Lurona city [southern shores of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom], local time [1793.12.--] [New Year Celebrations]

The murder scene was a mess, just as Zeph’s commander said.

The two Zombies were already killed off by the Hannyajin, but that only clouded the murder scene before them.

Moreover, Zeph’s commander was harmed by an exploding corpse, not the Zombies themselves. It would be impossible, anyway. Not with how unresponsive the living corpses truly were – going by Aisha’s description.

Someone set a trap. A trap that worked perfectly against Kwan’s people.

They cannot lie, they are proud, and they are so-fucking-full of themselves, he thought with an exasperated sigh. The only reason nobody had died, is the fact that they respect their commander’s right to scan the battlefield first. There is a wisdom in the act. It’s here, right before their faces! So why, for fuck’s sake… why didm't they check the corpses from afar as our procedures dictate!

He glared back at the wounded commander. For all the experience those people had, it was ridiculous in Zeph’s mind. It almost seemed like they prided themselves in ignoring the commands that weren’t coming directly from their legitimate commander. Like kids who would try to break any rule for the ‘coolness factor’, except for the ones stated by a person they truly feared.

Or respected.

It gave him a headache.

Sangsu looked back at him with an innocent and slightly confused gaze that almost made Zeph growl.

Grrrrru! came the encouragement.

No, Gru, I neither should nor I will, he sent back before taking a deep breath. He turned back to the scene of the carnage.

Greeeee… arrived the half-joking, half-disappointed—and absolutely unnecessary—comment.

We will see how good you are with vocal communication after the appropriate upgrade, Zeph jabbed back.

That seemed to shut Gru up.

Shaking his head slightly at the ridiculousness around him, he tried to focus on the scene once again.

“Don’t touch any surfaces. Especially the door’s handle,” he instructed. The door was kept open until now, thankfully. Maybe he would be able to find some fingerprints.

Looking around, he could see the two Zombies lying in chunks near the wall on the right. Their heads were obliterated, and body parts sliced apart in a gore mess. Besides that, they looked like normal corpses.

But what really stood out, were two bloody, circular explosion marks on the floor around the center of the room. It was clear that the traps weren’t fully physical, as the floor didn’t bear the marks of what had happened. Or the marks were hidden under the grotesque, fleshy covering.

The only intact body was peppered with holes and raptured in much-too-numerous places – a clear sign that the trap wasn’t purely physical. It was lying just under the window, on the wall opposite to the entrance. He was able to recognize that the person was wearing a ‘maid’ uniform, even if it had transformed into dirty scraps and nothing more.

The table at the center had shattered into small fragments that were scattered all around, while the chairs lay broken near the walls. The mini-bar to the left, the bookshelves, and a random cabinet with drawers managed to stay intact, but all decorations and glass were destroyed. That included glassware, pot plants, and curtains alongside the window itself – everything was blown apart and cluttering the floor.

He was glad that he didn’t have P’pfel’s sense of smell, too. Actually, his Willforce Morphon was helping him stabilize his natural body reactions right now. Even if he wasn’t a stranger to grotesque scenes like this one, the smell of frazzled flesh, burned hair, spilled liquids, and anything that those people had inside of their guts—being sprayed all over the room—was just a bit too much.

He decided to upgrade his helmet with an air-filtering function in the future.

“No vestiges,” Aisha suddenly declared.

Gra~! Gru confirmed.

They woke him up from the small stupor he was in. Just as Aisha turned away to leave the room, he asked with a frown. “Is that it?”

“From my side, yes,” she said softly. “I will leave this room in your capable hands. Woongar, lead me to the adjacent rooms,” she ordered her commander.

Zeph looked at her back as she slowly walked away, wondering what exactly she was seeing.

Greh.

‘Nothing’ isn’t quite descriptive, my friend, he sent back. “Sangsu, seeing how most of this mess is of your doing”—the man in question grimaced in guilt—“you are going to help me. First of all,” he looked around, “secure the perimeter. I don’t want anyone to be sniffing around,” he used an old saying that was still a part of Cir language but sounded more like taken directly from one of the seven old languages the Cir was based off of. Exotic, almost like Arabian on Earth – at least for people like him. “Not to mention, entering the room. And, please, do not touch anything!”

