Late at night, the investigator read over a letter for the third time.

Dear Investigator Lance,

I’ve heard news of an attempted murder of a young man, Dagnas. In light of my son’s connection to the assumed dead, I would like for my knights to take over the investigation.

This is an order.

Duke William Martis

“His son…Frederick Martis, hmm? Isn’t he…”

Lance scratched his head, thinking of the name Frederick Martis.

“Frederick…Frederick, Frederick, Frederick”

After some time, he confirmed the idea in his head.

“He’s definitely a student of Rixilon Academy”

This was too much of a coincidence. Duke Martis stepping in because his son happened to have bumped into the aforementioned a couple of times?

‘Brown hair, too’

Frederick Martis matched the description nigh perfectly. Of course, Rixilon had a lot of students, so it was very possible quite a few people matched the description.

However, Lance’s gut said something was up. Take over the investigation? Duke Martis’ territory was far from here, so why would he waste resources to send knights over for a corpse?

From what Lance had heard of William Martis, he was cutthroat. Even if his son was begging for something like this, he wouldn’t just do it.

There had to be a reason; one good enough to convince the Duke to bother.

But it was out of Lance’s hands. This was an order from the King’s right-hand man.

“Fuck,” he sighed.

There was nothing he could do.

He lacked any power to refuse.

It seemed his promise to the dead had been broken, to no fault of his own.

He’d likely have three days to hand over the suspect and any information he’d gathered. After that, he wasn’t permitted to act any further. Doing so would put him against the Duke’s sword.

“I’m sorry, Dagnas. I really am”

***

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In the deep forest, Dagnas looked starved. Under his eyes were great dark circles, so great that one might suspect him to be undead.

He wasn’t in good shape at all.

“I stayed up all night…” he cursed life itself.

But it wasn’t for naught. Those hours weren’t wasted; quite the opposite, he’d had one hell of a productive night, mutilating then reforming all his limbs, to the point that it’d become a simple instinctual process.

Gradually, he was getting used to the hellish pain that came with self mutilation.

Now that he had a good foundation on his ability, he thought he might be able to pack on some more muscle and build up his big frame.

Right now, he stands at 188cm compared to his former 180cm. After fighting so many monsters, he’d gotten used to it, pretty much.

With such a frame, it’d be a shame to not pack it with a ton of muscle. However, he didn’t want just show-muscle; he wanted to keep his physique practical and not too different to his former physique.

Instead of becoming another barbarian hulk, he just wanted to become a sized up version of his previous self.

For now, he’d stay as he was. Then, gradually, pack on a little more muscle.

With a prideful look, he deformed his left arm, turning it into a vile mix of muscle, blood, and skin. It seemed as though the arm had been mangled in a blender or something of the like.

Then, all of sudden, it hastefully twisted back into a normal arm. Dagnas didn’t hide his pride, in fact he flaunted his skill with a grin ear to ear.

‘It’s time,’ he thought.

With the skill he’d gained from repeatedly deforming and reforming body parts, he felt a lot better with his ability; he felt one with it almost.

Now, he wanted to continue testing his limits.

With an insane look, caused by his lack of sleep and greedy thoughts, he went on the hunt.

Another Reptane, and this time he was fighting with much better skill.

Just like last time, he occupied its gape with the bone sword before stabbing it with his left arm turned sword.

Nicely done.

Unlike last time, he didn’t test it alive and quickly put it out of its misery.

This time, he wanted to try something crazy.

Holding onto the corpse, he visualised a human, a tall one to match the Reptane’s physique. He imagined the outward design; the human look, the arms, the legs, the torso, the head, the hair. Next, he increased the depth of his imagery, thinking about the individual muscles and the blood flowing, the organs, the ones he knew about, and the ligaments.

‘Deeper’

He thought of the bones, how the might connect practically. Simply, he thought of everything he knew about human anatomy and pasted it onto the flesh of this dead monster.

Before long, he had a human-like figure, but it was missing something.

A face.

Once again, he retrieved the locket, looking inside to the photograph of himself and the old man. Unlike last time, he wasn’t focused on the old man, and he wasn’t going to mix their faces together again either.

It wouldn’t be perfect, since he didn’t know enough about the inside of a human to get a perfect mould. Though, from fighting human-like creatures, and butchering them, he knew enough to have a decent hack at it.

Staring at his own, younger face, he remoulded the empty space into just that, a copy of his own, younger face. Once he’d built that framework, he’d mould it further to look a little older, and more like a current version of himself.

Since he’d already warped his own face, he had to do some guess-work on how to age it up a little.

After tweaking here and there, using trial and error to gain the look he wanted, he was done.

It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. The insides were scuffed and didn’t match a proper human, but who was going to carve him up and check?

‘No one’

Dagnas smiled.

He now had a fake corpse to plant.