Chapter 24: The Little Thing Still Looks This Peculiar

An Earth Spirit, as the name implies, was a special type of spirit bound to a specific region.

Not only were there widespread legends about them, but in certain places in the Living Realm, they were even enshrined and worshiped as deities.

In reality, however, according to the understanding of Underworlders, this was merely a regional anomalous spirit…

Formed through the overflow of human spiritual power, gathering together using rumors of that nature as a guiding point.

Anomalous spirits possessed no rationality, acting purely on instinct.

Far from offering blessings, once developed to a certain point, they would even actively prey upon and absorb surrounding spiritual power to sustain their own existence.

“If its range of activity is limited merely to a construction site… and even restricted to just a few floors, then its strength won’t be very high.”

Explaining and analyzing for Tei based on knowledge learned at school, Belladonna knew this guy couldn’t possibly understand the classification and nature of those common anomalous spirits.

“Generally speaking—actually, forget ‘generally’, this is an absolute ironclad rule that anomalous spirits can’t break through, and it’s also an important method for us to analyze their strength and danger.”

Why did Reapers have to thoroughly figure out the conditions and patterns of every supernatural incident before taking action?

Naturally, it wasn’t just to locate the target; more importantly, this information allowed them to judge the anomalous spirit’s strength.

The more complex the appearance conditions and behavioral patterns, the more exaggerated the anomalous spirit’s strength was.

Some could even convert these appearance conditions into a cause-and-effect class ability belonging to themselves.

Take, for instance, a famous high-risk anomalous spirit in the Underworld that had once taken the lives of countless Reapers before finally being slain by several legends—the Domain Garden Calamity.

Its title sounded rather lame, and its appearance conditions were demanding enough to require walking back and forth a set number of steps on a specific staircase, at a designated park location, at a specific time, just to enter the special realm where it existed.

Its terror lay precisely in these patterns: only after entering could one interfere with and combat it at the inverted time and opposite location.

If a Reaper entered without knowing this and acted recklessly, they could only watch their scythe swing through empty air without making a sliver of contact, suffering a one-sided slaughter by the opponent.

Conversely, the simpler an anomalous spirit’s appearance conditions and behavioral patterns were, the weaker it would be.

For an anomalous spirit like an Earth Spirit, the method of judgment was even simpler.

One only needed to judge the opponent’s range of activity.

The larger the active range of such an anomalous spirit, the higher its strength and danger would be…

One that could only move on specific floors within a certain building would never be strong by any stretch.

“However, this one should be a composite anomalous spirit—an existence combining part of an Earth Spirit’s nature. At the same time, it has conditions restricting time and personnel, combined with the fact that the site used to be a graveyard…”

Combining these pieces of information, Belladonna easily judged that the opponent’s ability manifestation should be related to skeletons.

It wouldn’t be surprising if this anomalous spirit appeared in the form of multiple skeletons.

“Be that as it may, Top Student, didn’t Little Phini already have someone summarize and write down everything you just said on this slip of paper?”

Pointing at the contents on the paper, Tei’s undercut completely ruined Belladonna’s moment—couldn’t you just let me show off my analytical skills in front of you?!

Your raven already finished all the work, so how am I supposed to show off now!

“Speaking of which, why did Phini have someone write it on a piece of paper? Couldn’t she use Spirit-Manifesting Silk?”

Belladonna observed that slip of paper repeatedly for a long while, confirming it was merely ordinary paper and ordinary ink handwriting, which was precisely what made her feel puzzled.

Although birds in the Underworld could understand human language, expressing their thoughts to humans remained exceptionally difficult due to the language barrier—otherwise, Spirit-Manifesting Silk wouldn’t exist.

So setting aside the possibility of not being able to afford Spirit-Manifesting Silk, Belladonna couldn’t understand why Phinitia would take such a long detour and choose the troublesome form of having someone act as a scribe to write down intel.

If not using Spirit-Manifesting Silk, the only option was to have a raven that had grown strong enough to shapeshift write out human characters in physical form.

However, high-level big shots of that caliber weren’t easy to come by.

Every single Reaper partnered with a raven capable of shapeshifting was either a legend or a top-tier expert.

“Is your bird’s network really that impressive? Or does she have some other method of communication we don’t know about?”

“I think it’s simply because Little Phini is a skeletal raven, not a spiritual raven… so she can’t use Spirit-Manifesting Silk.”

Stated that way, it seemed to make sense?

It wasn’t a crucial matter anyway, so after a moment of minor doubt, the topic was brushed aside.

What the two needed to do next was to verify the feasibility and authenticity of this intel.

Of course, they weren’t doubting that a certain little bird would lie to or set them up; rather, gathered intel mostly originated from rumors passed down by others, making misinterpretations and omissions inevitable.

Every single anomalous spirit was exceptionally cunning.

A tiny oversight could lead to irreversible consequences—otherwise, Reapers wouldn’t be the number one high-risk profession in the Underworld.

“All in all, we’ll go check it out tonight, right? So should we take a nap first? Anyway, Little Phini is sleeping too, so sleeping now will leave us energized for tonight.”

“If you say things like that, I can report you for workplace harassment, you know.”

Looking at the improper guy before her tapping the bed as if inviting her over, Belladonna really wanted to smack his head twice with her scythe.

“Hey, Top Student, the two of us are incompatible… I like them big! Besides, even though you’re both tiny, compared to you, I still prefer that alluring magician a bit more.”

“Heh, you’re not much taller yourself, thanks.”

Of course, this was just stubborn talk.

Tei’s height was considered normal for guys in the Underworld, whereas Belladonna was another story…

“Alright, enough talk, I’m heading off to rest. Don’t fail to wake up tonight, set your own alarm—I won’t be calling you when the time comes.”

Knowing full well that continuing this topic would only cause her to lose face, a certain young lady immediately skipped the subject, opened the door, and slipped back to her own room.

Seeing this, Hydra, standing on the table, bowed slightly toward Tei in a polite gesture, then flapped its wings and flew out to chase after that petite young lady.

“Ha~ Big cat loli… Used to chase birds around like a cat, and now she can mix around with spiritual ravens too.”

Teasing lightly, Tei reached out and picked up Phini, who had been resting on his shoulder all this time.

Rarely seeing his partner asleep like this, he couldn’t help but carefully observe his little companion.

Petiteness was often linked with cuteness, but setting that aside for this terrifying zombie-like skeleton appearance was for the best.

Even though she was a bird, she didn’t have a single feather on her, possessing only skeleton structures shaped like feathers on her wings, leaving her entire body stark bare.

Her protruding shoulder blades extended downward even longer than her legs.

At this moment, what supported her body on Tei’s hand wasn’t even Phini’s claws, but those two deformed bones.

Given that Underworld creatures generally possessed absurdly high beauty due to abundant spiritual power, how could a tiny, hideous creature like a skeletal raven—which looked as though it had offended the Underworld itself—ever be born?

“Can only say the little thing really looks f*cking peculiar, no wonder people dislike her…”

After staring for a long time, Tei could only offer an evaluation that was no different from anyone else’s…

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