Volume 2 Chapter 30 Autopsy
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
”Hmph, hey Kian, just how excited were you? I get how you feel, but even when killing, knowing how to act is necessary, right?”
”Nn, Sir Oswald?”
”Ah, sorry Aisha. The lack of tact was on my part. Hehehe.”
”So, really, did you do all of this?”
The captain of the guard said this while trembling his mustache.
In fact, he had known Kian for quite some time.
It was probably since that time when Kian was still a teenager, and the guard captain was just an ordinary guard, when he was detained on suspicion of theft or something.
The image the guard captain had of Kian was that of a lowly ‘garbage scavenger’, a low-ranking adventurer, not a warrior monk who could create such grotesque corpses.
He looked at Kian with eyes as if he were seeing something unbelievable.
It was a rather perplexing reaction.
(It feels like he’s looking at a monster. I want him to stop.)
’Hehe…’
”Well, they did turn their blade against Her Excellency Maribel. It was somewhat of an excessive way to kill, but… well, yes.”
The Western Church’s priest nodded repeatedly.
Kian stared at Oswald and the healer from the clinic.
”Will the Windsong Blade be confiscated?”
”No way. This is your weapon!”
”The guard’s job is to catch the assassins who are targeting Her Excellency, not to take away your weapons after you kill them. We’ll give you back your tools of the trade when we’ve finished investigating.”
”I’ll wrap it in cloth again. Sir Oswald, can you hold that please?”
”Oh”
”But still, it’s a noisy sword…”
The healer at the healing clinic frowned as he said this.
Kian agrees with him on that point, but he wishes he had complained to the creator, Renaud de Châtillon.
After wrapping the Windsong Blade securely in cloth, Oswald returns it to Kian.
”Actually, the reason I checked if your magic sword and the wounds matched is that there were strange injuries on several corpses. ──Coroner, please explain.”
”Yes. Specifically, it was 3 out of 9 corpses. This one, that one, and the one at the very back, the woman.”
The healer from the healing clinic moved towards the corpse without a wrist in front of them.
Kian and the others followed behind.
”This one seems to have been forcefully severed with something like a vegetable knife. Do you remember?”
”Yes. I did it, using the tools from the stall selling vegetables under the reddish-purple tent in the town.”
”Hmm. Then what about the other 2? What about this dismembered man’s corpse?”
”I did that too. However, the man’s face has been burned as if by acid. There were no wounds like this when I made him bite down on thyme… or rather, he was still wearing a mask.”
”A similar injury is found on the woman at the very back. Do you remember anything about her?”
Kian stared at the woman’s corpse, slashed across the robe at the back.
”She was the last woman I cut down in the sewer. I lost track of her after she fell into the water. I have no memory of the scars on her face caused by chemicals.”
As Kian said that, Oswald looked up.
”It seems she was found last night in the water moat outside East End. Friedrich’s subordinates found her, and at that time, her face was crushed by chemicals so unrecognizably. The chemical is likely undiluted formaldehyde. There is no smell of decay from the areas around the faces of the two crushed victims as evidence.”
Oswald continues, walking briskly towards the woman’s left hip.
”The weapon is missing from her body, and from the other man whose face was crushed. It seems that the pair of men and women whose faces were crushed were treated differently from the other bodies.”
”And the man we captured alive has been transferred to the Izerland Fortress and is currently being interrogated. However…”
Aisha paused, then continued with a serious look on her face.
”He did not seem to have any detailed information. He mentioned that the woman who was dead over there was the leader, but other than that, he just kept repeating incomprehensible statements about how Her Excellency was a wicked person who defied God and deserved to be executed.”
Beside him, Oswald shrugged his shoulders.
”He claims that they are part of that famous international terrorist organization, ‘Azrael’s Death Sword User.’”
”Hah.”
Next to Oswald, a priest from the Western Church snorted.
”So they are a group of criminals posing as ‘Azrael’s Death Sword User,’ while further posing as small-timers. What a world we live in. It was indeed a mistake to accept immigrants. I wonder what Her Excellency Maribel is thinking.”
”The decision to accept immigrants was likely made by Her Excellency’s steward and the female magician. That young princess wouldn’t have the decision-making power──”
”Hey.”
The guard captain stepped in with a scary expression between the priest from the Western Church and the healer from the clinic.
”Don’t say things like that in front of them, who is a knight serving that person. For the honor of Her Excellency, I might have to behead you.”
”You are quite the loyalist, aren’t you?”
Oswald said, looking a bit surprised.
The guard captain calmly returned the gaze of the youth noble with a shaved hairstyle.
”I have been knighted by Her Excellency. It is only natural. Sir Oswald, isn’t that right?”
”Yeah, you’re right. Be careful next time, you two.”
”Yes, sorry…” “I apologize….”
”But why did they only destroy the faces of these two people? Were they people who would be in trouble if their faces were seen?”
The captain of the guard turned to Oswald and said this.
”Well, that’s why they hurt their face.”
”We plan to conduct an autopsy and then rush to identify the body. However… with the face so crushed… it seems they were originally from an immigrant camp outside the street market, and even if we circulate a sketch, the investigation is likely to face difficulties.”
”Kian, do you recognize any of them?”
At Oswald’s question, Kian stared intently at the crushed head of the woman.
She had black hair and brown skin.
Although slim, her body had the toned muscles needed for wielding a sword.
Overall, there was no sagging skin, and it was likely she had never been overweight since birth.
She had the physique of a warrior whose diet and exercise were perfectly balanced.
”Her chest is starting to develop.”
Oswald placed his hand on the chest with lacerations.
On the immature brown curves, darkened nipples were at the peaks.
”The genitals… oh, she might be a virgin.”
As Oswald’s finger, clad in leather gloves, withdrew, a faint sound of water could be heard.
Kian absentmindedly gazed at the crushed face of the girl but suddenly felt discomfort and called out, “Sir Oswald.”
”What is it?”
”Could you lend me your leather gloves?”
”Of course. Aisha, please.”
”Yes.”
Receiving the gloves from the dark elf, Kian put them on both hands.
After asking permission from the healing clinic’s practitioner, he forcefully split open the mouth of the dead girl.
The mouth was difficult to open because of the adhesion of the flesh, but he used his strength to pry it open.
From her mouth came soft dried meat.
”I gave some of the assassins I killed yesterday thyme leaves to chew on, but I let this woman escape in the sewers and she’s still there.”
”That means whoever burned her face gave her this dried meat to chew on before using the medicine. What kind of meat is this dried meat? It’s not the dried meat that is often sold in Franz Kingdom. It’s very red…it’s meat with a lot of iron.”
”I’ll check it right away”
The captain of the guards said this, took some pieces of dried meat in a bag and left the morgue.
As he closed the door, Oswald looked around at the faces of the people present.
”Something’s wrong. This isn’t just the work of a group of little people.”
”Yes. The man and woman with crushed faces are clearly of a higher caliber than the other assassins. Especially this girl, she has a beautifully calculated body, as if designed for combat.”
”…Does that mean someone from a large organization is targeting Her Excellency?”
When Kian asked this, Oswald raised an eyebrow.
”Yes. And it might be those from your homeland.”
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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