“There’s a demon beast involved at the crime scene.”
The historian finally dropped the truth bomb on everybody. The members were stunned first, before feeling puzzled and then horrified when they all arrived at a single conclusion:
‘Someone has tamed the demon beast and is now on a killing spree.’
It was a very grim piece of news. The person that tamed the demon hadn’t come out in the open yet. That narrows down the status of that person even further.
That person was a rogue entity.
“Is the tamer the same person we’ve been following the trails of?” One of the party members asked the historian.
“Not sure. It looks that way but it is difficult to tell at this point. And even after using my unique Truth-Seeking Goggles, I could only barely follow that person’s trails. So trying to see anything more will be a fruitless endeavour.”
“Did the beast kill these young kids?”
“Not sure about that either. I get no human aura that gets attached to the dead bodies if they die unnaturally by that human’s hands. I can only sense a C Rank demon beast.
But this is not a work of a demon beast. At least we hope it’s not. The killings are too savage and brutal with absolute precision in them. If a C Rank beast uses their power THIS precisely, we are in a soup of our own.”
“Damn it. So we don’t have anything to go on. How are we going to report all this?”
Peter voiced his frustration. Ela continued:
“For now, we should focus on preserving these bodies so that we can give them a proper burial in the city’s burial grounds. All the bodies can be processed for emergency burial, except one. Isaac’s. I’m sure the city lord will conduct a procession for his last rites.”
Everyone present at the scene was a veteran hunter by now. They knew death was part of the deal in their line of work. The entire world was riddled with so many risks, no matter which profession you choose. But their job took the cake of being one of the riskiest.
Therefore, as a hunter goes through life and death crises time and again, they become immune to the mortality around them. Or to more be precise, as immune as they could get without getting washed over by emotions.
Even Lin recovered from this event shortly afterwards. And this was despite the fact that he knew the students personally with one of them even being his nephew. His last thought about their deaths was his well-being and how he can get away from any possible repercussions.
Lin’s party knew this incident would now be prioritized over everything else by the city lord. Even they, the finders of this crime scene, would be grilled for a while.
Therefore, everybody needed to get their stories in check even when they were speaking the truth. The party decided on their next set of plans. And it did so by standing right in the middle of the crime scene. Without caring about the bodies or the smell.
****************
Meanwhile, at aunt Nina’s apothecary!
Dom Walker was walking oddly and nakedly in the open space of the house’s ground floor. It was so odd that one would replace his ‘Walker’ surname with ‘CrabWalker’.
The spectators would even overlook the fact that Dom was naked after witnessing his inhuman stride.
He was making steady progress though. At least today, he didn’t try to plop or skate his way towards Eren who was standing at the far end of the open space.
Dom Walker wasn’t walking the earth again. Sadly, there were no second chances for him in this world. It was Reen shapeshifted into Dom’s form. She had been practising bipedal walking under Eren’s guidance.
But that was not all.
“Erooon. Cooooooo.. mi… ngyaaah!”
Reen spoke some gibberish in Dom’s voice. The first word was probably her calling out Eren by his name. He wasn’t sure about the second word she had spoken though.
“She can walk and run fine after another two days. But she’ll be busted as soon as she opens her mouth to speak. There’s no quick solution for that. I’ll need to keep her mouth shut for the operation.”
Eren scratched his beardless chin. He was thinking about his plan to frame Dom in everything that he has done so far. He needed to take steps carefully while ensuring there are no loopholes.
Guiding Reen wasn’t that difficult. Eren only needed to send his thoughts as feedback on her progress and she would show improvements in her next attempts.
He also told her to coat his entire body and walked the space while being in that coating, looking like a devil that became the grim reaper of Isaac’s party. He had asked her to pay attention to every muscle contraction and expansion that happens in the bipedal walk when he does it. And now he just asked her to mimic everything.
Reen would get most things right but end up missing a few. But that too was slowly being ironed out by both their efforts.