As his commander sorted people out, Zeph concentrated on the scene.

The state of the last intact body was only natural. Without Passive Enhancements granted by the Soul, the flesh gave easily under the assault from the explosions. He was sure the body was a few paces away from the epicenter, too. He didn’t see Sangsu’s wound, but it was notoriously difficult to harm people on Corora with pure shockwaves. The simple fact that the man was wounded implicated some kind of projectiles that were propelled by the force of explosions. But, just like in the case of a frag grenade, the effectiveness of such a weapon dropped drastically with the distance. The room was only five by six meters, more or less, so the explosions were either wasteful or weak. A normal frag grenade had a wounding radius of 15 meters and a death zone of around 5 meters – enough to cover the whole room.

At least when assuming the shockwave was irrelevant – Zeph was quite sure the death zone was measured for open spaces. Normally, he would ask Gregory about that, as he never got into the details of weaponry that he himself wasn’t using in normal circumstances, but he was on his own now.

He shook his head. That was irrelevant.

The exploding bodies were obliterated entirely, so there was no way of deciphering how the bombs worked. What he was left with, was the aftermath and nothing more.

His commander returned, stopping himself from touching the doorways at the last moment. Zeph felt his movements through his Veil.

“Sangsu, do any of your female warriors use powder for makeup? I didn’t prepare any equipment for this… Also, what’s with your Veil?” Or rather, why don’t you have one? he added in his head.

The commander seemed skeptical but didn’t comment. “I am trying to speed up my regeneration, thus no Veil. My second is scanning the vicinity with his own while saturating the corridor.” Indeed, Zeph’s Veil was blocked at the exit from the room. “As for the powder, I can ask, but… what exactly do you need it for?”

“I want to check the finge…” Zeph paused suddenly. Do they have dermal papillae even? “Ahem, you will see, but I need to test something first. I also need a few sheets of paper, a strongly-colored powder, and some glue. Do you even have glue here?” he used an old word for sticky sap.

Sangsu shrugged. “La-P’pfel’s laboratory has some, for sure. We don’t have alchemists on hand, but even I can recognize solidifying concoction.”

“Make sure to gain Zora’s permission to leave the floor first. But bring them all – we don’t need much, just a glass, at most.”

His commander nodded and left the room. Zeph turned back and stepped closer to the intact body, trying to not disrupt the scene more than it already was.

After leaving his spear leaning against the wall, he crouched down to take a better look.

The body was in a bad shape, but it seemed to have only three kinds of wounds. Broken bones, puncture injuries on its left side, and flesh broken open by an intense swelling around those holes.

Sighing heavily, he took out one of his knives and started to strip the body from the remnants of her clothing. He inspected each fragment to make sure he didn’t miss any clue or evidence, but everything was in such a mess that he doubted he would be able to infer anything from those. Nonetheless, it was important to be diligent. He didn’t have time or equipment to try and reconstruct the exact events that took place in the room, or analyze the evidence in detail. He would have to do with visual inspection.

After the woman’s body was stripped – the scraps of clothing arranged neatly to the side – he started looking for any indicator of what could have killed her. The obvious wounds were caused by the explosions, but she was already dead at that point.

After a few minutes of fruitless examination, he was left with no other choice but to look deeper… He turned to the entrance and, thankfully, his commander was back.

“Sangsu, I need to check her organs. Is it alright?”

The man shrugged indifferently. “For all intents and purposes, we are still in combat, and this is our battlefield. Do what you must.”

“Then, can you help me? I don’t know enough about your race’s anatomy or… physiology,” he had problems finding proper words, but the meaning should be about right, “try to not touch anything, please. I still need to check on the wreckage around,” he added as the man moved inside, bringing a small crate of miscellaneous items that Zeph asked him to find.

