📍 Ramiya City | The Next Day
The city felt different in the morning.
It was subtle at first — the way people moved through the streets with their shoulders slightly tighter, their eyes checking corners they would not normally check. The vendors at the market stalls were there but quieter. Groups of people stood in clusters near doorways, talking in low voices that stopped when strangers passed. By midday the whispers had spread to every street in the AMO region.
There was a killer in Ramiya.
The Guild Master had posted a C-rank quest the previous evening — ten gold coins for the capture of the man in black. Through the night, adventurers had spread across the AMO region in search parties, checking alleys and rooftops and the spaces between buildings that the lamplight didn't reach. They found nothing. The killer found them first.
A B-rank adventurer — a tank, one of the most durable fighters registered at the bar — had been shot down somewhere in the eastern quarter before dawn. Whatever had been put into her body had worked fast. By the time anyone reached her she was no longer herself. She moved through the streets in a monster's rage, tearing through everything in her path until enough people with enough combined strength had brought her down. The casualties from that alone had taken the rest of the night to count.
The morning after, Guild Master Hou removed the quest from the board. He called his assistant Caia into his office and closed the door.
"We need a team," he said. "Not an open quest. A team. People without attachments."
📍 AMO — Guild Master's Office | Morning
They gathered at the AMO at Guild Master Hou's summons. Five of them, seated around the table in the inner meeting room. Hou activated a soundproof barrier with a magic item before anyone spoke — a small disc on the table that produced a faint hum and made the air just slightly heavier. Whatever was said in this room would not leave it.
He looked at each of them in turn.
Knight Corwin sat with his arms folded, back straight, in the particular posture of someone who spends most of his time in armour and has developed perfect posture as a consequence. B-rank. He knew the Ramiya streets better than anyone in the room — he had run the night patrol in this district for three years. He was a knight and a warrior both, which was rarer than either alone.
Kiyoshi. C-rank. Sword and healing magic. The combination made him useful in ways that didn't map neatly onto a standard role — he could fight and then fix what the fighting had broken, which in a situation like this was not nothing.
Sakura. B-rank. Sharp, fast, best suited to night work. She sat with her hands on the table and her eyes already moving, taking in the room, cataloguing exits and angles the way she did without thinking about it.
Derc. A-rank. Skilled and experienced — the kind of experienced that comes from having done difficult things many times and survived all of them. He sat quietly and said nothing. He didn't need to.
Nymfi. Mage, speciality in charming. She was the only one at the table who looked like she might be somewhere else — her attention present but loose, her posture relaxed in a way that everyone else in the room had not managed.
Guild Master Hou leaned forward.
"This is not like any other quest," he said. His voice was grave and measured, the voice of someone choosing each word carefully. "We have to find this killer as soon as possible."
He paused.
"People are terrified. Each victim has been injected with demonic mana — extracted from monsters somehow and introduced into the human mana system. The moment it enters, the mana balance is destroyed. The body cannot manage the flow. The person loses themselves — turns into something mindless, violent, uncontrollable — and dies from the overload because no human body is built to carry demonic mana without being destroyed by it." He let that land. "We still do not know how they managed to produce it in liquid form or how they are injecting it into the human mana system. Both of those questions need answers."
He set a small object on the table. A gang badge — iron-coloured, a specific design.
"We found this in the alley where the killer was last seen. It belongs to the Iron Fury gang." He looked around the table. "All of the victims so far are members of the Gallant gang. The Gallant and the Iron Fury are not on friendly terms. If this information gets out before we have evidence — actual evidence — there will be a gang war in this city. That is why you are here. None of you have attachments to either gang. We need more time. We need proof. Not a badge in an alley." He straightened. "There is not much time. People are already suspecting the Iron Fury. Find the truth before someone else acts on a rumour."
📍 Gallant Gang — Leader's Quarters | Ramiya
Aelmer Ramiya stood at his window.
The city spread below him — the streets he had built his operation across, the people moving through them, the normal rhythm of it that he had spent years establishing and that now felt fragile in a way he did not like. His second-in-command, Edzel Cyven, stood behind him.
"It seems like we are the only ones being targeted," Aelmer said. His voice was quiet. The quieter he spoke, the people around him had learned, the more carefully you should listen. "With any clues conveniently pointing elsewhere."
"Yes." Edzel's voice was controlled. "There is a rumour that the Iron Fury are involved. Some witnesses claim to have seen their gang badge in the alley. But we have no solid evidence. I am investigating."
Aelmer was silent for a moment. Below, the city went about its morning.
"Those Iron Fury bastards," he said. "Afraid to fight fair." He turned from the window. "Find evidence immediately. And get ready for war."
"Yes, sir." Determination in Edzel's voice, flat and absolute.
