Death Leveling Chapter 50

[ … words ]

The perspective of Boro continues:

“Departure Town.” “Diersville.” “Perishton.” “City of Dreams.”

I glared at my wall—shirtless with a pile of empty bottles of Gin on a desk.

Black lines connecting town names together, newspapers that were illegally brought into the Im City headlining disasters—dozens of them, some yellow with age and others still somewhat fresh outlining incidents that were years old.

Photographs scattered all over the desk—streets, buildings, corpses, faces, and even places that were long demolished.

Each photograph contained dates—some inaccurate, others reliable in their veracity.

Maps occupied the main wall—layered over each other, some completely invisible due to the influx of new headlines.

Some locations crossed across the entire Iso Continent; all of them occurred explicitly in the Continent, but they were all ultimately randomized and followed no concrete connections.

On the floor, they were boxes of “reports,” handwritten notes, and discarded theories that never went anywhere. Years of them—endlessly.

“Four years ago”; I took the photo—”Departure Town.”

“Eight years… Diersville”; I grabbed it on top of the previous one.

“Twelve… Perishton.”

“Sixteen… City of Dreams, a population of 4 thousand people—genocided within hours, leaving just the children.”

Finally…

“There isn’t one for this year,” I voiced to myself in a dimly lit apartment that howled “obsession” into a good-for-nothing void.

Took a bottle of Gin—the only one still with liquor in it.

Sipped on it—and placed it on top of the photographs.

“Black Death… how are you this elusive?—how are there no photographs of you anywhere?—not even any witnesses.”

Just to hunt you down… just for that I joined the bureau—and then I learn there’s no information about you here.

Went to sleep, buzzed and without any conclusions.

The next morning came quickly… upon dreamless sleep that was sabotaged by ritualistic liquor consumption.

Glared at the mirror—adjusted my tie from side to side, in a manner that suggested that I cared about appearances when it was the furthest from the truth.

Then held both my hands up in front of my reflection, fingers curled into my palms with both thumbs pointing upwards.

Lowered my eyes, raised an eyebrow and cracked a grin at myself with shameless and artificial satisfaction.

“Yo, Zuri.”

We were outside, both perfectly on clock for the investigation headquarters.

“Hi, buddy,” he let out—he had messy hair and appeared sleepy—and uncaring.

“Sleep well?” I muttered as we were together in the elevator, both of our reflections vividly presenting us next to each other.

“As well as I can—did you?”

Just briefly, I peeped at him.

“Don’t think I’ve had any REM sleep in weeks.”

His eyes immediately went over me—through the mirror, then he subtly took a step towards and sniffed me.

“No wonder, eww—you smell like alcohol.”

“Yeah?—thanks.”

The elevator door opened and… everyone was scrambling.

We both walked towards our desks, eyes running over everyone.

“Did… something happen?” Zuri voiced at one of the colleagues—he had a stack of papers in his hands.

“Yeah— no— well, yes— but it’s something bizarre.”

I raised my eyebrow, glanced at Zuri—he was looking at me upon the colleague’s words as well.

“A really grotesque murder case—late during the evening a corpse was found in a bathroom of a bar. The victim is 18-years-old, Level 2 with 248 ELO.”

“Bizarre?” I whimpered—a challenge against the word he used.

“The top half of his body is missing—no head, no nothing—and there are bite marks all over. And the scene in general is… odd, somewhat.”

“Canni…balism?”

As my words progressed, yet again I began glaring at Zuri.

He looked at me dumbfounded—then lifted both of his hands close to himself, palms facing upwards, and raised his shoulders with his eyebrows arched, as though silently asking why I was staring at him of all people.

“Did we find who did that already?”

My question was natural—it is almost physically impossible to commit murder in the Im City without residue MANA being left by the System.

“Well, comes in a problem… it was an Irregular again—Environmental Analysis yielded nothing.”

Zuri proceeded to answer for me in silent whispers, in a tone that jabbed at the very design of our City, “it’s almost as if the Irregulars are taking advantage of their stealth.”

His reasoning wasn’t exactly logic-enforced…

“How would the Irregulars even know about the tracking, buddy?” I stole the last word straight out of his mouth…

He sat down on his chair and started slanting his head back-and-forth.

“And furthermore, couldn’t it just be the same Irregular as before?—the System Killer?”

Zuri then peeked at me.

“So, you’re implying we had no bodies because he ate the—”

Suddenly, his argument died straight on his tongue—his eyes widened and eyebrows shot towards his receding hairline, face suddenly illuminated by the revelation of a detective who had just cracked a complicated case.

Stood up—aggressively.

“The System Killer ate his fucking victims…!!”

He stared at me in bafflement…

“We— we need to inform Noctem about this— our Killer is a cannibal.”

“Everyone…!!” he yelled, muting the entire bureau that was in a constant frenzy because of all the recent cases stacking with zero resolutions.

“Our System Killer is a cannibal—he’s been eating his victims!!”

Silence.

Not the kind of case you’d want to float around in your homeplace.

A colleague then opened his mouth, “with how quickly the victims are stacking, can we really afford to wait until we log every single Irregular?—what do you suggest we do about this?”

Perhaps, I was slightly jealous of Zuri and his brain—he could certainly make the Black Death case run for its money, couldn’t he?

“We have an actual crime scene now—there’s blood, bite marks, and probably DNA all over the place.”

“What good does that do?—what database do we have to compare it to?” he quickly mumbled.

“Just— we need non-magic forensics, even if not for DNA—we need to request assistance from the Allure Empire.”

It’s true… if we had actual tools and squads that did forensics the old-fashioned way, this case could end within a day or two—we relied on magic so imprudently that we’ve grown conceited and foolish.

Not knowing jack-shit about DNA and forensics doesn’t help us, though.

“Won’t that take weeks as well?—where are you going with this?”

Zuri glanced at the one that uttered that line.

“If we request a squad of specialists, yes, but all we need are the tools for this—we could get them in under a week if we sent out someone Level 7 or above.”

“And will the crime scene even survive for that long?”

“Shit if I know—we’re so used to spamming ’Environmental Analysis,’ ’Environmental Analysis’ that we’re more or less ignorant about forensics.”

The way he said “Environmental Analysis”… in a high and mocking pitch… Zuri is just something else, isn’t he?

“Fair— well, let’s get this over sooner than later then—I’ll report to Jessey and Noctem right away,” stated the colleague.

Zuri then nodded his head in utter self-satisfaction.

However, just moments later…

A certain masked man walked into the bureau and stated a single line that changed everything…