“Go back to Greyan. Go back! I can’t see his armor from this hiding spot, dang it!”

“Ben, stay hidden,” Grehn thought to the buzzing bee, striding Herwen with fake nonchalance.

“But! But! The armor! It’s the coolest freaking thing I’ve ever looked at! The other knights are lame, go back to Greyan.”

Grehn, and by extension Vlugh, ignored the request, which no other bee seemed to see as an issue. The mercenaries tuned out the overexcited ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ pouring into their heads and continued their task. There was quite a lot each was trying to ignore. Behind Grehn was the labored breathing of one of the professional Lemonholmians, the older man with the notable gut, which wouldn’t be so terrible if it didn’t annoy Herwen to the point that he was growling in frustration. The level of anger that man could muster as they did little more than walk along the wall’s perimeter was inspiring.

Before the investigators had split up into their current groups, Herwen went off by himself, and the Lemonholmian officials made a fuss before the other two knights, Jey and Meyara, could also split. So, the man with the gut followed Herwen, and the other official forced the remaining Knights to stick together alongside herself. Unfortunately, Vlugh beat Grehn to the punch, following the group that, by pure coincidence, did not include Herwen. Now, however, Vlugh insisted that he wanted to switch with Grehn, who found that hard to believe.

“You are the Knight who was following Lord Sawah around, weren’t you? I’m not convinced of your innocence. You encountered the mercenaries in the alleyway by Seyorohon’s shoe store, correct? What color is the sign with the sandal?” The other Lemonholmian official, a woman just about as portly as her counterpart and whose face appeared as if she had been tasting too many lemons, fired off questions towards the Knights. She still hadn’t volunteered her name.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the larger Knight, Meyara, said with a light sigh.

“Hm. I think the answer to this ‘mystery’ is becoming more clear,” the official woman said.

“I swear, Meyara, I’m gonna-“

“Just ignore her,” Meyara told Jey.

Jay continued to grumble. “Argh! This mission sucks.”

It turned out that pairing two Knights under suspicion for murder, one of whom was quite volatile, with an ambitious governing official in a town infamous for its untrusting populace, was not the ideal company. Although, Grehn still found it difficult to muster up sympathy for Vlugh’s plight.

In an effort to distract himself, Grehn observed the wall more closely. Unlike the massive, sturdy, stone walls of the place he should call home, Lemonholm was surrounded by rickety, rotting logs. The wall itself comprised huge rolls of wood, close in appearance to their tree trunk origins, wide enough to rival Grehn himself and more than twice as tall. It was, at its core, an overgrown, exaggerated palisade, sufficient for a small town. But it was disgusting. Over time, the logs that made up the inner portion of the walls began to rot or die. And instead of replacing them, for whatever reason, the people decided to add new logs onto the outside. As a result, the wall was far too thick. However, Grehn noticed something off. The inner rotten layer seemed sturdy enough. And it didn’t smell that bad. If anything, it almost smelled fruity.

Wheezes came up behind him, a bit closer than Grehn would have liked. The government official must have noticed Grehn slowing down and peering at the wall, because he took a moment to catch his breath before speaking.

“Is the wall interesting? I would consider it an underrated pride of the town.”

Grehn didn’t answer, merely grunting and nodding. He was already tired of interacting with Lemonholmians, and he had barely done so. Besides, keeping up a stoic, grumpy mercenary demeanor was the safest way to deal with most regular individuals. Especially government officials.

The man continued, unperturbed. “The wall was erected generations ago. Surprising, right? I believe you’re Yiwi mercenaries, so you must know the impermanence of wood, but you still don’t know too much about the depth of our little town. You may have noticed the smell of lemons. Indeed, you’d be surprised at the things that can be done with the fruit. Our forbearers devised ingenious methods of creating a wax-like substance using lemons that wards off the effects of time. I’ve no clue how it works, myself, but it’s marvelous.”

That caught Grehn’s attention. On closer inspection, the walls were coated in a faint yellow film. That color combined with the blacks and grays of the dying wood, giving a disgusting impression at first glance. It also explained the odd, fruity smell wafting through the air, stronger than usual even in this town.

“Wax, huh…” Grehn mumbled. After a few moments, he turned and held his hand out to the official. “We haven’t met. I’m Grehn.”

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With a smile, the man reciprocated. “Lahim. It’s nice to formally meet you, Grehn. In truth, I actually remember you and your team from a year ago, but I never had the opportunity to meet you. I must say, I was surprised to see the shakeup your group has experienced, considering how effective you were. All that is to say, I’m inclined to trust you and your companions.”

Grehn didn’t respond, only nodding. He didn’t explain the changes Lahim observed. He didn’t make corrections. He made no comment about how his team used to be. And he certainly didn’t acknowledge the man’s opinion of their innocence in this current messy situation. Part of it was practical, little more than a continuation of his brooding mercenary character. The other part was emotional. He just didn’t want to dwell on the past.

