Territory

Calling it a lab was a bit of an overstatement. It neither had the clean, sterile white aesthetic of a modern lab nor even the cold, creepy crumbling interior of a medieval research lab. It was a simple wooden room with steel instruments, mostly knives or scalpels and tongs and other such surgical tools. There was one table at the very end meant to hold a cadaver and there was indeed one on it, though it has since rotted into a skeleton. Most importantly, there was a distinct chill when Roko entered the room. A small underground lab room in an arctic region would naturally be cold but there was definitely some sort of spell or contraption keeping the entire room colder. And to the side of the room was a collection of coffins with glass lids, though the surface had fogged over. Walking over to them, Roko wiped the fog and frost clean. Inside was a woman who bore a passing resemblance to Takeko. He had no pictures to go off of but Roko felt sure this was her mother, Hanamura. Turning to the other coffin with a fogged lid, Roko cleared the surface of that as well to see a lean, muscular man lying inside. His built body bore the scars of numerous battles. Both bodies looked perfectly pristine aside from some frost damage. If they were to get up right now, they would be mostly complete, almost like Kyousei.

Roko looked for any definite means to identify the bodies as he didn't actually know whenever these were Takeko's parents or not. While there were no signs or such around their coffin, there was a collection of books and papers on a desk in a secluded corner of the room. Covered in dust, Roko covered his mouth and nose as he shifted through the papers. There were multiple pages of reports on different people's bodies. Pictures were attached to some of the reports of the body before autopsy and on any other findings on it's body. Roko found the reports labeled with the Hagorumo family's name, their pictures corresponding with the bodies in the frozen coffins. Satisfied, Roko sat down on the desk chair, sending dust flying, as he began to skim the reports.

Hanamura Hagorumo

There are no signs of any struggle. Inner wound was found in the neck. A severed throat meant her death was pretty much instant. However, the skin was not cut, much like all the other victims. No signs of any other tools that could have possibly been used to achieve this. Nobody has any idea of how this could be possible and without detailed scrutiny, we wouldn't even know for sure that this assassin has struck. Some nobles are even refusing to let their family's bodies get examined and just claim they died in their sleep by heart attack. I'm...getting off topic. The body shows no other signs of evidence. This is a typical murder by this assassin. Killing while the victim is asleep, in their own room. The scariest thing is how they managed to get inside the castle without alerting any guards. Mysteries that may only be solved once we capture them. And the key to that may be with her husband.

Intrigued, Roko turned to the other report.

Daichi Hagorumo

This is definitely a strange case. Found at his desk with signs of a guest is enough to stir the imagination. But for someone like me, this only barely confirms what I already knew. As for what I didn't know, Daichi's body has one hidden wound. A cut throat again but this time, there are signs of a struggle left on the clothes. Everyone says I'm imagining things but his clothes show some kind of struggle occurred during his death. There are no signs of any such struggle in the room though and given how strong Daichi was, there is little chance that an assassin could overpower him, even by surprise. I know personally how strong Daichi is. The scars on his body themselves prove just how many battles we've fought together. Daichi would never die without a fight if he could help it. But…not a single thing was out of place. Not a drip of blood, not a single hair, not even a scrap of paper was disturbed or left behind. No signs of any other scrapes, bruises of cuts on the rest of his body either. Not a single piece of evidence, an immaculate crime. No. No, not yet. There has to be something left behind. I'll return to the scene of the crime and investigate. There has to be something Daichi left for me. I only have to find it. There's nothing left on his body. But...something about his scars...nag at me.

Roko put down the report and turned back to the coffins. Kirito was dedicated but he was no detective nor a coroner. As hard as he tried, he was a soldier all his life. There was every likelihood that he might have missed something. Then again, Roko wasn't much better. If anything, Roko was exactly like the retired soldier, trying to solve a mystery with no qualifications. But there was one thing that he had that the old warrior didn't have. Striding over to the coffin of Daichi Hagorumo, Roko pushed aside the lid and looked down at the well preserved corpse.

"Analyze."

This was the first time Roko had used the spell on a corpse. If there was any piece of evidence that could lead to a discovery, he would have used it sooner. As it stood, this was the first time he found something to use his spell on.

Corpse (Daichi Hagorumo)

HP: N/A

MP: N/A

Attack: 0

Defense: 0

The dead, preserved body of Daichi Hagorumo. Over 5 years of decay seem to have been stalled by artificially freezing the body. Covered in scars from previous battles back when he was alive, there is a large cut in the neck. While the immediate cause of death was the neck wound, there is an older wound to the chest.

