Radical

"Hehe."

A guy was being dragged by the guards, presumably about to get jailed.

Click~ Slam~

The guards opened up another jail cell and locked the person in it.

"Oh! You people were here. Don't you worry, this guy is going to get locked up only for a short period of time." The guards clarified that they were not being imprisoned but only being detained.

It's pretty much just the same jail.

"Uhm. Excuse me, sir?" E excused himself and hailed for one of the guards' attention.

"What is it? Dragons?" The guard who was not busying himself with locking the guy inside answered E.

"I think the detainee in this other cell is dead. He's not responding to any of our voices." E explained in a prim and proper manner.

"No lollygagging. Ey, Muck, I better check the other guy." The guard said towards his companion.

"Aight. Be careful though, this may be a scheme." The other guard replied.

The guard went towards the cell and unlocked it with a set of keys similar to the keys that the other guard had. But before heading inside, the guard observed Martin and assessed his condition via sight.

"He's not looking good. I can't believe how much weight he lost within a day."

Knowing that the limp noodle before him could never harm him with that body, the guard walked with ease towards the corpse and turned the body over.

'Wow. This guy's ugly as hell.'

The guard first had offensive thoughts. It took him a second that the face he was looking at was the face of a dead man. Upon realizing that fact, the guard used his hand to feel Martin's vital signs.

'Body's still warm. Maybe he's okay?'

Feeling the temperature, it wasn't evident that he lost his life. However, the guard continued investigating and neared towards Martin's mouth to feel his breath.

'Retch, this guy's not breathing but his bad breath is rancid.'

He couldn't feel the wind moving from Martin's mouth. There was only one more thing to check, the pulse. He used his hand once more and molested Martin's neck and wrist.

'Ah fuck. He's dead.'

He couldn't feel anything, but he was feeling awful. He just made fun of a dead person and being the first person to confirm a death was not a laughing matter.

'Dude, he's hard!'

It was not a post mortem reaction of the body called rigor mortis. Martin's schlong was fully awake because most of his blood was in his lower half and because he died facing down.

"Hey, Muck! We got a problem."

The guard called for his companion. Muck turned the corner and checked the situation inside Martin's cell.

"Nuts. I better inform his family and go get Priest Ped to bless Martin. You take care of this."

Muck chose the easy route of helping, leaving the guard to handle matters by himself. He was troubled, he couldn't possibly carry a dead body by himself at this time of night by himself.

'People will freak out if I just carry a dead body by myself.'

But just when he was thinking of a solution to his troubles, he heard a chicken cluck right by him.

"Cluck."

"I'll help you carry him." Bob offered his hand.

"Oh. Much appreciated. Anyone here with something to cover Martin's body? I don't want to alarm the people."

Annera opened her inventory and produced a shawl. She offered the shawl to the guard who proceeded to drape the shawl over Martin.

"It's not nearly big enough, but I reckon that's good enough." The guard could not complain despite only covering the upper half of Martin's body.

After properly situating Martin on the ground, Bob and the guard positioned themselves to carry him. The guard took care of Martin's upper half and Bob carried the lower half with the protruding pickle.

"Let's head towards the chapel. I'd like to give this guy a bath first but were in the middle of the night." The guard uttered as they ventured.

After a few minutes of solemn marching, they were approached by an acolyte of the chapel.

"Meteder's mercy upon you." The acolyte exclaimed as he touched Martin's dead body under the shawl.

"Come with me. Priest Ped is waiting inside." The acolyte continued.

The party was led inside the chapel and there was a table prepared when they arrived. Bob and the guard put Martin over the table. The guard was breathing heavily while Bob did not break a sweat, Bob's STR stat was in the hundreds after all.

"I can feel Meteder's grace on you, child." A voice said from deeper within the chapel.

Soon enough, a door opened and revealed an old woman wearing priest garb much like Annera's clothing but her robes had ornaments on it. She was a priest affiliated with Meteder, as he was the god of the Kingdom of Doof.

"Hmm? Are you talking about me?" Bob asked for clarification. The old woman was looking at him after all.

"Yes, you, child. But let's talk about this later, for now, let us deal with the problem that's on the table." The old priestly woman said.

The acolyte that led them inside suddenly had a jug full of water which he placed just below the table. He went back and forth to fetch some things from a room, furnishing the table to be a place where they could give the body a proper cleaning.

"All finished, Priest Ped, if you would." The acolyte formally passed the responsibilities to Old Lady Ped.

"Thank you, Niel."

As Priest Ped was about to lift the shawl to begin investigating and cleaning, the front door of the chapel swung open and revealed a group of people.

"Oh my god! My poor baby!" An aged woman barged into the chapel, presumably her mother.

"Hmm. Nora? Why are you here?" Priest Ped looked towards the aged woman who intruded the room.

"Huhu. Martin. What happened to my baby?" But Ped's words fell on deaf ears as Nora just hugged Martin's body and cried a bucketful of tears.

The other people from the group slowly walked towards Martin and they were silently pained by the news. They were skeptical of Muck's sudden declaration of Martin's death but seeing the body was more than enough evidence.

"Keep it down, Nora. Marissa needs a moment of silence to mourn the death of her eldest son." Priest Ped said as another woman approached from the group.

"You son of a bitch, you just had to die. You just left me, your mother, by myself." Marissa, being the mother of that son of a bitch, just cursed herself.

But that was intentional, Marissa cursed herself because she couldn't discipline her child.

"Mom. We're still here." Her other children voiced out.

"Shhh."

'Wait, if she's Martin's mother, then who's that other lady?' E thought to himself.

The situation compromised of a corpse, a lady that was heavily crying, a mother that was heavily cursing, the corpse's younger sibling that were obviously grieved, and a few bystanders, namely E's party.

"Although it may be inhuman of me, I have to separate you people from Martin for a while. I will look for any signs that would lead to an understanding of his passing and we will give him proper cleaning."

Priest Ped interrupted the silent moment. She determined that merely confirming was enough for the family, Ped didn't want them to stare at Martin's corpse that looked like pruned dumplings.

The acolyte stood in their way and pushed the newly arriving group of people outside. E's party remained inside as they had to inform Priest Ped of what exactly happened.

"A few minutes ago, we were just having a light-hearted conversation with him." Minion stated.

"Yea. All of us, except Annera here, were with him within that detaining cell. He was doing okay for the most part, but his health at that time was already questionable." E added.

"Hey, would he have lived if we gave him a potion?" Enma, as usual, couldn't read the mood.

"No. I don't think it had anything to do with wounds." Bob had the chance to take a proper look at Martin's body earlier, he couldn't find any exterior wound.

"Internal Damages." Blight commented frankly.

With all of the statements from the boys, Priest Ped began examining Martin's dead body. She tried her best but she couldn't make a proper assessment, she was only a priest.

Ped didn't give up despite her lack of skill in the investigating department. And oddly enough, she did find something amiss within Martin's body.

'There's no trace of Meteder's blessing. Did he starve for a few days?'

Meteder's blessing exists upon every believer who isn't deprived of food. But the lack of blessing itself was a questionable thing for Martin.

'His sugar mommy, Nora, should have fed him plenty.'

Martin was a guy that had a cougar sponsor. Although he never did the deed with aged lady Nora, he was still gifted with stuff that you would expect would come from an aged lady.

'Are they involved in this?'

Priest Ped was suspicious. This wasn't a natural death, this was murder. She knew the radical group that could render this kind of blessless death.