Predictably, the man was much better at avoiding obstacles than Zeph was.

As they started to work on the corpse, carefully opening the torso, Zeph tried to organize his thoughts.

No surface wounds, it seems. Depending on the state of the brain… the most probable cause of death would be poison. Makes sense, taking into account how hard it would be to silently kill people in melee. And Hannyajins at that. I really hope they didn’t manage to kill them through some strange Soul attack – something like that shouldn’t be possible. Not without obliterating the Soul, from what I know, which is not only against the Temple of Pure Souls teachings, it would most probably require Netherfolk’s involvement—

He shook his head; he was getting too far ahead with his guesses.

First, evidence. Then, we can form a theory. Not the other way around. What’s more important – we need to know if the two corpses that exploded really belong to the infiltrators. The obvious answer doesn’t sit well with me…

On Corora, suicide missions seemed to be the way around the Soul-related consequences of a direct assault and murder. He was hearing more and more about such cases as time passed, and finally connected the dots. It was impossible to harm one’s Soul after it departed. As a result, no negative consequences would befall a suicide assassin.

Well, besides the fact that they would be dead… I already know that people who are giving orders for suicide missions, or the like, would receive the negative Soul-package from the deceased; even without the killer’s Soul acting as an intermediary—courtesy of the System Onji, or fuckery in the Soulscape, hard to tell—but what if the aggressors didn’t have direct orders of this kind? Just deciding on the fly? All Souls would be preserved and the enemy killed, all in one go.

He scratched his armored chin. Hmmm… Kind of like how the Hannyajins are acting, actually. Just taking more drastic measures. It feels like a perfect solution for the ‘Pure Souls’ fanatics. A fitting motive and execution. But… it fits almost too well. On the other ha—

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He grimaced as Sangsu raptured an intestine by moving it too fast. They quickly glued the now-opened ending with one of the concoctions he brought from P’pfel’s workshop, and continued to slowly move it outside of the cavity. There was already too much blood in the opening that they have made; no matter their precautions. It would become much worse if the contents of the guts joined the mix.

The two bodies that exploded, Zeph continued to deliberate the situation after they got rid of the issue. There is almost nothing left of them. Nothing that we can examine, at least. Whatever was on the table, was also destroyed…. All of the glassware around is obliterated. If that isn’t a perfect cover, I don’t know what is…

Zeph chuckled sardonically as a thought hit him. “Yes, they definitely ‘covered’ their tracks very well…” he whispered to himself, glancing at the bloody surfaces all around the room. The black humor alleviated some of the disgust and uneasiness he felt.

He gave himself a moment before looking back at the body. Seeing that Sangsu stopped moving, he glanced at him, only to see a deep frown on his face as he looked at something inside the body.

He was observing something that theoretically should be a liver. It appeared normal to Zeph’s inexperienced sight. Ignoring the organ’s strange shape, there was no indicator that something was wrong with it.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

“The liver should be much brighter in color… and I think it’s swollen.”

That almost seals the deal. Zeph nodded. But to disable at least three people at the same time with poison…

“Let’s check the rest of the organs, then the brain,” he instructed.

They continued the gruesome work, but Sangsu didn’t find any more abnormalities inside the torso. They managed to dig out a few projectiles that pierced it from the side, though.

To no surprise, those were foreign bone fragments. The flesh around them was swollen and stiff; the blood clotted inside the veins, breaking them apart.

Zeph took one of the fragments for inspection, but what was left of the projectile almost crumbled in his fingers when he removed it. Whatever was keeping it intact after the explosion, was now absent. It became clear just how badly the structure of the bone was damaged.

Instead, he focused on one of the intact ribs of the dead woman. He tried to channel some of his Mana into it and, sure enough, the Energy Enhancements engraved in it flared weakly with renewed power. Something was wrong, though. He frowned.

“Some traces of Energy Enhancements on her bones are still active… My Mana is being blocked.”

Sangsu looked at him with surprise in his eyes, before trying for himself. But after a moment, it became clear that he was struggling to feel the difference.

