The explosion of the grenade was loud enough to wake the entire town. Everyone froze, looking toward the blast with uncertainty and alarm.
Patrol officers and the Seventh Group from the inn rushed over upon hearing it. Amber even charged out in just her pajamas.
She wasn’t wearing slippers, her slender snow-white feet stepping onto the ground pooled with filthy stagnant water. Cleanliness and filth met at the edge of her soles, creating a strangely beautiful sight. Her thin, delicate ankles gleamed porcelain-white in the cold wind, stirring a pang of heartache that made one want to hold them.
“Has the fight started?” Amber asked as she rushed over.
The Blue-Haired Loli didn’t answer. Instead, she hugged her knees and squatted down, staring fixedly at Amber’s feet. She gritted her teeth, her eyes flashing with a mix of disgust and excitement.
“Ew, so dirty. You’re Little Black Feet too.”
“Huh? Is this the time to talk about that?” A wave of shame surged through Amber, as if all her nerves were concentrated in her feet, making them especially sensitive under the loli’s gaze. She instinctively curled her toes.
Ashley stood up, her gaze sweeping over her team members. Roy and the Little Doctor had arrived, but the newbie Senya was nowhere to be seen.
Her heart sank. This was bad.
She quickly briefed the police chief and then dashed up to the fourth floor in one breath, pushing open the door to Room 401. There, she saw the big-chested girl sitting on the edge of the bed, looking sullen and unhappy.
“Senya?”
“Captain… I…”
The girl struggled to lift her eyelids, then slowly closed them again, her face full of drowsiness, as if she hadn’t woken up yet.
Ashley’s gaze fell on the bedside table.
Inside a glass cup, a soft mass was crammed tightly against the walls, leaving only a small hole in the center—like a large glob of slick, glistening sea snail meat.
“Did you drink from it? I told you not to touch the Container!” Ashley said angrily.
“I’m sorry…”
The girl’s face stiffened, two glistening trails of tears sliding from the corners of her eyes, her voice trembling with a sob.
“You idiot.”
Ashley sighed, placing her hand on the girl’s head and gently ruffling her flaxen soft hair to comfort her.
“It’s your first time stepping into the world of the supernatural and running into something this bizarre. It’s not your fault. From now on, you don’t have to worry. I’ll protect you.”
“Wu wu…” Senya felt a soft spot in her heart struck hard, and she whimpered.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry…”
Ashley reached out to wipe away her tears.
Getting attacked by multiple ability users on her first day on the job—anyone would react the same way, especially a newbie who was too ‘normal.’
In the world of the supernatural, traits like sensitivity, paranoia, overreacting, and neurosis were actually excellent qualities.
The moment you noticed something unreasonable, your first thought should be—Stand-in attack! Not—There’s a ghost!
“Wu…”
Senya curled up fully, accepting her caresses.
“Self-check. Which part of your personality is missing?” Ashley asked.
From feedback at the Egret House, the first three times wouldn’t fully expel the personality, and Senya’s brain hadn’t mutated, so it was only partial expulsion.
“I feel like… something’s off about me… but I don’t know what…” Senya frowned lightly, her hands clutching her shoulders. No matter how hard she thought, she got nowhere.
At that moment, the Little Doctor squatted down and said, “Your foot’s injured. Let me treat the wound for you.”
Senya lifted her small leg. A pencil-thick wooden splinter was embedded in the tender red sole of her foot, looking shocking!
She must have stepped on it barefoot while running wildly through the corridor in the early morning.
“You didn’t notice it after all this time?”
Yinsu Helin handled major surgeries nonchalantly; treating a minor wound like this was effortless.
Her slender fingers pinched a cotton swab, dipped it in iodine, and cleaned and disinfected repeatedly. Then she used tweezers to pull out the splinter.
Strangely, Senya showed no reaction throughout. Even at the moment the splinter was removed, there was no muscle tension from pain, making Yinsu Helin feel like she was performing an autopsy.
Senya finally reacted, saying in horror, “I… I can’t feel pain anymore!”
Tests revealed it wasn’t just pain—cold, heat, and touch were gone too. Her nerves were completely numb, or rather, stripped away!
Ashley picked up the cup and examined the spiraled snail meat closely, shuddering as she said, “No way. Did the stripped sensations get packed into the cup?”
The room fell silent. No one knew what expression to make.
Ashley turned the cup over and poured the lump of tangerine-colored sea snail meat into her palm.
