The immediate area around the small fire was full of small bits and pieces. Bones and animal skins were the most obvious; there was a bunch of them half-buried underneath a mound of soil. Spears of a standardised length and material were bound to a tree a few metres away, something that Dia hadn't noticed earlier. Small bottles that looked like they could contain potions or medicine were lined up in neat rows, glinting faintly under the torches everyone was carrying.
"There's nothing about who this person is," Risti muttered. "No books, diaries or anything. Just a person living in the wild. For what reason would he decide to kill people?"
"Is there anything you can do to uncover his motives?" Dia asked.
"Give me a moment," Risti replied, her words a faint murmur. "Last Words."
A ball of mana appeared in front of her, one that swiftly unfolded into a piece of parchment. That sight drew everyone's eyes, and Dia found herself holding her breath as Risti read through the piece of paper.
After a few minutes, Dia prompted her gently. "So?"
Risti shook her head ruefully. "I'm getting a very odd result here. The result of my skill, Last Words — which creates a piece of paper with their literal last words written on it — are showing multiple, unique strands of thoughts. They don't seem to belong to the same person, for one."
"What do you mean?" Lucid asked.
"Well…it's the sort of result that would probably show up if lots of people, unrelated people, were talking in your head the minutes before your death," Risti replied. "Or, if you want a living example, you could try reading multiple books together at once in such a manner that the books' characters are speaking together. And at once."
"So…is he a bit off in his head?" Haber asked.
"That's the conclusion I reached," Risti replied. "I don't think such a deed should be possible either, but unless someone can give a better explanation as to why I had such a result, that's probably what's going on in his head during his last moments."
"I see." Dia rubbed her nose. "What about the rest of you?"
"Nothing from you?" Lucid asked.
"No such skills for me, I'm afraid. I'm just hired muscle here and nothing else." Dia had an apologetic smile on her face, which dissolved a moment later. "Still, the murderer's skill with a spear was beyond impressive. I can't wield a sword with my legs, but he could actually kick them at me with no issue."
"Yeah, what was that?" Haber squatted down to look at the dead man, whose face had been turned up. "I don't recognise this guy, but anyone that good with a spear has no business being unknown, even if they aren't a mana-user. With skills like this, he should have been a top mercenary, but I don't recognise him at all."
Lucid nodded. "It's as if he popped up from nowhere. Like a secret weapon of some noble family."
"Which doesn't make sense," Dia replied. "Why would a noble family reveal that they have a person capable of tossing spears like this just to kill a bunch of commoners in a small town? If he was sent to kill some bigshot, I would understand, but…"
Silence followed as everyone stared at everyone else quietly, unable to figure out the reason behind these murders. Their investigations had revealed that there was absolutely no connection between the victims, save for the fact that they lived in the same town.
The only possibility that remained was that this man wanted to take revenge on an entire town, but…
"We're not getting anywhere, I guess. Should we search the murderer's body?" Lucid asked. "Or should we bring it with us?"
"Pick up anything that might be important, and then bring the body back with us." Haber looked around the place. "I fear that this might be a conspiracy. A really skilled spear-user killing townspeople randomly, while having Clairvoyance and a skill that could cause fear…no matter what, it's clear that this man's skillset was customised for this purpose."
Dia nodded her head, as did the others.
"It'd be better if we dump this messy matter on Nachtville and the Folders' Association," said Lucid. "Shouldn't have taken this assignment, eh?"
"Well, Hulid wanted to do something good," Haber replied. "And besides, it was on the way back from Julan, so—"
"Julan?" Dia interrupted Haber's words. "You guys came from Julan?"
"Yeah. The Association was checking in on a spate of vanished people there, and we decided to take up that task," Haber replied. "Why do you ask?"
"Well…" For a moment, Dia wanted to ask if they did check the basements of the Julan mansion, but that could be pushing it. Doing so would be effectively an admission that she knew something they didn't, which could be a problem. "I heard about the enormous explosion there."
"Right, the explosion." Lucid chuckled. "It was kinda funny, now that I think about it. When we arrived there, we couldn't find anything related to those disappearances. No one wanted to talk; the Julan guards didn't seem to care about these disappearances, and the city guard was understaffed."
"What happened next?" Dia asked, curious.
"Well, a letter came to us," said Haber. "It directed us to the Julan main house, claiming that if we were nearby, we would be able to find out clues regarding those missing people."
"And the house exploded?" Risti asked.
"Right when we were waiting near the mansion. Gods. The house literally flew up into the sky, and that wasn't all. Blood and flesh fell like rain, and when we finally got to where the house used to be…" Haber grimaced. "At the basements, which were unharmed, were all kinds of comatose people. Just lying there. Some were dead. Most were dying."
"There were bones and rotting bodies there too," Lucid added. "Gods."
Dia felt revulsion churn up her stomach, and she restrained the urge to heave. All of a sudden, she understood why Lily had fled from her family — Dia would too, if her family did something as heinous as this.
"It was fortunate that the entire Julan family was wiped out with that explosion," said Haber. "Hulid was enraged at that sight. Ready to kill and everything. If there had been any survivors, dying from that explosion would have been a far better end for them."
He shivered.
For a moment, Dia couldn't quite reconcile the way Haber had described Hulid to the arrogant bi-folder she had seen in Pletsville. Was it possible that he had some personality disorder, for him to act in such a way? Or was it because his party members weren't around? Either way, it was best not to provoke a mana-user where possible, so Dia chose not to press the topic. It would not be nice if she asked the question and they told Hulid about the questions she asked.
"So, what's going to happen next?" Risti asked. "To begin with, is it appropriate for you to tell us all this?"
"No worries about that bit," Haber replied. "We've already sent a letter to the Association branch in the dukedom capital; it's almost a certainty that they would publicise the crimes of the Julan family."
"You forgot about the baron we deposed of at Pletsville," Lucid added. "I think we should call ourselves Bane of Aristocracy; other than this mission, every single one we took on ever since we enrolled under the star system has been about taking care of errant nobles."
"It's just a baron with an unimportant fief," Haber replied. "I think the news about how Aoro's dead already went out by now."
The name 'Aoro' sounded rather familiar to Dia, but she didn't pay too much attention to it. She was picking up anything that clearly didn't belong to the forest and placing them on the dead man's body. Even if they couldn't get any clues about the murderer and his motive for killing, it was possible that the guards at Nachtville might have their own means.
A thought struck her as she picked up the small empty bottles that were lying around. These bottles clearly didn't hold water; there were residues of some mystery liquid lying around.
Like potions.
Experiential Potions…
These two words echoed in Dia's mind over and over, and as she stared down at the empty bottles that had residues of some unknown liquid, everything began to make sense.
Throwing spears with such accuracy, over immense distances, was something that only someone with years of experience could do. What if, however, someone was to ingest an Experiential Potion that contained knowledge and wisdom regarding the spear?
Risti's use of Last Words, however, was the clincher. The many bottles hinted at multiple Experiential Potions; what if someone were to drink so many in rapid succession or even together? All sorts of newly-gained instincts would clash with each other, which accounted for why the man's last thoughts were so jumbled up.
Dia stared at the potion bottles for a moment, and then stuffed them into the dead man's clothes. Now wasn't the time to bring up her hypothesis.