Chapter 35: Mansion Mystery (Part 1)

Luke frowned when he saw the skeleton, Pruno raised an eyebrow at this and Eny didn't even care as he held Luke close to him, still a little guilty for triggering Luke's PTSD. Luke didn't like this, a human skeleton, here? He struggled to get free from Eny's hold for a second before he released him with a little frown and a cute pout. Well, both Pruno and Luke thought he looked adorable! He looked like a 20-year-old young adult that was also a soldier, but an adorable soldier at least...

Luke approached the skeleton slowly, he lived with Eny for long enough to know that he shouldn't trust everything he sees and that something traps are the last thing he expects them to be. He got close to the skeleton with Eny behind him and Pruno on his left while Thalia flanked on his right side. He crouched and touched the skeleton, everyone heard the snap as the bone he touched crumbled and fell on the ground, detaching itself from the skeleton and hit the ground.

He frowned and noticed that the skeleton had every single limb, as well as it wasn't broken in any visible place. "It wasn't the red lions." He concluded, how would he know? Easy!

They had been fighting against those lions and he could easily tell that their bite could break bones, plus their speed combined with their bite strength and sharp teeth, they would probably be able to easily rip out an arm of another appendage if it wanted. Luke looked closer at the skull, searching for any form of damage he could identify, he had seen Eny eat humanoid monsters before and leave behind a skeleton that he would later chew on, because of his method of attack the monster's skeleton was always damaged to an extent unless the creature's bones are too hard for his razor-sharp teeth. The skull had a bent on it, and a healed crack too, so it could have been a blunt impact that knocked the person out or killed them...

"It looks like a mystery to me..." Luke puffed invisible smoke as Eny sighed, he knew he shouldn't have given Luke those books, he was obsessed with the mystery genre and loved the books about murder or unsolved cases. Eny was about to say the obvious, that, however, was in the house was the one who killed the person, but he decided to let Luke have his fun. He got closer to the skeleton pelvic bone and looked at it, his eyes focused as he noticed the difference between the bones, he sighed and said: "This skeleton is female." Pruno nodded while Eny was a little confused, was there any difference between male and female bones that were enough to identify the skeleton? He is curious about this because he doesn't know.

Luke reached out and took the bag from Enychta's waist, the bag was there on his belt, always close to him. "It must be here somewhere..." His hand completely went through the bag's opening and he began to search for the book he had asked Eny ro get him, it was a medicine book. Why he has it, you ask? Well, A good detective needs to know exactly how to look for clues and how to identify them, and medicine is only one of the steps.

He found the book, pulled it out of the bag, and began to look through it... It took him seconds to find the page he had seen, the image showed some differences between a male and female pelvic bone. He smirked and showed the trio behind him the image, pointing out to the skeleton that looked at them with its hollow eyes: "See? The wider pelvic cavity, the wider pubic arch of at least 120°, plus the difference between the male and female ischium, pubis, and ilium." The difference was clear and it was clear that the skeleton at the bottom of the stairwell was female. "Now that we know the gender of the deceased victim, it brings us some insight on the victim's past and maybe the reason the victim is now a skeleton..." Luke went full detective mode, making Pruno shake his head as he watched his boyfriend simply act like a little kid.

"And how knowing the skeleton gender can help us know how it died? Or better, who killed it?" Thalia curiously asked, she wanted to know this detective business was somewhat exciting. "Elementary my dear Grace-" Thalia gave him a hard glare, she hated her surname and Luke knew it, he coughed and corrected himself: "Elementary my dear Thalia, knowing the gender of the skeleton also leads to knowing a few possibilities or causes of murder! Revenge, she could have cheated on the one who killed her, or something worse... Something against the law. The skull has a crack that was healed but it's still visible, I don't think this was done by a monster because of the dent and the crack, it could have been a metal weapon like a bat or a metal pole too."

Like mentioned a few other scenarios that would lead to the victim's death and Thalia was genuinely impressed as so was both Eny and Pruno, they didn't know Luke knew that much! Eny wondered if he should get Luke a pair of glasses and soon got lost in his thoughts as Pruno approached Luke and looked down at the skeleton, he tilted his head to the side and suddenly noticed something. "What is this?" There were more bruises, on the skeleton's fingers, arms, and legs, small cracks that somewhat healed themselves back together... Luke frowned and looked closely to see that he knew what caused those cracks. He was familiar with that...

The cracks were caused by impact with a blunt weapon, a weapon for impact, he knew that because of his mother. He went to the hospital quite a few times to get an X-Ray and he could easily remember what it looked like, and they were very similar to the ones the skeleton had.

This victim, this girl, was abused just as he was.

-Scene Ends-

This is going to be a filler arc where I will show you all about Luke's worth, next is going to be Pruno's filler arc. This arc shows Luke's knowledge and wit, while the next one will show both Pruno's intelligence as well as his Yandere tendencies along with plants.