The surface of the snail meat was covered in clustered wrinkles, looking somewhat frightening yet strangely alluring. It secreted slick mucus, with a long, curled tail trailing behind. The flesh was plump and tender; even a slight touch made it shyly wriggle.
When in the cup, the snail tail curled up, forming a hole-like space with the wrinkles.
“Ahhh… Captain’s hand is so warm…”
Senya’s pupils suddenly dilated, her small face flushing red. Gradually, her head tilted back, her whole body tensing and trembling.
“Emmm…”
Ashley’s fingertip rubbed and turned, studying the snail’s behavior. It actively rubbed against her hand like a little pet. As it crawled around her palm, the wrinkles scraped against her palm lines and fingerprints…
“No… I can’t take it…”
Senya’s face turned so red it seemed about to bleed. She dove headfirst into the bedding, leaving only her chubby little feet with curled toes sticking out.
“Don’t move around…”
The Little Doctor wrapped cotton around her wound.
“This feels pretty dangerous,” Ashley said as she stuffed the snail meat back into the cup. “If it can’t be restored, being a cup forever would be awful.”
Hearing this, despair surged in Senya’s heart, and she couldn’t help sobbing.
Her first day at the Tribunal had turned into hell mode.
Moreover, she realized there was an uncrossable chasm between her and those powerhouses who could stand in the supernatural world. She was also terribly inexperienced in combat.
Just the day before, her colleagues at the police station had looked at her with envy when she transferred files to leave. Now, as an elite from the station entering the Tribunal, not only could she not help, she was dragging everyone down. The huge psychological drop nearly crushed her.
“I’m so useless… I was so smug yesterday… Today I’m a total failure… I just want to curl into a ball… and die…”
“It’s okay. Even if your limit is a two-star agent, you can still contribute. Just keep the right mindset,” Roy comforted her. He had been demoted to vice-captain after the Bull Town incident despite having a formed ability. “Look at me—I acted like an idiot in the last event. You’ve already done great.”
“You’re all so nice to me…”
A warm current surged in Senya’s heart.
Her view of Ashley changed again—this girl who could stand in the supernatural world deserved respect, especially since she was just a little girl younger than her.
Comparing herself to this younger girl, Senya willingly lowered her head and murmured, “Captain… I’m sorry… If I’d listened to you properly… I wouldn’t have caused trouble for everyone… Wu wu wu…”
“It’s fine. You’re my team member. Even if you’re a bit dumb, I still like you.”
The moment Ashley hugged Senya, she felt the pressure from the other’s dimensions against her.
This girl… so big and heavy…
Emmm… Sometimes big girls aren’t bad…
“You stay at the inn and rest. I’ll keep the cup safe so enemies can’t steal it to threaten us.”
At the mention of the cup, Senya’s round face turned apple-red.
That thing sensed cold and heat; it felt like every sensory cell from her head to her toes had been extracted and fused into that sea snail meat. Even slight friction sent a tingling numbness through her waist and straight to her brain.
Having it in someone else’s hands filled her with intense shame and fear, but… the captain was fine… The captain’s fingers… wu… so embarrassing…
After settling Senya, Ashley gathered her team and the Card Court police to devise new countermeasures.
Spade A had lost her lower body. Even if she was clinging to life, she couldn’t leave Card Court.
Considering how to transport half a person, large luggage was now being checked when leaving Card Court to prevent her from hiding in a suitcase.
“Logically, after the Egret House incident, she should lay low instead of escalating the conflict. Neither the investigation team nor the Card Court police would search forever. Once the lockdown eased, she could leave,” Ashley said, standing beside the whiteboard in the meeting room. The board had a magnetic map of case clues pinned to it.
“Maybe she doesn’t take us seriously,” Roy said.
“From her behavior, Spade A isn’t crazy. She’s very purposeful. I don’t think she’d attack the Tribunal investigation team for no reason,” Ashley shook her head.
“Maybe she thinks we have a way to track her?” the Little Doctor asked.
“Impossible. We didn’t track her all day. We rested at night, meaning no progress on day one. She should keep hiding and feel relieved, not launch a brazen attack.”
“Maybe Spade A thinks we’ll interfere with some goal of hers,” Amber suddenly suggested.
“Yeah… Choosing to strike the night the investigation team arrived means Spade A had to act fast and control us quietly without much fuss, or it would affect some plan about to happen,” Ashley speculated.
Amber was startled and asked, “Does that mean Spade A never planned to escape in the first place? Completing this plan requires her to stay in Card Court?”
“Very possible.”
