"What! Soone else has died?"
Hearing such news, the priest instantly panicked.
His face was filled with unease and fear, and even his voice trembled sowhat.
He grabbed the little boy in front of him, staring intently at him:
"Again on the boat? Was it a fisherman? When did the person die? What exactly happened this ti?"
"I... I’m just here to report..."
The little boy was already emotionally unstable, and being grabbed by the shoulders and interrogated by the priest, his eyes, already red-rimd, were on the verge of tearing up, and he barely managed to articulate his words:
"The dock... fishing boat... dead person..."
Watching the two emotionally tense individuals hinder each other, with practically no useful information or progress in their dialogue.
Finally, Ronald couldn’t stand by any longer.
He walked over and patted the priest on the shoulder, trying to slow his tone:
"Mr. Conni, you’ve frightened the child."
"Let do the asking."
"Huh?"
Reminded by Ronald in this fashion, the priest realized how impulsive his actions had been.
Hurriedly stepping back, he released the boy’s shoulders, his eyes filled with guilt and self-reproach:
"Kid, I’m truly sorry."
"I was too nervous."
Unfortunately, this apology had little effect.
The little boy still stood there, his expression fraught with panic, the fear in his pupils not diminishing at all.
Seeing this, Ronald simply walked over, bent down to bring his gaze to the height of the little boy’s.
Seriously looking into the boy’s eyes, he finally spoke:
"Good kid, I know you might have just seen sothing really scary, but you can rest assured, uncle... big brother here, ca to Seraphis to deal with this matter."
"So tell ."
"What exactly happened at the dock?"
The equal eye level reduced the little boy’s defensiveness, and after being comforted for a while, his emotions finally stabilized. Glancing fearfully towards the outside of the church, the little boy said:
"It happened... it happened there at the dock."
"The grown-ups who returned this morning heard the priest say it was all safe, and they were ready to harvest, but when they got back to the dock, they found that a household hadn’t co ashore!"
"Then... then they imdiately gathered to check."
"And they saw that corpse!"
...
After pondering for two or three seconds, Ronald continued to ask:
"Did this just happen?"
The little boy nodded firmly:
"Yes, as soon as the news ca out, I ran to the church."
Hearing the boy’s reply, Ronald nodded, then turned to look at the priest.
"Mr. Conni, please take care of this child for now."
"I’ll go to the dock to see what’s going on, and I’ll deal with any issues."
"No problem."
The priest’s voice reached Ronald from behind, and without any hesitation, he stood up and headed towards the church’s main door.
Subconsciously, he reached into his coat and touched the revolver in his pocket.
If there are a lot of ordinary people around, then it wouldn’t be a good ti to bring out the "Divine Cody’s" dark fog, so I might as well try using this thing...
Who knows, maybe passing through this kind of thing could cure a problem like shooting off target?
Lost in thought, Ronald walked towards the Seraphis docks.
On the way to the destination, on the streets around the small town, on the roads, and at the doorways of houses, so frightened won and children could be seen everywhere.
It was obvious—
After the priest told everyone yesterday that the area was safe, problems arose again this morning. Such ’breach of trust’ from an authority figure could easily unsettle the crowd.
Not to ntion that what had appeared in Celerphis was a ’monster’ that took people’s lives!
His mood sank bit by bit.
Ronald arrived at the ferry dock without a word.
From a distance, he saw many people gathered around a wooden jetty, where a moderately sized fishing boat was docked.
Ronald adjusted his coat and then made his way through the crowd:
"Excuse , I need to examine the victim’s body."
"..."
The path cleared visibly fast.
The fishern at the dock, seeing Ronald’s attire, understood the man’s profession.
After all, Willard and the other two investigators had been active in Celerphis for the past few days.
Pushing through the crowd, he stepped onto the sampan board and jumped onto the fishing boat.
Thanks to the enhancent of physical fitness by the "Divine Cody," Ronald slled a bloody odor behind the pile of fish caught in the cabin.
Identifying this amidst the fishy sll was definitely no easy task.
Following the scent, not far off in the cabin, lay the body of an adult man sprawled on the floor.
Pale skin sared with the blood of the deceased, mixed with seawater and fish sli coated the ground; stepping on it was unavoidable and nauseating.
Everything before his eyes declared that the man was thoroughly dead.
Ronald furrowed his brows, pushing aside his discomfort as he walked over to the body.
Even the fishern, accustod to hard labor, only dared to watch from outside.
Under the gaze of the onlookers, Ronald squatted down to start the examination.
At first glance, Ronald noticed sothing odd.
The most fatal wounds on the body did not match the descriptions he had seen in the file records.
The fishern killed by the crazed researcher in the previous days were mostly slit open and eviscerated, but although this man had also lost his internal organs, there were clearly missing chunks of muscle tissue from places like his arms and thighs.
What was going on...
Ronald was now puzzled.
He had initially leaned toward the possibility that soone was influenced by the undetected Magic Book, resulting in a fate similar to the researcher’s.
But if it were the interference of the sa object, why were the manifestations so different?
Shaking his head in disbelief, Ronald continued to examine the body.
All he could do for now was to keep investigating and see how much new information he could glean from this corpse.
After a considerably long ti, Ronald confird the injuries on the body.
The fatal wounds were all caused by bladed weapons, not the kind of marks left by human gnawing or animal mauling.
In other words—
This guy had been killed with a sword or sothing similar, and then his flesh had been stripped from his body.
Who on earth did this?
The information in his hands was simply insufficient.
Baffled, Ronald looked towards the fishern standing outside the cabin:
"Does anyone know this guy’s na?"
"And recently, has he had any argunts or physical conflicts with anyone?"
"..."
The fishern were silent.
Ronald waited for about four or five breaths.
Finally, a middle-aged fisherman stepped out from the crowd.
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