Chapter 292: Cat in a Bottle

"No, no, of course I'm willing to see the opera. I'm just curious, although the curfew will be lifted next Saturday, aren't places where people gather like this under control?"

The follow-up impact of the Evil God descent incident certainly wouldn't disappear so easily, which was why Xia De was curious.

"It was requested by the royal family to be opened. This seems to involve the conflict between the church and the royal family, and I don't know the details very well. In any case, Xia De, do you accept the invitation?"

Miss Louisa asked again.

"Of course, I haven't seen an opera yet."

Xia De nodded, then asked suspiciously:

"The thing you said you were going to do at the Queen Maria Opera House, it wouldn't be containing a relic again, would it?"

"Where would there be so many relics for me to contain? Do you think those are things you can just bump into?"

Miss Louisa asked back with a smile, then explained:

"It's to pick up goods. I entrusted someone to bring back some sensitive things from out of town, and there won't be any accidents. Xia De, the number of recorded relics doesn't exceed five digits, and we aren't people chosen by fate. Where would we encounter relics so often?"

"Speaking of which, Miss Louisa, do you know that an Angel-level (Level 1) relic runaway incident occurred in a small town under Tobesk? This proves that danger is actually very close to us."

Xia De had already put Little Mia aside. The cat's body temperature was higher than a human's, and holding it in summer was like holding a small stove. He picked up his water cup again.

"Speaking of relic runaways..."

The blonde female writer glanced at Xia De, her emerald eyes containing a smile:

"My friend, Princess Lei Qianya, is currently in Coldwater Port. She wrote to tell me that a nasty relic runaway incident also occurred in Coldwater Port City. It is said to be a batch of mermaid statues, which are Sage-level (Level 2) relics with strong curses."

"Cough, cough."

Xia De, who was drinking water, choked:

"Is there any other news?"

"Lei Qianya said that the first batch of people cursed all died, but the last person didn't die from the curse, but from a gunshot."

Miss Louisa said while observing Xia De's expression. Xia De lowered his head to wipe his mouth with a towel, not noticing she was looking at him.

"Are you interested in this matter? There is some other news. It is said that the church thinks the dock dispatcher who died from a gunshot was very valuable. Perhaps the strange ritual he set up really summoned something, so they performed divination on his cause of death."

Xia De nodded. He was carrying the 【Fate's Twenty-Sided Dice】 at the time and wasn't afraid of divination at all:

"I guess they must have divined something?"

"Because they were worried about the interference of the relic, they specifically asked the local Divination Association's diviners for help this time, and also used a large-scale ritual for assistance, and even used a Document-level relic to help."

Miss Louisa said in a soft voice.

【Fate's Twenty-Sided Dice】 could interfere with fate, but it wasn't that there were no other ways to clear the fog.

"So what was the final result?"

He asked.

Miss Louisa lowered her voice and said:

"The divination was very vague, but they still obtained several important clues."

She glanced at Xia De's expression, put the fountain pen in her hand into the gap of the notebook, and said while shaking her wrist:

"The murderer came to the dock dispatcher's home, which has a lot to do with that seemingly useless pentagram ritual."

Xia De had indeed decided to investigate after seeing the bloodstains on the ceiling.

"The murderer came from the ocean."

Xia De had indeed crawled out of the sea.

"The murderer came from afar."

Xia De had indeed traveled from the distant Tobesk to Coldwater Port City.

"The murderer used the power of an Evil God."

Xia De had indeed used the spell "Underwater Breathing" from the 【God of Deep Sea Drowning】.

"Before the murderer went far away, the body nearly merged with a fish."

Xia De had indeed held a fish and performed space travel.

He was very surprised that the divination was so accurate. Although he knew the church still couldn't possibly know it was him, he was still a bit worried. Xia De asked tentatively:

"So the church thinks the murderer who killed the last victim is..."

Miss Louisa shook her head with a smile:

"These details aren't very clear, and divination isn't one hundred percent accurate. The church just has a guess."

"The guess is?"

"The murderer is a terrifying fish-man from the deep sea, favored by an Evil God and summoned by a ritual."

Miss Louisa carefully observed Xia De's expression. Seeing that Xia De had no expression, she felt a bit disappointed.

Xia De had already turned his head slightly to look at the window. Outside was the dim twilight scenery, which made him involuntarily think of the vampire's sublimation words.

"So these pieces of information can piece together such an outrageous message."

Xia De sighed softly in his heart.

He had already decided not to go to Coldwater Port City anytime soon. As a detective in Tobesk, he thought he shouldn't get involved in troublesome matters in distant cities.

Of course, the most important thing was that the Sage-level relic runaway 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.