📍 Iron Fury Gang — Headquarters | Harlos
Far from Ramiya, in the city of Harlos, the mist was covering the floor.
It curled across the office in thick slow rolls, rising to knee height, pressing against the legs of the furniture and drifting in lazy patterns that had no particular direction. Behind the desk, half-obscured in the grey of it, Everett Harlos sat with one hand on the table supporting his head. He was a dwarf — four and a half feet tall, pointed ears, and by the standards of his people considered tall. His eyes moved through the mist with the patience of a man who has decided not to be irritated about something, unsuccessfully.
"Hey. Hey." He gestured at the mist. "This is a lot. Remove some."
Liam stood beside the desk, adjusting his glasses with one finger. He was human — significantly taller than his employer, second-in-command, and the only person in Harlos who regularly told Everett Harlos things he did not want to hear. "I cannot remove mist. I can only make it. And you are the one who compelled me to make it."
"I was just trying to set an atmosphere." Everett looked around at the impenetrable grey filling his office. "Now I cannot see anything."
"I suggest opening the window."
"Do whatever."
Liam crossed the room and opened the window. The mist began a slow migration toward the fresh air. Everett watched it go.
"Why are you here, anyway?"
"There is a rumour," Liam said, returning to his position beside the desk, "that we are the ones doing the killing in Ramiya."
Everett looked at him. "Are we?"
Liam looked back at him with the expression of a man summoning patience from a very deep well. "Do you know what your position here is?"
"I am the gang leader. Right?"
"Then act like it." Liam's voice was even. "We did not do anything. If we do not resolve this, there will be a gang war with them."
"With who?"
"Oh my god." Liam closed his eyes briefly. "Them. The ones who called you shorty at the party."
Everett's expression shifted. A slow smirk. "Those bastards. Then let the war come. I will kick their asses."
"That is not going to happen." Liam's voice did not change. "We will attempt to resolve this peacefully. But if they are not willing — we will burn their gang to ashes."
Everett looked at him. "Hey." A pause. "Cool man. I was kidding." A pause. "You really beat the hell out of everyone at that party, remember? You just blasted the whole room."
"I am not satisfied." Liam's jaw was tight. "How dare they call you shorty."
Everett Harlos, gang leader, four and a half feet tall and a giant among his people, looked at his second-in-command and said nothing for a moment. Then: "Find out how our badge ended up in that alley. And call our branch leader in Ramiya."
"As you say, Young Lord."
📍 Ramiya — The Streets | Night
The city at night was a different place from the city in daylight. The streets were mostly empty — the killer had done that much, at least. People who had spent every previous evening outside were behind locked doors, the light under them visible in thin lines but nothing more.
Knight Corwin looked at what used to be a busy street and said nothing for a moment.
"Let's split up." He held up the communication device — small, palm-sized, a simple magic item that transmitted voice between matched pairs. "Everyone takes one. If anyone finds the killer, do not engage alone. Contact the team first."
Nymfi looked down the length of the empty street with an expression of mild disappointment. "Hey, Knight Corwin — where is everybody? There is no one out here."
"Everybody is scared of the killer." He paused. "Are you drunk?"
"A little."
Derc turned to look at his sister with the expression of a man who has had this conversation many times. "Sister. We are on a mission. And why are you looking for men."
"Come on, Derc, you know what I am looking for." Nymfi was already drifting toward the north end of the street. "I am looking for someone to sleep with. Don't worry — I will investigate the north part. I heard some low-rank adventurers are brave enough to be out tonight."
She walked toward the north side without waiting for a response.
Knight Corwin watched her go. Then, quietly, to Derc: "Will she be alright?"
"It's fine," Derc said. "Don't let the appearance fool you. She is strong and sharp."
I bet Daishi would be following her, Kiyoshi thought, if he were here.
The team split. Knight Corwin and Kiyoshi moved toward the gang quarter to watch movement and activity through the night — who was meeting whom, what was being moved, where lights were on that shouldn't be. Sakura and Derc took the dark alleys of the AMO region — the places the killer had already appeared, the places where the shadows were deepest and anything could hide.
📍 The Alleys — AMO Region | Midnight
Sakura sat on the top of a tall tower at the edge of the quarter, her eyes running over everything below. The full moon sat heavy above her — flat, cold, indifferent. She did not like how it was watching. She watched everything back — every alley mouth, every shadow between buildings, every rooftop within her line of sight. She was watching all of it. The moon watched with her, expecting something bad.
A red magic circle appeared.
One of the alleys below — a flash of red light, geometric, deliberate. Not a random light. A circle. Active and purposeful.
Sakura was already moving.
She dropped from the tower roof to the building beside it, crossed two more rooftops at a run, and was coming down toward the alley when it hit her.
The arrow came from the dark between two buildings. She did not see it until it was already in her.
She fell from the rooftop.