“Is there even a point in you two buffoons following me if you’re just going to hang around? I’d love to simply leave, but that would surely cause you to whine.” Herwen whined. Grehn and Lahim glanced at each with an identical look of exasperation, but they relented, continuing to follow the huffing Knight. Lahim looked like he wanted to say something, but Herwen was moving fast, and it wasn’t long before he began to huff and puff once again. Which caused Herwen to grumble. Which caused Grehn to stew in frustration.

“Vlugh,” Grehn said in his head. “I’ve got some new information. So, there’s this wax…”

Walk. Walk. Walk. Ben continued tapping his foot, waiting to look at something more interesting than the walls of Lemonholm or the same ol’ humans over and over. But that time never seemed to come. He cared little for Grehn or Vlugh’s chitter-chatter about finding the killer. Ridiculous. If Ben could just look at more stuff, he would eventually see who the killer was anyway.

With that as his argument, and in no way related to wanting to see Greyan’s awesome armor in more detail, he crawled about the rooftops of Lemonholm to observe the most suspicious individual: the Knight Commander himself. Ben was careful - extremely so. He would never forget that time that felt so long ago, when he was barely a hatchling buzzing about the forest to help Momama get a better grasp of the surroundings. He would never forget encountering the blanket of darkness that shrouded a portion of the landscape and hiding amongst the burnt branches, looking at the vultures. And then the eye.

He shivered. Everything that happened was his fault back then, and he would never cause something like that ever again. While he was taking a risk, it was a calculated one. Ben was much more careful now. Careful and smarter, as per his own deduction. He had paid careful attention when looking at Greyan inside of the bar, even noting the tiniest twitches and movements of his eyes. Ben knew that neither Greyan nor any of the other Knights were aware of his presence or his looking, even from that close. Similarly, they hadn’t noticed Beelzebub’s violent looking, although she was much further away.

Ben therefore decided that these Knights weren’t very good at noticing things they weren’t thinking about or prepared for, although he knew that wasn’t the whole story. Greyan, after all, was a careful man who was always tense and watching, despite giving the appearance of a relaxed warrior. Ben couldn’t be fooled. In the end, Ben concluded (with only a bit of input from other smart bees) that the Knights were too focused to notice him or Beelzebub at all. Which was an interesting development. It hadn’t escaped their notice that the Knights’ alertness was only somewhat elevated after the discovery of the murder - another point in the suspicion basket.

“Beelee, this is so sick. The segments of Greyan’s armor are so perfectly made that there’s no seams. But that’s crazy! Cause the armor, like, slid out to make the full suit. How did they do that?”

“No Ben, I didn’t notice that completely useless detail because I’m busy watching the every move of a potential murderer,” Beelzebub responded.

“I mean, sure, but what’s he even doing? Drawing pictures in the dirt? Being weird with his fingers? Who cares! Oh, I think I found a tiny gap in the armor, near his back. I think that’s where the whole suit folded out from. Kinda hard to look at - it’s pretty tiny.”

“Oh Ben, that’s great. But yeah, the stuff you mentioned actually is pretty important. Remember, what he’s working on are the plans for a new barrier, which will be a pretty big deal. I might have to rush into the town before they finish it, on the off chance that it turns out strong enough to keep me out.”

Ben decided, with no small amount of reluctance, to pay attention to what Beelzebub was talking about. As he noted, Greyan wasn’t doing much. His eyes were closed most of the time, though he occasionally opened them whenever he went to draw another shape on the ground in front of him. He was also raising and lowering his fingers repeatedly on one hand. Were those perhaps accursed hand signs, or maybe gestures to perform magic spells? According to Mamm’s knowledge, it was most likely some method of counting or doing math. Ben didn’t know what ‘math’ was, and he wasn’t inclined to find out by looking through the otherworldly knowledge. It could stay otherworldly.

As for what Greyan was using the math for, apparently it was needed for constructing barriers. At some point, he tapped his chin, cocked his head, and sighed before brushing away a solid portion of his drawing and remaking it, resulting in a pair of circles with some marks along the edge of the outer circle. Elofan, who had been seated nearby the entire time without making a sound, seemed to snort when he did so. All it elicited from Greyan was a sideways glance.

Beelzebub buzzed. “The inner circle is probably Lemonholm. Making the outer one the barrier. But I still can’t figure out how strong this barrier is gonna be. I bet I could break it, but they’d definitely notice that. But they already have a detection barrier active, which would make sneaking in before the new barrier is formed tough.”

“Did you ask Trice about this?”

“Nah, she’s busy. I asked Belphegora, but she’s totally vexed. I don’t have super Mind powers like her, so I can’t get past their detection. Maybe they’ll take down the first detection barrier for a moment while the new one gets put up?”

“Yeah, Gora would easily be able to get in here undetected.”

Beelzebub snickered. “Okay, you suck, but I’m stealing that nickname now.”

Turning her attention back to the Knight Commander, she sighed. “This whole trip just becomes more complicated by the second. If the humans don’t get out of this annoying situation quick, things might become annoying for us.”