Chapter 118 Lair
At this moment, Delphinium finally understood what the sense of disharmony that she had been feeling was all along.
The faint sense of crisis that had been lingering in her heart since she entered the Strategy Bureau; the sense of alienation brought by the surrounding scenery; and a faint but familiar feeling of nausea. These senses mixed together and formed a sense of disharmony in her heart, sending her a warning and reminding her that something was wrong here.
After seeing this scene, Delphinium already had a vague answer in its mind as to what this space was.
However, in order to confirm this answer completely, she needed to do one more thing - go back to the office where the mutilated beast had been discovered.
With this thought in mind, Delphinium was unwilling to delay any longer and immediately mobilized her magic power to support her body to float up and fly in the direction of her memory.
She sped along the corridor, the scenery in the corridor flashed by her peripheral vision quickly, just like what she had seen before, without any change. But she had the answer in her heart, and she was no longer confused about it.
Ignoring possible interference along the way, Delphinium flew straight to the office where it had just discovered the crippled beast, then reached forward with one hand and pushed the door open.
When the office door opened, all she saw was an extremely ordinary office.
There were no corpses, no bloodstains, no ashes left by the remains of animals, only the same bright white light as in the other rooms, and various office supplies randomly placed there.
All traces disappeared, and all the clues that had been discovered before disappeared, as if they had never existed from the beginning.
However, seeing this scene, a gleam of light suddenly flashed in Delphinium's eyes.
There was no other reason than this; this was the answer she wanted.
"I see."
Speaking softly, looking at the situation in front of him, Delphinium did not take another step inside, but made a judgment with an extremely certain tone: "This is indeed the 'nest'."
The "nest" she mentioned is the iconic ability of the pupa-level beast.
As a symbol of the stage of the pupa-stage remnant beast, the common form of the "nest" is a layered and nested spatial maze that distorts the original existing space in reality.
The scene inside the "nest" is not created out of thin air, but is the product of intercepting and imitating the surrounding space based on its location, and then copying, proliferating and distorting all of it.
If the nest of a crippled beast is located in the desolate wilderness outside the city, then the form of its nest is an endless wasteland; if the nest is located in a lake, then the form of its nest is an endless ocean with no direction and can never reach the surface of the water.
Delphinium has seen such examples more than once, the most recent one even happening a few months ago.
At that time, Cui Jing discovered a pupa-stage remnant beast in the underground of Fangting City. The place where the remnant beast built its nest was the sewer of Fangting City, so the form of its nest was a series of crisscrossing sewer pipes like an ant nest.
At that time, Delphinium was just like now. It stepped into the nest of the remaining beast while tracking down clues of the remaining beast, and was thus sucked into the maze.
Starting from this premise, Cuiqiao can give a reasonable explanation for everything she discovered after entering the Bureau of Strategy - because this is not the real Bureau of Strategy at all, but a nest of remnant beasts that has been simulated to look like the Bureau of Strategy.
The spatial composition of this nest is to copy and extend the space on the first floor of the Bai'an City Strategy Bureau, and splice together countless spaces similar to the "first floor" to finally form a complete nest.
Delphinium was not trapped in a strange bureau from which she could not get out, but there were countless "first levels of strange bureaus" around her. Although these "first levels" had exactly the same spatial structure and copied the appearance of all inanimate objects, they were unable to copy living things.
Therefore, there would naturally be no corpses or bloodstains in this office, because the "first floor" where the victims were killed was not the same space as where Delphinium was.
Delphinium came here to confirm this.
However, as she solved the mystery, another problem emerged before her.
That is, this pupa-level remnant beast is definitely unusual. If it were an ordinary pupa-level remnant beast, it would definitely not be able to do such a thing.
The "nests" of ordinary remnant beasts only imitate the basic elements of the surrounding space. Similar to the camouflage of a chameleon, the purpose is to hide its nest and make it less obvious, so the nest of the remnant beast is often just a crude imitation of the original space around it.
Like this space in front of us, completely replicating the layout of an entire floor of the Strategy Bureau without any mistakes is definitely not something that the intelligence of a crippled beast can do.
With the intelligence of the Pupa-level remnant beasts, they simply cannot understand what these decorations in human buildings are, what their functions are, and how it is possible to carve every detail so delicately? This can also explain why this remnant beast was able to set up its nest next to the Strategy Bureau, but no information has been revealed to the magical girl so far - because this is definitely not a simple remnant beast nesting incident.
With the answer in mind, Delphinium naturally knew what she should do now. Without a doubt, that was to find the owner of the nest and then kill the crippled beast.