Miss Louisa didn't mention that harbor city again after that, just casually sighing that her friend, Princess Lei Qianya, was currently very bored in Coldwater Port City, and if a friend could go visit her, that would be great.

Unfortunately, Xia De didn't have enough clues and didn't understand the blonde writer's meaning at all.

During the subsequent rest, he also talked about the story of the two ghosts in the cemetery, which quickly diverted Miss Louisa's attention. She listened quietly to Xia De's experience in the rain in the cemetery, and then looked at that Moon Dance Festival:

"Xia De, you know I plan to serialize a detective novel collection 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, and I won't let that old lady find out."

With a moving story, she easily threw Princess Lei Qianya to the back of her mind.

Because of the curfew at night, Miss Louisa couldn't stay at Xia De's place for long. After eating dinner together, the blonde Miss left, not forgetting to remind him to remember the exams next week before leaving.

Xia De took advantage of the fact that he had nothing to do at night to take time to organize his tax documents. It would be the end of the month soon, and he needed to report taxes to the Tobesk Tax Bureau. A legally operated detective agency couldn't have tax evasion.

But five minutes after the blonde Miss left, the door downstairs was knocked on again.

It wasn't dark yet, and Xia De couldn't guess who would visit him at this time.

After opening the door downstairs, what he saw was actually Priest Ao Gu Si. The dim sunset was behind him, plating the priest's body with a golden edge.

Behind him was the bustling St. Deran Square, with flocks of pigeons stopping on the square to accept people's feeding. Xia De had always felt that the pigeons living on the square probably had a more comfortable life than Little Mia living in the house:

"Priest? How do you have time to visit me? Please come in."

With the cat peeking behind his legs, Xia De enthusiastically invited the priest inside. When the two sat down beside the coffee table covered with ledgers and contracts, the priest looked in a very bad mood. He didn't even care about the obviously low temperature in Xia De's house:

"Xia De, do me a favor."

When the priest came over, he was carrying a wine bottle wrapped in newspaper, with straw rope tied outside the newspaper, eventually extending upward to become a handle. Very coincidentally, the version of the newspaper facing the outside was a photo of the Mayor of Tobesk giving a public speech three days ago.

If Xia De remembered correctly, that speech was related to this year's summer conscription. Fortunately, the total war had stopped, and the kingdom was no longer recruiting troops on a large scale, so Xia De didn't have to worry about suddenly receiving a conscription notice one day and then heading straight to the front line with his backpack.

"Wait, no. I'm an agent of MI6, and I'm already in the Royal Army establishment. A conscription notice is completely useless to me."

Thinking of this, his mood suddenly became very good.

The old priest with a bitter face tore off the layers of newspaper outside the bottle. Only then did Xia De see that inside the dark glass wine bottle was actually a pure white cat smaller than Mia.

But even if it was smaller, it was squeezed full in that wine bottle, and its body inevitably became deformed. It was impossible to judge whether the cat inside was alive or dead; it was closed-eyed, stuffed in the bottle, and didn't move at all.

"Meow~"

The orange cat that had been lying on the sofa jumped up. This cat had always been quite repulsive to its own kind. Xia De had heard of its fierce reputation when he first went to pick it up at the pet store. Later, after it was taken to St. Deran Square for a temporary stay, as long as Xia De held other cats outside, he would definitely hear the fierce meowing of the small orange cat after returning home.

"I'm curious, Priest, how was this cat stuffed in?"

Xia De stared cautiously at the wine bottle filled with the cat.

"Stop joking, Xia De. You can definitely tell this isn't a cat at all."

The priest grabbed the wine bottle with the cork and shook it vigorously a few times. Then the "white cat" melted in the bottle, turning into more than half a bottle of liquid that looked like milk.

Xia De was very surprised. Although people often joked that cats were liquid, the thing in front of him was a bit too exaggerated. Mia stood on the sofa in horror, looking at the bottle, then at Priest Ao Gu Si, and then jumped behind Xia De to hide.

This cat probably misunderstood something, treating Priest Ao Gu Si as a cat-killing murderer.

"What is this? A relic?"

Xia De comforted the timid cat, then reached out to touch the dark brown glass wine bottle, but didn't feel any traces of whispers.

"Where could it be so easy to encounter a relic? This is a potion, or rather, a precursor to a potion... You can understand it as a semi-finished product."

The old priest explained. Seeing that the liquid had a tendency to turn into a cat again, he picked it up and shook it again:

"Potion—【Cat in a Bottle】. Humans can turn into a cat for a short time after drinking it."

"Meow?"

The orange cat behind Xia De poked its head out to look at him, its pointed ears pricked up, and its large amber eyes staring at the wine bottle.

