Triiffic-Soul: Can I Be In Control?-Chapter 190 – Investigating what Happened to ‘Lilly’
Chapter 190 – Investigating what Happened to ‘Lilly’
[Are we really doing this…] Eva muttered. When Luna told her bluntly what her goal was, it left her speechless.
[Yes, we need to make sure they treated you with respect.] Luna replied. Her thoughts narrowed on the possibilities that occurred to Eva after her passing.
Eva had a morbid curiosity, but the idea of investigating her own death… something about the idea squashed all curiosity in her heart.
Today marked the first week they had been inside the city. During the previous days, they had kept up with Mary’s request and even sparred with Lord Hall’s guards at their request. The latter were an interesting group of people, though calling them guards wasn’t entirely accurate. They were servants of the manor that also happened to be former country guardsmen. In Eletscoep, it would be strange for any individual to have a private combat force, so the people were being paid to serve, but everyone knew they could also protect themselves.
However, due to the fact that they were former guardsmen, they tended to be on the older end. Not old-man level, but they had already seen the years on the job. Still, they were excited to try their worth against the young hunters. The results went as well as expected with no Attribute combat. Maca held the advantage due to his sheer physical power, while Ethan, who was also excited for the opportunity to learn, didn’t win against anyone.
Lavender had a fifty percent win rate while Syrus managed a nice seventy percent. However, no one from the Station group believed Syrus’s losses for a moment. Somehow, every match was close, and she surrendered due to being out of stamina for each of her losses. No one decided to comment on why she was doing that, but the butlers were impressed with her stamina management, knowing when to back off.
Syrus’s opinions of the guards were less than stellar, but she didn’t think they were bad. They clearly hadn’t experienced as much combat as the average hunter or mercenary, as the type of place they operated in was much more peaceful. She admitted that compared to other people she fought, they clearly had more experience in disabling human fighters without killing them, which was a very important skill that she knew far too many people who lacked that ability.
That was where Lavender messed up; they were able to restrain her a lot more easily than she had expected. Of course, the argument of whether it was a fight with attributes allowed would possibly create a different outcome. Syrus believed that even in a life-or-death match, Lavender still wouldn't have a 100% win rate. One of the butlers, Tarm, disabled her so fast that she didn’t react in time, and based on the movements around the house, he at least had a speed Attribute he didn’t use in the fight.
In times of peace and places where disaster didn’t loom over every wall, different skills were required, and that was alright. Though Syrus’s stepping back in the fights wasn’t just done to appeal to their egos.
Syrus suddenly said, [This should be a fun adventure!]
[...] (Eva)
[Sure, let’s go with that…] (Luna)
Syrus decided to have Luna’s back in this situation. Luna cared a lot, which Syrus figured was based on some sort of church-instilled values, but respecting the bodies of the dead wasn’t a disrespectful act. It was just that the two had slightly differing views on the matter. Still, Syrus was happy to support Luna through this as she felt that it would help bring more closure. She might be fine with the pass being buried, but the other two were different stories, and she was always here to help, in her own way.
They travelled the city with their goal in mind, which in all accounts was likely going to be a difficult task. Figuring out what happened to one lonely person’s body was likely going to be difficult enough if it happened within a year, but it being ten years made the process so much more difficult.
In the end, it ended up being a multi-day affair. Tracking down different clues and non-existent leads.
[Another dead end… who else might know?] (Luna)
[There are still more names on the list…] Eva mumbled. [Some of them may know…]
Eva gave a list of the different groups of people she worked with. Because the source that would know the situation the best was likely her original parents, who Anlesa certainly was not going to speak to without Eva’s direct request.
They did acquire some clues already. They were able to fight out that Lilly died in the home and that, apparently, no one had noticed her death for a while. The smells of chemicals and other types of potions were Eva’s best guess on the matter, but all they learnt was that it had been long enough that it made the cleanup process and reselling of the house hard.
That fact caused Eva to squirm.
She had seen dead people. Even in her past life… and plenty in this current one, even ones that she killed with her own hands. No matter if Syrus said otherwise or not, every drop of blood on their hands was shared.
But hearing how her own body was rotting away without a single sign for such a long time…
[...] It took a moment for Eva to breathe in and out whenever the thought came back up.
Going down the list of people they hadn’t already seen, most were lost for answers. A girl with brown hair matching Eva’s original features? Most couldn’t remember. The ones who did were the ones who remembered the horror story of how she was found dead, and that stuck in their minds.
