Volume 1 Chapter 26 The corpses in Prong

Jack and Vero left the Sin Clearing Brigade’s building early in the morning, it was about four o’clock.

The Ashes workers hadn’t left yet so the roads were even less crowded than when the workers had already gone to the various factories.

The roads were quiet, silence loomed over the city of Glor, the two Sin Clearer walked in silence as if it was to fit the style of the current Glor.

The kid had tried to make conversation with Vero but she told him he was annoying, he didn’t bother trying talking with her after that.

They were in Prong, the Factories District, also known as the Second Worker District.

It was obviously known for its numerous factories and for how dead it was during from six in the morning to seven in the afternoon.

It had a slightly higher criminality rate than Klong but that was because Glor’s governor chose to put mistakes while working in the same category as stealing and property destruction.

So on paper the district had a higher rate of criminality but in practice it was the district with the least crimes amongst the three Workers Districts.

As such it was extremely weird for more than two major crimes to be reported to the Sin Clearing Brigade in the same week.

Especially in this situation where two people had died in an extremely short timespan.

If death happened in Klong or in Vyong (especially Vyong) it couldn’t be considered surprising but usually Prong was as calm as still water.

That was because the Ashes were too tired from the work they had done during the day to commit crimes during the night.

People say that when you leave individuals near each other for long enough and at some point conflict will erupt as conflict is inevitable, as conflict is a major cogwheel of our society.

That is true in the district where people live, but when people kill themself at a task, conflict doesn’t appear in the same form.

When people do a task, they will criticize others’ work when they feel like they have a higher burden put on their shoulders because of the laziness of their co-workers.

As such, conflict where death is a direct consequence of it more often happens in a place where people live.

The Sin Clearing Brigade’s duo arrive in front of the first “crime scene”.

It smelled funny, that was Jack’s first impression of their surroundings.

Then the kid looked at the scene, the woman’s corpse had been barely confined, only some lowly Dynasty Warning tape had been put around the scene.

Because of the small size and strength of the barriers anybody could have walked in the perimeter, modified the entire scene before leaving while staying unnoticed.

Jack felt kind of angry at the city guard that hadn’t done his job properly.

Vero shot a bored glance at the body and said: “Ok Stout, inspect the body, don’t be scared it won’t hurt.”

“Sure thing.” cheerfully answered Jack

He approached the body, she was pretty dirty, she seemingly lived a homeless lifestyle as she seemed malnourished.

She had barely any flesh, only had skin on her bones.

The kid realized she was the source of the funny smell, it was the perfume of Sfazer flowers.

Jack didn’t have an investigative spell so he sent Chus to his eyes instead.

With his enhanced eyes, he could see further and see small details one wouldn’t be able to see with bare eyes.

He saw the dirt that was filling the pores of her face, he saw some traces of bread around her mouth.

Jack could also see the way the woman had caused her overdose. The homeless woman had somehow gotten her hands on a complete Sfaser flower and had shoved it up a wound in her arm.

The knife that had made the deep wound in her arm was lying a measle one meter away from her.

For some reason she had thought that neither the wound on her arm nor the enormous dose of Sfaser would kill her.

The only good thing was maybe the large smile on her face. Even if it was most likely the result of the Sfaser.

“I think she died because she took too much Sfaser, if that can even kill.” said Jack.

The bored Vero said: “We call that an overdose. Well then I guess we have nothing to see here, it’s just a suicide.”

“Really? We don’t have anything left to do? Like, that’s all?” asked a surprised Jack

She responded: “No Stout, since it’s a suicide we don’t do anything apart from telling the City Guard to clean up the scene.”

As such they moved onto the next scene, the other scene was on the complete opposite side of the district.

The second scene was almost bordering the Vyong District so it was not impossible for it the next scene to be the work of a savage murderer.

Towards four forty five in the morning (4:45 am), the duo had reached the second scene.

A guard could be seen from afar, when the guard saw their white uniforms he let out a breath of relief.

He was surprised to see a young kid like Jack coming to a crime scene.

He asked Vero: “You are not letting the kid see the body over there right?”

The everbored Vero responded with a simple: “I was told he could handle it.”

“But ma’am, he looks barely eleven. ” the shocked guard said

“Well, I was told he was a genius or something like that.” She said to shrug off the worried guard.

She called Jack to come inspect the body before turning toward the workers that had started arriving at the factories they were working at.

The herd of Ashes walked from the infamous Vyong district to the Prong district.

As she started letting her mind wander, a call from Yao Stout made her snap back to reality.

Jack had called her because of how weird the state of the body was.

When she saw it, she couldn’t help but to agree.

The dead man had a gaping hole in the chest; his heart had been plucked out by an unknown attacker.

Half of the right hand replaced the heart that was missing; the other hand was put in the dislocated mouth of the unfortunate victim.

A vision of horror was plastered on his face as he died leaving an aura of gloom around the carcass.

The body had four wounds on each of his arms and legs; most likely made using a high quality hunting knife.

Each of the wounds were filled with hay and the eyes’ sockets with the flesh of a lesser beast.

Even the season warrior and investigator that was Vero was shocked by the brutality of the scene.

Someone had taken the time to find the flesh of a Beast that was on the verge of becoming a Beast Lord, then bought it just to waste it in the eye’s sockets of a random man in the streets of Glor.

Well, Vero assumed that the attacker had bought the flesh as taking the time to hunt down a Beast at this level just to waste parts of the flesh was even more ridiculous.

The price of flesh from a beast at this level was not extremely high but it was still strange to waste it.

She told the city’s guard to help them bring back the body to the Sin Clearing Brigade’s building as this situation was too strange to be left unchecked.