Death Ascension - Chapter 106

For hours, only the sound of rustling papers was heard in the quiet room.

But when the sun cast an orange hue on the horizon, frustrated grunts were added to the chorus.

<Alert! Player Mikael’s MP gauge is drained.>

<Skill: Psychokinesis Lvl. 2 is forcefully canceled>

“Aaaahhh! I’m done! I can’t read these anymore!” Mikael groaned as he lost hold of all the pages he was turning with the skill. Like a deflating balloon, the ghost swooped around in circles as he tried to wrack his brain for a solution.

“Haah… this is really bad, sir.” Deon frowned at the useless case files piled in front of him, “There’s really not a single clue to be found in these reports.”

From morning until evening, the two had done nothing but pore over the reports, hoping to miraculously find even the slightest clue that other detectives might have missed.

However, all they found were those already summarized in that newspaper clipping from a month ago.

First, there was no pattern to the abduction sites. In one case, a child from a faraway town went missing at night while the next went missing near the Capital. This meant that the criminal has all of Heinken Kingdom as their area of activity and with such a large coverage, the knight guards couldn’t possibly be deployed to mitigate the cases.

Second, there were no signs of forced entry into the children’s homes. The investigators initially thought that the crimes might be an inside job but they soon gave up on the notion when they couldn’t find any solid evidence. To their utter dismay, the children seemed to have puffed out of existence.

Lastly, the criminal did not differentiate between genders and age as both young boys and girls between 5 to 10 years old were taken. It was this bit of information that really messed up with the investigation.

Prior cases made it seem like the perpetrator was a pedophile who liked young boys. But then, one month ago, Baroness Evelyn Brooks lost both her son and daughter.

Since then, the frequency of female child abductions increased.

The detectives were then forced to retract their statement and concluded that it might be the work of a slave-trading organization.

But this brought up yet another question.

Why were children of nobility targeted?

To date, out of the 95 reported cases, 87 of them were children of nobles while the remaining 8 were from wealthy merchant families.

If the perpetrators were indeed slave traders, wouldn’t it be easier to kidnap commoners with less home security?

So, the investigators nursed another idea that the suspect might be a psychopath who enjoys playing a game of tag with the Bureau and feels pleasure when presented with the challenge of kidnapping high-security targets.

Because of the confusing modus operandi, the Royal Investigations Bureau failed to catch the kidnapper even after a year since the first case.

“Wait… now that I think about it. If my assumption is correct about the orphanage kids being victims as well, wouldn’t that remove the point where only noble and wealthy children were targeted?”

“That’s right, Sir. Since they weren’t reported, the Bureau did not take them into consideration.”

“Well, at least we were able to add new information.” Mikael optimistically replied.

“But… we still have no idea where to start.” Prince Deon sighed. This case was so much harder than he thought that he was beginning to lose hope of ever catching that kidnapper, much less in a month’s time.

“This won’t do. Let’s go out and meet with the victim’s families. We might uncover something else”

“Then, let’s go tomorrow since it’s already late, Sir.”

Knock! Knock!

“My liege, it is time to go back.”

Dame Nora, who came from the castle to escort the prince, opened the door to Deon’s new office and saw all the papers strewn on the floor and table. Based on the amount, it seemed like a group of people had been working on the case. Also, since she heard the prince talking from outside the door, she assumed that there would be other people in the room as well.

However…

“My liege, where are the others?” her dark eyes swept the room but she found no one else.

“Huh? Uhh… I am alone, Dame.” Deon nervously replied. He then got up from his seat and hastily strode toward the door, “Let’s go.”

As she closed the door behind her, Nora cocked her head to the side, thinking, ‘I thought the prince was talking to someone… was I mistaken?’

‘No. I clearly heard him call someone a ‘Sir’…’

Nora stared at her master’s back. She was reminded of the prince’s inexplicable behavior and skills when they were stuck in the hunting competition. Sometimes, he acted like a child yet other times, he talked like an adult. In addition, since they came out of the Colony, Nora had never seen the prince use his power to make things move according to his will and his ‘teleportation’ as he called it.

Dame Nora moved to walk a few paces behind the prince.

‘My liege is more mysterious than I thought. I wonder when he would trust me enough to reveal his secrets?’

The next day.

Escorted by Dame Nora, Deon and Mikael went out early in the morning to conduct a field investigation.

Their first destination was Baroness Evelyn Brooks’ mansion in the capital. The royal carriage stopped in front of a three-story building where a middle-aged aristocrat stood with half a dozen of maids. Despite the chilly winter air, the party waited outside for hours to welcome the prince’s arrival.

“Your Highness, thank you very much for investigating this case!” the middle-aged baroness deeply bowed, her eyes moist with tears of gratitude.

The baroness looked like a wet sack of potatoes in her grey coat. A month of depression and worry had visibly reduced her fine aristocratic appearance to that of a lumpy mess.

Her sorry state pricked Deon’s heart. “No. I apologize that it took us this long to take action.” The prince gave the baroness a kind smile as he slightly dipped his head, “Don’t worry, Madam Brooks. We’ll do our best to find your children.”

–Chapter end–