Zeph was using his Will to directly manipulate his Mana to be more precise. As a result, Willforce Morphon’s ability activated, additionally strengthening his manipulation ability and intensifying the signals he was receiving from his Mana as it was disconnecting after making contact with the active Enhancement and matter. It took him but a moment to realize that his ability to manipulate and read Mana vastly overshadowed his commander’s capabilities. Especially because the man was a melee fighter, and as so, focused on internal Mana manipulation mostly.

The situation became even more concerning when he realized that most of the Energy Enhancements in the bone were broken in some way. Especially on the side of his commander, but on his own as well, the bones started to lose integrity as the two of them activated the traces. Such a thing should not happen if the bone was intact. He had an idea of what was happening, but it was not an evidence. Yet.

Simply speaking, there were too many possibilities.

He took a closer look. The normal Energy Enhancements were invisible to the naked eye, but he spotted miniature ridges all around the bone that weren’t aligning with the flow of his Mana. They were hard to notice, even though they were much bigger and more crude than manual enchantments that Gru was testing in his own body. The blockages that his Mana met were standing in the way of activating those visible traces. Only small parts were flooded with it, but they didn’t have any effect besides maybe frying the bone.

Also, the ridges looked suspiciously similar to the damage his ‘Primitive Enchanting’ was making on solid materials.

I lack information, he concluded, straightening his back. It looks suspicious, but… I need confirmation. They forced two corpses to raise, despite the distance to the Undead Heart. Even if Aisha suggested that it was possible, it’s just too many coincidences in one place. Or am I just too paranoid? No, let’s ignore that possibility, he sighed. It wasn’t one thing that threw him off. The whole situation looked like a staged act full of broken fragments of a puzzle. We are far from the marine visitors, too, so there is no reason to believe the Undead propagation was natural. Yet, there are no traces of ritual or enchantments… Except for those strange traces on the bone of a dead body…

He would know. After scanning the room with his unrecognized Veil technique, he didn’t find anything amiss. There were no Mana traces. The walls, floor, ceiling – even the furniture – were clear of any enchantments as well. Yet, it was another jarring hole in the theory that the two blown-up bodies belonged to the attackers, despite what others may think.

Mana-related events almost always left traces. Especially the natural ones. Zeph was almost sure that someone, somehow, forced a creation of the undead and got rid of all tracks the best they could. Most probably concentrating on the physical evidence and Soul residue—if such a thing even existed—while somehow leveling out any Mana imbalance.

Whereupon the problem was lying. The Mana was leveled out entirely across the room. Unnaturally so.

“Give me a moment, I need to check something… You can start with the skull trepanation, it will take a while,” he said, aware of the lack of time and thus trying to multitask. Also, he wasn’t sure how much trust the commander had in his expertise, so he decided it would be better to start the preparations for the next step instead of wasting his time on explanations.

As Sangsu wordlessly started to work on the head, he accessed his Shrine Seed for the first time.

Zeph wasn’t planning anything fancy, as any physical alteration would be still too costly for the System. But what he needed now was knowledge, not tools.

Firstly, he started searching through the Exchange. As restricted as the selection of active entries was, it was still showing the description of unavailable choices. The detailed descriptions were enough for him to assess if the options covered what he sought.

He wanted to find a method to distinguish different Energy Enhancements superimposed on the bones and check if they were tampered with, so the first thing he searched for were information about Hannyajin, their natural Energy Enhancements, substitutes, and even enchanting blueprints with similar effects.

The results were less than satisfactory, though. Only full-knowledge packages were available in the form of General Skills, while he just wanted to know what was deviating from the norm. Not how exactly those enhancements worked, or what Energy Enhancements were available for each species.

He cursed internally. It was taking too much time already.

It was time to test another function of the Seed, it seemed.

System, System, can you hear me? he forced the Soul-memory transfer into the Seed, which was one of the strangest experiences he had until now.

Talking with an inanimate object. With his Soul.

