Chapter 70: A Terrifying Profession
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: PlumSauce
The streetlights were blurred by the heavy rain, and branches kept knocking against the windows by the roadside. Water on the ground had risen above the soles of her shoes, yet the downpour didn’t let up.
The girl clutched her satchel tightly and staggered out of a narrow alley, crossing the intersection. She was soaked to the bone, her golden hair plastered to her face, eyelashes trembling, eyes wide with sheer terror.
Behind the curtain of rain, dark shadows pursued her. They moved with inhuman agility and strength; no matter where she ran, no matter where she tried to hide, they always found her. She had already lost one shoe, and even though her bare foot was cut by debris on the ground, she refused to stop.
The wind and rain lashed at her, pushing her forward. She hunched her shoulders and ran, sobbing as she went.
Unconsciously, she reached a pitch-black building. It was a half-built skyscraper that hadn’t been completed in years, wrapped in waterproof construction sheeting, warning tape blocking the entrance. She slipped inside furtively; the entire building echoed only with her footsteps.
She hid her satchel among some construction debris. “Tonight, I have to lose them,” she muttered to the bag. “Wait here for me. I won’t leave you alone…”
The satchel let out a wailing cry: “Let me go! This is kidnapping!”
“Jeez, are you still mad? I’ve already apologized. What do you want me to do so you’ll understand that I really want to be with you?”
“Whether you mean it or not! This is kidnapping!”
“It’s an elopement, darling,” she said, placing her hands on both sides of the bag and quickly kissing it. “We’re different, the world won’t allow you and me to be together. Don’t be afraid. I will protect you…”
She concealed the satchel and stood up. Just as she was about to turn, a flash of lightning lit up the empty room. Two shadows hurled themselves at her side.
The girl screamed and nearly tripped over a wooden plank. Water dripped from her hair onto her chin, trembling as it fell. She bit her lip, turning to face her attackers.
Another flash of lightning. In the backlight, the eyes of the two pursuers and the girl glowed red. In an instant, they were upon her, while she moved like a flickering shadow, dodging.
The satchel buried in debris let out a series of howls. Ultimately, with a sharp cry of pain, the girl was pinned face-down on the floor. The man pressed on her lower back without mercy, his feet stepping on her forearms, hands gripping her neck tightly.
The other man dug the satchel out from the debris and opened the zipper.
“Oh my gosh, are you here to save me? Take me away! I’ve had enough of this lunatic!” the creature inside cried, tears streaming.
The young man holding the satchel was so startled that he threw it to the ground.
“You hurt him!” The girl struggled angrily.
The man restraining her produced a pen and waved it before her eyes. “I don’t want to use this. Please cooperate a little.”
He glanced at his flustered companion. “Carl, be careful. Mr. Frank in the bag might get hurt.”
The young man named Carl nodded. His red eyes gradually turned black, fangs retracting. He was a bloodkin, and it was clear the other two present were as well.
The other man handcuffed the girl and pushed her toward Carl, taking the satchel into his own hands. He presented credentials to the head inside: “Hello, Mr. Frank. We are from the Unthreatening Creature Protection Association. I am John Lockland.”
John wore the Unthreatening Creature Protection Association’s casual uniform, designed for mobility, along with insulated gloves. The silver pen is what he had used to scare the bloodkin girl earlier.
“Great!” Frank squirmed inside the bag. “Could you undo the blue ribbon? It’s a magical lock binding me.”
John untied the ribbon. A head slipped free of the bag and gravity, floating gently upward.
Mr. Frank was young, strikingly handsome, golden curls flowing behind him — a beauty fit for a classical painting, lips red and teeth white. Even with such remarkable looks, he was still somewhat terrifying…because he was just a head. Or rather, he had nothing but a head.
Carl glanced at him and his face paled, almost fainting on the spot.
The new address of the Unthreatening Creature Protection Association’s West Bay City office was behind an auto repair shop, a three-story detached building away from the busy downtown area.
By the time John and Carl drove back, it was already early morning. They locked the girl in an isolation room and called Frank’s family to inform them of his rescue.
A few minutes later, Frank’s older brother, Leith, arrived. Leith was just as handsome, bearing a slight resemblance to Planck 1 in his youth. He had a body, though his movements were somewhat stiff.
After the two brothers drove away, Carl held a bag of blood and asked, still shaken, “Were they really born like that?”
“Of course,” John said. “They’re Nukekubi. Didn’t you already know that before our operation?”