She hit the alley below and the pain tore through her — not just the wound, something else, something chemical and wrong moving from the arrowhead into her blood immediately. She heard herself scream, and the sound of it was not right. Her vision went strange. She looked at her hands.
Her nails were growing — longer than they should, sharper than they had any right to be. And somewhere beneath the panic, something else stirred. Something that was not afraid.
She could feel her teeth changing in her mouth — lengthening, reshaping, her jaw doing something it should not be able to do. Her eyes — she could not see her own eyes but she felt them change, the colour draining and being replaced with something else, the purple of demonic mana flooding into what should have been her irises.
And then the darkness took her before she could fight it.
Two figures in black robes moved into the alley. They worked fast — lifting her between them, a teleportation device already in one of their hands, the magic beginning to form around them.
Light detonated in the alley entrance.
Nymfi and Derc came in together — moving fast, no hesitation. Nymfi's spell hit the nearer robed figure before he could finish the teleportation sequence. Derc's blade followed immediately.
The figure went down.
The second one was gone — the teleportation completing in the half-second between Derc's strike and Sakura hitting the ground again, the circle closing behind him, the alley suddenly empty of everything except two people, a body, and Sakura unconscious in the dirt.
Derc looked at the body. "Put some clothes on, sis."
Nymfi was already pulling her coat closed. "I was about to finish something when I got the signal. I came straight here." She looked at the downed figure. "Is he dead?"
"Yes." Derc crouched beside him. "There was a suicide spell on him. Triggered the moment he went down."
Kiyoshi heard it over the communication device — the location, the words — and for one breath he could not move. His hand went cold. The device almost slipped from his grip. Then he was running, not thinking, just moving, because if he stopped to think he would not be able to stand.
Please be okay. Please—
Knight Corwin's voice cut across the device. "Everyone — there is an adventurer-turned-monster in the west quarter. Heading toward the residential area. All available, move now."
Kiyoshi stopped.
He stood in the empty street between where Sakura had been taken and where an adventurer was losing themselves in the west quarter. The device in his hand was silent for one second.
"I'm staying," he said. "Where Sakura was taken. Searching for a clue."
The others moved west. He moved back toward the alley.
📍 West Quarter | Same Time
They found the monster in the wide street near the residential boundary. He was large — had been large as a person, and whatever the demonic mana had done to his body had kept the size and added something wrong to all of it. He moved in the particular way of something that has lost the part of itself that decides where to go and why and is operating on something rawer than thought.
Knight Corwin coordinated the binding. Derc anchored one side. Nymfi covered the approach angles. It took time and it cost them — wounds on two of them before they had him down and contained.
Then they waited.
The binding held him for less than twenty minutes before his body gave out. The demonic mana had done what demonic mana does — destroyed the balance, overwhelmed the system, and left nothing sustainable behind. He died in the street with four people around him who could not do anything about it except make sure he didn't take anyone else with him.
He was from the Gallant gang.
Knight Corwin looked at him for a long moment.
Then he picked up his communication device.
📍 The Alley — AMO Region | Same Time
Kiyoshi stood in the alley where she had fallen.
There was blood on the stones. Her blood — he knew it was hers. He crouched down and touched it. Still wet. Still warm.
His hand shook.
He did not know how long he stayed like that. Long enough that the wet had started to cool under his fingers. Long enough that the alley around him had gone completely quiet.
Then he stood up.
And he began to search.
✦ CODEX — Chapter Thirty ✦ World Archive: Entries Relevant to Chapter Thirty
ENTRY 123 — DEMONIC MANA INJECTION
Demonic mana is the corrupted form of dark magic used exclusively by monsters. In its natural state it exists within monster bodies and is contained by the monster's own biology — a biology built to hold it.
Introduced into a human mana system, it immediately begins destroying the mana balance. The human body has no capacity to contain or regulate demonic mana. The flow overwhelms the system, the balance collapses, and the person loses conscious control of themselves — becoming something between a person and a monster, violent and mindless. The process is not survivable. The demonic mana continues to consume the body from inside until the system fails entirely.
How the killer is producing demonic mana in liquid form and successfully injecting it into the human mana system is unknown. Standard understanding of demonic mana holds that it cannot be extracted from a monster and stabilised outside of a monster body. Someone has found a way around this. The method is dangerous, technically extraordinary, and is being used as a weapon.
ENTRY 127 — THE SUICIDE SPELL
The first robed kidnapper was brought down by Nymfi and Derc. The moment he lost consciousness, a suicide spell triggered — destroying his body and eliminating any evidence he might have carried. Pre-cast, pre-attached, designed to activate on incapacitation. Whoever is running the operation does not want their people taken alive and questioned.
End of Chapter Thirty Codex."The badge was planted. The victims were chosen. The killer had a plan. And now they had Sakura."