For an ordinary person, this would have been an unimaginable sight.
Someone who had looked like a perfectly normal girl just a moment ago suddenly split open down the middle, and a grotesque creature came crawling out from within. Its head was covered in tendrils, its abdomen was lined with arthropod legs that writhed like a cockroach's, and from its back sprouted wings like those of a mosquito...…
Well, just an ordinary alien, then.
That also explained why the Baskerville ancestor had lost. Being able to exorcise demons was one thing — fighting an alien was something else entirely.
Though people often confused demons and aliens, they were in fact different...…well, actually, were they really that different?
"A Mi-Go, just as I thought!"
Duanmu Huai was completely unsurprised by the sudden transformation before him. In truth, the moment he had seen the strange device left behind by the Baskerville family ancestor, he had immediately deduced the true identity of the mastermind behind it all — the reason was simple: the Mi-Go's brain cylinder was far too famous for anyone who knew of it to mistake.
The Mi-Go — an alien race from the stars. Their history on this planet was as long as that of the Old Ones, and they had even gone to war with the Old Ones over territorial disputes at one point. Now they hid among humanity just like this, going about their own affairs.
Strictly speaking, the Mi-Go were not an alien race that posed a threat to human civilization the way the Shoggoths did. Their primary purpose on this planet was mining, and occasionally they would remove the brains of any humans who stumbled upon their secrets, place them in cylinders, and carry them away...…of course, from the [Inquisition]'s perspective, none of that mattered.
Any alien race that dared to harm humans had only one fate waiting for them!
And among all the creatures in this world, the Mi-Go ranked in the top three in terms of player priority!
The reason was equally simple. Unlike the Deep Ones or Void Ghosts they had dealt with before, the Mi-Go were an alien civilization. Though their bodies similarly broke down and dissolved upon death, their belongings were far less troublesome than the Deep Ones' trinkets or the Void Ghost remains that could attract [Warp] entities — and if handed over to the Foundation, they could fetch a tremendous number of [points].
For exactly this reason, from a player's perspective, the Mi-Go were among the top three most desirable targets on the kill-and-loot list.
For reference, the number one spot belonged to the Great Race of Yith.
The reason was also simple — the Great Race of Yith used mental exchange to transfer themselves into human bodies, where they would absorb vast quantities of human knowledge while also physically conditioning the body they occupied. And so, some players with mediocre physical stats had hit upon this particular path to easy fortune.
If you'd just arrived in this world with no money, no knowledge, and no physique — don't worry. Just find a Great Race transfer device, undergo a mental exchange with a member of the Great Race, slack off for ten years in the Great Race's world, then return to your own body — and you'd find it had been transformed into one that was highly educated, physically fit, and quite wealthy.
Getting a member of the Great Race to work for free, building your body, even studying on your behalf, while you yourself just loafed around — was there any better deal than that?
And since the Great Race, in order to avoid being detected, would not maintain long-term relationships with specific people during the possession period, there would be no social relationship crises to deal with either. It was absolutely perfect!
Duanmu Huai was a player too, and so when he learned there was a Mi-Go on this land, his first instinct was — time to kill and loot!
Mi-Go typically lived under assumed identities deep in the mountains, and for a straightforward reason — on one hand they didn't want too much contact with humans and risk being exposed, and on the other, this was where they mined and refined minerals, or conducted what amounted to remote field research. Whether it was mining or research, the Mi-Go were bound to have brought along their alien technological equipment.
If he could get his hands on that stuff and trade it with the Foundation...…heh heh heh, a promotion and a fortune were just within reach!
For exactly this reason, whether as an [Inquisitor], an investigator, or a player, Duanmu Huai was absolutely not going to let any Mi-Go that dared to show up under his nose walk away!
Like right now!
"HAAH!!!"
As the Mi-Go launched itself at him, Duanmu Huai let out a roar and thrust his hand out, grabbing it by the head. The Mi-Go's head resembled a fly's head without compound eyes, connected to the body by a long, thin neck, with synaptic protrusions covering the skull — but for Duanmu Huai, this was nothing worth fearing. He grabbed the head in his grip and wrenched hard.
"RIIIP!!!"
In the next instant, the Mi-Go's head was torn clean off by Duanmu Huai's bare hands. Its body lurched forward and was sent tumbling by a kick. Duanmu Huai didn't even glance at the corpse — he charged straight into the inner room. He hadn't forgotten that there was still another creature hiding here, disguised as a human.
"BZZZZZ—————!!!"
Sure enough, the moment Duanmu Huai burst into the inner room, accompanied by a sound like the whirring of a mosquito's wings, a shadow suddenly leaped from the bed and made a dash for the window.
Not so fast!
Like the Old Ones, the Mi-Go possessed wings and the ability to fly — but unlike the Old Ones, they hadn't lost this ability through comfortable living and degeneration. The single greatest difficulty in catching a Mi-Go was that they could fly, a lesson countless players had learned through painful experience. Outside of a small number of players, most couldn't fly — so against an airborne Mi-Go, the immediate disadvantage was obvious.
