Chapter 576: Monster-Revealing Mirror?
“W-what’s wrong?” I asked uneasily, noticing his gaze fixed on my neck, the place where I had been beheaded and then sewn back together. I pulled up my hood and zipped my collar high to conceal my wound, which had already formed a crust of dried blood.
But it seemed I had become careless after leaving them, and had lowered my collar a bit, exposing my neck.
“Who are you? What’s with the scar on your neck?” the black-robed piper asked me.
“It’s nothing, just a scar,” I replied cautiously. I wondered how he could see my neck scar in such dim light. I should have wrapped it with bandages.
“Sir, she is my assistant. I am Detective Sebastian from the Cando City Police. We were dispatched by the Police Chief Director to investigate this fishing boat incident. we did not…” Sebastian said, stepping in front of me.
“Shut up, I’m talking to her. This has nothing to do with you. Cough, cough!” the piper rudely interrupted Sebastian, but his agitation caused him to cough again.
Sebastian’s forehead showed slight bulges of veins. He already disliked these custodians who didn’t follow procedures. Furthermore, he was always polite and had a noble demeanor. Now, this man was being so disrespectful, cutting him off.
“Apologies, sir, but please speak to me if you have anything. Do not trouble my assistant. If you have any complaints, you can report them to the Police Chief Director.” Sebastian stood his ground. Of course, complaining would be useless, as he wasn’t a police officer.
Mr. Zhang also subtly blocked me, his hand gripping the hilt of his knife, ready to teach the piper a lesson on the spot if necessary. This surprised the piper. Although they were usually unwelcome and often treated coldly by the public, very few people dared to obstruct their investigations.
“Alright, I’ll be direct. I suspect your assistant is not human. Please cooperate with my investigation.” Although the piper’s wording seemed polite, his tone was anything but.
“Heh, so you say she’s not human, and therefore she isn’t? And there are plenty of non-human otherworldly beings. Why don’t you go to the Dungeon and arrest every otherworldly being you see?” Sebastian retorted.
“Stop playing dumb! You know what I mean when I say she’s not human. She poses a great threat to humans. My senses don’t lie. This woman exudes a dangerous aura!” the piper said angrily.
“Don’t make me laugh. Based on your few words, do you have any evidence? I could just as easily think you’re a murderer. With my detective’s intuition, can I hand you over to the police?” Sebastian fired back.
The piper was no match for Sebastian in an argument. As a professional detective, he frequently dealt with eloquent debaters like lawyers, and could even occasionally act as one himself.
Moreover, his status was also troublesome. Although he was just a detective, it was unclear how close his ties to the police department were. The Custodian Association, as a civilian organization, although extreme in its actions, tried not to openly antagonize official organizations.
Unfortunately, the Cando City Police Department alone was not enough to scare off the piper. If Sebastian had said he was from the Madrid Police or the National Police, the piper might have given up immediately.
“Fine, you want evidence, don’t you?” The piper took out a hand-held mirror with a handle from his black robe. “This thing can reveal a person’s true form. If she is indeed not human, can you stop obstructing my investigation?”
Sebastian hesitated, but I stepped forward. “Alright, you can shine it. But if I turn out to be human, please stop bothering us.”
My Spiritual Sense told me there were several other black-robed people on this ship, one of whom was not far from us. If I kept obstructing him from investigating me, and instead drew the attention of other black-robed people, we would be in an extremely disadvantageous position.
It would be better to cooperate from the start, get it over with quickly, and send this guy away. I was quite confident in the fact that I was human, well, mostly confident…
He pointed the mirror at me. A beam of light projected from the mirror onto me. I couldn’t help but feel nervous. What was this thing, a monster-revealing mirror?
After the light swept over me, my reflection in the mirror remained unchanged. It was still a girl in a cloak with a hood, though it was slightly difficult to see clearly in the dim light. But undoubtedly, the me in the mirror was no different from the me in reality.
Phew! Luckily, despite having undergone mutations several times, I was indeed still human. This was also thanks to my best efforts to maintain my sanity.
“N-no, that’s impossible! Your aura… it’s clearly not human.” The piper looked back and forth between me and the mirror, saying in disbelief, “Right! You must have hidden some unsightly body part. Only your face looks human. Take off your hood, no, take off your cloak entirely!”
“Sir, please show some respect! Asking a lady to undress in front of men is an extremely rude request. And you just promised that if she was human, you would stop bothering us,” Sebastian said sternly.
“No! How can you tell anything different just from her face? That scar of hers, and her scent, are definitely not normal! If she takes off her cloak, you’re bound to see something different from a human!” the piper insisted.
He kept saying my aura was dangerous. I guessed it was because I had used too much magic, and before that, I had sacrificed some Blood Oil to the Great Fly. Now, I should have a strong aura of Beelzebub on me.
This was why I disliked people with overly sensitive intuition or sense of smell. They could always discover a little more than normal people.
“It’s nothing to take off my hood, look.” As I spoke, I lowered my hood. I had no horns, nor were my ears pointed. Apart from the slightly strange-looking scar on my neck, there was nothing else different.
“How about that? I am genuinely a human being. And things like wings or a tail, I couldn’t possibly hide them,” I said, turning around. Although my cloak was loose, it was clear that it couldn’t conceal a tail or wings.
The piper’s expression flickered between green and black. He had no evidence to prove I was problematic, but his intuition told him there was definitely something wrong. This conflict made him very uncomfortable.
“Alright, I apologize. I was too presumptuous. I will leave now.” The piper finally calmed down, even bowed slightly, and turned to leave.
We hadn’t expected him to leave so decisively. Just as we relaxed our guard, the piper suddenly turned back and threw two halos of light towards us with his left and right hands.