"Priest, you can actually configure this kind of potion?"

Xia De asked with an admiring face.

"Of course not. What are you thinking? I'm only a Second Ring. This kind of top-level potion that can change a ring mage's body isn't something even St. Byrons has many people who can make. This is an expired potion I bought from the black market, wanting to study it as content for a course report. But after getting it, I found that this thing was not only expired for at least thirty years, but some terrible things were mixed into the potion."

The priest's face became serious:

"Look carefully, are there black velvet-like things in the white liquid?"

Xia De picked up the wine bottle, shook the liquid that was about to condense into a cat vigorously, and poked his head to look for a long time before seeing it:

"Yes, there really are."

"This is a curse mixture. This thing exists in the potion, and I'm worried that this bottle of potion will eventually give birth to some more terrible things. So, I performed an exorcism in the church using some methods."

Although Priest Ao Gu Si wasn't a church ring mage, as a senior clergyman, it was impossible for him not to have any exorcism methods.

"Is it effective?"

"It's effective. When I first got this bottle of potion, at least one-fifth of the contents were black. At that time, I thought it was moldy, until I found that it had a strange reaction when it touched my Lord's holy emblem, and then I understood it was a curse. But I can only do this much. I remember Louisa said you can also perform exorcism, so I wanted to ask you for help. If it still doesn't work, I can only hand it over to the academy for processing."

He pointed to the bottle. Mia the cat and Xia De both looked at the things inside with great interest. When the milk-like pure white liquid gradually formed the shape of a cat, it wasn't like the shape of plasticine changing, but rather it began to form from the internal organs, which looked very disgusting.

"Exorcism? No problem."

Xia De looked left and right, got up, and picked up his coat from the coat rack at the door. Holding the bottle in his right hand, he wrapped the coat around his right hand:

"Priest Ao Gu Si, please don't look directly at my hand. Silver Moon!"

The brilliant light shone through the black cloth, but because there was a cover, it wasn't dazzling.

"If the consumption isn't high, try a few more times."

The priest suggested while touching his chin. Xia De nodded, and then the clothes in his hand shone frequently. He didn't know what exactly counted as okay, so he counted twenty times before stopping.

He put the wine bottle in front of his eyes to observe. There were no more black traces in the white liquid, only some black solid precipitates at the bottom of the bottle. They looked very heavy and had to be shaken vigorously to float, but they wouldn't dissolve.

"Is this okay?"

He handed the wine bottle to the priest. The old priest looked at it for a long time and finally smiled:

"Very good, this is fine. The liquid in the upper layer is the expired semi-finished potion, and the solid below is the curse combination. After I separate it, I can use it as a precious spellcasting material... I have some very good curse-type spells. Xia De, thank you for your hard work."

"It's all a small matter. Oh, Priest, actually I also have something I want to ask you. I want to try to configure some Joy Potion and Long Sleep Water next week, and I need your guidance. I don't know if you have time?"

"First-year potion class practical content? Of course, this is very simple. Come to the church to find me on Wednesday morning. It just so happens that Bishop Owen wants to talk to you."

Saying this, he got up and prepared to say goodbye. The curfew time was coming soon, and he couldn't stay long.

"Wednesday, is it? Okay."

Xia De stood up, and Mia followed immediately.

Going downstairs with Priest Ao Gu Si, the two talked about the exams next week and the Holy Prayer Festival.

The old priest also had a headache about the exams, and what he complained about wasn't the exam itself:

"I have a headache when I think about the exams. I'm at this age, and I still have to take exams. When I was young, I really didn't expect such a thing."

"Then when you were young, how did you think your old age would be spent?"

Xia De helped Priest Ao Gu Si push the door open, and the priest put his hat on his head:

"Have some savings, and then with the help of the church, get a job in the government welfare department that doesn't require work but can still get money. It's best if the weekly salary exceeds half a pound. Have my own house in Tobesk, drink tea and read newspapers every day. Maybe I can raise a cat like you... Look, Xia De, why do I feel that you have already achieved the requirements I had for myself when I was young?"

Speaking of this, the old priest himself laughed. He reached out and patted Xia De on the shoulder, then walked out of the door.

The afterglow of the sunset had reached the roof of the house opposite the square. The brilliant golden light made Xia De squint his eyes subconsciously. Priest Ao Gu Si walked away against the sunset, while Xia De stood at the door holding the door frame, watching his back:

"If I can be as carefree as Priest Ao Gu Si when I'm old, that would be great."

The priest envied Xia De's current life when he was young, and the young Xia De envied 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, locking the sunshine and the square outside the door.

"Even in this world, having a house of one's own is the most important sign of a successful life." ===== CHAPTER 293 =====