The lookalikes cross paths

The first thing Dia thought when she stepped through the door was that blue hair might not be that rare after all. In the room, including the guy that had led them through, were three blue-haired guys. All of them looked rather similar to each other, but more importantly, they were all standing around a bed.

To no one's surprise, the person lying in the bed also had blue hair. By now, Dia had seen enough of what exactly was going on — this party of mana-users were all fans of the same fellow, and from the looks of it, that particular fellow was the one lying in bed right now.

"Hulid, right?" Dia muttered. She had seen this overly-arrogant mana-user before, back when they were in Pletsville. Of course, he was alone back then, or else she would have definitely remembered him a lot better. As for the three lookalikes around him…either they were brothers, which seemed like quite the coin toss — four, in fact — or they were fans of his, which was more likely somehow.

Dia glanced at Risti, before proceeding to strike off the word 'somehow' from that thought earlier. She, and the others, were living proof that people did wear the clothes of their idols and try to look like them. Fortunately, Dia didn't fall into that category…but it wasn't like she could convince anyone who saw the four of them that.

"You know of him? Nice!" The blue-haired lookalike who had led them in perked up, as if he had found a peer. His mellow features seemed to glow too, and Dia looked upon him a bit more favourably. Compared to the arrogant Hulid she recalled in her memory, this lookalike was a lot more pleasant to see and hear.

"I saw him once before," Dia replied. "At Pletsville."

A small Moon seemed to light up above Risti's head. "Ahh! That's why he seemed this familiar. But I only saw him there, though. Where were the rest of you guys?"

"We were one of the first few parties to seek out the Thief of Time when we heard the news," the mellow lookalike replied. "As such, we had separated to check on the small villages near Licencia."

"I see, I see."

Dia cleared her throat. "We should get around to exchanging our information first. Since you guys came earlier, you should have gathered more information; do you want to share first?"

The mellow doppelganger nodded. "Right, I guess we should introduce ourselves. I'm Haber."

"I'm Lucid," said the doppelganger standing to the left of the bed.

"And I'm Extoth," said the doppelganger at the bed's right.

"Together," said Haber, "we're the Dusk Daggers, a two-star folder party under the Folders' Association."

"Ah, they rolled out the new scheme already," Risti muttered.

"Scheme?" Dia asked.

"Nothing important, just some Association business." Risti cleared her throat. "Your leader should be one of the bi-folders, then. Who's the other one?"

The entire party froze.

"Oh, come on. Stop playing around. Who doesn't know that half the party must have the same number of folds as the number denoted in the party's rank?" Risti rolled her eyes. "Didn't the Association's clerks tell you about that when they ranked your party?"

The others opened and closed their mouths, like goldfish. Personally, Dia didn't understand what the fuss was about, since she had immediately understood what Risti had said. For some reason, the others here had been struck dumb through and through, as if her earlier words were a Moon-shattering revelation.

"Wait, they didn't?" Risti eyed the entire lot. "Or did you guys not actually bother to ask when you received your rank?"

After a few seconds of fidgeting around, Haber said, "Well, we were thrilled when they told us we were one of the only fifty two-star parties in the entire continent. We didn't actually stop to ask them after that."

"By getting drunk."

"How did you know that?" The three blue-haired guys looked at each other uneasily. "No wonder you guys are the reinforcements from Licencia. As expected of Count Nightfall, I guess."

"No, you guys getting drunk is pretty much par for the course…" Risti cleared her throat. "Anyway, let's get down to business first, shall we? Report. What happened to the Edgeless Night?"

For some reason, Risti looked like she was in her element right now. Instead of cutting in and looking like a fool, Dia shifted over to a chair and sat down on it. Risti was giving off the vibe of an absolute professional right now, unlike a certain half-baked mercenary-slash-bounty hunter that had gotten her credentials through money.

