Lyili and I stood over the burnt body. Even with the seared flesh, the face was left mostly untouched. The twinkle in his eye, the goatee, the chiseled jaw… I recognized him. I had just seen this face on a portrait in this very house.

And it was still somehow smug as fuck despite him being dead as a doornail.

“Isn’t this… the lich?” I asked. Well, the non-barf inducing version, anyway.

“Indeed.” Lyili nodded. “There’s no doubt about it.”

Yeah. It was safe to assume dinner was canceled now.

I decided to examine the body. The burns were terrible. First it was death by giant piercing and now it was over cooked barbeque. His clothing was in tatters and the visible skin was covered in horrible red and black burns. His neck was especially gross with the skin burned so badly it was hard to even tell what it was anymore. Jeez. What did the killer have against necks?

I looked down at the carpet, which looked strangely clean given what was lying on it. “Do you think he was killed here?” I asked. “There doesn’t seem to be much damage to the floor…”

“It depends on the magic, Sir Allard.” Lyili lifted her finger and a small flame burst into life. “Some fire magic is contained to a single target, and won’t burn anything else.” The flame disappeared, her cheeks flushing a light pink. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I have... no such control over mine.”

Right. Magic. That was a whole different issue I would have to deal with. Also, Lyili was being surprisingly cute in front of a dead body again.

I looked away from the body and back at the destroyed door. “Wait…” My head snapped back in her direction. “Did you just... kill him by accident?”

“H-Hardly!” Lyili cheeks turned bright red this time. She quickly bent down and put her hand on the body. “Look, the body’s cold! This must have happened a while ago. Touch it and see. Touch it!” She should have probably been more careful about what she yelled. Those last two lines sounded… really different when taken out of context.

“Uhh… I’ll just take your word for it.”

“Hmph.”

Lyili stood back up, and we both took a quick look around the room. The main thing that seemed out of place was the broken pottery. Well, that and the body, obviously. The rest of it was fairly normal.

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There was a desk near the wall opposite of the entrance. On the same wall, there was a large window. On the left side of the room, there were glass cases filled with knick-knacks. I would have to check that out. The wall to my right was lined with bookshelves. I sighed. I supposed I would have to rummage through those as well.

I also suddenly realize how many fucking offices I had been in during the last few days. Probably more than I had been in the last few years of my life. It was starting to feel like it was time for a name change. Ryley Allard: Demon Office Explorer. Exciting.

“Other than than these shards, it doesn’t look like there was much of a struggle,” Lyili said. “Would you like to hear my theory?”

“Sure,” I said. Huh. Now that I thought about it, it was strange that Lyili and I were even working together. We were technically rivals, but she was treating me more like a colleague right now. Not that I was complaining. It was actually pretty refreshing talking someone that wasn’t giving me a headache.

“Of course you would.” A self-satisfied smile crept across Lyili’s face. “I suppose I can tell it to you if you’re going to beg like that.”

...Headache incoming.

“It’s quite simple, Sir Allard.” Lyili continued, her smile growing even more satisfied. “I believe the killer was invited into this room by the lich himself.” She threw her arm out, pointing down at the ground so intensely she probably dislocated something. “The killer then used whatever this was to hit him on the head and knock him out. Then they burned him to death.”

“Interesting.” I scratched my chin. “That would mean that they can use fire magic then.”

“Correct.”

It wasn’t a bad theory. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the near sexual experience, but Lyili was being… nice. I decided to bounce a few more questions off her. Which sounded kind of sexual now that I thought about it. And now that I thought about it a second time, there was nothing sexual about it really.

Moving on.

“Well…” I cleared my throat. “If that’s what happened, it would explain why the killer needed Krow’s keys. They needed to lock the door when they left to make it look like a locked room murder.”

“Exactly.”

“But then there’s another piece of evidence that doesn’t really make sure anymore,” I continued. “The ‘warning’ on Krow’s hand.” As far as I was concerned, it was still a frowny face though.

“The warning?” Lyili asked, noticeably less excited than she had been five second ago. “What about it?”

“If everything happened like in your theory, then it doesn’t really make sense for the warning to be for the lich.” I gestured to the body. “If the killer was sending a message to him, then it wouldn’t make any sense to murder him immediately.”

“I… will concede that my theory doesn’t account for that.” Lyili sighed, crossing her arms. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait to hear what the Lich thinks.”

Uhh… what?

Yeah. I was at a complete loss for as how to react to this particularly stupid statement. I would have expected this level of nonsense from Yaika... but Lyili? All I expected out of her was her sense of superiority and her habit of solving problems with execution.

I waited a few seconds to see if she would correct herself. No dice. Okay.

“Uhh…” I narrowed my eyes. “You did say there are no such thing as ghosts in the demon world, right?”

“Of course there aren’t.” Of course.

“...Are you gonna explain to me how exactly we’re going to ask the lich then?”

“We’ll ask him when he comes back to life, Sir Allard.” Lyili threw her hair over her shoulder. “He is a Lich, after all.”