"A wound to the chest?" Roko frowned as he peered closely at the man's scar ridden chest. The skin was definitely paler due to the ice and the lack of running blood but there wasn't a wound to be seen. Obviously as the killer always seemed to be able to hide the wound somehow. Running his fingers gently over the dead skin, he was unable to make out where this chest wound could be. Frowning, he looked closely at the skin, trying to find any sign of any tampering but he still couldn't discern any differences. Roko stepped back and thought to himself. It really was annoying how non specific his abilities can be. Just one more detail and he could track down this wound and investigate. Though given how long it's been, it couldn't possibly be that significant could it? More over, could one wound that Kirito missed possibly be important enough to determine a case? ...Or did Kirito actually miss it?

Roko's mind turned to the final line of the report, something about Daichi's scars. He looked over the body again, this time looking at the many scars covering the bodies. There was no telling which scar caught Daichi's attention and for what reason but Roko could hardly think about analyzing each of them, even if he believed he could get his analyze to get so specific. Roko kept thinking as he traced some of the scars on the dead man's body. Unable to think of a direct way of resolving this conundrum. So he took a step back and tried to view the entire problem in its entirety. He looked over the entire body and tried to view the scars collectively and his attention became drawn to two scars over the chest. They each ran in the same direction across his chest, directly above and below the other. As if they were actually supposed to be one big scar. Roko reached out and poked the flesh separating the two scars...and he could feel no resistance.

Thrilled, Roko ran over to the table and grabbed a scalpel. Returning to the table, he held his breath as he nervously slid the aged blade into the dead body and cut the skin open. Making sure to stop the instant he felt any resistance, Roko cut the skin open to reveal a large crevice, a wound large than his scalpel could ever make. Judging from the size and depth, Roko surmised that it was a dagger wound of considerable length. The wound was definitely lethal if it wasn't taken care of, which would have to be the case as it was hidden away. But his analyze marked the immediate cause of death as the neck wound and Roko didn't doubt his spell to be wrong. But it said the chest wound was older, in other words, the chest wound came first. Which means,

"The chest wound wasn't intentional." Roko thought aloud, "If the chest wound was supposed to be the cause of death, then it clearly failed and the killer had to move to a much more immediate method by sliting the throat. However at the time, Daichi was awake so landing a stab to the chest would be quite difficult. If the chest wound was intended to kill him, there was no need to cut the throat as well. Given the lack of struggle around the scene of the crime, the killer's method should have been immediate, something to prevent his prey from retaliating with their more battle worn body. But if the neck wound was the intended way to kill him, then what is the older chest wound?"

Something must have happened to cause the chest wound first. The neck wound must have been a correction. No...a misdirection? Hanamura was killed by a neck wound as well. The wound in the neck could have been used to draw attention away from the chest wound. A wound that they didn't mean to inflict. In all likelihood,

"A struggle." Roko nodded to himself, "Some sort of struggle occurred to create the chest wound. But one that didn't cause much damage to the surroundings and shifted his clothes enough to open his chest up to the knife attack as it didn't cut through his robes. Whatever happened, it ended with the assassin triumphing over a seasoned warrior like Daichi."

…

"Signs of another friendly party as well? Then...the assassin is another noble."

…

"Saying it out loud, it's pretty obvious isn't it?" Roko sighed, "Not like the common folk regularly interfered with the ruling parties. ...But I have a smaller group of people to look over now. Then again, maybe the killer has died already at this point and I have to dig through records of the dead."

Roko sighed as he placed his head against the cool wooden coffin, "Why do I make things harder for myself? Mind as well finish investigating then. Analyze."

Roko turned his spell once more at the specific wound to try and eke out any more information from it.

Wound

HP: N/A

MP: N/A

Attack: N/A

Defense: N/A

A knife wound of considerable size. There are slight traces of inflammation and chemical decay. Traces of some kind of poison remain, though it's much too old to determine what exactly it is.

"Poison?" Roko frowned, "What kind of poison remains after nearly five years? Is it some poison that only exists in this world? Where could I even find a toxicologist to ask about things like this?"

Roko turned his gaze to the throat wound, "If there's poison here too then..."

Analyze on the wound confirmed there was also poison in the throat wound.

"Poison here, poison there..."

Roko turned to the corpse of Hanamura, "How about you? Are you hiding any secrets too?"