"We're starting from there first? It's not really related…"

"On the report that was sent along, Hulid was said to be suffering from symptoms of extreme terror," Risti replied. "The person behind those murders recently is suspected to be a user of a skill that induces incredible terror in its target. There is a connection there."

Before they left for Nachtville, the bartender had said that the leader of the Dusk Daggers, Hulid, had apparently done something he shouldn't have done. The Tri-Head Snake was apparently killed by a Blessed of the Coloured Gods. According to the report they received, Hulid was in his current condition because he tried to investigate a skill passed down by the gods.

The above was all conjecture, however. Given what she and Risti had experienced, it was very possible that the extreme fear Hulid had experienced was actually the doing of the murderer.

"A connection, huh…" Haber rubbed his forehead. "I'll explain what happened on that day, then. It was in the morning, and we were in the middle of our investigations when someone shouted that the Tri-Head Snake was at the gates of Nachtville. The alarms sounded, and we rushed out to confront the snake."

"Okay."

"We — that is, everyone assembled at the gate — were waiting for any signs of hostility when the Tri-Head Snake abruptly died. It was pulverised by some odd force, and the mana that followed turned the ground into glass," said Haber.

"Glass?"

"Yes. Um, like those legends about Emperor Grandis personally making a move," Haber clarified. "His attacks apparently scorch the impurities of the ground away, giving it a glassy texture. The ground at that time looked like what the legends said, so everyone crowded around to take a look."

"Did your party leader do anything special? Eye-catching?" Risti pressed on.

"What do you mean by that?" Haber narrowed his eyes.

"It's possible that the murderer was probably looking for, uh, outstanding people. People that would take the lead when there was danger or uncertainty, I guess."

"Well, Hulid is an outstanding person, but I really don't think he was targeted by that fear skill. For one, he was just talking to the others, and second, he was frothing at the mouth moments after he activated his investigative skill," Haber replied. "After that, we had to carry him away."

"So the murderer really didn't target him, then…" Risti tapped her feet. "Well, that's that, then. Either way, he's probably not in danger right now, since the murderer targets people walking around the streets."

"What are you getting at?"

"There's no need for so much manpower to guard your party leader," Risti replied. "Look, we came all the way from Licencia to act as your reinforcements and back-up. If you tell us that we're to continue your task, the two of us aren't going to be very happy."

The three blue-haired men exchanged glances. A non-verbal conversation followed, one in which gestures were liberally used. The flurry of gestures and signs ended thirty seconds later, but the fact that they had actually come to a conclusion with some random waving within half a minute was more than enough to impress her.

"We'll do a shift system, then. But first, we should continue on the information exchange." Haber looked around. "After that, we'll come up with a joint action plan together."

"Acceptable." Risti's eyes flickered. "Shall we continue, then?"

"Very well. When we arrived in Nachtville, a few murders had already taken place. Some of the earlier ones, however, weren't as…unique as spears from the sky. As an illustration, there was a double murder at an inn called the Bronze Forks around two weeks ago." Haber had an odd expression on his face. "These spears only came later, shortly after the Tri-Head Snake went on a rampage."

He went on to talk about the interviews the Dusk Daggers had conducted, which yielded nothing much of interest. Most of the strangers they had interviewed were taking the city as a place to rest and resupply; they were all headed to Licencia to capture Tot or something.

No falsehood could be found, although a few people were concealing the fact that they were mana-users. That, however, was perfectly normal. One-folders made up the vast majority of mana-users, and they were still very much killable. Dia hadn't forgotten how some baron's son and his bodyguard had died a sad death…

"Alright, that's all we did."

"That's quite a lot, and it did help me to narrow down many things," Risti replied. "Like I said earlier, the murderer is out of the city right now. I managed to track his trajectory somewhat, narrowing down the search area, but unless you guys want to help, there's no way the two of us alone can catch the culprit."

"We'll listen to your arrangements," Haber replied immediately.

"Very well. Now, this is what we're going to do…"