Duanmu Huai had no desire to fight a Mi-Go in the air either, so the instant he saw it trying to flee, he let out a roar, lunged forward, reached out, and seized the Mi-Go's frantically beating wings in an iron grip — then yanked with all his strength.
"———————!!!!"
A hideous, terrifying, piercing shriek erupted from the Mi-Go's mouth as it was flung headfirst out through the window and crashed to the ground outside. Duanmu Huai had absolutely no intention of letting it off — he raised his fist high and brought it hammering down.
"SPLAT!!"
His fist, hard as iron, drove straight through the Mi-Go's thick biological armor and plunged into the body beneath. Then Duanmu Huai yanked outward — and like pulling the vein from a shrimp, he ripped the Mi-Go's dorsal nerve cord clean out of its back!!
"———! ———!!"
As an alien being, the Mi-Go had probably never been subjected to anything like this. The screams now coming from its mouth were entirely distorted and unrecognizable, enough to startle a wide flock of birds from the surrounding forest. Duanmu Huai, however, paid it no mind, brought his fist down one more time, and smashed the Mi-Go's mouthparts to pieces. The Mi-Go collapsed to the ground and went still.
"Excellent! Got it!"
Seeing this, Duanmu Huai let out a breath.
Killing it outright would have been simple enough. But the Mi-Go, while an alien being, was actually more accurately classified as a fungal organism...…hm?
That sounds a bit like a certain Greenskin?
...…well, set that aside for now.
In any case — if it were simply killed, the Mi-Go's body would eventually break down and dissolve. But as long as it was alive, it wouldn't.
In the game, players had gone to considerable lengths to capture Mi-Go alive. The reason was simple — unlike Cthulhu, a sealed Evil God, or Void Ghosts and other [Warp] entities, the Mi-Go's domain currently lay within the solar system itself. Whether humanity would eventually come to blows with the Mi-Go was uncertain, but learning as much as possible about an alien race was always preferable. If players had the ability to summon a fleet, they'd naturally want to wipe the Mi-Go out entirely.
Unfortunately, in this world, players didn't have the power to summon fleets, and from that perspective, it was crucial to advance this world's understanding and knowledge of the Mi-Go.
It was only later that players discovered that pulling out the Mi-Go's dorsal nerve center — like deveining a shrimp — could leave it completely immobilized while still alive. And selling a living Mi-Go to the Foundation could net a massive number of [points] — after all, as an alien being, the Mi-Go's inherent danger level was relatively low, and handing one over wouldn't cause catastrophic harm.
Well, only relatively low.
After all, these alien bastards worshipped Shub-Niggurath and Nyarlathotep. Just hearing those two names was enough to tell you how much trouble this race could cause.
The Baskerville ancestor had probably caught the Mi-Go's attention for exactly this reason. In the beginning, the Mi-Go may have only intended to use the ancestor's abilities to help them collect certain things — but instead they had inadvertently aroused his suspicions, and he had ultimately uncovered the truth of what the Mi-Go were hiding.
Of course, in that era, the ancestor had probably simply assumed the outwardly alien-looking Mi-Go was some kind of demon...…but unfortunately, a demon and an alien were ultimately two different things.
After that, the ancestor was defeated by the Mi-Go and modified into something resembling a werewolf. As for why it had been attacking the Baskerville descendants — perhaps to bury the secret? After all, once every last member of the Baskerville family was dead, the Mi-Go's secret would never be exposed.
The Mi-Go race, who worshipped Shub-Niggurath, possessed extremely advanced biotechnology. That they could do something like that was not particularly surprising.
Having dealt with both Mi-Go, Duanmu Huai returned to the house.
As mentioned before, this was a remote, isolated farmstead-like dwelling deep in the mountains. From the outside it looked completely unremarkable. But before long, Duanmu Huai discovered a hidden chamber beneath the farmstead's cellar, inside which he found a collection of strange objects.
"A research station, huh. Doesn't feel like it'll be worth much."
Looking at the instruments before him — all made of metal, completely devoid of any futuristic aesthetic, looking more like some twisted elementary school craft project — Duanmu Huai wore an expression of distaste. What he would have preferred was to find the Mi-Go's mining station. The refined minerals there would have been far more valuable. The alien technological devices themselves were too far beyond human civilization to actually use — even if the Foundation recovered them, they'd be little more than a novelty, with no practical application.
After all, humans didn't have mosquito wings or cockroach legs.
Oh well, this was better than nothing.
Duanmu Huai used the farmstead's telephone to contact the Foundation.
"Ring...…ring...…ring...…"
After what sounded like a busy signal rang nine times, the sound abruptly cut out, as though the call had been disconnected. Duanmu Huai paid it no mind and spoke.
"I've captured a Mi-Go and raided their research station. Come pick it up if you want it. The location is...…"
After giving a detailed account of the location, there was a brief silence from the other end.
"Please stand by."
With that, the call was disconnected.
