Meeting the girl's gaze, I immediately turned away, sniffling softly. She slowly walked over to me, pointing to the horns atop my head.
"I-I like your horns, sir."
I didn't respond, my lips seemed dried out, unable to let words pass. My head was pounding heavily—a drum mercilessly sounding against my very brain. My eyes were red and puffy, still letting tears flow freely from them.
All I could do was nod in acknowledgement.
At this moment, Aaron sighed softly as he tucked his hands into his pockets. "I don't know where your dog is, pumpkin."
"Really?"
She turned towards an area of the street we had yet to walk down, pointing downtown in the direction of the center square.
"Ruffy ran that way, didn't he? He's big and friendly."
My lips parted when I heard this, my tongue diving to lick them. She had said her dog—which had attempted to murder me—was big and friendly to anyone it would meet. The Umbridge was right when he said that it was under the influence of something, but what it was exactly was unbeknownst to me. From what I saw within my mindscape, the possessor was taller than me and made of flesh and blood. Could it have been some leveraged symbolic connection?
They would have never revealed themselves to me under any condition.
My heart pounded in my chest as a rush of deliberation crashed over me. My fists coiled taut on my sides as I felt the urge to confess to the death of the dog. But if I did so, I'd surely make the girl cry and I'd most likely be apprehended. Even if nobody seemed to care about the horns on my head, they'd surely care about how I looked after I was locked away and executed in a jail cell.
The young girl turned back to me, her body trembling slightly as she asked a question. "Do you want to help me look for him?"
I remained silent, looking down the street in the direction she had pointed. The snow was pristine, untouched by boot or carriage. Either this girl didn't notice that or she didn't possess the necessary intelligence. If the dog had run in that direction, we'd see paw prints. It slowly dawned on me—I was getting cornered with logic.
"M-maybe he ran in the other direction." I pointed behind me, gesturing towards the snow which already had prints in it.
It was the direction which the dog had come from, with paw-prints oriented in a myriad of directions. This would either make the girl hopeful or confused.
Aaron and the girl both looked in the direction I had pointed in, and Aaron was the first to comment.
"Wasn't that where the dog came—"
I shot him a look, immediately making him fall silent. I couldn't help but feel immensely guilty doing that. Aaron was smart, nice, and has never doubted me. All that mattered at this moment was this girl and her dog. Except, her dog was dead and I had killed it—watched it die with my own two eyes. It was something I don't know if I could have prevented.
After all, it was possessed by something—or someone.
The air was frigid as we rounded a corner, the kerosene-powered lamp above us giving us ample light so we wouldn't crash into anything. The young girl clenched her dog collar close to her chest, scanning the deserted streets. Above us, inside the numerous tenants and rental buildings, lights were both on and off, reflecting countless scenes of ordinary life.
We moved onto the cobblestone sidewalk, which had been tended to. Only faint patches of snow were lodged in between the crevices of stone. Our boots sounded against the pavement as we kept walking, surveying the environment for any trace of a dog.
In the street, we only saw half-submerged footprints, the occasional object or jagged stone, or an object discarded from a pick-pocketing failure.
Aaron dove into his pocket, taking out a pipe, lighting it, and bringing it to his lips. He looked more reminiscent of a detective than your average passerby assisting a young girl. I looked towards him, chuckling dryly as I shoved my hands into my pockets.
"I don't see any dog here," I commented, my gaze assertively surveying the street.
"R-Ruffy... h-he has to be here; I can't just lose him like that!" Small, semi-transparent tears stung at the girl's eyes as she turned back to us, her fists tightening in her grip around the collar.
I met her gaze, and it felt like a knife to my chest. At this very moment I wanted to blatantly confess, to tell her that I had watched her dog die. I was the only thing preventing its death. Even if I couldn't do much, I still was the only human that could have done something.
...
Shinso and Ayumi entered the cathedral without saying a word, silently assessing the surroundings of the stone chambers. The pews were empty, not a single person was in prayer, as none were there to begin with. The foliage, usually bright and emerald in hue, was shriveled, black in color. Around the withered plants was black powder scattered on the cathedral floor.
"Huh?" Ayumi was the first to notice, walking over to one of the plants, running her hand along the contours of black, mottled vines and flowers. The petals of the flowers had fallen off, scattered on the floor like macabre confetti.
At this moment, Shinso sniffed the air and his nose shriveled. He habitually plugged his nose, retorting at the foul smell emanating from somewhere within this room. Ayumi knelt down, noticing something with the carpet. Its usually dark green hue was stained with black and brown. In the multi-colored lights refracting from the countless stained glass windows lining the cathedral, Ayumi and Shinso caught sight of small, sprouting mushrooms and fungi sprouting from the carpet, running down its length, and stopping at the area behind the altar.
"What the..." Ayumi slowly moved forward, her gaze behind her rounded glasses continually analytical.
Shinso followed behind her, plugging his nose. Feeling a surge of confusion, Shinso asked, "Why can't you smell anything?"
Ayumi turned back to him, sighing softly. "After more research, the Saint pathway, even at weak levels, can suppress bad smells. Nothing regular can harm its owner."
"Lucky you," Shinso retorted, snorting as he chuckled.
Both of them froze on the spot, gazing upon the sight. They saw a figure, their body entirely composed of fungi and mushrooms. The area around this hump of organic matter was degenerative, slowly ebbing at the stone floor. Within the cracks and contours of the stone, more mushrooms and fungi sprouted, stretching upwards.
