Second Crime Scene Revealed
Eren had killed someone belonging to the city lord of Osan's family!
Eren already had a doubt when he found out the amount of money and riches he had now gotten blessed with. That blessing was also a form of curse. Being this loaded can only mean you belong to a family that has direct access to some big organization's finances.
Although the city of Osan wasn't that big or considered rich when compared to the other renowned cities, it still had a considerable amount of population. With population came taxes. And with taxes, you could funnel the money into your coffers before it goes into the kingdom's treasury.
And the city lord's family had granted this much amount of money to an F Rank personnel. That meant their existence was quite special within the family. Eren now had a headache.
Eren couldn't distinguish between the ID stones to figure out who belonged to the city lord's family. The said stones pretty much looked alike with a few inscriptions differing from each other. There were also a few ways to find out the owner of the ID stone, but they all required activating the stone and opening its communication channel, which Eren wasn't foolish enough to do.
Eren guessed that nobody from Dom's Raiders was related to the city lord. Otherwise, it would have caused massive movement within the city by now.
That only left Isaac's party. Eren guessed either the smartass or Isacc himself were related to the city lord of Osan. No matter who turns out to be the city lord's family member, the eventual revelation of their deaths will add to the Osan woods disturbance.
Eren felt troubled because of the potential repercussions coming his way if he was somehow unlucky enough to be linked with the crime scene despite him taking all the necessary precautions. But he didn't regret his actions. He had already tried avoiding the clash with Isaac' party. It was them who had pushed him into a corner. He could only retaliate afterwards.
'What should I do now? Do I bet my chances on not getting discovered?' Eren thought to himself. Even if he didn't leave any tracks, it was always better to prepare for some contingencies.
Eren needed to find a scapegoat that could take the blame for everything that had happened in the forest because of him. Then he looked down at his chest and saw Reen just moving randomly all over it.
Et voila!
Eren found his scapegoat. Not within Reen. But someone she had ingested alive.
He will make use of Dom Walker again and wring him dry even after his death.
If the residue of Dom Walker's ghost was still here around his killer, he would have cursed Eren till his last and future seven generations.
'Fu*ck you and your wise parents for leaving a vile creature like you to your devices. I already died by your hands. But that was not enough. You wiped my party out, took everything from us, didn't even give me a proper explanation for my death, and made your beast eat my body alive.
And now you want to even frame me for something you are guilty of? Why don't you just travel back in time again and tell my parents to use protection, huh? Aaargh!' One could assume the ghost Dom would say to Eren with a lot of yelling!
Before Eren could implement that plan though, he needed to train Reen enough to pull this thing off. Eren had an entire week to himself. During this week, the morning would be busy making potions for the scheduled deliveries. From afternoon onwards, he could train Reen and himself. He only hoped that the bodies of Isaac's party would take long enough to get discovered.
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Two days later!
An E Rank party of 12+1 members could be seen traversing through the Osan forest. The +1 was an irregular member in its ranks that stayed at the back of the party's formation. This member was C Rank healer, which made them the highest-ranked entity in the group.
This was Lin's party with Nina tagging along with them. Despite all their grim expectations, the eventual catastrophe didn't arrive their way during these two days. The magic beasts behaved normally and most of the beast hordes had gone back to their previous positions. It was as if the demon beast didn't live in the woods anymore.
Lin's party also cross-checked the cave for some more clues but ended up only confirming the previous assumptions. Nina didn't have a chance to shine. Nobody got so injured that they needed her to step in. The party already had its assigned healer.
Even Nina was confused about the whole thing. Her instincts were telling her that although there were a few magic beasts they should be aware of, no beast would be strong enough to stop their retreat if they decided to do so. For two days they were checking various sensitive regions within the forest. But they found no trace of the demon beast, the person who came with Dom, or any of the Dom Raiders' members' dead bodies.
Lin felt that it was a waste of time and resources to continue any further. They could only report to the authorities that the demon beast's danger has been averted for the time being.
After completing a circuit, the team returned to Simar lake, from where it had started its search. They were about to take the usual way out when the ranger of the group found some traces of someone taking an odd route.
With his ranger-specific skills, the ranger was able to follow the faint trail left by an unknown person. They followed this trail because the route the person had chosen was very odd. It was connected to Simar lake but was miles away from the regular path towards the northern exit of the forest. All the members immediately thought of the unknown person that had followed Dom.
The most bizarre thing about that person was that the Historian class member's spells indicated that the person was rankless. But none of them would believe that to be the case. A person witnessing such a deadly event that involved a C Rank demon beast, Dom Walker, and the magic beast hordes can't be a rankless mortal.
Therefore the only conclusion they came to was that person's prowess was beyond the Historian's rank. Usually, a historian class hunter would not have many battling talents available to them, but they made up for it by the unique skills they get to use. Plus, the historian in Lin's party was using a limited use artefact to know about the unknown person. Still, all it could tell them was the answer they had gotten beforehand, that the person was rankless.
A person capable of interfering with the E Rank historian's skills and artefacts of that kind would have to at least be a C Rank entity or beyond with a specific set of resources. This was an unusual discovery. They had to follow this trail now to know about that person.
Eventually, the trail led Lin's party to an open area within the forest. The first thing that assaulted their noses after coming close to that area was the rotting smell. They knew that they had found a mini battlefield with casualties ahead.
The area was isolated and away from usual routes picked by the rangers. So nobody would be able to find these bodies if they were not specifically looking for them. These bodies would only be found with a grid-wise search if they didn't follow that unknown person's trail.
When Lin's party members were close enough, they could see vultures feasting on a bunch of bodies. The bodies had already been swept clean off of their meat by the ugly-looking birds. Only a few chunks were left, for which the vultures fought tooth and nail amongst them.
The bodies still had their clothes on them, albeit now torn to shreds. The party members scared the vultures away before closing in on the cadavers that had most of their bones out in the open. All the party members were veteran hunters, so nobody would even flinch at that sight.
Or so they thought until Lin was seen shaken by looking at two particular bodies. He couldn't help but release grief-laden roars when he identified those bodies:
"Isaac!"
"Ralph!"
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Author's Note: Oh boy! You guys are only one power stone away from making me release another chapter today. Thank you for all your support and wishes. Your encouragement means a lot. Keep the stones coming. ;)