About half an hour later, accompanied by a thunderous roar, Duanmu Huai watched several helicopters fly over and circle to a hover above the farmstead. Dozens of fully armed soldiers rappelled down on ropes and quickly assembled before him. Duanmu Huai gave the Mi-Go — limp as a dead fish with its nerve center removed — a kick and sent it sliding to their feet.
"That's the one."
The other Mi-Go, the one whose head Duanmu Huai had twisted off, had naturally long since dissolved.
"...…"
No one spoke. The soldier at the front gave Duanmu Huai a single nod, and Duanmu Huai waved his hand.
"I'll leave you to it. This place is yours."
What the Foundation chose to do with everything here was none of his concern. He made his way back to Baskerville Manor and found the Baroness, informing her of how things had concluded.
"It's difficult to explain in full detail, but I believe everything should now be resolved."
Since the Mi-Go hadn't kept diaries the way humans did, Duanmu Huai had no way to hear the full account of events from them directly. But based on the visions he had seen earlier and everything that had followed, he was confident the picture was accurate to within a fair margin.
So as matters currently stood, the Baskerville family's troubles could be considered resolved.
"Is that so...…"
Hearing Duanmu Huai's words, the Baroness and the old butler wore somewhat complicated expressions. After all, they had just discovered the secret chamber downstairs, learned of the ancestor's hidden history, and then Duanmu Huai had suddenly asked about the Dominic family mentioned in the records, stepped out without another word, and returned to tell them it was all over...…
Well, anyone who wasn't a complete fool could piece together roughly what had happened.
"If, if I may ask...…Mr. Duanmu, could it be that you too are an exorcist, like our ancestor?"
"Something like that. There are quite a few people doing similar work in this world. Of course, it's also quite dangerous. As you've seen, situations like your ancestor's — dying by your own miscalculation — are actually not that uncommon."
Duanmu Huai spread his hands as he spoke.
"So I would say — if there's no particular reason to get involved, don't worry too much about it and just live however feels right to you. This line of work is dangerous, as you've seen firsthand — one wrong move and entire bloodlines can be wiped out."
Duanmu Huai had more or less guessed what the Baroness might be thinking — probably something about honoring the ancestor's legacy and becoming an investigator or exorcist herself.
Honestly though, Duanmu Huai did not recommend it. Ordinary inheritances were one thing, but this kind of work had a way of getting entire family lines killed off. Take the Baskervilles — if not for the Baroness already carrying a child, their bloodline might well have ended entirely by now.
Getting dragged in was one thing, but now that things had been resolved, in Duanmu Huai's view there was no reason to go voluntarily jumping back into the deep end.
After all, most investigators in this world had gotten involved in the first place because they were forced into it.
The ones who threw themselves in voluntarily...…well, you'd have to start wondering whether there was something in their bloodline. Especially those who kept having dreams about diving into the ocean — that was enough to make you suspect they might have some Deep One heritage...…
Whether it was because Duanmu Huai had talked her out of it or not, the Baroness didn't bring the topic up again afterward. And Duanmu Huai's commission could at last be considered complete and closed.
And so, a relatively peaceful Christmas came to an end.
The reason it was only relatively peaceful was that the commotion during Christmas night had still unsettled the townspeople considerably. After all, the sudden sound of what seemed like a hundred dogs barking all at once had sent many residents into a panic, and some had even called the police — though of course, with the thick fog, the officers hadn't dared to venture out either. In the end, the town's residents greeted the new morning in a state of frightened unease.
Of course, nothing had actually been found.
Compared to Duanmu Huai, it was Mary who was looking truly exhausted — honestly, being chased around outside by those creatures was nothing, she was used to it by now. But upon returning to Baskerville Manor, being discovered by her friends to have gone out alone with a man in the middle of the night was a different matter entirely. Though Mary had solemnly explained it was only a walk, the result was...…
"A young lady going out alone with a gentleman in the middle of the night is absolutely not acceptable!"
"That's right, Ashe was so worried — what if something had happened to Mary!"
Um...…you don't think Mr. Duanmu would have done anything improper to me, do you.
Looking at her friends' worried faces, Mary felt...…there was nothing she could say.
Though strictly speaking, the moment Duanmu Huai had slung her over his shoulder like a sack of rice, she had already crossed a line. If Shirley had seen that, she probably would have fainted on the spot.
But unfortunately, Duanmu Huai seemed completely oblivious to Mary's predicament, and after Christmas he left with Lorena. The Baroness, feeling lonely at their departure, then invited Shirley and the others to stay on for quite a few more days...…but that was a story for another time.
When Duanmu Huai returned to his residence in the foggy city, he found a black envelope waiting for him, unsigned.
Inside it was a single card — marked with a [Class-C] personnel designation.
"Haah, done. This trip wasn't wasted after all."
Looking at the card in his hand, Duanmu Huai let out a breath. With this, he had been promoted from [Class-D] to [Class-C] personnel — his clearance had risen to the point where he could now access certain less dangerous containment objects, and he could even obtain a degree of specialized equipment.
This meant he was one step closer to getting his hands on the fabrication blueprint for the Reality Anchor.
(End of Chapter)