No. 11 mine, as well as an unnamed branching mine tunnel.

Perhaps someone moved the sign, or the tunnel wasn’t named in time.

The mine tunnel is about six hundred meters long, taking ten minutes to walk, during which Lu Li has to keep burning humanity to maintain the lighthouse’s brightness, otherwise it would be difficult to observe changes along the tunnel’s edges.

For instance, the branching paths.

In the dim and silent mine tunnel, dull footsteps echoed.

Without shoes, the gravel-strewn ground made his feet ache, and speed was impossible to gather.

The seemingly endless narrow underground passage was unsettling, but for Lu Li, it was more comforting here than deeper underground.

At the end of the No. 11 mine tunnnel was not the No. 10 mine, but the No. 9; the No. 10 mine extended in a different direction.

This meant Lu Li didn’t have to go from No. 13 to No. 1, and the surface was closer than imagined.

But in the No. 8 mine shaft, Lu Li was blocked by a "wall".

The smooth black stone completely sealed the mine tunnel, and the rock with an obsidian-like dark surface seemed familiar to Lu Li.

It was Deep Sea Stone.

The wall’s thickness exceeded over a meter, and as far as Lu Li knew, there were only two places that luxuriously used Deep Sea Stone.

Deep Sea Stone Mountain, and the refuge. Ghost Prison was once considered, but it had been dismantled and became Lu Li’s property.

Deep Sea Stone Mountain was located in the deep sea, and the refuge was underground, and so was the mine tunnel—

Lu Li re-examined the stone wall and discovered inconspicuous gaps, faintly forming the outline of a door.

He braced his shoulder against the stone doorway, attempting to push the Deep Sea Stone.

There were rollers at the bottom of the stone door to assist, rolling, the heavy stone door, weighing thousands of pounds, slowly sank into the wall, revealing a pitch-black gap.

With the lighthouse in hand, Lu Li turned sideways and walked into the space enclosed by the Deep Sea Stone wall.

The ground beneath his feet was paved with thick Deep Sea Stone, and so were the walls—this underground space was enclosed into a rectangular box by Deep Sea Stone.

The dozens of meters high ceiling was decorated with glowing fluorite that Lu Li had seen before. Slightly different, they weren’t embedded at the top but grouped inside lampshades, hanging like chandeliers under the flat Deep Sea Stone dome.

But they were too far away, and their light barely reached the ground.

The ground faintly revealed a quiet outline, covered as if with a black veil, like a moonless night.

In the corner of the space, clusters of houses stood conspicuous and abrupt.

This was the refuge.

Lu Li turned his head to look around the stone door. A support meant to latch the door and block the sliding stone door was thrown aside with no concern.

This refuge seemed undefended, or perhaps... abandoned.

No light shone from the clusters of houses, and the entire refuge was silent.

As Lu Li approached the buildings, he confirmed this point. The stone-paved road atop Deep Sea Stone was clean and tidy, with no shadow within the houses.

Creak—

Lu Li pushed open a roadside wooden door enveloped in dust for an unknown amount of time. The refuge was dust-free, making it difficult to determine how long it had been abandoned.

The lighthouse illuminated the small room, sparse dust floating at the light’s edge.

Dining table by the window, bookshelves and wardrobe by the wall, bed and nightstand in the corner.

Lu Li opened the wardrobe; it was empty inside.

Why would the refuge’s residents leave here?

Lu Li looked around. Everything was orderly, with none of the chaos of a sudden departure, even the bed sheets were neatly pulled—residents had leisure time to neatly lay the sheets while leaving.

Where did the refuge’s residents go?

At that moment, Lu Li showed patience, searching through the wooden houses one by one.

Though some houses were messy, with bedding casually piled and chairs overturned, these seemed more like the sloppiness of the inhabitants compared to the majority’s orderliness.

In one house, Lu Li found a gray linen garment in the closet and put it on. In another house across diagonally, Lu Li found a pair of shoes of the correct size under a bed.

There were a few more houses where Lu Li found clothing, but they were either women’s clothes or ill-fitting, or unwashed, and were thus abandoned by Lu Li.

While searching for clues with the lighthouse, Lu Li also pondered the experiences after waking up.

The surreal encounter with Friday in the epic-like underground world, the refuge located within the mine tunnel.

Thinking of Friday, Lu Li remained unsure about her existence, only hoping it wasn’t his gateway.

The underground world seemed coincidental as if the ritual of the Rope of Descent, but could the remaining power of the Rope of Descent achieve such feats in a place where evil spirits had little influence?

Was Nasram Alaya, who dug into the sanctuary, a resident of the refuge?

Nothing seemed to lead back to the real answers.

Only the refuge truly existed beneath his feet.

Rustle—

Opening a desk drawer, a pen and notebook swayed with the drawer’s motion.

Thinking he’d found a clue, Lu Li retrieved the notebook and opened it, finding the scrawled handwriting of a childlike diary.

After flipping through a few pages without finding any content, Lu Li temporarily pocketed it, choosing not to waste more humanity, and turned towards another exit of the refuge.

The refuge’s main door stood wide open, with scattered dust and chaotic footprints along its edges.

At that moment, a distant and approaching sound, along with a light spot, emerged from the deep end of the mine tunnel.

"Help me!"

The sound of a woman’s plea emerged from the swaying light spot as she spotted Lu Li behind the door.

The lighthouse burst with brightness, illuminating the running figure and the bizarre noises behind her.

Lu Li immediately pushed the sliding stone door to close the gap.

"No—"

The woman exclaimed in surprise but found the stone door left a gap, and she squeezed through it tightly into the refuge.

Lu Li then pushed the stone door.

The still-fleeing woman turned her head, noticing Lu Li was pushing the door, hastily shouting, "The door won’t stop those monsters, run!"

As the words fell, an illusory, giant cockroach-like ghostly figure passed through the Deep Sea Stone, solidifying its body in front of Lu Li, raising a two-meter-long sharp scythe limb and thrusting it into Lu Li’s chest, penetrating him as easily as cutting through paper, its blood-dripping scythe tip emerging from his back—

"Damn it!"

The woman cursed under her breath, watching as the Mantis Ghost discarded that man and chased after her, fleeing toward the distant cluster of houses.