“It’s poison.” Bromy finally said, gesturing to the dark-purple tattoo on corpse’s neck.

He gestured to the swollen skin around the smiley-face with his gloved hand.

Next he brought their attention to the large, bulging veins which radiated from the symbol.

“It’ll take me a while to figure out what the poison is exactly, but it’s almost certainly poison… though, I suppose it could be some… magic… curse thing,” he explained uncertainly.

JohnWillStab nodded.

He watched Zack fighting off the urge to get sick at the sight of the dead body in its cut-up state.

“I get it, whoever is the killer is making the target respawn with a patch of poison on their skin! That’s pretty smart!” John remarked, drawing upon the information Alex and Zack brought up earlier.

Alex nodded.

Bromy sighed as he pulled the mask which covered his mouth back down under his chin.

“I’ll need to collect the tattoo dye and examine it…”

“That said, at least we have some evidence, now…” he began.

Bromy spun around and pointed an accusatory finger at Zack.

“ISN’T IT AWFULLY CONVENIENT THAT YOU’D KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT MAGIC TATTOOS!” he exclaimed.

Zack breathed a sigh and slumped his shoulders.

“I’m pretty used to your sick jokes at this point…” he remarked, wryly.

John patted him on the shoulder.

“Welcome to the club,”

Bromy gasped.

“Don’t tell me! He managed to talk you over to his side! That sly bastard!” Bromy hissed, glaring daggers at the man.

A disinterested Malagmus sat cross-legged against one of the walls of Bromy’s basement, he was reading a magazine produced by the artists guild.

“No way!” he exclaimed.

Everybody turned to look at the black-haired man expectantly.

He flipped the magazine around to show an entire page showing the Felix-impersonator from yesterday.

“One of the actors of the artists guild got killed yesterday!” he exclaimed.

“Damn it! I was betting he’d play my character in a few volumes…” he lamented.

Bromy snatched the magazine from Malagmus’ hands and began reading the words out-loud.

“Early this morning, the body of Fred, one of the oldest members of the acting-part of the renowned artists guild was found dead with a smiley-face image on his fore-arm, his body was discovered floating in the canal by a Kevin.”

Alex and Zack exchanged a look.

“We saw him last night!” Alex explained.

“We?” Bromy questioned.

“Zack and I! I came across what I assumed was a mugging attempt by this Fred and two others.” he explained.

Bromy reached for a notebook he held in his pocket and ticked off a box labelled “Motive”.

Bromy eyed Zack.

“So he had a motive…” he muttered.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Ignoring Bromy’s comment, Alex folded his arms.

“It’s possible Fred was trying to extort somebody who happened to be the killer,”

Bromy nodded.

JohnWillStab scratched his chin.

“In that case, that was probably in the poorer side of the city, meaning that most of the murders probably took place late at night…” he speculated.

Zack nodded.

“It’s possible that’s where the killer goes out looking for his targets, or maybe they live there…” Alex proposed.

Zack shook his head.

“I doubt somebody smart enough to come up with this kind of killing-tactic would exclusively hunt in the same spot!” Zack argued.

“Hunt?” Bromy asked.

Zack clicked his tongue.

“Nevermind the terminology!” he rebuked.

“I will mind the terminology! Because I’m apparently the only one who wasn’t brain-washed by your nice-person act!”

Zack rolled his eyes.

“Whatever, I’m going home…”

“I agreed to come to your stupid corpse cutting-up thing,” he turned to John and Alex who nodded understandingly.

“If you guys come up with some plan, you know where to find me.” he said with a borderline appologetic look.

“Sure, I’ll swing by later.” Alex replied with a thumbs-up.

Visibly upset, Zack left the basement and the jGuardian base.

Alex turned to face Bromy awkwardly.

“You shouldn’t bully him so much…” he began, earning a judgemental look from Bromy.

“Don’t tell me he talked you over to his side too…?” Bromy pleaded.

John shrugged.

“If he was the killer, surely he would have avoided acting so awkward around us!” he proposed.

Alex nodded.

“Exactly, he seems like a normal person just trying to make the most out of the isekai thing.”

“Or, or…-” Bromy began.

“This is all part of his plan - looking innocent and awkward whilst hiding his evil deeds!” he exclaimed.