“It’s my first time seeing a living Nukekubi,” Carl said, hunching his shoulders. “Even though I’d seen them in reference books, seeing one in person is still shocking…”
John chuckled and nodded. “You’re far better off than I was. At least you had some mental preparation. The first time I saw them, I’d never even heard of the concept of a ‘Nukekubi.’ At that time, I was scared to death…”
Nukekubi were neither human heads detached from corpses nor parts of other creatures. They simply looked like human heads, complete with genders, and their faces were incredibly attractive. According to records, Nukekubi were first discovered in Asian countries, though people initially thought they were dead heads that could fly, not realizing they were independent living beings.
The “head” was their entire body. They had no visible limbs or torso and relied on manipulating the air around them at close range to hold objects.
Leith’s body, by contrast, was a mechanical puppet, controlled by minor magic to disguise him as human. Frank, who had been kidnapped by the female bloodkin, existed only as a head.
One defining trait of Nukekubi, regardless of gender, was their extraordinary beauty. The humans they impersonated often appeared even more captivating than ordinary humans. John and Carl had just prevented a kidnapping targeting these beautiful Nukekubi.
Dark creatures frequently abducted Nukekubi, tying anti-magic ribbons on their heads, hiding them away, and dressing and grooming them like toys. This particular kidnapper was a young female bloodkin. She had met Frank in a bar, drugged him into unconsciousness, and abducted him, claiming she acted out of true love.
Uneducated wild bloodkin often did foolish things. Some, like this female kidnapper, caused trouble out of obsession. Others engaged in reckless group feeding parties with humans, ultimately drawing the attention of the gilomorph neighbors, who reported them.
John had often considered himself lucky. His parents had taught him how to navigate life, and Coraci had taught him how to face the supernatural.
Three years had passed since the night Coraci left West Bay City.
Now John was one of the most active people in the West Bay City office. He required little rest, had exceptional stamina, and while not skilled in casting spells, could recognize and assess common magical effects. Carl, his intern, was a wild bloodkin like him, rescued from the hands of a werewolf thug just two weeks earlier by Carolyn and Liz.
Carolyn often said Carl reminded her of a younger John — shyer, even more timid. Despite being a vampire, Carl panicked at the sight of other creatures and could even be scared to the point of being incoherent when facing animated skeletons. John no longer reacted that way, though he understood Carl perfectly.
In the mornings, the bloodkin took their rest. In the afternoons, John appeared again in the office’s training area.
Five interns were about to take the written exam — there was always a demand for newcomers at the Association. John and Smith supervised the test, with Smith specifically returning from a nearby town for this.
A few years earlier, Instructor Jere had discovered some candidates cheating during training assessments. Human candidates were generally honest, but demons and bloodkin often tried to game the system. Therefore, the Association assigned bloodkin and shapeshifters to be proctors. John’s keen eyes could detect minor cheating attempts, while Smith could read minds, catching anyone entertaining dishonest thoughts.
Smith still maintained the same appearance — an early-thirties mature woman but with blonde hair. Over the past three years, he had remarried twice — once to a fellow shapeshifter (a female shapeshifter using a male human body; Smith, a male shapeshifter, using a female human body) and once to an ordinary human. Now divorced again, his new girlfriend was a fox Beastkin.
Several times, Smith had invited John out to drink, but he always declined. He claimed that no amount of alcohol could get him drunk, and what was the point? In truth, he feared interacting with Smith, especially outside of work. Without work to occupy his mind, his thoughts about Coraci would inevitably be read by Smith.
Smith excelled at reading minds but struggled to hide his expressions. Worry, pity, and sympathy were always written across his face, and he often tried to comfort John. John dreaded it, refusing to speak of Coraci or revisiting past cases they had handled together.
The exam was still underway when Carl burst through the door, frantically tumbling in. “Mr. Lockland! It’s over! Something’s wrong!”
John had to shift his gaze. One of the interns seized the opportunity to pass a crumpled note to the back.
“What happened?” John patted Carl on the shoulder. “This is the fifth time this month you’ve tumbled into a room yelling, ‘It’s over! Something’s wrong!’ What is it this time?”
Carl wore a look of utter panic. “Carolyn’s in danger.”
“She got into trouble with the Phantasmal Bugs again?”
“No, it seems she actually needs help,” Carl said, flustered and at a loss. “Three days ago, she and Miss Lizbeth went on a field assignment. They were supposed to be back today. But they haven’t returned, and we couldn’t reach them by any comms. Just now, Instructor Jere received a feather charm from Lizbeth. The writing on it is incomplete — it’s a set of coordinates.”