“Fuck’in lazy bastards, I tell you.” The shopkeeper said after he got off on a slight tangent after Syrus had asked if he knew anything, requiring her to buy a few items from his shop with the wife to jog his memory.
[Sorry, we should’ve tried something else.] (Eva)
[No, it's alright.] Syrus affirmed that he might be rude, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have any useful information for them.
The conversation had gone off the rails slightly, as what jogged his memory was that the man had been a frequent client of Eva’s. Buying a few potions off her, but mostly appraising the other potions he had bought.
“It’s hard to get proper appraisers.” The man scoffed. “Even some potion makers are right awful at telling you how much a potion has been diluted. ‘Oh, it’s a diluted potion. Yeah, by how much and with what? Does that matter? The efficiency goes down by 50% with even a drop of water.’ Damn the bastards, I say. I’m trying to run a good business here.”
His wife replied, “Perhaps hiring a proper full-time appraiser would’ve been the correct decision.”
“Aren’t you always the one determining how much they should get paid?”
“Well, it’s not like they are doing hard work like we are.” The tone of absolute assurance rubbed the trio the wrong way. Eva just found the tone slightly annoying, while the other two were much more at odds with the message.
They had seen Eva work, and she was extremely clever when it came to determining the ingredients and process applied to a potion. She had examined the potion she bought as ingredients for other potions and was able to mention things like the type of salt used and the dilution ratio. In some conversations they watched Eva have with Ash, they watched her skill in action as she impressed Ash; well, 'astonished' would be the better word they would use. Eva didn’t really see this as a particularly impressive skill, and it already annoyed Syrus when Eva looked down at her own skills, but it was more frustrating when someone else did.
[Eva, tell me now, how often did you do appraisal work for these two?] Syrus's mental voice was oddly neutral.
[It… was occasional work… Why do you ask?] Eva answered with hesitation. She wasn’t feeling any negative feelings yet from Syrus, but she couldn’t help but be worried for some reason.
[So how much were you paid?] (Syrus)
Eva explained but gave an average amount for the work she did for these two.
[I understand…] (Syrus)
“I do have another question,” Luna said as if she were uninterested in the duo’s talk. “Do you know what happened to the corpse?”
“I don’t know, probably thrown to the dump if it hadn’t been found for a few days. Hard to bury a body in the catacombs when it’s late into decomposition. Best to just get rid of it.”
[He is not wrong--] (Eva)
[Quiet, Lilly! They threw your body in a dump like waste! You didn’t deserve that.] Luna was upset about the mistreatment of Lilly’s body. Of course, the duo in front of them weren’t the ones to do the act, but their attitude was angering Luna, which was only worsened as they couldn’t stop talking.
The wife added, “Good riddance. Can’t go stinking up a place without some consequences, I say.”
“If you can’t even die right, what are you supposed to do?”
The amount of malice contained within Anlesa was being surpassed by their will to not expose themselves. Eva went into panic mode as she felt the amount of hatred radiating off both Luna and Syrus.
The woman suddenly came to a realisation. “Why are you asking about such a person anyway? You can find common wenches like her anywhere."
“More importantly, I have more goods if you want to buy something else.” The man said with a sickening smile.
Luna answered. “Just doing a survey. Nothing too important for you to worry about. Thank you for your services.”
Anlesa stepped away, and once she did. The potion on the table that Eva identified as a diluted Amex potion. A potion that, under normal circumstances, helped speed up the decay of leftovers for the use of fertiliser. However, diluting such a potion was a little tricky. The regular methods of diluting were with water or energy potions. If either option was done with the Amex potion, then its effects would disappear after twenty-four hours. So the ‘proper’ method required a specialised method to dilute the potion, but such actions weren’t recommended. The option became extremely unstable when exposed to fire, which was made worse by the fact that the diluted version was quite easily set on fire.
The potion on the table tipped over as a small crystal of light appeared inside the potion.
“Argh!” The man yelled as the potion's contents spread over the table, engulfing all his goods in a fire.
“What are you doing!” The woman screamed, insulting her husband for allowing something like this to happen.
“Don’t blame me for this! You were the one who wanted to sell that potion!”
While this was happening, Anlesa was completely out of sight. They made sure no one would be hurt by their actions, but a little payback for insulting Eva didn’t hurt anything important.
