(Oct 15)

The Grinch was right outside my house earlier this morning without me even realizing.

What I saw matched William’s description of The Grinch.

Green fur, big body, giant claws…

Not only that, but William also said that The Grinch was attracted to my magic in the “gases” I released, so and that just increases the chances of me seeing The Grinch being true.

So I told William about it.

“What? You saw The Grinch??”

William was as surprised as I was.

“I think I did, but I didn’t know it was The Grinch until you told me how it looked like.”

“So The Grinch was that close to you… did you notice anything about it? The more we know about it, the better.”

I shook my head.

I told William everything I saw and what happened, but there was no new information because when I first saw The Grinch, I didn’t know it was The Grinch, so I didn’t even bother thinking about it nor did I look that carefully at it.

But as I was explaining to William what happened today, I realized something.

My wife.

My wife ran outside our house to avoid breathing in “the gases” I released, but that was also around the same time The Grinch was murdering people around the area.

So the question is, where is my wife and is she safe?

I had totally forgotten about her.

I haven’t seen her since this morning when she left.

It wasn’t weird that I hadn’t seen her since there was a lot of toxic gas that I had to clean up and my wife needed to stay far away, but the fact that The Grinch was killing people nearby made me extremely paranoid and concerned for her safety.

“William! Have you seen my wife!?!”

“Your wife…?”

William looked a bit surprised at my abrupt question, but he shook his head.

“I haven’t seen her, no…”

The moment he finished answering me, I immediately jumped up and rushed out my house to go look for my wife.

I needed to find her and make sure she was safe.

I ran through the streets and shouted out, calling for my wife.

That was until I ran across one of the murder scenes that William told me about.

It was similar to the scene I saw last time, a bloody mangle corpse surrounded by a several detectives and soldiers securing the crime scene.

I no longer felt sick nor disgusted by the sight, but I did still feel uneasy.

William ran up to me from behind.

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“The corpses… they’re too deformed and we couldn’t identify all of the victims…”

All the worst-case scenarios I could think of, ran through my mind as I panicked.

What if my wife… was one of the people that The Grinch had… murdered…?

“Calm down Anthony, nothing probably happened to your wife. There were 5 victims, but out of the several thousands of people living here, the chances of it being your wife is very low.”

William could see I was visibly starting to panic and spoke up to try to comfort me, but I couldn’t help but worry.

The chances were low, but not zero.

Thankfully though, my wife was fine.

A few minutes after speaking with William, I saw my wife in the distance.

I quickly ran to her, and asked: “Are you okay?”

She nodded but when I took a closer at her, she was pale and was sweating.

She looked sick.

My wife glanced past me towards the “murder scene” where the soldiers were cleaning up the bloody corpses and she flinched.

“Don’t look at it… It’s… messy…”

I didn’t want my wife to get involved, as any normal husband would want.

However, my wife just shook her head.

“No… I… saw it… I saw it happen… earlier… The Grinch… I think I saw it…”

William, who was nearby, noticed what my wife said and spoke up.

“What? You saw it happen? You’re a witness?”

My wife nodded her head.

“I was walking to the market when suddenly I heard a scream… and when I looked back all I saw was blood spurting out of someone’s body and there was a green blur…”

My wife was shaking as she explained.

Stop.

Just stop talking.

Please.

I didn’t want her to continue. She was clearly traumatized by what she saw, in fact I would be too if it weren’t for dragonification.

William noticed it too and decided to just let my wife calm down before asking any further questions.

Thanks for understanding William.

“Hmm… ah shit, this is getting complicated.”

William pulled out a cigarette, lit the tip of it and started smoking, which is something I hadn’t seen him do before.

“You smoke?” I asked him.

“I quit a long time ago, but I occasionally do smoke when I feel like it though. How about you?”

“Never have, never will.”

William looked serious.

Well, it’s understandable. A murder—correction—many murders, have just happened and the culprit, The Grinch, is (according to William) at least an A ranker.

William turned towards me.

“I hate to say this but… would you mind helping us with our investigations?”

“Help you? Sure, I don’t mind… but Alisha told me to just ignore it and leave it to the pros.”

Alisha, my training group leader and the one who knocked me unconscious in the tournament, told me to keep training and get stronger. Leave The Grinch to the professionals.

What she said made sense, so I just listened to her.

But if William is asking for my help, then I have no reason to decline.

“Alisha? Alisha told you that…?”

As William was saying that, suddenly, a women fell from the sky and landed besides William.

“Yo. You called Willy?”

It was Alisha.

Somehow, at the exact moment William said Alisha’s name, she showed up out of nowhere.

William didn’t even look at her and just asked her, “Did you notice anything?”

Alisha replied with, “No. Didn’t see a thing. Either it ran away, or it’s stealth is good enough to hide from my detection…”

William was deep in thought, as I was just standing there, a little confused at why Alisha just randomly showed up.

“Out of all the A rankers, Alisha has the best eyesight and detection skills, her ability to detect others and magic in general, far surpasses even mine.”

William explained this without even looking up.

“As an archer, she needs to be able to see her opponent from afar, and thus her range of detection is very sensitive and very far. Her magic detection covers the entire city, if anything happens in this city, she will be the first to know.”

So in terms in magic detection and sensibility, she’s the best in the city.

In terms of raw physical power, I think Briggs is the strongest in the city.

In terms of magical knowledge, William is the smartest in the city.

In terms of magic control, Cornelia is the most skilled in the city.

I’m not sure about the abilities of the other A rankers but this is what I know so far about the A ranked I’ve spoken to.

But back to William’s explanation.

“The moment I found out about The Grinch attack, I contacted Alisha and she was to look and search for any signs of The Grinch… but despite her actively watching and scanning the entire city, she didn’t find anything…

This can only mean two things, one, The Grinch was fast enough to run outside of the city and out of her detection range or two… The Grinch concealed its own magic and was stealthy enough for not even Alisha to be able to detect him…

Do note that Alisha has the ability to detect even A ranked assassins and other A ranked stealth users so if The Grinch was concealing it’s own magic, it’s stealth ability must be A ranked or may even be S ranked!”

Simply put, The Grinch is, at the very weakest, an A ranked but it may even be S ranked…

If so… The Grinch could be as strong and as dangerous… as a dragon…