Bromy placed a cigarette in his mouth and lit it.

While the group continued to argue, Bonifacius patrolled the streets and alleys of Glummington.

“This city does indeed look rather glum… Perhaps things shall improve once we capture the killer!” he wondered with his usual optimism.

He turned down a dark alley, aside from several locked and unlocked doors and windows, the area seemed almost featureless, the cobblestone reached a few meters into the alley before dissolving into dirt and large, stone slabs.

What little light reached the tight, maze-like road came from between the overlapping rooftops.

“Perhaps some flowering vines could help?” he wondered, envisioning blossoming ivy growing against the walls.

“Maybe some more natural light?” he looked up seeing no reason not to remove some of the tiles above.

The sound of footsteps from behind him caused the tank to turn around only to be met with a cloaked assassin wielding what looked like a wooden stamp.

They wore a mask and cloak, gloves even.

With a green flash of light the enemy launched themselves at Bonifacius.

Bonifacius blocked the attack with his shield just in time.

A flash of light erupted from where the assassin marked Bonifacius’ shield, leaving a black scorch-mark on his shield.

The assassin jumped back and retrieved a small box, in a flash, he opened the lid, dipped his stamp in the violet liquid inside and placed the box back under his cloak where it disappeared.

“I take it thou are the killer?” Bonifacius asked, reaching for his sword.

The figure didn’t reply.

Their mask was skin-coloured with one eye-hole and dozens of different marks sampled onto it, some duplicates.

With a burst of green light, a stamp resembling a boot with a feather at the heel fizzled away into glowing sparks as the cloaked rogue flew forward, stamp in hand.

Both of the two player flew out of the alley as Bonifacius used his shield charge to launch the foe and himself into the open.

With no attempt at blocking the strike, the enemy would have most certainly been dead, it was like taking a head-on car collision to every internal organ at once.

Even so, the only thing that happened was a burst of red light as several heart-shaped stamps on their mask fizzled away into sparks, healing them in an instant.

“Surrender! We shall offer thee a fair trial!” Bonifacius offered as the two fell through the wall of a building, flying straight through several more building before finally landing in what looked like an inn.

Bonifacius looked back seeing the three or four gaping them-shaped holes, from the looks of it, nobody except them was injured.

“W-WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING!?” demanded one of the inn-patrons.

The cloaked figure stood up from the rubble revealing no noticeable damage.

An anvil-shaped stamp fizzled away as their armour and clothes returned to looking brand-new.

The inn went completely quiet as the dust slowly settled to the ground.

One of the more frequent patrons of the inn put down their pint.

“Hold on…”

“It’s the tattoo-killer!” Cried a wolfman, pointing to the stamp in their hand as he reached for his sword with his other hand.

A few other players also drew their weapons.

Seeing that they were surrounded, the assassin shifted his gaze to the wolfman.

“Stay back! There is no need to endanger thyself!” Bonifacius exclaimed as the stranger erupted into green light, with another green stamp, they launched themselves at the wolfman, getting cut in half mid-air.

Blood and guts rained down onto the ground as well as the wolfman.

The two halves fell to the ground as the wolfman wiped the blood off his face.

“To think the tattoo-murderer was such a weakling…” he taunted.

With a flash of red light, the assassin stood back up, flesh and clothes healed alike.

With a soft, wet thump, the wolfman’s back was marked with a dark-purple smiley face.

Quickly, the wolfman spun around, slashing his sword at the assassin to no avail, by the time the weapon touched the assassin’s cloak, the wolfman lacked the strength to even penetrate his skin.

By the time he turned around his vision was already dark, his mouth began to foam up as blood ebbed from every orifice.

Not two seconds later, he fell to the ground, dead.

“Rick!” cried one of the players before the assassin turned towards Bonifacius once again.

A megaphone-shaped stamp on the rogue’s mask distorted his speech to a deep, basey tone.

“Keep your nose out of my business, all of you.”

Once he stopped speaking, the stamp fizzled away.

As soon as they finished speaking, they erupted into green light as one of their stamps flung them backwards out the inn window and onto the street outside.

Bonifacius charged out in pursuit of the enemy only to be met with an empty street.