“No, no, of course I want to see an opera. I’m just curious, even though the curfew will be lifted next Saturday, aren’t places where crowds gather usually restricted?”
The lingering effects of the Evil God's descent wouldn't disappear so easily, which was why Xia De was curious.
“The Royal Family requested it to be open.
It seems to involve a conflict between the Church and the Royal Family; I’m not very clear on the details.
In any case, Xia De, do you accept the invitation?”
Louisa asked again.
“Of course, I’ve never seen an opera before.”
Xia De nodded, then asked suspiciously:
“The matter you said you were going to the Queen Maria Opera House for, it’s not for containing a relic again, is it?”
“How could there be so many relics for me to contain?
Do you think they’re something you can just stumble upon?”
Louisa asked back with a smile, then explained:
“It’s to pick up goods.
I entrusted someone to bring back some sensitive items from out of town; there won’t be any accidents.
Xia De, the number of recorded relics doesn’t exceed five digits, and we’re not chosen by fate or anything, so how could we frequently encounter relics?”
“Speaking of which, Louisa, do you know about the Angel-level (Level 1) relic out-of-control incident that occurred in a town subordinate to Tobesk?
This proves that danger is actually very close to us.”
Xia De had already placed Mia aside; a cat’s body temperature is higher than a human’s, and holding her in the Summer was like holding a small stove.
He now picked up his water glass again.
“Speaking of out-of-control relics…”
The Golden-haired girl looked at Xia De, her emerald eyes filled with a smile:
“My friend Princess Leia is currently in Coldwater Port.
She wrote to tell me that Coldwater Port also experienced a severe relic out-of-control incident.
It’s said to be a Sage-level (Level 2) relic with a strong curse—a batch of Mermaid statues.”
“Cough, cough.”
Xia De, who was drinking water, choked:
“Any other news?”
“Leia said that the first group of people cursed all died, but the last person didn't die from the curse, but from a gunshot.”
Louisa said, observing Xia De’s expression.
Xia De lowered his head to wipe his mouth with a towel, not noticing her watching him.
“Are you interested in this matter?
There’s also some news; it’s said that the Church believes the dock dispatcher who died from a gunshot was very valuable.
Perhaps the strange ritual he set up really summoned something, so they divined the cause of his death.”
Xia De nodded; he was carrying the dice of destiny at the time, so he wasn’t afraid of divination at all:
“I guess something must have been divined, right?”
“Because they were worried about interference from the relic, they specifically invited a diviner from the Prophet Association to help, and also used a large ritual for assistance, even a Document-level relic for collaboration.”
Louisa said softly.
The dice of destiny could interfere with fate, but it wasn't impossible to part the fog by other means.
“So what was the final result?”
He asked.
Louisa lowered her voice and said:
“The divination was very vague, but it still yielded a few important clues.”
She glanced at Xia De’s expression, placed the pen in her hand into the gap of her notebook, and while flicking her wrist, said:
“The murderer came to the dock dispatcher’s home, and it had a lot to do with that seemingly useless five-pointed star ritual.”
Xia De indeed decided to investigate after seeing the bloodstains on the ceiling.
“The murderer came from the ocean.”
Xia De indeed crawled out of the sea.
“The murderer came from afar.”
Xia De indeed traveled from the distant Tobesk to Coldwater Port.
“The murderer was using the power of an Evil God.”
Xia De indeed used the spell “Underwater Breathing” from the God of Drowned in the Deep Sea.
“Before the murderer left, his body was almost integrated with a fish.”
Xia De indeed held a fish for spatial traversal.
He was very surprised at how accurate the divination was, and although he knew the Church still couldn't know it was him, he was still a little worried.
Xia De hesitated and probed:
“So the Church believes the murderer who killed the last victim is…”
Louisa smiled and shook her head:
“These details aren’t very clear, and divination isn’t 100% accurate.
The Church just has a guess.”
“The guess is?”
“The murderer is a terrifying merman, favored by an Evil God, summoned by a ritual, and hailing from the deep sea.”
Louisa carefully observed Xia De’s expression, and seeing that Xia De showed no expression, she felt a little disappointed.
Xia De had already slightly turned his head to look out the window; outside was the dim twilight scenery, which made him unconsciously think of the Vampire’s Sublimation Words.
“So these pieces of information can be put together to form such an outrageous story.”
Xia De sighed softly in his heart.
He had already decided not to go to Coldwater Port again recently.
As a Detective in Tobesk, he believed it was best not to get involved in troublesome matters in a distant City.
Of course, the most important thing was that the sage-level relic going out of control was of no benefit to him; he would only be crazy to travel thousands of miles to Coldwater Port just to put himself in danger.