He was slightly afraid that his Tabu would raise again, but it didn’t move an inch.

It took a few moments but in the end…

We knew it was a bad idea…

Telephone number to Sys, get! Zeph thought giddily, only slightly disappointed that he had to ruin the surprise early just for this case.

Sigh… You know, we can ‘hear’ you right about now? The [Bandwidth] is wide open and the perceptive modules of the [Shrine Seed] fully active.

What do you want? You are wasting our resources again…

The disgruntling question didn’t scare Zeph. He smiled even more.

It’s a test that will help me with your commissions in the future. Anyway, I tried to use the Exchange, but nothing interesting showed up.

‘Nothing interesting’ huh? You better not try to bypass the costs, you ungenerous twit.

What can I say… I am learning from the best? Also, what happened to ‘mister customer’? The quality of your services is dropping.

...

Okay, I’m sorry. That was uncalled-for…

...

…Whatever. I have intact bones of recently-deceased Hannyajin and I want to know if their Energy Enhancements are in order. Hint – they aren’t. The price for the knowledge of what is wrong is on me, but I need to get results without paying for three different General Skills that won’t help anyway because we are short on time. And, by the way, the blueprints and connected knowledge were even less helpful in that regard. You should think about creating a one-time expertise service. People will pay more for consultation in the long run.

Zeph supplied his explanation with relevant Soul-memories, hoping that the System would accept this small test of long-distance communication.

That… actually isn’t a bad idea. The problem is – you are the only person with a mobile [Shrine].

Ah, right… sorry, he laughed, embarrassed. Anyway, can you do something like this for me? We are on the line anyway…

Send us the full picture. We will evaluate the [Soul memories] against the worth of knowledge you seek. No [physical scanning] on our part.

Yea, sure. He did just that and even before he could regain his senses fully, the System already gave him an answer.

Zeph Einar, this is the first and last time you are allowed to bother us with such trivial matters. We could understand if your life was at risk, but this situation is below the threshold of necessity by a huge margin.

Nonetheless, it was a good test. We will not count that against you. This time.

The pattern you found is responsible for the explosion. It destroyed the integrity of most of the existing [Energy Enhancements] in the bones, as you suspected. It’s all you will have for free. We recorded this statement in your [Interface] so you can show it to the others.

Have a terrible day, and don’t contact us anymore.

Geee… thanks for being an ass. How much for a list of Energy Enhancements available to Hannyajin before level one hundred?

10k.

Zeph blinked in surprise. It’s… actually cheap?

You could have asked your friends instead of paying for it.

He grimaced. It wasn’t cheap. At all. It was the price for his stupidity. But now, he didn’t have time to neither gain the detailed descriptions from his commander nor to fight him for trust. If the man—or any other person from the gang, for that matter—omitted some details, it could end badly for the whole case.

Haaa… I really need to speak with Kwan more… Deal.

[Universal Points] detracted.

Happy New Year.

The connection ended abruptly.

The scrooge… I am sure they know exactly what happened from my memories alone…

Zeph wanted to massage his temples, but the helmet was in the way, adding to his frustration. Instead, he started to read the list the System sent him.

It was just what he needed, thankfully.

“You finished?” Sangsu asked from the side when he relaxed somehow. Looking at him, Zeph noticed that the trepanation was finished. And not just trepanation. The man got rid of most of the skull.

“Yea, sorry,” he sighed depressingly. “Found anything?”

“Indeed,” the man nodded and pointed at a small section on the surface of the brain. “I only noticed because you left me with nothing to do for so long…”

Guilty! Zeph thought bitterly while moving closer.

“…but it seems that there are miniature blood clots all over the brain. Even in places that are not swollen.”

After taking a closer look, Zeph nodded to himself.

Neurotoxin. Figures – it’s the best fast-acting poison. That, or something that stops the heart, but everyone here should have EE working against the latter. His eyes narrowed. I think I know what is going on here…

“Let’s search for more clues,” he declared, turning to the dilapidated room. “There is one last mystery to solve…”