Smith and John exchanged a glance. By now, the interns had successfully passed another note.
“The exam’s almost over,” John muttered. “We’ll head to the conference room soon. You go ahead first.”
“Carolyn’s definitely in danger,” Carl said, frowning but resolute before leaving. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t ignore my messages. She always replies, no matter how busy. Something like ‘Go away’ or ‘Damn you, are you done yet’ or ‘Go haunt yourself’…”
After he left, Smith whispered to John, “You really need to manage your intern. He has unrealistic ideas about Carolyn…”
“I know,” John replied. “Carolyn saved him once. He’s quite attached to her somehow. I told Carl the story of Mr. Burton and the female hunter as a warning. Heaven knows if he got it.”
“You’re overthinking it,” Smith said. “The immediate problem isn’t some ‘bloodkin falls for a human girl’ tragedy — it’s making sure this idiot doesn’t provoke Carolyn into anger. His safety depends on it.”
This time, Carl wasn’t exaggerating. Lizbeth and Carolyn’s disappearance was genuinely suspicious.
Three days ago, the West Bay City office had received a call for aid from the Rangers. They requested an exorcist be temporarily assigned to the investigation.
The Rangers had been tracking an unknown dark creature when, in a tech development area bordering farmland, they discovered an abandoned corporate factory.
The site wasn’t large. According to the Rangers’ report, it seemed to be a monster base. They suspected constructs or animated gargoyles roamed there. Some magic appeared to be active inside, so the hunters didn’t dare enter and sought help from the nearest West Bay City office.
Lizbeth and Carolyn had gone to assist. On their first day, they reported a hunter had gone missing at the site and planned to continue the investigation. Then all contact ceased.
“But the coordinates Lizbeth sent aren’t of that facility,” John said, pointing to the computer screen showing a photo of the feather charm. “This place is in the city proper of West Bay City, isn’t it? Though the charm’s writing is incomplete — probably interfered with — but it does look like the city.”
“The location matching the coordinates is the office tower on Peren Street,” Instructor Jere said, opening a satellite map on his tablet. “The entire building belongs to a telecom company now. But before that, it belonged to Engrity Pharmaceuticals. That’s interesting.”
“Why is it interesting?” John asked.
“Ah, Engrity,” Smith raised an eyebrow. “Among their technicians were some magic researchers. They even applied ancient magic to medical devices and adult products. This caused quite a stir among exorcists. Some thought it was good; others worried that exposing ordinary people to magically enhanced items could be unsafe. I first came into contact with them over a decade ago.”
“So…they were like… Arcane Covenant members?”
“No, no,” Smith typed a few keys and pulled up news articles for John. “They weren’t that scary. Engrity simply declined due to mismanagement, shut down multiple product lines, sold patents to survive for a while, and eventually went bankrupt. Their magical medical devices were produced in small batches for a very wealthy few — mostly safe. That was the consensus back then. If there’s something wrong with this building now, maybe it means we didn’t know enough about them in the past.”
“Couldn’t the current telecom company be the problem?” questioned John.
“What problem? Spirits eavesdropping on wireless signals and stealing private data?”
Carl cut in. “Mr. Lockland, let’s go to Peren Street tonight!”
“No. Lathander and I will go,” John said. “You stay and write the report.”
“I have to go! This is about Carolyn…”
“Listen, Carl. I’m not much of a spellcaster. Smith’s an exorcist, but he’s negotiating with the shapeshifter district leader tonight — he can’t go. I need a competent spellcaster as a partner. Going with Lathander is the better choice.”
“Then… Okay, you and Lathander go,” Carl said after thinking about it. He clasped his hands and pleaded, “But let me come with you.”
In the end, Carl did go. After 10:30 that night, John, Carl, and the mortal-born demon Lathander met at the entrance of a family restaurant at the west end of Peren Street and headed toward the office building at the given coordinates.
Lathander remained the same as before, favoring a studded biker jacket and leather accessories with spikes. The restaurant’s staff, just finishing their shift, carefully avoided the three men, wary of trouble.
“Are we really that intimidating?” Carl complained. “It must be Lathander — he draws all the attention.”
Lathander pinched his lip ring. “I’m not dressed that extravagantly. Did you expect a demon to wear a choirboy outfit?”
“Let’s go. We’re already scary enough,” John said, quickening his pace and waving them along. “One demon and two bloodkin — isn’t that scary enough?”
Author’s Note:
Facepalm… Season Two begins~
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