Necropsy

[Attention! This chapter may be a bit gross for some people, if you don't feel comfortable reading it, choose to skip this chapter and go to the next.]

"If you allow me, I can do the necropsy."

If allowed, everyone would save time, it was just too unusual for someone so young to have the ability to read corpses.

"What are you talking about? We can't let just anyone mess with a body. That would be disrespectful." Eliz replied, her face entirely frowning.

"You said he's cut in half, didn't you? Aren't you also afraid that it was a murder?"

"A murder? Impossible... He was in the building under the Dungeon. There are guards twenty-four hours a day and for every corner."

Luke lifted his cloak a little as he brought his hand to his chin and began to think.

'In case it is a murder... how will that intertwine with the spider event? No, it was likely some kind of poison. But we can't be sure without at least seeing the corpse...'

As Luke stood thoughtfully, Nathalia questioned:

"You said his name was Downey, right? What he was like at the Guild?"

"Yes. He was twenty-seven and was always at a party with three other close friends and the last quest they took was a side quest that called for thirty inferior goblin tongues."

"Thirty goblin tongues? But they disappear very quickly, the blow would have to be struck directly on the tongue before they turn to dust."

"Not exactly. Some items increase the chance that the monster will leave a part of itself behind." The short-haired woman explained. "Anyway, you guys wait here. I'm going to go check to see if anyone at the Guild clinic saw the coroner today. Kriolo will be here at your disposal." Then she pointed to the giant man at the door, the same one who received the half-wolf and the elf.

Kriolo was the security guard at the Necroterium, and although he had a very sharp, thin mustache, the man could easily be mistaken for just any blacksmith. With huge tanned muscles, a sweaty bald head, and a white tank top, the old man intimidated any skinny wizard who tried to enter the place without permission.

Before Eliz left, Luke asked her, "Isn't there some way we can negotiate our way in? I think the situation is too critical and in case it is some kind of poison, an antidote can start to be developed soon."

The half-wolf was not only interested in the gold coin as a reward for the missing persons' mission but also in future profits there might be.

If the culprit really was the Class-D type of giant spider, the market value of their drops would probably increase, and Luke could make quite a bit of money by selling their claws that he had in his bag since the day before.

The boy's explanation made Eliz ponder for a few seconds, after all, if there was a Class-D monster with deadly poison, the Guild could make a lot of money from selling the antidotes.

They were both thinking only of profit.

"I can make an exception for you... If, and only if... you owe me a favor."

"A favor?"

"Yes. When I need it, I will call on you, and you cannot refuse."

'Is this some custom of the Adventurers?' Luke thought, after all, thieves didn't usually owe favors to anyone. In the end, the half-wolf assessed the occasion and predicted that he had little benefit.

"I'm not going to rummage through a corpse for no gain, offer me something too, and maybe I'll take it."

"Hmm..." Eliz brought her index finger to her lips and began to think about what she might propose. "I can give you ten percent of the profit from the antidotes if the poison is the culprit. If not, you will be the first choice for a likely mission involving this case."

Like Zion, Eliz understood that although those two were only two Rank F's, they had direct ties to the Strogueher family and were about to break the UP record in the Guild.

Before closing the deal, Luke looked at his partner. The elf was a little fearful for some reason, but seeing the boy looking at her, she gave in and nodded in agreement.

Since entering the Necropsy Room required an employee, Kriolo reached for the keyring on his belt and pulled out a common key. Fearful, the giant said to Eliz:

"Madam, if anyone finds out, please don't include me in this. I have two children to take care of, I can't be arrested."

The woman approached him, leaned on his right shoulder with her hand, and spoke with a smile, "I have confidence that this information will not leak, right?"

Kriolo hid his lips, looked down, and handed her the key. When Eliz opened the door, the coldness chilled the hair on the half-wolf's ear.

Nathalia chose not to enter and stayed outside the room, out of respect for the victim and also because she could not deal with the fact that a person, she saved yesterday, was already dead.

When he entered accompanied by Eliz, Luke saw a dark and tightly closed room, whose rotten smell seemed uncomfortable to him. His sense of smell allowed him to sense the faintest and most delicate smells in the room, including the gases still coming off the decomposing bodies.

Covered by white cloths on the wooden tables in the room were two corpses. The first was large and the second was thin.

As Eliz stopped by the door, Luke felt free to begin. He went to the larger body, removed the cloth, and what he saw almost made him vomit in disgust. The boy had seen many corpses before, but none were in the state they were in.

Cut in half at the belly, Downey's navel was no longer there. Between the guts and the scattered and scrambled organs, it was easy to see that the cut in his skin was rectilinear, something not at all typical of poisons.

He looked as if he had been cut in half with a quick and powerful cut, by a blade so sharp that it managed to tear through all the fat with ease.

'That's a murder.' Luke concluded internally, and that pitch changed his perspective on the case. If before he was interested in the value the spiders' spoils would have, now he wanted to get away from this case.

An assassin who manages to break into a dungeon facility without alerting anyone and cuts a person in half perfectly was certainly not just anyone.

However, the half-wolf didn't stop there. Like a good assassin, he understood that a discreet death would be better than a brutal one like this.

'Why cut Downey in half? Why?' Thousands of possible answers appeared in his mind, yet none seemed sufficient for this occasion.

With rubber gloves that were beside the stretcher, the boy carefully moved a little between the man's organs and noticed a large hole in his chest cavity.

Amidst the flatulent adores, Luke's sense of smell picked up a normal smell: paper. Promptly, he slipped his hand into the middle of the man's organs and withdrew an old parchment.