As for how to find it, the method that Delphinium thought of was very simple - release her magical perception and move forward in the direction of the strongest reaction.
In the nest, the concepts of space and time were blurred, so even Delphinium didn't know how long it had taken since she started searching.
Emptying her mind and eliminating all distracting thoughts, Delphinium remained at her most alert state, ensuring that she could detect any abnormal fluctuations in magical power in a timely manner.
However, just as she was about to expand the range of her perception once again, a very weak magical fluctuation appeared in the perception area.
This weak fluctuation was like a candle that could go out at any time. Although it was still burning, it flickered unsteadily. If Delphinium had not been highly focused, it would probably have subconsciously ignored it.
But when she stopped and checked carefully, she found that the wave was not far from where she was.
So without hesitation, Delphinium immediately moved towards the direction of the magical fluctuations it sensed.
After passing through multiple staircases and several "first floors" horizontally, she finally found the target she sensed: it was a girl sitting against the wall in an empty office.
To be exact, it was a magical girl, because Delphinium could see the gem in her hand, which looked like a flower bud.
That is a flower of the heart that has not yet bloomed, so she should be a bud-level magical girl.
The girl looked to be about 18 years old, at an age where her immaturity was gradually fading and she was beginning to become somewhat mature. From this point, it could be seen that she should be a skilled magical girl who had been working for many years.
However, her current state was not perfect. She had completely transformed back into a human, with blood oozing down from her forehead. She couldn't even maintain her transformed state, and it was obvious that her magic power had been exhausted.
Delphinium squatted down and reached out to feel the girl's breath. After finding that she was still breathing, she immediately pressed the heart gem in her hand and began to inject her magic power into it.
As the azure magic power continued to flow into the girl's hands, the heart gem gradually began to flash a dark brown light, and finally, it became shiny again.
The revival of the Heart Gem and the return of its magic power allowed the girl leaning against the wall to slowly regain consciousness. She opened her eyes from the darkness, and then her eyes met with the squatting Delphinium.
The girl was stunned for a moment, then suddenly startled and subconsciously wanted to step back, but she obviously forgot that she was in the corner, so with a "bang", the back of her head hit the wall.
The intense dull pain instantly sobered the girl up. She covered the back of her head with her hands, grimacing. After a moment, she raised her head and gave Delphinium a somewhat awkward smile: "Um, excuse me... who are you?"
"After all, I was the one who saved you just now, so I should be the one asking you this question first."
Releasing the Heart Gem from the girl's hand, Kuei-Ching stood up again: "Who are you? What are you doing in this place?"
"I?"
The girl looked at Delphinium, her expression slightly stiffened, and then she raised her voice somewhat stiffly and said, "I don't know what you are talking about."
But just as she finished saying this, she realized that Delphinium's eyes were fixed on her left hand. She turned her head slightly and saw the Heart Bud flashing in her hand, and she immediately realized that she had told a very clumsy lie.
After a subtle silence for a while, the girl smiled awkwardly again, and then answered honestly: "My code name is Dengzhan. I am a local magical girl in Baian City."
She did not insist on hiding her identity because she could see that the girl in the navy blue dress in front of her was also a magical girl, and since she chose to save her, she should not be a bad person.
After stating her identity, she looked at Delphinium again, hoping to get a corresponding answer.
What she didn't know was that Delphinium had already anticipated her answer.
:
"I am the inspector sent by the Investigation Bureau to Bai'an City."
Delphinium said succinctly: "I came here to find the investigation team that disappeared in Baian City. I have also contacted the local magical girl team. They told me that there is a missing team member named 'Dengzhan'. Is this you?"
Dengzhan was slightly stunned: "The local magical girl team, you mean..."
"Among them is a magical girl named White Thistle and a sower named Polly. Before I came here, they asked me to find you."
In order to gain the trust of the magical girl as quickly as possible, Kuei-Chi told her everything she knew and said, "It's just that I came here by accident. I didn't expect that you were here too."
"Ah! So that's how it is!"
After hearing the news about her companions, the girl was obviously excited: "Have you met Bai Ji and the others? How are they now... ahem!"
Perhaps it was because she was too excited and her movements were too violent, which affected the girl's unhealed injuries and caused her to cough violently.
Delphinium immediately pressed her shoulders and pushed her back to the wall helplessly.
"They are safe for now. Rather, the only problem is that everyone is worried about your safety."
She shook her head, and after talking about the situation of the Bai'an City team, she brought the topic back on track and asked Dengzhan: "So, can you tell me what you went through before coming here? Why did you faint here? Have you seen the whereabouts of the Cat Tail Team?"
(End of this chapter)
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