Louisa did not mention the port City again afterwards, only inadvertently sighing that her friend Princess Leia was very bored in Coldwater Port, and it would be wonderful if a friend could visit her.
Unfortunately, Xia De had insufficient clues and completely failed to understand the Golden-haired girl’s meaning.
During the subsequent rest, he also talked about the story with the two ghosts in the cemetery, which quickly diverted Louisa’s attention.
She listened quietly to Xia De’s account of his experience in the rain in the cemetery, and then looked at the Moon Dance Festival:
“Xia De, you know I plan to serialize a collection of Detective stories in the newspaper after the exam week.
I’ve decided to use this story as the opening… Don’t worry, the specific plot won’t be exactly the same, so that old lady won’t recognize it.”
With a moving story at hand, she easily put Princess Leia out of her mind for the time being.
Because of the curfew at night, Louisa could not stay long at Xia De’s place.
After having dinner together, the Golden-haired girl left, not forgetting to remind him to remember next week’s exam.
Xia De, having nothing to do that night, took the time to organize his tax documents.
The end of the month was approaching, and he needed to file taxes with the Tobesk Tax Bureau; a legally operating Detective agency certainly couldn't have tax evasion issues.
But five minutes after the Golden-haired girl left, the door downstairs was knocked again.
It wasn’t dark yet, and Xia De couldn’t guess who would visit him at this time.
After opening the downstairs door, he saw Priest Augustus; the dim sunset was behind him, casting a golden edge on the Priest’s body.
Behind him was the bustling Saint Delan Square, with flocks of pigeons stopping in the square to be fed by people.
Xia De always felt that the pigeons living in the square probably had a more comfortable life than Mia living in a house:
“Priest?
Why do you have time to visit me?
Please come in.”
With Mia peeking out from behind his legs, Xia De enthusiastically invited the Priest in.
As the two sat down by the tea table covered with ledgers and contracts, the Priest seemed to be in a very bad mood.
He didn’t even notice the noticeably low temperature in Xia De’s house:
“Xia De, do me a favor.”
The Priest arrived carrying a wine bottle wrapped in newspaper, with a straw rope tied around the outside of the newspaper, extending upwards to form a handle.
Coincidentally, the side of the newspaper facing outwards was a photo of the Tobesk City Mayor giving a public speech three days ago.
If Xia De remembered correctly, that speech was related to this Summer’s conscription campaign.
Fortunately, the total war had stopped, and the Kingdom no longer extensively recruited soldiers, so Xia De didn't have to worry about suddenly receiving a conscription notice and then directly heading to the front lines with his backpack.
“Wait, I’m an MI6 agent, part of the Royal Army, so a conscription notice is completely useless to me.”
Thinking of this, his mood immediately became very good.
The Old Priest, with a bitter face, tore off all the layers of newspaper from the bottle.
Only then did Xia De see that inside the dark glass wine bottle was a pure white cat, even smaller than Mia.
But even if it was small, it was so tightly packed inside the wine bottle that its body inevitably deformed.
It was impossible to tell if the cat inside was alive or dead; it was stuffed into the bottle with its eyes closed, not moving at all.
“Meow~”
The orange cat, which had been lying on the sofa, suddenly sprang up; this cat had always been quite resistant to its own kind.
Xia De had heard of its fierce reputation at the pet store the first time he went to pick it up, and after it was brought to temporarily reside in Saint Delan Square, whenever Xia De held other cats outside, he would definitely hear the small orange cat’s “fierce” meows when he returned home.
“I’m very curious, Priest, how was this cat stuffed in there?”
Xia De cautiously stared at the wine bottle filled with the cat.
“Don’t joke, Xia De, you must have seen that this is not a cat at all.”
The Priest grabbed the corked bottle and shook it vigorously a few times.
Thus, the “white cat” melted inside the bottle, turning into more than half a bottle of liquid that looked like milk.
Xia De was greatly surprised; although people jokingly said cats were liquid, what was happening before him was a bit too exaggerated.
Mia stood on the sofa in horror, looking at the bottle, then at Priest Augustus, and then darted behind Xia De to hide.
This cat probably misunderstood something, taking Priest Augustus for a cat murderer.
“What is this?
A relic?”
Xia De comforted the timid cat, then reached out and touched the dark brown glass wine bottle, but felt no trace of the whisper element.
“How could one encounter relics so easily?
This is a potion, or rather, a precursor to a potion… You can just think of it as a semi-finished product.”
The Old Priest explained, and seeing that the liquid was about to turn back into a cat, he picked it up and shook it again:
“Potion - 【Cat in a Bottle】.
Humans who drink it can temporarily turn into a cat.”
“Meow?”
The orange cat behind Xia De poked its head out to look at him, its pointed ears perked up, its amber eyes fixed on the wine bottle.
“Priest, you can actually formulate such a potion?”
