Chapter Twenty-Seven: Blessings Upon You

The Touch of the Nether Abyss, to be precise, was the first level of the Touch of the Nether Abyss.

The tentacle it summoned stood 2.73 meters tall, with a base diameter of 1.42 meters. Its frontal impact was impossible to measure, but it could easily smash through steel plates.

Its reaction speed was also impressive; from the moment the command was issued in his mind to the tentacle’s movement, there was almost no delay.

However, since a backswing was needed to build up force for a strike, at least 0.3 seconds were required for charging up.

Another flaw was the summoning time. A spatial hole had to be created on a flat surface for the tentacle to emerge, which took about 0.6 seconds in total.

In other words, from the start of summoning to the tentacle lashing the enemy, roughly one second was needed.

Although it was only a second, in a battle with a sufficiently dangerous anomaly, that single second could mean the difference between life and death, so careful timing was essential.

Additionally, once summoned, the tentacle could not move; its attack range equaled its length, so the location of the spatial hole had to be selected with care.

Chen Zi’ang experimented by attacking the tentacle; ordinary methods such as a katana slash or rubber-bullet shots barely left a mark. The Mandrake Sword could indeed damage it, yet there was no spark of energy rebounding, and instead, the tentacle returned an overwhelming sense of fury, as if warning him not to push his luck.

In other words, this thing could serve as a shield, blocking attacks from anomalies on his behalf.

Both offensive and defensive, without any apparent price—this was the perfect summoned creature. Chen Zi’ang was extremely satisfied with the power of the Touch of the Nether Abyss, intending to make it his primary offensive technique apart from the Mandrake Sword.

“Senpai! Uncle Yuu is calling us for dinner!” Energetic footsteps echoed down the stairs, accompanied by Tsukimiya Suzune’s lively voice.

Chen Zi’ang waved his hand, letting the tentacle retract into the spatial hole and vanish, then turned around.

Today, the girl wore a coffee-colored sports jacket, denim shorts revealing slender legs beneath sheer black tights, and a pair of white sneakers.

Chen Zi’ang knew nothing about fashion, but he thought that Tsukimiya dressed well, with a unique style all her own.

“Do you think my outfit looks good?” Tsukimiya Suzune clasped her hands behind her back, skipped forward like a fawn, stopped beside him, and bent over with a smile.

“It’s fine,” Chen Zi’ang offered a reserved response.

“Can’t you be a bit more honest?” Tsukimiya Suzune looked a little disappointed.

“I don’t know anything about clothes,” Chen Zi’ang said as he walked upstairs. “You can disregard my opinion.”

“Hey!” Tsukimiya Suzune drew out her voice, trotting ahead to block his path, and pouted. “If you compliment me properly, I’ll give you extra points in my heart, you know!”

“Why do you talk like an anime character?” Chen Zi’ang asked, baffled.

Tsukimiya Suzune immediately clutched her chest, making a mock-terrified face as if she’d been mortally wounded.

“Watch less anime,” Chen Zi’ang advised.

The two left the basement and ascended to the first floor, just as a girl with a backpack trudged in, looking listless.

“Eiko?” Chen Zi’ang greeted her, then introduced her to Tsukimiya Suzune. “This is Uncle Yuu’s daughter, Ashiya Eiko.”

“Oh, Chen—it’s been ages,” Ashiya Eiko replied perfunctorily, then glanced at Tsukimiya Suzune and was instantly struck by her beauty. “Are you Chen’s girlfriend?”

“Not yet,” Tsukimiya Suzune answered straightforwardly, extending her hand. “My name is Tsukimiya Suzune.”

Ashiya Eiko shook her hand dazedly, her face showing the impact of Suzune’s looks.

As the two turned to climb the stairs, Eiko suddenly snapped out of it, hurried after Chen Zi’ang, and whispered,

“What do you mean ‘not yet’?”

“…It means ‘not’,” Chen Zi’ang explained after a pause.

“Chen, you don’t like women, do you?” Ashiya Eiko asked suspiciously. “She’s so gorgeous!”

“That’s enough,” Chen Zi’ang sighed. “You know my situation at home.”

