“I see you guys actually found the murderer on your first try.” Lucia nodded, a smile on her face. “Good job.”

“Alleged murderer,” Dia corrected. “I made a move based on the fact that there were ten visible spears, the make and design exactly the same as the murderer weapons. I did not have any other means of verification, save for very circumstantial evidence.”

“That’s good enough evidence,” Lucia replied. “And you brought his…body back. Along with two severed arms.”

The way her lips twitched as she made the last observation was somewhat telling of her disgust towards severed limbs. As a guard, however, was such a disgust actually useful at all? It was probably a hindrance to Lucia’s work, but Dia decided not to say anything about it.

“The killer was a skilled fighter,” Dia replied. “If I didn’t partially disarm him on my first attack, the fight could have gone either way.”

“What?” Lucia blinked. “But you’re a mana-user!”

“Doesn’t mean that I’m immortal or something,” Dia replied. “That person was a true master of the spear; even after I took one of his arms, he was capable of kicking spears at me with an impossible accuracy.”

Lucia looked at the others, who shrugged and made various other gestures to show that they didn’t know anything much about the fight.

“Nothing?” she asked.

“We were a bit late,” Haber replied. “By the time we arrived on the scene, the murderer had both arms severed, and he bled to death shortly afterwards. But I could tell that she had a tough fight, so I’ll leave you to interpret that for yourself.”

“I had that impression too,” Lucid added.

“As did I,” Risti chimed in. “It’s quite a shock to hear her say that, since Dia here is pretty much my…team’s combat specialist. But let’s put that aside for a bit. Is there any concrete way of determining that he’s actually the killer? We would like to confirm that he doesn’t have an accomplice or something.”

Dia nodded. “When I fought him, he didn’t use the fear skill that had driven most of the victims into a crying mess. Maybe the skill needs time to ramp up or something, but it’s possible that the fear skill belonged to someone else.”

“It would be troublesome if we were called back for round two,” said Haber. “I would be really displeased, for one.”

“Is that a threat, Your Excellency?” Lucia asked.

“Did I phrase it in that way? You’re overthinking it,” Haber replied, rolling his eyes. “I just don’t want to make return trips, you know? Like returning to the same vacation destination over and over.”

“Oh.” Lucia cleared her throat. “Well, you’re in luck, I guess. We actually have a very rare skillstick in our possession. With it, we can check anyone’s skills. There’s been many occasions when we wanted to use it, but most of them were solved with a more explicit method, like catching the thief or robber in the act.”

“A skill that can do that?” Dia thought for a moment. “Wait, are you talking about True Analysis?”

“That’s the one,” Lucia replied. “Wow. How do you know about that?”

Dia cleared her throat, uncomfortably aware of the gazes directed at her. Fortunately, Risti didn’t seem to give a hoot about that piece of knowledge, but it was indeed wasn't something that people who weren’t in certain circles should know about. As Dia fobbed the others off with some random excuse, she made a mental note to not be so eager to share her knowledge.

A single slip-up and everything could fall apart.

“Follow me, Your Excellencies. I’ll use the skillstick on the corpse and show you the results on the spot,” said Lucia, ending the small discussion between Haber and Lucid. “I can only do this once, since there’s only one skillstick, but I trust that everyone here will be satisfied with the results…probably.”

“Probably?” Risti asked.

“Well, it’s my first time using True Analysis too, so I only know how the theory works.” Lucia led them into a courtyard. “Place the body here. I’ll be getting some guards to act as secondary and tertiary witnesses too, so please don’t mind them.”

“Go ahead,” Dia replied. “By the Moons. My legs are aching…”

She looked around the place, but the courtyard didn’t have anything to sit on, so she had to make do with the floor. Her act of sitting down seemed to trigger a chain reaction, and the others sat down too, creating a small square. Dia didn’t quite understand why the others had chosen to sit together, but if she had to warrant a guess, it was probably because they had bonded over very odd topics.

Before long, the guards filed in, but like any normal person who had heard overblown stories about what mana-users did in their free time, they gave Dia and the rest a wide berth. Most of them were whispering to each other, sticking to the walls of the small courtyard as much as possible.