Xia De asked with admiration.
“Of course not, what are you thinking?
I’m only a Two-Ring, and even in Saint Byron's, few people can make such a top-tier potion that can change a Ring術士’s physical body.
This is an expired potion I bought from the black market; I wanted to study it as part of my course report.
But after I got it, I found that this thing was not only expired by at least thirty years, but also had some terrible things mixed into the potion.”
The Priest’s expression became serious:
“Look closely, is there something like black velvet in the white liquid?”
Xia De picked up the wine bottle, vigorously shook the liquid that was about to condense back into a cat, and peered at it for a long time before finally seeing it:
“Yes, there is indeed.”
“This is a curse hybrid; this thing exists within the potion, and I’m worried this bottle of potion will eventually give birth to something even more terrifying.
So, I performed some exorcism methods in the church.”
Although Priest Augustus was not a Church Ring術士, as a senior clergyman, it was impossible for him not to know any exorcism methods.
“Did it work?”
“It worked.
When I first got this potion, at least one-fifth of its contents were black.
At the time, I thought it was mold until I found it had a strange reaction when it touched my Lord’s holy emblem, and then I realized it was a curse.
But I can only do this much.
I remember Louisa said you could also exorcise, so I wanted to ask for your help.
If it still doesn’t work, I’ll have to hand it over to the academy to deal with.”
He pointed to the bottle; Mia and Xia De both looked at the contents with great interest.
When the milky pure white liquid gradually formed the shape of a cat, it didn't change shape like clay, but rather started forming from the internal organs first, which was very disgusting.
“Exorcism?
No problem.”
Xia De looked around, then stood up and took his coat from the hanger by the door.
Holding the bottle in his right hand, he wrapped the coat around his right hand:
“Priest Augustus, please don’t look directly at my hand.
Silver Moon!”
Brilliant light shone through the black fabric, but because it was covered, it wasn't dazzling.
“If the consumption isn’t too great, try a few more times.”
The Priest suggested, stroking his chin.
Xia De nodded, and then the clothes in his hand continued to glow frequently.
He didn’t know exactly what counted as enough, so he counted twenty times before stopping.
Observing the wine bottle before his eyes, there were no longer any black traces in the white liquid, only some black solid precipitates at the bottom of the bottle.
They looked heavy and would only float when the bottle was vigorously shaken, but they would not dissolve.
“Is this okay?”
He handed the wine bottle to the Priest.
The Old Priest looked at it for a long time, finally revealing a smile:
“Very good, this will do.
The upper liquid is the expired semi-finished potion, and the solid below is the curse complex.
Once I separate them, they can be used as precious spellcasting materials… I have some very good curse-type spells.
Xia De, thank you for your trouble.”
“It’s nothing at all.
Oh, Priest, actually, I also have something I want to ask you.
I’d like to try formulating some Elixir of Joy and Water of Long Sleep next week, and I need your guidance.
Do you have time?”
“First-year potion class practical content?
Of course, that’s very simple.
Come find me at the church on Wednesday morning; Bishop Owen also wants to talk to you.”
Saying this, he stood up, ready to bid farewell.
Curfew time was approaching, and he couldn’t stay long either.
“Wednesday, right?
Okay.”
Xia De stood up, and Mia immediately followed.
Going downstairs with Priest Augustus, the two discussed next week’s exams and the Holy Prayer Festival.
The Old Priest also had a headache about the exams, and what he complained about wasn’t the exams themselves:
“Thinking about exams gives me a headache.
At my age, I still have to take exams; I never thought this would happen when I was young.”
“So when you were young, how did you think you would spend your later years?”
Xia De helped Priest Augustus open the door, and the Priest put his hat on his head:
“Have some savings, and then with the Church’s help, get a job in the government welfare department where I could get paid without working, preferably with a weekly wage exceeding half a pound.
Have my own house in Tobesk, drink tea and read newspapers every day, maybe raise a cat like you… Look, Xia De, how do I feel that you have already achieved what I wanted for myself when I was young?”
At this point, the Old Priest himself laughed.
He reached out and patted Xia De’s shoulder, then walked out the door.
The afterglow of the sunset had already reached the rooftops of the houses across the square, and the dazzling golden light before Xia De made him instinctively squint his eyes.
Priest Augustus walked away into the sunset, while Xia De leaned against the doorframe, watching his retreating figure:
“If I can be as carefree as Priest Augustus when I’m old, that would be wonderful.”
The Priest, when young, envied Xia De’s current life, and the young Xia De admired the Old Priest’s life, which gave Xia De more thoughts about life in a foreign land.
What thoughts?
Xia De gently closed the door, shutting out the sunlight and the square.
“Even in this world, owning your own house is the most important sign of a successful life.”