Hanamura's wound was clearly visible, a visceral gash across the neck. Her expression seemed serene, as if she died in her sleep. Analyze didn't turn up any secret wounds though traces of poison were also found in her wound, though the synopsis didn't mention if it was the same poison as her husband. Interestingly, there was no mention of any poison in the reports that Kirito had written out. Looking around the room, there didn't seem like there was much equipment dedicated to poison detection. But was there a chance that the medical authorities have missed poison? Granted, apparently autopsies were restricted later on but...no, even in the early days, they must have tested for poi...no, the wounds were always closed. So the mass assumption was that they died in their sleep by internal bleeding. But what if this poison was the actual cause of death? No, the records always said death by internal bleeding. Even if the later reports are dubious the earliest reports shouldn't be. And it's always been consistently internal bleeding.

"That means the poison can't be the cause of death." Roko nodded, "Then...some sort of numbing agent? A slit throat is lethal but not immediately. At the very least, the victim should be able to open their eyes and thrash about for a bit before they die. But there's always no signs of struggle. So we're looking at some kind of numbing poison that makes the cut undetectable by the body?"

Roko gulped, "There's a few poison like that back in my world but who knows what kind of poison they have in this world? But if there wasn't anybody who managed to detect the poison then does that mean...I'm the only who knows about the poison?"

Additionally, assuming he was right, the first stab into Daichi's chest was unintentional but ultimately lethal. Even if the slash in the neck later was to mask the struggle, they wouldn't need to use poison as nobody had yet to detect it. Did they really go so far to mimic the use of poison to keep consistency or...was the poison delivered automatically?

Roko scratched his head, "Without knowing more about this poison and how it was delivered, there's no point in speculating too deeply. Well...I have a little more information now so-"

A loud thunk noise above Roko startled the soul out of him. Running back to the stairs, he kept his profile low and quietly sneaked back up to the surface.

Poking his head back up through the floorboards, he looked around the room first before pulling himself back up onto the main floor. Closing the hatch to the hidden lab behind him, Roko sneaked out of the room towards where the sound originated. In the middle of the living room, was Kyousei. The perfect zombie stood there with a sword in his hands, partially drawn from its scabbard and studying its blade. The display that the sword used to rest on was lying on the floor. The blade itself seemed to have a layer of rust over it.

"What's that sword?" Roko muttered.

Kyousei stared at the rusted sword with a blank look over his face. He gripped the sword tightly as a dark power crept over the blade and with a single jerk, the rust blew off the sword, leaving it clean and restored as if it had been taken to a master blacksmith.

"What's going on?" Roko scowled, "What's that sword?!"

Roko's mind thought to stay hidden but his body moved on its own, standing up and confronting the dead, his hand lying close to the handle of the sword at his hip. He tried to say something but his mind tumbled on the words, still trying to process why his body decided to approach the venerated military general. Kyousei sheathed the sword and turned to face Roko. The zombie stared blankly at him. Whenever or not the undead even recognized him or not, it didn't show on his face. The emotionless corpse turned his body towards Roko...and placed one hand onto his new sword, shifting his body back to prepare for a charge. Recognizing the start of an attack, Roko drew his sword and brought it up to defend him. Kyousie charge came in a split second and in that second, Roko felt his body instinctively leap back. A high pitched clink rung out and the blade of Roko's sword was flung into the air, severed from the handle that was left in his hand. Roko's breath stopped as he felt his body fall backwards from the force of Kyousei's attack. The old general's sword seeming to tint a shade of green in the dim light.

Roko fell to the ground as the blade of his severed sword clattered to the ground in front of him. Kyousei held his stance as he stared at Roko with a mask of indifference. Roko gulped, the gulf of power between them paralyzing his body with fear. For the second time in meeting him, Roko felt like he would genuinely die. But Kyousei simply stood back up and sheathed his sword. The zombie pulled the sword he had hanging from his hip and dropped it in front of Roko before turning and walking away, his figure disappearing into dust along with the blade he had retrieved. Roko sat on the ground, stunned that he had managed to survive a second time after being thrown off guard by the sheer power of this advanced zombie. At this point, it was safe to assume they were keeping him alive, though their intentions remained a mystery. Roko dropped the now useless sword handle and picked up the sword that Kyousei had dropped.

"What, did you feel like testing your new sword and don't need this one anymore?" Roko growled, "Was he ordered to do this or something? What the hell is this necromancer thinking?"

Roko stood up with the discarded sword in his hand. With a sigh, he left.