Chapter 5: Mortal World Investigation – The Second Task

[Congratulations on passing the first assessment… Like hell you think I’d say that?!]

Even though they had successfully completed their initial mission, what Di couldn’t understand was that his raven didn’t seem particularly happy.

Instead, she excitedly pounced up and pecked wildly at his neck.

“Wait, what’s wrong with you?”

Through the connection built by spiritual power, Di could clearly feel that his partner seemed to be angry.

Shouldn’t the task have gone very smoothly?

[Chatting and conversing with a soul—what were you thinking? Adding uncertainty to your own task for no good reason, do you actually want to pass this assessment or not!]

However, after venting for a short while, the little sparrow suddenly went quiet again.

Because on second thought…

She had never encountered an intern Grim Reaper like this before.

No, even among official Grim Reapers, there probably wasn’t anyone with this style of doing things, right?

Doesn’t that mean there will be plenty of unexpected twists and fun developments ahead?

Mhm, that’s right.

Finitia, who seemed on the surface to be extremely serious and proper, was actually at her core… a fun-seeking prankster, a chaos-loving sparrow.

Putting aside the trouble and added difficulty in the tasks, her temporary partner had indeed given her plenty of anticipated fun.

For example, seeing him unable to handle a hiding soul with that pair of scissors… or perhaps inciting the souls into a riot due to provocative words during their chats.

Miss Little Sparrow, whose true nature was actually quite mischievous, could hardly wait to see the bewildered look on this kid’s face.

As for failing the task?

Impossible.

After all, wasn’t there an ultimate beginner-tutorial boss carrying him from behind?

With this mindset, the little sparrow decided not to interfere any further, sitting back to watch the situation unfold and wait for the fun.

Detecting that she had calmed down, Di let out a sigh of relief while simultaneously feeling an unexplainable chill run down his spine.

And so, things began to develop in a strange direction, leading to the scene that followed…

Inside a middle school, wearing a student uniform, Di naturally blended in among the students.

He chatted with them while using the corner of his eye to observe an inconspicuous boy.

Spiritual matters and mortal physical entities are like two parallel lines that never intersect.

Normally speaking, it is absolutely impossible for them to interfere with each other.

And being able to break through that insurmountable barrier between the two sides is precisely what the Netherworld defines as a so-called anomaly.

Mortal creatures cannot even observe spiritual bodies.

Meanwhile, spiritual bodies are limited to merely seeing them, as both sides remain un-touchable existences to one another.

Although Netherworld people and creatures are also living beings, they still essentially belong to spiritual bodies.

Therefore, even a Grim Reaper has no way to cause any impact on mortal world objects.

However, a Grim Reaper’s tasks require some level of activity or even gathering intelligence in the mortal world.

Although they can see and hear everything in the mortal world, with only one-way communication available, how could they inquire about detailed intelligence?

This problem had plagued the Netherworld for a very long time.

For a extended period, Grim Reapers could only stand aside and rely on one-way rumors to collect information, which was inefficient and extremely inaccurate.

Later, scientists in the Netherworld created a synthetic body capable of moving in the mortal world by mimicking how a living soul inhabits a physical body.

As spiritual entities, people from the Netherworld could then inhabit it and drive the synthetic body to act in the mortal world.

Of course, due to manufacturing difficulty and the need for custom fitting, this thing was quite expensive…

Even with the support of task subsidies, Di still felt a pang of pain in his wallet.

Of course, looking on the bright side, this threshold also prevented any random stray from the Netherworld from grabbing a synthetic body to mess around in the mortal world, right?

As for Fini nearby, she crouched on the windowsill, quietly observing Di’s movements.

Since she was just a Bone Sparrow, she naturally didn’t have any synthetic body.

She could only sit here watching the show, leaving Di to collect the intelligence himself.

The goal of the second assessment was investigation.

What needed investigating was a rumor of a haunting that had appeared at a middle school in the mortal world.

If you think about it carefully, which school hasn’t had rumors of a haunting?

Generally speaking, it was just a prank rumor, and the Netherworld wouldn’t take something like a child’s joke seriously at all.

But this time was different, because students had indeed suffered mysterious injuries and frights.

After receiving a report from the local patrolling Grim Reaper and assessing the difficulty and danger, the Netherworld assigned this task to the intern Grim Reaper, serving perfectly as an assessment for these rookies.

The best way to probe for intelligence is to blend in.

If you ask who is the most well-informed in a school, it would still be the students… and a certain someone’s height of barely over 1.5 meters allowed him to blend into the student group naturally.

Speaking of which, it was quite amusing.

Perhaps based on the Yin-Yang theory of a certain ancient eastern country in the mortal world, where the mortal world belongs to Yang and the Netherworld belongs to Yin?

Therefore, the Netherworld has a phenomenon that is the exact opposite of the mortal world.

That is, female individuals of Netherworld creatures are usually larger than male individuals, and Netherworld humans are no exception.

Thus, Di’s height of just over 1.5 meters was actually quite normal in the Netherworld.

To put it simply, the Netherworld is a place full of older sisters and little boys.

Things like muscular men or tiny lolis were instead rare and extremely popular attributes.

As for a certain Bone Sparrow, her tiny body had also led to considerable misunderstandings.

Even now, Di still thought his partner was a male Bone Sparrow…

How could a female Bone Sparrow be this small? She’s definitely a male, right?

[Bro, are you literally just chatting? Can you please ask about the actual business…]

Lying on the window sill listening to her temporary partner’s awkward, aimless chit-chat, Fini wished she could go up and ask about it herself.

Though on second thought, forget it.

Anyway, if he suffers a setback or hits the task deadline, he’s the unlucky one.

Seeing this kid crying and panicking when the time comes—wouldn’t that be pretty amusing to think about?

He always acts so carefree and loose; someone like that panicking must be a lot of fun.

Stretching her wings, Fini thoroughly enjoyed this personal time where no one could see her.

Her appearance was overly terrifying and scary.

Usually, even if she just showed her face, it would bring a lot of unnecessary trouble.

[Still, if he really doesn’t gather any information, won’t I have to step in and cover for this kid?]

Tidying up the bits of meat between her bone feathers, the little sparrow looked toward a small boy in the corner who seemed to be isolated.

Slacking off is slacking off, and while she couldn’t easily interfere with gathering intelligence and had to leave it to Di, Fini hadn’t done nothing at all.

The boy in front of her was the person she had designated as the most suspicious target for this mission after several days of observation.

To reach this conclusion, besides part of it coming from intuition cultivated over years of experience…

Behind this isolated young boy, wisps of uncomfortable dark aura were emanating, though so faint that it felt almost like an illusion.

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