At dawn the next day, the daytime servants who entered the Eskin manor for their work immediately screamed out in horror, their voices resounding throughout the city.
The public enforcers of the city quickly arrived at the scene and swiftly contacted the military stationed nearby.
Because of how horrifying the scene of the crime was, this situation had already gotten far out of the city public enforcers’ hands. Aristocrats had never been a bunch of helpless sheep waiting to be slaughtered, they had access to more resources in order to train more and better Pugilists, and the Eskin family was quite the renowned aristocratic family in the city, so this level of massacre wasn’t something they could deal with.
“The manor’s food servers work on a rotational basis, even their chef gets changed every once in a while, and they had more than one water source, so it was impossible to poison such a large manor of people all at once”
“Hm, there were many signs of struggle at the scene of crime, but none of them extended very far, the culprit must be exceptionally strong”
The two public enforcers exchanged glances, then both looked down. Everyone understood that the situation wasn’t normal, and it was very simple to use the process of elimination to discern a group with this level of capabilities after a bit of serious investigation.
However, anyone with a little bit of experience would recognize this to be a pond disguised as a puddle. If they get involved, there is a possibility of being attacked and killed by ‘thugs’ at any moment.
Because of this, shortly after exchanging glances, the two of them proceeded with collecting evidence like they always do. However, they were being a lot more careless with it, ignoring a lot of points of suspicion. For example, the fact that the cut wounds were too clean to be done by regular weapons, or how the dead Pugilists in the manor were clearly clinging onto some pieces of fine silk.
The public enforcers took note of all of these details, but didn’t say anything about it and instead began to faintly obscure them.
Only sharp people would be able to make it into the public enforcers.
Very quickly, the military temporarily put the city on lock-down with the excuse of searching for the culprits. Most of the citizens remained in their house to be investigated, meanwhile, a small group of carriages silently left the city.
〖 It seems Eldridge hadn’t fully recovered his strength 〗standing on a tall position, Negary observed everything as they occurred, fully aware of what they were doing. Embezzling and selling military equipment or assets was a serious crime enough for capital punishment.
If Eldridge still remained at his peak, the New Royas Kingdom would never become this way.
However, in retrospect, Eldridge’s power originated from the authority of the Last God, which originated from the first Age of Flames.
At the end of the Age of Flames, the world’s rules had already been changed, causing his power to backfire on him to a certain extent. Just surviving would have already been Eldridge’s great fortune, so he was most likely in a laying dead state. The extent of his power was only enough to help his subjects to rebuild the Royas Kingdom, but most likely not enough to actually take control of this country.
Following that, Negary’s gaze fell onto the worshipping altar at the center of the city, which worshipped the so-called Divine Lord Eldridge.
Most likely, following the changes in the world’s natural laws, Eldridge was no longer able to obtain the support of his subjects through faith in the sovereign alone, so he changed the method and used religious faith.
The chaos within the city quickly came to an end. The lock-down quickly came to an end after the military left the city. The ‘culprit’ was also swiftly determined to be a group of bandits who infiltrated the city during the night and mercilessly slaughtered the entire Eskin family; the military had announced their intentions of subjugating them all as soon as possible.
However, the youngest son of the Eskin family, Aureum Eskin, had left the house the night before and fortunately managed to escape his death. Although he seemed to be shocked silly, the rules of aristocracy dictated that since he was the only remaining member of the Eskin family, he instantly inherited the Eskin peerage and became the new Baron Eskin.
The city lord Dolan had personally conducted the ceremony for him to inherit that peerage.
…
“YOU CALL THAT DOING YOUR WORK!?”
Dolan angrily slammed his table and shouted. The plan he had drafted was supposed to be perfect, when Aureum left the house for a party the night before, he was supposed to have been stabbed to death already, but he was somehow resurrected.
“It’s no longer suitable to act on him, he wouldn’t be able to achieve anything on his own anyways” Dolan looked down at the man kneeling in front of his table and coldly said: “As for you, since you couldn’t fulfil your responsibilities, dismiss yourself and receive your punishment. You’ll get another chance soon enough”
“Yes sir!” the man was still trembling as he retreated outside.
At this point, a young boy carrying a wooden sword ran into the room, while he tried his best not to act arrogant, his small head couldn’t help but perk up as if asking for praise: “Lord father, I managed to learn all 20 steps of swordplay today, aren’t I great?”
“You’re awesome, my little Parry” Dolan’s cold expression vanished and picked up the young boy, quickly praising him. For some reason, he couldn’t help but recall the dead body of the young Eskin family boy from the previous night.
After a short lapse of attention, Dolan smiled and said: “Since little Parry had tried so hard, father shall give you a present. In a few days, I’ll perform another baptism for you, you’d then be able to practice [Bone Forge Art] and become a great Pugilist, what do you say?”
“Really, lord father, you’re awesome!” the young boy happily exclaimed and hugged his father lovingly.
“Ahaha” Dolan also laughed heartily and put the young boy’s corpse out of his mind.
For the sake of the family’s glory, for my son, everything is worth it.
At another location, Catho’s gaze fell onto the city lord’s manor. As a decrepit aristocrat, he had already sold the majority of what can be sold in his house, leaving mostly only knowledge remaining. The Ghostman ritual was already the last remaining chance for his Jugus family, so he would not let it slip.
Those people left the city almost immediately after that massacre, and it would have been impossible for such a large group to flee the city in the middle of the night without the city lord’s participation.
Catho recalled the information he collected last night, coupled with the military’s response today, he could already discern the true culprit of the Eskin family’s massacre.
There’s definitely a dirty deal involved here, but that doesn’t matter to me.
All I need is the Spring of Life.
He wasn’t part of the public enforcers, so all he needed was suspicion, not clues. There’s only a single Spring of Life, and there’s only enough of the broken Spring of Life for a single person to use, so he must obtain that piece of Bone of God no matter what.
So I need to employ some underhanded methods.
The city lord’s only son was also his biggest weakness.
As long as I kidnap him and use him as leverage, I’d be able to ask for the whereabouts of the Spring of Life.
But that boy definitely has Pugilists protecting him at all times.
Pugilists who have obtained a Pugilist Heart are people who wield supernatural powers. Even though Catho hadn’t relented on his training for a single day, his bone quality wasn’t particularly great, so without extra resources, it was next to impossible for him to train his body to the limit and become a Pugilist through traditional methods.
Bone Swapping requires the gradual exchange of blood as well, so if resources can’t keep up with the process, doing so would only leave side effects. For this reason, even though Bone Swapping wasn’t a secret technique by any means, very few peasants can actually become Pugilists.
For peasants, there are only two paths to becoming a Pugilist: join the military, or become a dog of the aristocrat.
Other than these two methods, other examples essentially cannot be replicated. They either get extremely lucky and pick up some sort of treasure or were born with excellent bone quality that surpasses regular people.
I need to draft a complete plan.
Even after I obtain the Spring of Life, it mustn’t have anything to do with the Jugus family at all.
Catho gradually determined himself: “For the glory of the Jugus family!”
