“Another one…?” Bonifacius questioned seeing the corpse in the water, judging for its fresh state, everybody assumed the murder didn’t take place long ago.

Dylan nodded, noting the time and location of the corpse’s discovery.

Beside him stood a small group of players who fished the corpse of the ogre out of the water with a net.

“I’m hoping Bromy can take a look at it for us, something about these murders is off…” he explained.

Bonifacius folded his arms.

“What does thou mean?” he inquired.

Dylan scratched his head uncertainly.

“Each corpse we find has the same thing in common,” he began.

The human lifted one finger.

“No major wound that could be the cause of death.”

He lifted another finger.

“An odd tattoo on their body.”

He lifted the third finger.

“And no follow-up, the deaths are permanent from the looks of it…”

Bonifacius nodded.

“How strange,” he remarked.

“Yeah, it’s pretty creepy…” Zachary nodded, looking slightly disturbed by the corpse before him.

“I’d leave this kind of thing to the professionals!” he suggested.

JohnWillStab smiled smugly.

“That’s us.”

Foxly breathed a sigh.

“No, no it’s not…”

Bonifacius clenched his fist in determination.

“We shall simply have to investigate!” Bonifacius exclaimed, earning an excited “YEAH!” from John and an uninterested “Woo…” from Foxly.

Zachary turned to face JohnWillStab, Bonifacius and Foxly.

“Still, I don’t see why you guys want my help - I’m not all that strong,” he laughed awkwardly.

JohnWillStab shrugged.

“I dunno, Bonifacius suggested we ask you to team up with us,” he replied bluntly.

“I see…” Zachary replied.

Bonifacius placed a hand on the human’s shoulder.

“Thou said thy wish is to become stronger! Tis only reasonable to have thou join us in our adventure!” he exclaimed.

Zachary’s expression grew wry.

“Y-Yeah… I was thinking more like… training…? Not this…” he replied.

“Fear not! Ideally, I would have asked Bromy to participate… but I fear this matter is too grave to risk more arguing…” he explained apologetically.

Zachary nodded.

“Alright, what should we do now? Maybe we should go back to the base and think things over? In the safety of the base? Away from the scary murderer!”

Everybody turned to face JohnWillStab, expecting him to come up with a strategy.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Well, we have some leads already, we should investigate the tattoos first!” he suggested, kneeling down next to the corpse and taking a closer look at the dark-purple smiley-face tattoo.

Zachary scratched his head.

“Maybe it’s actually just a visual thing? Like a signature?” he suggested.

Foxly cocked his head.

“Are you implying it’s not that that?” he questioned.

Zachary shook his head.

“No - I’m just saying it’s probably not that big of a deal! I’m no crime investigator though!”

John reached into his pocket and pulled out the screenshot-paper, taking a “photo” of the tattoo.

“Maybe it’s a guild-logo?” he wondered.

John turned towards Dylan.

“Do you have a record of all the guild in Glummington?” he asked, he knew it was a long-shot, the game had no mechanic that forced you to register at some building or with some NPC.

Dylan grinned.

“Of course! I personally checked on every newcomer and keep track of their guild info!” he exclaimed.

“Follow me!”

John could see the man go from gloomy to excited in one question, as if this was his chance to shine.

With that, the body was delivered to the L.F.T.O basement where it would await a dissection from Bromy while the four fantasy-detectives followed Dylan to the town centre.

Inside of the same large building where Bromy and Alex solved the Felix problem, Dylan now kept the mountains of paperwork.

Seeing the conflicted look on Zachary’s face, John shot him a thumbs up.

“No need to be so worried, we’ve dealt with worse than some perma-killer!” he laughed.

Zachary didn’t take the comment seriously but nodded nevertheless out of politeness.

“Right…”

“FOUND IT!” Dylan cheered, holding out a thick folder containing the info about every guild including L.F.T.O itself.

He handed the folder to John as he awaited some form of complement.

“Let’s see…” John noticed a crude drawing of the guild crest attached to almost every guild’s file.

“We should get one of those…” he thought.

