Chapter 87

Chapter 87: Vanna’s Investigation Conclusion

The meeting place held only the cultists’ bodies strewn all over the ground. There was no evidence that could prove the attacker’s identity, which made the investigation very difficult.

But one thing was certain: whoever had carried out this attack was definitely not an ordinary person.

A special acrid smell lingered in the air. It was the mark left when “flame” had been corrupted.

Vanna carefully inspected the oil lamps left in the basement. Beside her, a priest took special powders and reagents from his toolkit to analyze whether anything that should not exist in the Mortal Realm still remained in the lamps.

Fire was the most special thing in this world.

Fire was visible order, the handwriting of the Gods when they made a covenant with the world, the proof that “civilization still endured.” In the burning of flame, all changes in all things would leave a mark.

If an extraordinary-level battle had taken place here, then corresponding traces would definitely remain in the flames.

After the priest began his work, Vanna returned to the center of the basement and looked at the corpse of a Sun heretic lying there.

“The bones all over the body are fractured in dozens of places, as if he was hit head-on by a charging bull. It’s really hard to imagine what kind of weapon could cause this,” a coroner beside her said. “Pure blunt force. No spell traces found.”

“Blunt force… blunt force strong enough to break dozens of bones at once?” Vanna frowned slightly. “What is it, a meteor hammer a meter wide?”

The coroner shook his head: “Compared to that, the ashes over there at the far end are more suspicious.”

Vanna went to the far end of the basement and saw the “ashes” he had mentioned.

A full set of clothes lay scattered on the ground. Between the garments was fine, dark ash. It was easy to picture that there had once been a person lying here.

“No doubt, this was some kind of extraordinary power. From the traces, it may be a kind of Mutant Flame,” Vanna gave a quick judgment and said to the coroner beside her. “Normal fire can hardly burn a person into ashes like this while leaving the clothes whole afterward.”

“There are impact marks on the wall. This cultist seems to have been smashed into the wall by a huge force first, and then burned to nothing by the flames,” another priest at the scene said. “In this whole place, only this one cultist was killed by extraordinary power—and by a kind of extraordinary power we have never seen before.

“Also, in a corner of the basement we found a patch of floor that had been badly corroded by an unknown force, but no remaining matter. That may also be the effect of extraordinary power.”

“It could be a spell cast by a person, or it could be the work of an Anomaly,” Vanna said casually. “This place was discovered because a citizen reported it, right?”

“Yes. An enthusiastic citizen heard anomalous noises in the abandoned factory and reported this place to a constable and guardian changing shifts at the street corner at dusk,” the priest beside her nodded and said. “These cultists were actually very cautious. They erased their activity traces after entering the city-state and successfully hid in the Lower City without being found. If not for this attack, they might have stayed hidden even longer.”

“Now that one nest has been exposed, it means there may be more hiding in the dark,” Vanna said in a low voice. “The alleys and gutters of the Lower City will be the focus of inspections for a while. We must—”

She was halfway through speaking when a guardian hurried over from the side, holding something in his hands: “Inquisitor, look at this!”

Vanna looked up at once and saw that the guardian was holding a small tray. On the tray were several copper bullets, stained with blood and slightly misshapen.

“We found two revolvers that had been fired at the scene. These bullets should have been shot from those guns,” the guardian reported. “The blood on the bullets is very likely from the attacker!”

Vanna’s gaze fell on the bullets, and at first glance she noticed the shape of the deformed tips. The bullets were stained with blood, which meant they had been shot into living flesh. But the way the tips had shrunk and warped was not something soft, fragile flesh could cause.

Unless every one of these bullets had hit bone exactly—or the person who was shot had an extremely tough body.

And how had these bullets, which had already entered a body, ended up lying here at the scene?

Vanna thought it over carefully and saw only two possibilities. Either the attacker had performed surgery on themselves at the scene to remove the bullets, or the attacker had some special physical ability and had forced the bullets out of their body with sheer bodily strength.