It was a sight that made Dia somewhat depressed. Back in Licencia, the vanillas of the Moon Lords were very friendly to her, especially since she was the Moon Guards’ trainer. Back there, she didn’t feel special or singled-out, but her small excursion here had seen lots of people backing away from her in fear, enough for an entire lifetime.

The others, thankfully, weren’t talking about ways to express their devotion here. Clearly, they still had a modicum of sensibility left in their heads; they knew what topics were appropriate and what weren’t. Instead, the three were now talking about each other’s idols.

Dia felt her ears burn up as she listened to Risti’s praise for Princess Dia. Risti’s words were clearly overblown and ridiculous; for one, she didn’t recall being such a paragon for virtuous governance. Yet, they were all wrapped around a kernel of truth, truths that no one else but Dia should have known.

Murdering the desire to get up and flee, Dia hugged her knees and tried to tune out the ongoing conversation. At this point, she was fervently hoping for Lucia to come back, but the latter seemed to be taking her own sweet time.

Did she misplace the skillstick or something? Dia wasn’t sure, but the conversation about Hulid and herself was actually audible enough for the guards around to overhear. To make matters worse, those guards were somehow discussing the heroics of the trio’s idols, without showing any doubt whatsoever.

The absence of critical thinking displayed by those guards made Dia uncomfortable, but she didn’t dare to open her mouth to refute them. It was natural for normal people believe the words of mana-users; as a whole, mana-users were richer and better educated, which lent them some credibility.

After spending a minute or two dwelling on the guards’ logical fallacy, Dia’s thoughts were put out of their misery by Lucia’s approach. The officer was holding on to a rather ornate box, a box that drew everyone’s eyes. Without a doubt, this box contained the skillstick for True Analysis, a skill that could discern the status of anyone, alive or otherwise.

It was a skill that would be very useful for all kinds of shady work, and Dia couldn’t help but regard it with caution.

“This is it,” said Lucia. “I’m taking it out. All present, bear witness to the opening of RS-11.”

Dia didn’t know what the formality was for, but she, along with the others, remained silent. The box opened without anything dramatic, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the small skillstick that was now in Lucia’s hands. Lowering herself to the corpse, a small ball of blue light plunged into the corpse as she snapped the skillstick into two.

A familiar, translucent blue screen appeared on the corpse a moment later.

Current name: Number Twelve

Lifespan: Not applicable

Age of death: 29 years

Active Skills: Super Strength (6), Clairvoyance (6), Mind’s Eye (6), Black God’s Gaze (2), True Butchering (7), Waterball (7)

Passive Skills: Thrall of ThBoD:A???

Comments: Not applicable

Everyone stared at the blue rectangle in silence. The murderer’s status was…abnormal, and that was putting it mildly. For one, the usual ‘Name’ now had ‘Current’ appended in front of it. More importantly, his name was of a slave’s…and slavery had been outlawed long ago by the Emperor’s decree. The only reason why she knew that this was a slave’s name was due to the fact that some history books talked about slavery practices. Newborn slaves were often given names that were essentially numbers.

Of course, it was possible that his parents were oddballs, but…

“Black God’s Gaze…that seems to be the skill behind the victim’s fear!” Haber clapped his hands together. “Risti explained it to us; sight-based skills work with things like Clairvoyance, and the Church of the Black God is known for skills that affect the mind.”

“That’s the murderer, then.” Lucia nodded. “But…what’s with the passive skill?”

Dia was wondering about that bit too. If not for the fact that the first two words were ‘Thrall of’, Dia would have assumed that the person writing the murderer’s status had a hiccup or something. That last word just didn’t make any sense.

Was it even a word?

“That’s…really odd,” said Lucid.

Haber and Risti grunted in agreement.

“I’m just going to record this down,” Lucia replied. “Maybe the dukedom capital might have an idea about what that passive skill was. For now, you guys can relax.”

She got up and looked at the guards. “The case is over. Everyone, good job!”

The cheers that followed, however, didn’t put Dia at ease.