“If you like her, you should make a move. My dad’s agency is full of single men—don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

When they reached the office on the second floor, Chen Zi’ang saw that the coffee table, usually for entertaining guests, had been replaced by an enormous dining table.

A pile of convenience-store bento boxes in plastic bags was scattered across the tabletop. Several detectives from Ashiya Yuu’s agency were already present, eating from the boxes.

“Senpai,” Tsukimiya Suzune tugged his arm, “help me find the eel rice I ordered.”

“Find it yourself,” Chen Zi’ang replied helplessly.

“Come on! If you’d ordered pork cutlet, I’d help you look,” Tsukimiya Suzune insisted.

“Hey, isn’t this Officer Chen?” A flippant, mocking voice sounded nearby. “What are you doing at our agency? Oh, I heard you got suspended?”

Tsukimiya Suzune turned to see a curly-haired young man with earrings, holding a hamburger, walking towards Chen Zi’ang. His eyes soon drifted to Suzune, filling with infatuation.

“And you are?” Chen Zi’ang asked, puzzled. “Sorry, have we met?”

“I’m just a nobody—no wonder Officer Chen doesn’t remember me.” The curly-haired man snapped out of his daze, about to make another sarcastic remark, when a woman’s voice interrupted:

“That’s enough, Kazuto. There are limits to venting your rudeness.”

The man whistled, glanced longingly at Tsukimiya Suzune one more time, then turned to leave.

“Sorry about that,” the speaker, a young, capable-looking woman in a tight T-shirt and jeans, explained to Chen Zi’ang with a wry smile. “Kazuto wasn’t always like this.”

“Did I offend him before?” Chen Zi’ang asked, puzzled.

“It must have been when you were still an officer,” the woman said. “There was a case—you were dispatched to a private residence to handle an anomaly.”

“But actually, the homeowner had already hired us. Kazuto was in charge of that case.”

“I think I remember,” Chen Zi’ang mused. “I believe I saved his life that time.”

“But he wasn’t grateful, was he?” The woman smiled. “He always felt that if you hadn’t interfered, he could have handled the case alone.”

There was really no clear right or wrong here. To be strict, private organizations had no authority to handle anomalies.

But the very nature of mysteries—knowledge itself being contamination—meant that the law couldn’t explicitly ban private organizations from dealing with the supernatural. Thus, “exorcism agencies”—gray-area private outfits—emerged. The authorities neither acknowledged nor denied them, simply acting as if they didn’t exist.

“Forget it,” Chen Zi’ang shook his head.

He wasn’t about to take offense, but he wouldn’t apologize either. After all, handling cases as an officer was only right, and if Kazuto had resolved the case faster, it wouldn’t have been snatched away.

“I’m Chizakiya Senju,” the woman said, extending her hand. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“A pleasure,” Chen Zi’ang replied, shaking her hand.

“Tsukimiya Suzune, right?” Chizakiya Senju turned to Suzune. “Daughter of Tsukimiya Seishou, current director of the External Affairs Bureau.”

“How did you know?” Tsukimiya Suzune asked in surprise.

“I looked it up,” Chizakiya Senju smiled, picking up a seaweed rice ball from the table. “In our line of work, information is crucial.”

Chen Zi’ang immediately understood—Miss Chizakiya must be the intelligence officer at “Ashiya Yuu Detective Agency,” much like Ruiho Riku for Section Six.

After dinner, Ashiya Yuu suggested going out for drinks at an izakaya.

No matter their private thoughts, none would dampen the boss’s enthusiasm, so everyone agreed.

In the private room of the izakaya, after a few rounds of sake, the atmosphere quickly grew lively.

“So, Suzune-chan, what’s your relationship with Chen?” someone teased.

“He’s my mentor from the Public Security Bureau!” Tsukimiya Suzune replied with a smile.

“Eh, just a mentor? Nothing else?” a woman jeered.

Here it comes, Chen Zi’ang groaned inwardly—the worst of island nation drinking culture!

“There’s also the relationship of colleagues and senior-junior at work,” Tsukimiya Suzune dodged, playing dumb. Many of the men present secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

“All right,” Ashiya Yuu said, cigarette in hand, “since you two came together, you’ll be taking cases as partners from now on.”

At this, the faces of several male colleagues betrayed a begrudging “best wishes” laced with envy.