Struggle in the Steam Age

With a pleasant bell, Lawrence walked into the antique shop. Unlike what he had imagined, this antique shop was not crowded and messy, but everything was neatly arranged like a jewelry store.

Of course, this does not mean that there are not many things in the store. Every cabinet and glass cabinet is filled with antiques according to the type and grade. There are even a few pieces of exquisite furniture that look old in the corner. On the side of the store, there is a small staircase leading directly to the second floor. According to the sign next to it, it is the staff's dormitory and some expensive antiques.

The bell when the door opened also alarmed the staff in the store. Just as the three of them entered the antique store, a young man with brown curly hair and some freckles on his face came over and asked. "Excuse me, are you here to-"

"Ah, that's right." Lawrence stepped forward to show his ID, and at the same time said to the clerk, "We are entrusted by the vice president of the Lime Street Self-Government Committee to solve the problem in your store a few days ago. The incident of the mysterious shadow."

"Oh, I see." After reading Lawrence's ID, the clerk told Lawrence and the others in detail about the strange things that happened here before like beans poured from a bamboo tube. After quietly listening to his narration, Lawrence and the others had some guesses about the specifics of the matter.

After the clerk had said everything, he handed Lawrence the key and they left the store. Fatina looked at the key in Lawrence's hand and asked a little strangely: "Hey, did he just believe that you gave you the key and then left? You know, when I lived in the dolphin area, those people didn't even have one Copper plates will not be lent to others.”

"That's because we also have real estate on this street, so his boss naturally trusts us." Lawrence shook his head slightly, "In this world, people often associate a person's wealth or status with his reputation .And we are easily reminiscent of our good reputation, whether it is the degree of college students or the real estate on this street.”

"Okay, let's not discuss these now." Lawrence waved his hand to signal to start the next topic, "The most important thing for us now is to find out the reason for that strange black shadow floating around in the room, and the action should be faster ...Because the clerk just said that he is more likely to fall into a state of fatigue in the room than in other places, I am worried that the black shadow is gradually becoming stronger by absorbing people's energy."

"This matter is not particularly complicated." Safiel didn't have much nervous expression on his face. "You know, he just said that all the strange situations started a week ago, and this time is already clear. We need to investigate What's going on here is best to start looking into what's out of the ordinary on the day it happened."

"I think things related to customers should be ruled out first," Lawrence said, "because according to the clerk's recollection, there was no business in the store from the day of the accident until three days forward. At most, A few customers came in to look around and then went out, without even asking him about the price of the goods."

"Therefore, the focus of our investigation should be on the goods. According to the information obtained from previous inquiries, the owner of this shop just bought a batch of goods from the southern continent just one day before the black shadow appeared," Lawrence added. "Then the day after the goods were sorted and placed on the shelves, the black shadow appeared."

Now that they had Lawrence as their suspect, they immediately went to check the items on the shelves. Fortunately, before the clerk left, he left them a receipt indicating the location of those products, so that they could check them one by one.

Since there were less than ten pieces of goods that they bought that time, Lawrence and the others quickly checked the items on the first floor. After finding nothing, Fatina was left on the first floor to monitor the situation on the first floor, while Lawrence went up to the second floor with Safir. For safety reasons, Lawrence added a [Protection from Evil] to himself before going upstairs, and then walked at the front of the team.

Just when Lawrence stepped onto the stairs on the second floor, a black figure suddenly flashed across the corridor in front of him, and he immediately felt a faint breath of death drifting past in front of him.

[Strike Undead], Lawrence subconsciously raised his fingertips and aimed at the direction of the shadow and fired a positive energy ray. As a result, the black shadow made a sound like fingernails scratching glass after being hit by the positive energy ray.

At the same time, because of this blow, the black shadow paused in the air and then quickly drifted backwards towards the other end of the corridor. However, at that moment, Lawrence and the others saw clearly the appearance of the black shadow.

Under the light of the gas lamp outside the window, they found that this monster was a tall evil spirit floating in the corridor, wearing a black tattered robe woven from plant stems and leaves like an auspicious suit. When it drifted quickly in the other direction of the corridor, everyone found that its two hands were exposed from the robe.

The skin of the monster's exposed hands was brown, as thin as if the skin was directly wrapped on the bone, and the exposed skin was covered with scabs, like the claws of a mummy dug out of the desert.

Seeing this scene, Lawrence chased after the monster in a stride, aimed at the monster and released a spell of [Strike Undead] again, and then stretched his left hand to his waist and took it out from the belt while the monster was in the air. I took a thumb-sized capsule made of hard oiled paper, crushed it and threw it out.

In an instant, a cloud of holy salt shrouded the monster from Lawrence's hands. After touching the holy salt, the place where the monster was hit immediately burst into silver light, which was as beautiful as the stars in the night sky.

But the monster didn't think the scenery was beautiful at all. As a negative energy spirit creature, it obviously lacked resistance to targeted forces like positive energy rays or holy salt. Lawrence noticed that after being hit repeatedly, the size of this spirit body shrunk visible to the naked eye, and at the same time, its overall appearance was much blurred than before.

Just as Lawrence continued to hit the third [Strike Undead], the monster suddenly took a deep breath, and then a negative energy impact fanned out from under his hood and fired towards Lawrence.

Lawrence knew something was wrong when he saw the monster take a deep breath, but considering Safiel behind him, he could only turn sideways slightly to avoid the vital point, and then released [Secondary Deflection Position] in front of him.

After a soft collision sound, the impact of negative energy shattered the force field wall formed by the magic [Secondary Deflection Position] in front of Lawrence. However, after the force field wall collapsed, the impact was exhausted, and the remaining negative energy was just a cool breeze blowing on his arms for Lawrence, who still had a layer of [Protection from Evil] magic on his body.

At this moment, Lawrence saw that the body of the monster in front of him looked blurred, and at the same time, wisps of black smoke were evaporating from the body and dissipating into the air. It was obvious that this undead monster couldn't take it anymore after eating three courses of [Strike Undead] in a row and being smeared with holy salt.

At the same time, Safir also rushed to Lawrence's side, and sprinkled the holy water in an opened bottle that emitted a faint white light on the evil spirit in front of him.

After touching the holy water in the bottle, the evil spirit finally couldn't hold on anymore. After letting out a scream, it turned into a plume of black smoke and disappeared into the air. At the same time, a trace of gray mist was sucked in by the phantom of Bai Ze in Lawrence's mind.

"Nice job." Lawrence turned his head to look at Safir who was still holding the empty bottle in his hand. "I think we've completely wiped out this evil spirit."

After hearing what Lawrence said, Safiel also showed a smile on her face, but just when she was about to open her mouth to say something, a fire burst out of a nearby cabinet.