Ayumi gasped softly, almost stumbling back. Her gaze remained on the sight before her. This organic figure lacked any ordinary biological traits, no eyes, no nose, no mouth—merely an outline of such. The areas and gaps where such things should be were washed over with nothing but blood-colored and ink-black tendrils.
The tendrils emanated an aura of rot and decay, swallowing everything they encountered. The air around the body was chilling, almost bone-numbingly cold. Shinso remained silent, but he too seemed terrified by this sight. In the pastel-colored lights, Shinso caught sight of something leading in a different direction.
There were countless drops of a dark-colored liquid leading towards one of the low-hanging, stained glass windows. When Shinso connected them through sight, he was met with a dead end. The window had been shattered, allowing ice-cold snow to blow in through the gaps. It piled in the corner of the cathedral, mixing and melding with the dark-colored liquid.
"What happened here?" Shinso mumbled under his breath as he slowly walked over to the window, kneeling down and running a hand through a spot of the liquid.
As he brought it to his fingers, he smelt something coppery—almost bitter. It was blood. Upon digesting this realization, Shinso's stomach coiled taut. His gaze snapped to the broken window, and his mind raced with countless possibilities.
"What if whatever killed them fled out what window?" Shinso turned to Ayumi, pointing to the broken glass scattered throughout the altar site.
Ayumi, with an analytical gaze, knelt down near the corpse. Her mere spiritual presence was enough to deter any corruption in her direction. She reached into her pocket and dug for a few moments, taking out the flower-embedded disk. When she held it to the body that was covered head-to-toe in fungi and foliage, the roots and covering gradually began to shrink back.
Shinso watched with a hint of curiosity as the layers peeled back like paper, slowly revealing the contents underneath. First, they saw a pair of eyes, rolled back into the person's head. The skin around the eyes was grizzly pale. The pale skin also possessed pores and mushrooms sprouting from cracks deep within it. A head of silvery-white hair emerged, long and tangled, slightly stained crimson.
The white and green robes of the archbishop revealed itself more and more the longer the disk emitted radiant light that subdued any corruption. After all the layers had been erased, only leaving stains and evidence of their presence, they saw the elderly archbishop spread out, a puncture wound deep in her abdomen. The wound slowly oozed with crimson blood, which was now slightly powdery and chunky.
The smell—already unbearable—made Shinso want to vomit on the spot. He turned away from the corpse, his face now slightly pale.
"Someone or something did this, but who?" Ayumi knelt down, inspecting the corpse in broader detail.
Ayumi's eyes widened as she suddenly caught sight of something lodged inside the woman's mouth. It was thin, almost invisible. It glimmered slightly with crimson energy, reflecting the light filtering through the stained-glass windows. Upon closer inspection, it was a strand of hair.
"What the..." She slowly reached into the archbishop's mouth, taking out the strand of hair.
She winced when she felt it on her palm. It stung her skin slightly, almost like holding a hot bowl of soup. Luckily, the effects of the flower-disk nullified the pain and negative energy to an extent.
"What'd you find?" Shinso turned back to face her, arching an eyebrow.
"A strand of hair," Ayumi replied, holding it up to the lights to show him.
He took a step forward, trying his hardest to ignore the sight near the altar. "Maybe the person who killed her is the owner of this hair. But ...I don't know if this time period possesses technology to find the owner of this."
Just then, the stone behind the altar slid open, revealing the staircase descending into the basement of private operations. A figure, clad in white and green robes, a broad nose, featureless lips, and a chiseled chin, emerged from the darkness. His left eye was covered in a bandage. It was Humphrey. He immediately looked towards the dead archbishop on the ground, sighing softly.
"I knew she was sickly, but I never knew she'd die to a scoundrel." He looked towards the strand of hair in Ayumi's hand, nodding her head.
"Maybe this can help us find the killer?" Her smile twitched on the edges, trying her hardest to brighten the morbid atmosphere.
Humphrey nodded his head slowly, before looking back to the archbishop with a solemn expression. "Help me carry the corpse downstairs."
"Are you going to operate on it like you did with the captain who lost control?" Shinso questioned.
Humphrey shook his head, a reminiscing flash crossing his darkened expression. "It's best we cremate her. That'll both give her a proper departure and eliminate any residual corruption."
Without saying anything further, Humphrey walked over to the corpse and grabbed it by the arms, raising it into the air. He gestured for Shinso and Ayumi to help him carry the corpse by her legs. They followed the man's instructions, taking a hold of the now cold and clammy legs.
Shinso shivered a little, but he suppressed his emotions and carried it down the stairs with as much dignity as he could. When they descended into the basement, the lights all flashed on. The operating table was now empty, the Tremebrus now having been completely dealt with. Its bodily organs had been collected and stored in jars filled with a semi-transparent, yellowish liquid.
"Those criminals..." Humphrey began, making his way through the countless chambers and passages.
This immediately caught Shinso's attention. "What about them?"
"You agreed to help us in judicial proceedings, correct?"
He nodded his head, and a thought suddenly crossed his mind. When he announced his involvement, Humphrey was injured, half-conscious. If we recall any details and deductions, Humphrey didn't know he was fighting for their innocence.
"Y-yes. But ...not in the way you'd assume."
"Hmm?" Humphrey raised an eyebrow.
"I'll explain later," Shinso huffed as they came to a wooden door.