"Can't you burn this any faster? The looks I'm getting's really starting to make me uncomfortable."
Dominik, who is currently sitting on the bucket he used to splash Kurt, was slowly melting the ice off of him with very weak fire magic.
"If I go any faster, I'll burn your leg. Just be patient and ignore them."
"Haaa… whatever you say." Kurt folded his arms and closed his eye.
Moments later the ice was finally weak enough for Kurt to shatter it with little effort.
"There we go. Try breaking free now."
The ice cracked into tiny shards as he broke free.
"Thanks."
"Don't go thanking me just yet, you're still under arrest in case you've forgotten."
"Can't you just let it go. I'm innocent. I told you I was chasing a murderer."
"Proof?" He asked.
"Proof? The proof is in the blood I got blasted with."
Dominik still looked at Kurt with a hint of skepticism.
"That's not enough to go on, but," He took out a small vial from his cloak pocket and scooped up some blood residue from Kurt's clothes, "If what you're saying is true, lead me to the dead body so that when I take this to forensics, the blood in the vial should match what you've shown me."
"What happened to innocent until proven guilty?"
"From the complaints we've been getting, you're the last thing innocent. Seriously Kurt, some old lady told us she saw a crazy person running through the street covered from head to toe in blood, cackling and screaming, 'You're dead!'. At least try to understand where I'm coming from."
"I mean, when you put it like that…."
"See! Besides, I'm just doing my job."
"Fine!" He scratched the back of his head and sighed. "I'll comply with you but only because I'm really innocent. Follow me. I'll show you where this all went down." He walked ahead.
"Much appreciated. If only all criminals were like you-"
"Ha?! What'd you say?" Kurt stopped and looked over his shoulder.
"Oops!" He covered his mouth while shaking his head, "I didn't say anything. Nope, not me!"
Kurt looked at him for a second longer then turned his head back and continued walking on.
"For what it's worth," Dominik caught up and walked next to him, "I think you're innocent."
"Sure you do." He rolled his eye.
"No seriously! Even though you nearly broke my hand upon our first meeting and now, not even three days later, you're under arrest for being a public nuisance. Did I also mention you knocked out a member of the royal family?"
"What are you trying to say, Dominik?"
"What I'm trying to say is despite all that, I think you're a pretty nice guy. Call it a gut feeling."
"Thanks for saying that." Kurt smiled.
"Besides, you're also handsome to boot. I've yet to see a handsome bad guy."
"What are you talking about? There are plenty of handsome bad people out there."
"Like who?"
"Like…."
'Oh crap, is he right? I've never really assassinated any handsome people before.'
"I'm waiting." Dominik smirked.
"Beauty's subjective anyway." He quickly dodged the question, "What's ugly to one person could be beautiful to another."
"Mmhm, sure. Whatever you say. By the way, who were you chasing?"
"I don't know his name but if I'm right then he's a member of the church. Possibly a cultist too."
"Whoa whoa whoa!" He covered Kurt's mouth and looked around if anybody was looking at them.
"Thank goodness no one heard that. Listen to me Kurt, do not say that word in front of random people. It triggers them." He spoke seriously.
After hearing the change in Dominik's tone, he nodded once and removed his hands that were covering his mouth.
"What do you mean by 'it triggers them'?" Kurt asked.
Dominik walked up to a food stall and ordered a meat kabab.
"You want one?" He looked at Kurt.
"Yeah, I'll have one."
After getting their food, they continued walking and talking.
"What I mean by that is, hmm let's just call them zealots. You see these zealots have been around since the invasion war. I take it you know the story of how humanity got their magic powers?"
"Goddess Bula descended from the skies and blessed those who still had faith, right?" Kurt answered.
"That's right, and because their prayers had been answered by the Goddess, all that faith that they had to whichever God they worshipped had been redirected to her."
"But what do they have to do with the zealots though?"
They took a left turn and were now nearing the park.
"The first generations of humans to obtain magic became, how do I say this, they became 'purists'."
"Purists?"
"Yep. I don't know if you know this but right after the invasion war ended, another began. This time however it was humanity fighting amongst themselves."
"World war 3?" Kurt mumbled out unconsciously.
"You really know your history huh Kurt? Most people confuse the invasion war as world war 3, but no, that war was its own thing. World war 3 had those who believed that were blessed with magic pit up against those who didn't."
"But why? That's just dumb. Humanity should be standing as one especially with the threat of other worldly beings in the picture."
"Aren't all world wars dumb? You should've read about the 7th one. Some crazy shit's been happening in that one."
'There were seven?!'
"But yeah," Dominik spoke on, "During world war 3 not all those blessed with magic sided with those who were."
"Hold on, why do they want to kill those who weren't blessed with magic in the first place?" Kurt interjected.
"Because the blessed ones saw the others as a stain on their record. Why live with those who have already given up on life? In their eyes, even Goddess Bula didn't love them since they hadn't received magic. In the end it was a grueling war in which they lost thanks to the help of the five summoned heroes."
"I see. Going off on your story I'm guessing that there were survivors of that war and that's how the zealots came into being."
"Nice summary smarty pants. Right on time too. We're here." They stopped in front of the secluded park.
"Fair warning, what you're about to see might not sit well with your insides."
"Is that a challenge I hear? Don't worry, I'm a professional." He bumped his fist on his chest
"Whatever you say Dom."
*gasp* "You gave me a nickname?! That means you see me as a friend?" Dominik gave him the puppy eye look.
"Yeah. I think you're a pretty nice guy too." He said as he walked in the park
"Kurt…. H-hey wait up!" He hurried after him.
When he caught up, he saw Kurt standing in front of the park bench with his arms crossed.
"Damn man, you walk pretty... fast. What the hell?"
Sitting on the bench was a headless dead body. The neck was leaned over the back as blood was dripping from it. The bench itself has lost almost all of its wood brown colour and was replaced with the kind of red that makes anyone's gut ache.
"Are you doing alright? Not gonna puke?" Kurt asked Dominik who was completely caught off guard at the site.
"I-I'm fine." He managed to speak, "It's just from what you described and how bloodied you were… I knew this was gonna be bad but."
"It happened so suddenly too. One second, he was there and the next he was-"
"I get it man. Head spontaneously blew up. Noted." He walked around the bench and took out another vial to collect a sample of blood that was leaking from the base of the exposed neck.
"Alright I got it." He sealed the vial and put it in his pocket. "Now we wait for the medics to get here."
"How would they know to come here?"
"I've already sent them a distress signal through my work tag. They'll be here any second."
"That sounds so primitive. Don't have any phon- I mean communication device? In fact, now that I think about it, I've never seen anyone have anything like that."
"I hear the inventors in Tricea have already solved that problem and are in their mass-producing phase. Apparently alongside the version two display tags they're also making a tag that lets you communicate with anyone who imbeds their mana into it, over extremely long distances."
"Wow. Sounds neat I guess." Kurt said in a monotone voice.
"How come you don't sound impressed? This shits revolutionary man."
'If only you knew Dom. If only you knew…'
Suddenly a bunch of footsteps could be heard as men in red and white robes came rushing in.
"Oh look, medics here." Dominik turned.
"Good afternoon prefect. We're here because we received a distress signal from this area."
"Right over there doc." He pointed at the dead body. "I need you to take this to forensics and identify the body. Once you do report immediately back me at the station. Got it?"
"Understood. Alright men, let's pack it up! Be gentle with the body."
Another two men came through as they put the body in a bag, laid him on a stretcher and left.
'I'm sorry and goodbye Peter.'