Xia De's suggestion made Louisa a little tempted. She wrapped herself in her robe and thought for a moment:
"I think I can find the general location where he came ashore... Alright then, Detective, I'll take up half an hour of your time. I'm also a bit cold. If we don't find him in half an hour, we'll leave. However, he's much more seriously injured than I am, so if we can find him, I think it will save a lot of trouble."
The two looked together at the dark riverbank. For some reason, this night was exceptionally quiet.
The Terraril River is a relatively large river in the complex water system that flows through Tobesk. During the high-water season, it is an important inland waterway from the western to the northeastern parts of the Kingdom.
Even in the urban sections of the river, the underwater current is quite astonishing. Unless one has special abilities, is an excellent swimmer, or is holding onto a floating object, no one can swim in the river for a long time.
Luckily, although the coachman, whom the two had jointly injured, had just injured Louisa in the river, he did not stay in the water for long. They had only walked downstream along the riverbank for ten minutes when Xia De's eyes caught a red halo in the darkness.
"You can see bloodstains like this from at least dozens of steps away?"
When the Detective, holding the box, pointed out the marks on the ground, Louisa asked with some surprise.
In fact, this was mainly due to it being night and the mist on both sides of the river not being very thick, making the red halos representing bloodstains very conspicuous.
The injured man obviously hadn't expected the woman he had injured at the bottom of the river to dare to track him, so he only covered up the traces of his landing. After entering the alley beside the river, he didn't even bother to hide his wet footprints.
Louisa led the way, with Xia De following behind, and the two chased into the alley. Away from the windy river area, the thick fog surged up again. As the two went deeper into the alley, a fishy stench filled the air, as if someone had left an open can of herring out in the wind.
"My God~"
Louisa, walking in front, was the first to stop, unable to hold her breath. She pulled Xia De's robe and covered her mouth and nose, and Xia De also sniffed the smell carried by the cold, damp wind, almost throwing up:
"What is this?"
"Detective, something is not right..."
The darkness ahead in the alley was too dense, like thick ink that couldn't be diluted in an oil painting. Even on a foggy night, this situation was very abnormal.
Xia De looked around, the red halo was already very bright:
"He's nearby, just passed through here, the bloodstains are very obvious..."
It was then that he realized that at the edge of his vision, the large patches of red halo representing the amount of bleeding had already exceeded normal levels:
"Louisa, something's not right."
"Indeed, something's not right."
The Golden-haired girl gazed at the darkness in front of her, then asked Xia De:
"Can you use your Light Spell now? Be careful to control the power of the Miracle, don't illuminate half the City."
"No problem."
Xia De held the box in one hand and pointed forward with the other. With a soft whisper of "Silver Moon," silver Moonlight bloomed from his fingertips.
Louisa stood to one side of Xia De, letting the light shine forward.
Then, they almost simultaneously saw a huge figure standing ahead. It was a merman, a literal merman. The lower body consisted of two human legs, while the upper body was a full-sized fish.
The fish's scales had rotted, and white maggots were wriggling in clusters within them. The wind passed by it, blowing the stench towards the two people downwind.
And at the moment the silver Moonlight touched the merman, the Detective and the Writer simultaneously received a prompt from another self:
【You have encountered a "whisper.".】
The silver Moonlight shone on the merman's back, and immediately a black smoke with a foul smell drifted out. The merman, with its back to the two, turned around, its rotten, decaying face appearing little by little from the shadow cast by the silver Moonlight.
Xia De felt his stomach cramping, but his finger remained very steady, pointing forward. the moment he saw that face, he felt as if he saw a colossal, grotesque shape lurking in the deepest part of the deep-sea abyss casting a glance at him.
Louisa beside him was also not feeling well, but she had already understood the current situation:
"Look at the clothes on it, they're the coachman's clothes. Damn it! That guy was too seriously injured, his relic went out of control!"
Hearing this, Xia De felt a little relieved. He had almost thought this was a humanoid relic. One should know that any humanoid relic could be directly classified as Sage-level (Grade 2).
"Detective, steady your hand, don't look ahead!"
Louisa's hands reached forward, and raging flames immediately spewed forward from her palms. The merman, already injured by the holy silver light, was now being incinerated by the fierce fire, yet it didn't retreat, instead charging towards the two.
The burning stench made the two downwind hold back their desire to vomit. Louisa summoned her Destiny Ring, and the Enlightenment Ling Rune 【Hunter's Trap】 flickered with light. Then, a section of brass-colored rope descended from above, tying the merman's "neck," which was its gills.
Roar~
It let out a piercing, strange cry, and the peculiar rhythm contained within the sound made Louisa feel a little unsteady, but a hand reaching out from behind her supported her.
"Seriously, it'll be troublesome if this smell doesn't wash off!"
The Golden-haired girl said with a mix of annoyance, fumbling in her robe with one hand, taking out a rolled-up piece of paper, and tossing it into the air.
"Hmm?"
The paper should have burned, and then the match girl's figure would have appeared. But unexpectedly, in that cold wind, the thrown paper wouldn't burn, and the surroundings were already filled with water mist at some unknown point.
The ugly and ferocious merman broke free from the rope, burst through Louisa's sea of fire, and was completely exposed in the silver Moonlight. Its mouth was wide open, its yellowish sharp teeth and the wriggling granulation inside its mouth approached Louisa's neck.
But the Golden-haired girl was not flustered. She clenched her flame-covered fist and punched it. With a bang, she knocked the fierce merman to the ground, then kicked it into the darkness of the alley.
Xia De's finger immediately shone further away, but he surprisingly found a young girl lying in the alley. When the two discovered the merman, it had probably just gone out of control and was about to attack her.
"Its strength isn't outstanding... Oh!"
Louisa didn't notice the distance, but looked at her own fist. A layer of bluish-green, foul-smelling fish scales covered it, spreading across her entire arm at a visible speed. But before Louisa could think of a solution, Xia De's hand reached out again.
"Cindyia's Silver Moon Grace."
The silver-glowing hand covered Louisa's fist, and the holy Moonlight very slowly dispelled the fish scales that looked like a plague. Xia De whispered in the Golden-haired girl's ear:
"Louisa, there's another ordinary person over there."
Louisa looked into the darkness and frowned:
"I probably know what went out of control, the Poet Grade relic 【Scales of the Drowned Merman】! This is a relic that spreads ichthyosis and can also turn the user into a merman-like race. I know this!"
She looked up at the monster slowly getting up in the alley, its figure clearly illuminated by the Moonlight from Xia De's fingertip:
"Detective, you go save that little girl, I know how to deal with it."