New Gods of North America

“Hello, I apologize for intruding so late. My name is Wayne Constantine, a student at George and Anna Academy, and also a professional consultant at a detective agency. This police officer can verify my identity.

“You should be aware of the recent cases in the neighborhood, right? No, we're not here for the cases themselves. The victim, Mr. Rice, kept a highly venomous cobra, which has been confirmed to have escaped at the time of the incident.

“That kind of snake is very dangerous. Besides being lethal if it bites, its venom can also cause blindness if sprayed. To prevent it from harming anyone, the police have invited us as a professional team to conduct necessary inspections of the surrounding residents' homes, free of charge. However, the inspection will disturb you for a while, and we hope you can understand.

“By the way, this bottle contains a specially formulated potion that has a repellent effect on certain snakes. Before the venomous snake is found, if you feel anything unusual in your home, you can spray the potion in the corresponding areas and on yourself to prevent being bitten. Please also contact the police immediately, and we will come to your door for inspection as soon as possible.”

Out in the world, identities are self-proclaimed.

With the help of a police officer to vouch for him, what Wayne said could naturally be considered the truth.

Wayne also had David Mills temporarily cobble together some "equipment."

Using readily available bird-catching nets, rubber suits, hats, and gloves mixed and matched, and then tying the cuffs and trouser legs with ropes, he made several sets of things that looked a bit like beekeeping suits.

Although they were completely useless when actually encountering a venomous snake, they at least made outsiders feel at a glance that they were "somewhat capable" professionals.

Looking like it is sometimes enough.

People's thoughts are often similar in many situations.

For example, when police officers come to the door, many people, even if they really don't have any problems, may still resist a detailed inspection of their homes.

But if you tell them that there's a venomous snake in their house and they might suffer if it's not found, everyone will usually be happy to let you search carefully.

The principle behind this is perhaps similar to how shouting "Fire!" is more likely to get you rescued than shouting "Help!" when encountering a gangster in the street late at night.

After Wayne demonstrated a sample at the first house,

The detectives and the people drawn from David Mills' team were mixed and divided into several groups.

The division of labor for each group was roughly like this:

Those who were better at dealing with people would be the team leaders, responsible for communicating with the homeowners or servants and stewards.

Those with police credentials would be the witnesses, both dispelling the other party's concerns and highlighting the search team as a "third party."

There were also professional personnel wearing "protective suits," other personnel cooperating and assisting, and the indispensable exorcist priests in each team, who would all take the opportunity to inspect everywhere in other people's homes.

What was truly indispensable here were the exorcist priests who specialized in dealing with evil spirits, or extraordinary individuals like Wayne who could sense evil spirits, or extraordinary individuals like Inesha and Lina with sufficiently high "spiritual sense."

David Mills had quite a few clergy members under his command, but just like "being able to shoot wild animals with a gun" doesn't mean "being able to track and hunt in the forest,"

"Having a way to deal with evil spirits" and "being able to detect hidden evil spirits" are not entirely the same thing.

Even in the church, there don't seem to be many exorcist priests and extraordinary individuals with targeted abilities and high spiritual sense. David Mills doesn't even have enough independent exorcist priests to go around.

—There are slightly more exorcist priests who can "prescribe medicine according to the illness," but there are far fewer exorcist priests who can "accurately find the lesions and diagnose the disease" based on the situation.

Wayne thought for a while and then took the opportunity to make a suggestion to David Mills for personal gain:

“Time is of the essence. I know that the academy church should have people who can sense the identities of extraordinary individuals. Theoretically, if they can sense extraordinary individuals, then perhaps they can also detect evil spirits.

“Since Georgeberg's exorcism department needs it, the academy church has no reason to refuse to provide assistance at this time. Why don't you try notifying Pastor Pasil and have him send people over?”

David Mills was a simple and honest man who thought that what Wayne said made sense, so he wrote a note and had someone contact him.

Then, the teams that could be fully staffed set off one after another, and the teams that were still missing key personnel continued to wait for people.

They strived to get a preliminary understanding as soon as possible from near to far, and also laid the groundwork for the surrounding neighbors, so that if they really found clues in someone's home, it wouldn't seem too abrupt for the main force to rush over.

……

Compared to wealthy people's estates, middle-class families usually don't hire too many servants, so they often have to deal directly with the homeowners.

Wayne's group went to two houses in succession, and the owner of one of them had even met Wayne in the church in Georgeberg, so the search went relatively smoothly.

Clergy members without targeted extraordinary abilities or insufficient spiritual sense used a special oil lamp, which was a "standard church equipment" at this time.

It looked similar to an ordinary kerosene lamp on the market, but the oil was actually specially processed. It was said that when it was close enough to most evil spirits, or when evil spirits "manifested," the flame in the lampshade would show abnormalities, which could be used to judge the surrounding situation.

However, precisely because the flame of this thing was more "sensitive,"

It would actually be easier to extinguish than ordinary flames when encountering evil spirits.

Wayne felt that only the clergy members of the church would dare to use this thing.

It was already dangerous enough to encounter evil spirits, and this thing would suddenly "turn off the lights." If it were in a horror movie, it would probably be equivalent to the screen going black as soon as a ghost appeared.

In this situation, ordinary people would probably have no other ending than to die clearly and plainly…

After being divided into small teams, the search took longer than expected.

During internal training, the church stipulated that the effective judgment range of the "standard oil lamp" was two yards, which was about 1.8 meters.

To confirm whether there was a problem in a larger room, the safe approach was to at least walk around the room along the wall with the oil lamp, and stop from time to time to eliminate the interference of the flame shaking caused by walking.

Wayne's simple line "insight" ability could sometimes see that there were problems in certain places,

But if it was the other way around, Wayne wouldn't dare to be so sure. What if he felt that there was no problem, but there was actually a problem, then things would be bad.

Therefore, for the sake of prudence, after Wayne had roughly looked at it, he still had to wait for the other inspection members in the team to go over it with the oil lamp.

From knocking on the door and introducing themselves to completing the final inspection and completely confirming that a house was "clean," it would take at least thirty to forty minutes.

When it was almost twelve o'clock, Wayne's group finally found the fourth house.

This time, before Wayne even walked to the front of the house to knock on the door, he felt that something was a little wrong in the small garden.

Taking a quick look by the light, there was a dog house made of wooden planks in the small garden, which was also painted. Judging by the size, it was at least a medium-sized dog, and there was unfinished food in the food bowl next to it.

If it was a well-trained hunting dog, it might not bark randomly under normal circumstances,

But now that outsiders had entered the yard, why didn't the dog react at all?