Licencia, the City of Trades. Home to tens of thousands of residents, the city could be called a regional capital of sorts in the dukedom of Istrel, with lots and lots of streets. These streets were usually full of people, but for one particular nameless street, a certain house had been given a wide berth.
Claud didn't need to sniff too hard to know why.
The stench of a dead body was hanging around the air. Judging from the nauseating smell, the body had been rotting for upwards of a week, which begged the question of why no one had noticed it earlier.
Or did people notice, but not bother themselves to report upwards until the smell was too great? Claud didn't know.
To his side, Lily scrunched up her nose.
"Is the smell too strong for you?" Claud asked. "If it is, you should consider breathing through your mouth instead. It's better…although I did hear of soldiers complaining about ingesting the wrong thing while digging a latrine."
"We're getting close to the house in question," Lily replied, her voice stilted. "If I open my mouth now, I might catch something nasty."
Claud rolled his eyes. "You could ask me for help, though. The moment I heard it was a murder case, I searched through my little trove of artefacts and found something."
"What did you find?"
"Some one-use tools." Claud fished out two masks. They weren't the normal masks that offered full face coverage, however. The masks he had only covered the nose and the mouth, which meant that one couldn't quite use it to actually do any dark deeds.
"One-use?"
"Yeah. They can only be used once. I think I brought them a year or two ago for some reason I can't quite remember." Claud handed a mask over to Lily, and then pulled on the other. The stench immediately receded, replaced with a fragrant herbal scent that made Claud relax. "See? Is this better?"
Lily nodded.
"Excellent." Claud touched the mask on his face gingerly. Now that he was wearing one of these masks, he felt surprisingly comfortable. At ease, even. Was this a sign that he preferred wearing masks where possible? Claud didn't know, but it sure felt that way.
Before long, the two of them arrived at their destination. It wasn't too hard to spot, considering that an investigation by the city guards were well underway. Clad in the usual drab brown, two sentinels stood at the small garden gate at the side, their eyes alight with caution.
"I'm Claud, and this is Lily." Nodding at the two guards, he produced the small seal that Count Nightfall had issued to the Moon Lords. "We're here to assist in the investigation."
"I understand, sir."
"Thank you for your hard work." Claud nodded at the two guards.
"Captain Blake is already investigating the murder inside," said one of the guards. "A word of warning. Announce your presence before entering, or else the consequences might be a bit painful."
"Painful?" Claud tilted his head. "Alright, thank you for your advice."
Stepping through the gate, the two headed for the house's front door. Wild weeds flanked the only path there, twirling around any little flowers that were still struggling to eke out a living.
It was a sad sight to see, a notion made especially poignant given Claud's knowledge of what they were about to investigate later.
Knocking at the door, Claud identified himself and Lily as investigators from the city administration itself, before stepping in. He was very aware that there was a difference between the city guards and Licencia's administration itself — the people investigating earlier belonged to the former, while he and Lily belonged to the latter. It would not do to start off on the wrong foot, at the very least.
A nauseating sight entered his vision as he stepped into the living room. He had read the initial reports, along with Lily, but the reports had been…underwhelming.
In the centre of the living room was a man strapped to a chair. Chains of all kinds tied him down to it, and he was missing his feet and hands. The top half of his head had been neatly severed, in a way that reminded Claud of his own Box-opener when it cut through the Julan treasury walls, revealing the gory inwards of Zulan Patra's skull.
Or it would have, if not for the fact that there was nothing there. The entire upper half of Zulan Patra's skull was gone, leaving behind a gaping hollow and an agonised expression on Zulan Patra's face, which was the only part that hadn't rotted. It was a stomach-churning sight, and to his right, Lily swayed on the spot lightly.
What kind of monster would do something like this? It was one thing to kill someone, but another to subdue a four-fold mana-user, bind him in such a manner, and then cut off part of his head to extract the brain inside. The murderer had even preserved the dead man's facial expression at the time of his death.
Even if Zulan Patra was an arrogant prick, no one deserved to die in such a manner.
"Moons…" Claud murmured.
A small hand grabbed his own, and Claud turned to look at the pale, white-faced Lily. Patting her shoulder with his free hand, he guided her gently along to the person who seemed like the commander of the whole investigation, a burly man that was staring at the corpse.
"Captain Blake."
The man grunted, and then got up. "Claud, Lily. Thank you for taking the time to come down here."
"It is us who should be thanking you for your hard work," Claud replied. "But I fear this isn't the time for pleasantries."
"My thoughts exactly," the captain replied. He turned back to the mutilated corpse that once used to be Zulan Patra, before making a small grimace. "This is one of the worst ways to die. I'd rather be blown up on the spot, rather than being strapped to a chair and sliced open."
"Sliced open?" Lily asked.
"Yes." He pointed at the putrefying torso of the corpse. "The murderer took out most of the internal organs for some inane, incomprehensible purpose. It's not obvious at first glance, but you can see the fine slit here. If I tug on it, you two will have a graphic lesson on what the human body looks like from the inside."
Claud wanted to throw up, but since he was wearing a one-use mask, he could only suppress the urge to vomit. Taking a deep breath — which was fortunately still herbal-scented — he stared at the corpse and looked at it properly. This was no time to reminisce about how this man had nearly sniffed him out, but he couldn't help but have mixed feelings about Zulan Patra's death.
Would anyone link it to the Thief of Time? The chances of that happening weren't zero by any chance, after all. How many people could cripple and capture Zulan Patra in such a fashion?
"Anyway," continued Captain Blake, who was unaware of Claud's deliberations, "I suspect that this whole thing was done to facilitate a skill's acquisition condition."
"Acquisition condition?" Lily asked.
Claud nodded. "Some skills cannot be obtained through inheritance or observation, only purely through act and deed alone. There are some famous examples, like Water Breathing, which allows you to breath in water…but the acquisition method is ridiculously convoluted."
Another such skill was Flight, whose acquisition conditions were being in freefall and a helpful dose of luck. However, choking on water and falling through the air was nothing compared to killing someone and taking out their organs, before chopping off half their head to take out the brain inside.
"What kind of monster would do that? To do all…" Lily's words cut off for a moment, and she gestured randomly. "Just for a skill? Is the life of someone worth less than a skill?"
"My sentiments exactly," Claud muttered.
It went against everything he stood for. Claud loved life. To be alive and conscious like he was right now was a miracle of miracles. The fact that he had a body that was capable of understanding the beauty of the world was nothing but a wonder.
Why would anyone want to cruelly crush such a phenomenon? To deprive others of their lives? This wasn't the first time Claud had felt this indignant — such feelings were why he had headed over to Julan, despite the risk of venturing out — but he had never seen such a flagrant demeaning of life for a long time.
He gripped his fist and turned to the corpse, inclining his head ever so slightly.
"We might not be able to find the culprit," Captain Blake muttered. "That bastard's trail has gone cold long ago. Moons take the killer, whoever it is."
"He's not the only one either too, right?" Lily asked.
"Yes. The owner of this house…probably, anyway." The captain grimaced once more. "He's been dead for at least ten days. There's nothing much left to look at, but at least his head is complete."
"Why is there such a difference?" Claud asked.
"Maybe there's a skill whose acquisition conditions is plucking out the brains of a mana-user," Captain Blake replied. "I hope to the Moons that there's no such skill, but if there is, the killer might just have nabbed it."
"That doesn't sound like good news."
"Well, the killer would have to lose a skill to learn it," the captain replied. "And besides, what kind of distorted, perverse skill would one learn from doing such a thing?"
After sighing in accord, Claud and Lily joined Captain Blake in looking for more clues.