Whichever it was, one thing was clear: this powerful attacker had killed all the cultists here without slowing down even after being shot several times, and then had calmly removed the bullets from their own body after it was over.

Vanna looked at her own hands.

She could do this herself. And it was precisely because she could that she understood how difficult it would be for a mortal body of ordinary flesh and blood.

“The one who killed these cultists should be an extraordinary whose body is extremely strengthened, using some kind of large blunt weapon,” after weighing it in her mind, Vanna turned to a subordinate and said: “The other side has rich combat experience, strong will, and tremendous strength. Considering the weapon used, the person is likely very tall as well and may also command some Power of Flame. A first judgment is that they are hostile to the Sun heretics, but we cannot yet be sure they stand on our side…

“Notify guardians and constables at all levels. In the near future, watch for anyone who fits these traits. If a suspected target is found, report first and do not make rash contact.”

The guardian serving as her aide lowered his head at once: “Yes, Inquisitor.”

Vanna let out a quiet breath and roughly outlined in her mind what the attacker who had rampaged through the meeting might look like: a two-meter-tall hulk swinging a giant spiked club or a meteor hammer, with superb fighting skills, calm and tenacious, able to summon flames.

That was probably about right.

…

Duncan saw off his second customer with a smile and watched the plump lady walk away slowly, feeling quite pleased.

That lady counted as a regular customer of the shop. Today she had taken a liking to a pair of vases to give as a gift to her new neighbor.

Those vases were wholesale goods from the market. Although their production date was last week, they already had eight hundred years of history. The original price was more than two hundred thousand; after the discount, it was twenty-six, and it even came with a pair of stone ornaments from the Soland Dynasty period that had left the factory last Wednesday.

The regular customer knew the goods were fake, but from start to finish she believed that Shopkeeper Duncan was genuine.

After tossing a few crumpled bills into the drawer, Duncan sat back down behind the counter, feeling his restless mood calm a little.

At least for now, running this antique shop was still a novel and interesting thing for him.

Of course, the money he earned from this little business was quite limited. The profit from selling two vases plus two ornaments was just over six sola. And after most of the day had passed, only two customers had come into his antique shop. He did not know whether that “customer flow” was a lot or a little for a normal day, but it was clearly not as promising as reporting cultists.

Duncan split off part of his attention to keep track of AI.

The pigeon was skimming low over the Fourth District. Unfortunately, the Sun charm amulet tied to its back had shown no reaction so far.

Of course, that was normal. Even though many cultists had flooded into the city-state of Pland now, they had not reached the point of blooming everywhere. On top of that, they deliberately split up and hid in all kinds of forgotten corners, so it was naturally hard to find them.

Hunting needed patience.

Duncan enjoyed the quiet time at his ease. While he watched the pigeon’s movements, he also occasionally checked what was happening over on the Vanished, or controlled his body on the ship to stroll around on deck. He watched the strange sight of Alice fighting weird things on the ship and then being chased until she ran around clutching her head, and suddenly felt that this strange life of his was not bad at all.

Just then, a crisp, pleasant bell sound suddenly came from the door, cutting off his idle wandering thoughts.

“Welcome.”

Duncan spoke casually as he lifted his head toward the door and saw an elderly gentleman with graying hair pushing the door open and coming in.

He was an elderly gentleman dressed with great care. His dark brown coat was new and neat, the leather shoes on his feet were polished bright, and in his hand he carried a black Gatekeeper’s cane whose material was hard to tell. His hair and bow tie were both perfectly in place.

This was not the sort of outfit one usually saw in the Lower City. It looked more like someone respectable from the Crossroad District, or even the Upper City.

Duncan did not have much idea of what counted as a “respectable person” in this world, but at a glance he could tell that this elderly gentleman was not an ordinary customer.

“See anything you like?” He smiled, like a real antique shopkeeper. “If you’re meant to have it, take it home.”