Zachary glanced down to his wrist seeing the drawn-on watch which was actually moving.

“Does it work?” Foxly asked, breaking Zachary out of his day-dreaming stance.

“Eh?”

“The watch, does it work?” he asked.

Zachary gestured to his wrist.

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool, you can’t wash it off though,” he laughed.

“I bet I could sell that…” he remarked with an impish grin.

Zachary cracked a smile.

“It was present from a friend, I’m not sure how you’d get your hands on more,” he explained.

Foxly folded his arms, his grin not wavering for even a moment.

“Where there’s a profit there’s a way!” he replied confidently.

“We’ll just track down your friend and make them an offer they can’t refuse!” he exclaimed.

“Right,” Zachary replied, not understanding Foxly was dead-serious.

Four hours later, the group was still in the office, unable to check all the files quickly enough, John asked the others to help him look over the files.

“MithrilMinors are clear…” John muttered, putting another piece of paper back into the folder.

“CabbageNinjas have a lettuce for a logo, they’re clear…” Foxly remarked, putting his file away.

“The JellowRebellion is safe!” he exclaimed, placing his file away.

Zachary upright on his wooden stool, a drool-covered page cradled in his arms, one of the many he had checked.

Dylan entered the room holding a tray holding several teacups in his hands.

“I asked a friend to deliver some food, they’ll be here in a couple of minutes,” he explained, glancing out the window and seeing that it was already getting dark.

“I would like to retract my ‘HELL YEAH’ of excitement from before and replace it with a sarcastic ‘woo-hoo’…” John muttered, leaning back in his chair before remembering it was a stool and subsequently falling to the floor.

“Too late, I did that first…” Foxly remarked, grabbing the cup of tea off Dylan and taking a sip of the warm beverage.

The small office was littered with tightly packed shelves and drawers of books, folders and loose pages.

The wooden floor creaked as a massive, muscular human with an afro and what could only be described as a twelve-pack and abs strong enough to shatter diamonds into dust entered the room.

“Your food’s here,” he announced, lifting a bag filled with steaming, wooden boxes.

He had a bushy moustache and walked around wearing green trousers with thick suspenders and no shirt.

“That was quick!” Dylan exclaimed, grabbing the food off the stranger and placing it in the centre of the table.

The large afro-dude looked around the room.

“Do you guys know where I can find Bromy?” he asked, his voice was deep.

“Uhm… Does Bromy owe you money?” John asked hesitantly.

“...”

“No…?” replied the giant human who still stood in the doorway.

“Oh, this is Fred, he was Bromy’s… friend…? apprentice? mascot?…”

“Granted, he was a bit shorter back then…” Dylan explained.

Everybody in the room looked over to Dylan and over to the mass of protein and testosterone that stood in the doorway.

“Hold on…” John began, he recalled Bromy’s tale of what took place during the Felix situation.

“VIOLET?!” John demanded.

“No… I’m still Fred…” Fred replied.

“Oh…” John replied awkwardly.

“Hold on… didn’t Bromy mention a kid?” Foxly asked, looking to John and Bonifacius for confirmation, they both nodded.

“Indeed, though he has not told us their name.”

“It’s Fred…” Fred repeated.

“Greetings, Fred! Does thou happen to know the name of the child of which Bromy spoke?” Bonifacius asked.

“It’s Fred…”

“Greetings, I am Bonifacius!” Bonifacius yelled back excitedly.

“THE NAME IS FRED!”

“AND I AM BONIFACIUS!”

Dylan shrugged.

“I mean, Fred did a bit of exercise while Bromy and Alex were gone… I don’t think it’s all that noticeable…”

“WASN’T THE CHILD LIKE… TEN OR TWELVE!?” John demanded.

Fred shook his head.

“I’m fourteen.” Fred clarified.

Dylan shrugged.

“They grow up pretty fast.”

“WHAT THE FUCK IS IN THE WATER-SUPPLY!?” Foxly demanded seeing the behemoth before him.

“Mostly corpses…” John sighed.