For her language training, Eren decided to speak his words while sending thoughts her way at the same time. And he told her to do the same whenever she wanted to communicate. And he’ll correct it whenever she’d make mistakes. That way, she’ll grasp the language quickly.
There was no chance of miscommunication even if Reen doesn’t quickly understand the meaning behind a certain word Eren says or misspells a word to him. The thought sharing channel was still open between them.
“Reen, just break down your words if you can’t speak them in one go. Just say Er first and then En. Same with Coming. Try saying Co, Mi, and Ng first before thinking about joining them.”
Eren spoke to Reen verbally as well as mentally. The Dom-looking demon nodded and tried it again:
“Er. En. I. Am. Co. Mi. Ng. Hun. Gry. Fee. D. Me!”
“Now that’s some improvement. Alright, keep on walking from one place to another till evening. Make sure you don’t break anything. And once the night starts to set in, we’ll go out and secure some food for you like usual.”
Eren had come to ignore her pesterings about feeding her. He had understood that the emotion was dominant in her not only because of her physiology but also because no other thoughts had occupied her brain.
Once she cultivates some maturity and is given loads of thoughts to think about, her hunger will probably drop down to acceptable levels. Probably!
Eren had been taking Reen out for a walk during these two days in the evenings. He would have Reen hiding inside his shirt and make her stay in there quietly without letting her leak her demon beast aura.
Eren would go to a random, poorly lit alleyway and disappear in the dark. And would appear from a different alleyway with the face mask on.
Then he would head to the shady places within the city where criminals, robbers, thieves, and hookers strived. His presence there would attract some attention due to his short stature and mask.
But it wasn’t that the taste of criminal life was only limited for adults and the unmasked braves. There would be a lot of children who would be partaking in thievery and more when they get sick of being poor and hungry. So Eren’s presence was quickly overlooked amid the crowd.
Eren had been hunting these criminals and feeding them to Reen. Not because he liked serving vigilante justice. But because the criminals’ disappearance wouldn’t get investigated that thoroughly.
Eren and Reen had killed seven such criminals during these two days. It was their third day. Reen’s hunger bout was showing signs of being satiated. After this feeding session, she’ll probably complain for the upcoming days.
Eren was walking outside the gambling den now. It was in the form of a poor excuse of a diner & bar with drunk and about-to-get-drunk patrons packed to the brim.
Eren didn’t go inside. He didn’t have to. He just wore a single rankless pendant he had gotten from one of the ID stones. Of course, he didn’t flaunt it openly. He just barely showed that he wore it as if he was trying to hide his possessions.
And the bait was taken soon after!
Eren was told by Reen using her mana sense briefly that they were being followed by five people when he was heading to a random corner away from the populous.
Five!
‘Today’s haul is going to be big.’
Eren thought and broke into a broad smile, which was hidden behind his mask.
The ‘Fantastic Five’ decided to show themselves when they found out that it was only them and their feeble victim.
They surrounded Eren from all sides before one of them breaking the silence to speak:
“Kid, hand over whatever you have nice and slow, including the pendant you are wearing. And we’ll probably let you go.”
Eren nodded his head in affirmation. The Fantastic Five thought it would be one of the most effortless robberies they’ve ever done. But they were immediately weirded out by Eren’s next words!
“Alright. I’ll hand over the pendant if you hand over your bodies to me.”
All the five robbers backed a step away from Eren after being creeped out by him. One of them couldn’t help but clear any ‘possible misunderstanding’:
“Kid, I think you’ve got some wrong ideas. We are not into young boys.”
An awkward silence was being observed by both the parties!
=========================
Author’s Note: Hi. We are in 5th place on WPC 218 Popular List, eying for the 4th one for the time being. I’ll now release extra chapters for every set of 40 stones within a week. Your support has made VEH reach 5th place. But we still have a lot to travel ahead. For now, let’s aim to break into the Top 3. ?