After I got dressed for the second time and Lyili did absolutely nothing, we followed Violetta to the top of the stairs.

“H-He’s right down there.” Violetta stuck out her finger but avoided looking where it pointed. Sure enough, Krow’s body was in the middle of the staircase about halfway up. He was on his back with his feet pointed toward us, and he was covered in blood. And there was a sword stabbed through his throat. That probably had something to do with the blood.

I would accept my detective of the year award later.

“Uhh yeah, he looks pretty dead,” I said, my mind racing due to the combination of sexual stimulation and horrible death. “We should… we should probably call everyone together.”

“Don’t be hasty, Sir Allard.” Lyili poked me on the chest with her finger with a smile. Which was a surprisingly cute thing to do at a murder scene. “This is the perfect opportunity to examine the body while it’s still fresh.” Wow, I never realized how terrible ‘fresh’ and ‘body’ sounded in the same sentence.

“We can do all the examining you want later,” I said. “I... really don’t think Krow is going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Sir Allard, must I remind you that you are the head of the law squad?” Lyili put her hands on her hips. “A murder has been committed. You do understand the position we’re in right now, don’t you? The position that the royal family is in?

We don’t have the luxury to worry later.”

What the hell was she talking about? Was it that we were on an island cut off from the rest of the world? Was it that there had been a murder on said island? Was it that the killer responsible for said murder was still on said island? Was it that said killer in said murder could kill again if we didn’t act now?

Yeah, it was probably that.

I took a deep breath and felt my nerves start to calm down. I might have been a fake law expert, but she was right. This was a crime scene, and my job was to investigate it. And I was going to investigate the fuck out of it.

“Alright, let’s do this.” I made my voice deeper than usual. It probably didn’t sound as cool as it did in my head.

“Very good.” Lyili flashed me small grin before turning to my partner. “Madam Violetta, when did you discover the butler in this condition?”

“Just a minute before I came to tell Ryley.” Violetta tugged on her horns so hard I thought they would snap right off. “I figured I’d head back down to the dining room after I got changed but… Then this happened!”

I had been so concerned with my lack of clothes, I hadn’t even noticed Violetta’s lack of leather. She was in a frilly pink dress like something out of a princess movie. Perfect for a fancy dinner, but something told me that the event was off.

“If what you say is true, then that means the killer only had a very small opportunity to commit their crime.” Lyili turned to me. “A few minutes at most.”

“A few minutes…” I mumbled. Now that I thought about it, they couldn’t have had much time. Up until just around 20 minutes ago, Krow was alive and kicking. Well, maybe not kicking, but he was definitely alive. “Lyili, you didn’t see him

on your way up here, did you?” I asked.

“Do you take me for a fool?” Lyili scoffed. “I think I would have noticed a corpse right in the middle of the stairs, Sir Allard.” Oh good. Demon misunderstanding. My favorite.

“I wasn’t asking if you saw him dead. I was asking if you passed him in the hall or something.” As much as Lyili was fine with executing people, I kind of doubted she’d pass a dead body and then get all hot and heavy with me immediately afterwards.

I only kind of doubted that.

“Hmph.” Lyili sent a puff of air out of her shiny nose. “In any case, I didn’t spot the butler.”

Alright, it was time to take a closer look at the body.

I knelt down next to Krow. This was the first time I had directly examined a body like this, but I was taking it pretty well all things considered. Sure, there was blood and it didn’t smell all that great, but I had already thrown up once today.

I looked at the wound. This was one of the swords from the suits of armor. Krow’s head was to the side but judging by where the handle of the sword was, he had been stabbed from the front. With how he was laying on the stairs, he must have fallen down backward. Pretty much the worst case of falling down the stairs ever.

And what was with the palms of his hands? They were covered in blood, but one of them looked more like it had something written on it rather than just being random splotches. I moved my head and finally got a good look at it.

☹

Oh god. This guy was so dissatisfied with his life that he used his last moments to draw a frowny face in his own blood. That was hardcore unhappy.

“Ryley…” Violetta tapped me on the shoulder.

“What’s up?” I looked up at her and recoiled. “Uhh… you okay?”

“Please…. include…. me...” she said in between sobs. “I’m... your assistant. I want to… I want to… heeelp!” A snot bubble formed in one of her nostrils. Very professional.

“Y-You are helping, aren’t you?” I stammered.

Violetta sniffled. “I am?” No. Not really. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t.

“Yeah, you are.” I pointed at Krow. “Any idea why this is on his hand?”

She quickly rubbed her eyes and nose off on her arm. “...Warning? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This means ‘warning’?”

“Yeah.”

This was undoubtedly a frowny face. After having my writing ridiculed numerous times, I wasn’t going to let this slide. “How the hell does this say ‘warning’?”

“Sir Allard.” Lyili crouched down on the opposite side of the body. “This first half of the circle is ‘war’, then ‘n’, then ‘i’, then ‘n’ again, and this last half is ‘g’.” Wow, she didn’t even berate me for not knowing.

So ☹ meant warning. I was going to give Hadria the hardest time over this later.

“Well this changes everything,” I said after a long pause. “I don’t think Krow wrote this.”

“Wow,” Violetta gasped. “The blood just splattered on him like that by chance?” No. I wasn’t even going to acknowledge that.

“I think the killer must have wrote this as a threat.”

“A threat…” Lyili exchanged a glance with me. “Are you saying that someone is warning the Lich not to make his announcement tonight?”

I hadn’t actually thought that far but that sounded pretty good.

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Totally.”

“Interesting, Sir Allard. Then the question remains… was this threat something the Lich and his butler knew about beforehand?”

I turned to Violetta. “Did Krow do or say anything strange to you when he showed you to your room?”

“Strange?” Violetta furrowed her brow. “He didn’t hit his knee on his desk or anything if that’s what you mean.” That was most definitely not what I meant. In fact, I never, ever, meant that.

“So he just showed you to your room and left?” I sighed.

Violetta nodded. “That’s right.”

“Lyili came to my room around 3 minutes after I got there. If you didn’t see him during that time…” I looked over at the hall on the right side of the second floor. “Then he must have kept going that way, and then turned back later.”

“Wait a minute. Strange!” Violetta shouted in my face like a freak. “That’s strange!”

“...What?”

Violetta was practically running in place she was so excited. “When Mr. Krow said goodbye to me, he went off toward the stairs. I’m sure of it!”

I glanced over at the left hallway. The hallway where the lich’s office was. If he went that way, he must have just missed Lyili. Did he go to speak about something with the lich?

I guess I would just have to ask him myself.