After asking a passersby for directions, they finally found the location of Viri's Inn.
When they arrived, a huge crowd had gathered at the entrance, people jostling and shouting over one another, creating a chaotic wall of humanity.
"Excuse me, let me through."
Judas muttered as he tried to squeeze into the mass of bodies.
But it was like pushing against an iron wall.
No one seemed willing to budge even an inch.
"We can't get through like this."
Riveria said with a resigned expression.
Judas tried again, shoving a little to the left, then the right... but it was futile.
Just as Ais was preparing to leap over the crowd, her mind already calculating the trajectory...
'Fine.'
Judas had run out of patience.
With a calm exhale, he extended his arm.
His telekinesis magic rippled outward, and the entire crowd was suddenly lifted and swept aside.
People stumbled, scrambled, and shouted as they were gently... but firmly... pushed back in two directions.
It was as though Moses himself had appeared, parting the sea, only this time the "sea" consisted entirely of adventurers.
"That is one way of getting through."
Riveria muttered, glancing briefly at Judas in mild surprise.
Ais, who was about to jump, stopped mid-motion and blinked a couple of times at this spectacle, but didn't say anything.
"Huh?!"
"Hey!"
"What the!?"
Voices of confusion echoed in a cacophony among the crowd of adventurers as Judas moved them with his telekinesis.
"Who's using magic?!"
"Come out and show yourself!"
"You wanna get beaten up?!"
Some of the more hotheaded individuals attempted to push forward, shoving through the crowd in a show of defiance.
But as their eyes fell on Judas, Ais, and Riveria... walking calmly, unfazed, like they were strolling through a quiet park... a flicker of recognition flashed across their faces.
Abruptly, their mouths clamped shut.
'The Loki Familia?'
Only a fool... or someone recklessly confident in their own power... would dare pick a fight with one of the top familias in Orario.
These were seasoned adventurers who had explored the dungeon for many years, not mindless side characters from some cultivation novel who would start fights over petty slights.
Wisely, they held their anger.
Slowly, mutters and curses faded, replaced by cautious whispers as they gave way.
The crowd now formed a clear path.
When they entered the inn, Judas, Ais, and Riveria, with their enhanced senses, immediately picked up a foul stench.
'Someone had died here.'
The familiar smell of a corpse.
As they stepped into the room where the crime had occurred, their eyes were greeted by a body whose head had been completely turned into meat paste.
"How awful."
Riveria commented, covering her nose.
Judas even spotted an eyeball that had been flung some distance away.
"Huh? What the—? The Loki Familia? Why are you guys here?"
"Dammit! What the hell is the watch doing?"
A man spoke as he roughly scratched his head.
Judas shifted his gaze toward him.
He was a human with a rugged face, wearing an eyepatch over his left eye.
His name was Bors Elda, a level 3 adventurer and the de facto leader of the town of Rivira.
"Bors, what happened here?"
Riveria asked, averting her eyes from the corpse and turning toward him instead.
"Tsk... damn. Whether it's you guys or the Freya Familia, strong folks like you really just do whatever you want, huh?"
Bors said, crossing his arms.
"Well, as you can see, someone here went back to heaven. I suspect this murder happened last night."
He continued while staring at the corpse, shaking his head.
Bors then turned toward a figure seated on the bed... the owner of the inn, holding his head in both hands.
A beastkin named Viri.
"Oi, Viri. You're the owner of this place. Explain what happened."
Hearing Bors's words, Viri raised his head and spoke, a bead of sweat trailing down his face.
"From what I remember last night, the guy who was killed was wearing full plate armor. His face was covered by a helmet, so I don't know what he looked like."
Viri let out an exasperated sigh.
"And I remember he was with a woman wearing a robe... she was hiding her face too."
"In particular, the two of them asked me to rent out the entire inn."
Hearing this, Riveria furrowed her brows.
The implications of Viri's words were clear, but she chose not to comment.
"?"
Meanwhile, Ais wore a puzzled expression, wondering why anyone would rent an entire inn.
"I didn't have any reason to turn them away as long as I got paid. Then... the next day, I found the same man dead on the floor. Just thinking about it gives me chills."
Viri continued, his body shivering slightly.
"In other words, that woman is most likely the culprit."
Bors concluded after hearing Viri's account.
"We can't make such a hasty conclusion," Riveria interjected, her fingers touching her chin.
"But I suppose the biggest suspect would indeed be that woman."
"Bors, we got it!"
At that moment, a few of Bors's subordinates entered the room, one of them holding a potion.
"That is..."
Judas muttered, frowning at the unfamiliar bottle.
"A status thief... an item used solely to reveal someone's status."
Riveria explained.
They watched as one of the men uncorked the bottle and poured a single drop onto the corpse's back.
"Judging by how pathetically he died, he's probably just some low-level grunt from a low-level familia."
Bors voiced his assumption, and several others nodded in agreement.
Judas watched as the falna on the corpse's back magically appeared.
However, because he had not learned the gods' language of this world, he couldn't read it.
That was why Riveria stepped forward and read it aloud.
"His name is Hashana Dorlia, and his affiliation is—"
"The Ganesha Familia."
Ais spoke the final words. Her ability to read the hieroglyphs was thanks to the painstaking lessons Riveria had drilled into her when she was younger.
"W-wait a minute!"
"Did you just say Hashana? Hashana as in the Hard Fist Fighter?"
Bors's single eye widened in disbelief.
His mouth hung open, beads of sweat forming on his face.
"This guy isn't some low-level grunt... he's a level 4!"
Neither Judas nor the others rebuked Bors for his shock.
They too furrowed their brows at the revelation.
What did a level 4 signify?
Even if they weren't first-class powerhouses, a level 4 was still a high-level combatant... someone capable of tipping the balance of power in a middle or even upper-middle-class familia.
Outside of Orario and the School District, how many level 4s even existed?
Judas would estimate fewer than the fingers on one hand.
A level 3 was already enough to serve as an imperial knight commander of the Empire.
For someone of that caliber to die in such a manner... the culprit would have to be at least level 4 as well.
But considering the complete lack of struggle or signs of battle in the room...
There was only one conclusion.
"The killer is most likely level 5 or higher."
Judas muttered under his breath.
...
In a narrow, dimly lit alleyway in Rivira, a female beastkin stood pressed against the cold stone wall, clutching a worn bag tightly against her chest.
Her ears twitched at every distant footstep, her eyes darting from shadow to shadow as if expecting something to leap out at any moment.
Only after several long seconds passed without incident did she finally let out a shaky breath.
"The coast is clear."
She pushed off the wall and broke into a sprint, intent on leaving Rivira as quickly as possible.
But what she failed to realize was that she had never truly been alone.
From the depths of the alley's shadows, a lone figure clad in dark-colored armor watched her every movement in silence.
The figure blinked once... and vanished like a ghost.
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