Viviana finalized the contract with Mizuki throughout the next day. It was decided that it was necessary to head to the Landsknecht base first before agreeing to anything. The back alley of a noodle restaurant wasn’t the best place to settle things.

  The contract was indefinite, with one reward for finding the culprit at the end. Landsknecht was pretty much free to do as they wished. No culprit meant no reward. Finding the culprit meant a large one.

  Of course, it wasn’t like the contract was truly indefinite. Viviana was sure that many other people were looking into the murders. Even so, the loose terms of the contract and the addition of Mizuki helping them gather evidence and acting as a connection into the upper echelons of student VAC made the agreement Landsknecht sided.

  Viviana had Thomas to thank for that. His arguments for specific clauses and terms made the contract favorable for them, despite Thomas’s initial derision of the whole thing.

  Bena was ecstatic. Turns out she liked detective stories, saying she was an expert at solving mysteries. Honestly, Viviana could believe it. Her scout skill would make short work of the culprit if she could catch them in the act.

  Lucian was on the fence. He didn’t want to deal with the guilds, and investigating something like this was heavily guild-coded. Sure, the other big contracts they had involved Mizuki and Fortuna, both guild affiliated, but investigating the murder was the forefront of everyone’s (and thus the guilds) attention.

  Viviana saw nothing but positives. Solving the case meant publicity, influence, and most importantly, leverage on a guild. She could retain information and blackmail whoever did it. By the looks of things, it was most likely a guild organization. Playing with the information correctly could exert a ton of influence.

  Of course, it wasn’t like investigation work would take up a hundred percent of Landsknecht’s time. The video they released had the exact effect they wanted. More people were aware of Landsknecht and their advertised services. No matter if you were guild affiliated or not, you had to admit they were competent. And that reputation of competence meant more work.

  Lucian and Bena were out on loan today, and Thomas was asked to be a neutral party between two different guild affiliated combat squads. It meant that Viviana was the only one investigating the murder site.

  Without much fanfare Viviana had made it to terrarium two. Well, Viviana suspected that the reason she wasn’t stopped was the mask she wore. Selenne’s gift was proving useful time and time again.

  Poor Lucian, Bena, and Thomas were famous. People gossiped about them everywhere. At least now it wasn’t impeding their work, but Viviana was planning on making her faction the strongest and most influential group in the academy. A reliable and verifiable squad of elites that held significant influence over the guilds in the academy, and thus in the guilds. If they were famous within the academy now, they’d be famous across all of Central later.

  All to take down Adler-Stern.

  Viviana had taken her time to start investigating the site. She didn’t want to expose that she had access to insider information this early in the investigation. The logic was simple– even if she did arrive early, what information could she glean that Mizuki and the other guilds could not? Showing up early would only expose her connections to a guild or potentially the murders themselves.

  No, Viviana only started her investigation after the murder was picked up by the academy social app. By then, dozens of students had visited the site. There would be no suspicion now.

  Viviana brushed her thoughts aside as she arrived. Thankfully, no one was here this time. People moved on quickly– the academy war was happening, and war was the best time for people to make big moves. In fact, Fortuna had infiltrated an Ophidian Pact prison and exploded it from the inside with the use of the fire gem, freeing her squad and torching a dozen Pact guards.

  All the better. People will notice we gave Fortuna the gem, due to the video we posted. It’ll show just how much influence we can have over the war. And that means profit and power.

  Viviana poked around the crime scene. Not much to see. The body had been moved– all that remained was dried blood and a circular impression on the ground. A sword slash. An extremely powerful one.

  She moved her hands over the cut in the ground. It slashed through the stone like butter. One, singular cut. According to rumour the body was bisected. There were no signs of struggle– no footprints, no trail of blood, no signs of a fight.

  Apparently, the same signs were found at the last murder site. She tried pushing Mizuki for information, but even he didn’t know the details. Ferric Meridian had retained all the information. All he had were rumours, but it was enough for a decent picture of the culprit.

  Either someone extremely fast or extremely stealthy, then.

  It wasn’t enough. How am I supposed to find any suspects? Literally anyone fast or stealthy could do this. I don’t know enough people in the guilds to even name people like that.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Viviana left without any extra insights or information. She took some pictures, hoping that the rest of the Landsknecht could figure something out.

  Of course, they were out for the day. They’d meet back at the Landsknecht base for dinner later. Odd, Viviana thought. We normally meet at the noodle restaurant. Well, whatever. I’ve got a couple hours to kill. In the meantime, I’ll kill some monsters.

  Later in the day Landsknecht gathered for dinner. These days that didn’t happen often due to the amount of jobs they were running and the amount of income they were bringing in, but on rare occasions all of them had the same afternoon window open and could gather to eat.

  Viviana found it important to meet. It was an opportunity to keep tabs on her team members and observe their conditions, even if she wasn’t very conversational (when it came to anything but work).

  It was to her surprise when Bena said to meet at the base instead of the noodle restaurant.

  Turns out, Thomas had bought a stove. The base contained the bare minimum of pots and pans, a nearly-dysfunctional refrigerator, and barely any normal ingredients (well, they had monster meat, which was pretty normal for the academy), but Thomas had managed to put together a tasty meal.

  “Grilled missile fish and rice. Please enjoy,” Thomas said, putting down a large pan in the middle of a large meeting table they repurposed as a dining table.

  The food smelled divine. White fish, perfectly filleted, and even garnished. Monster meat had never looked so good.

  “Where’d you learn to cook, Thomas?! This looks amazing!” Bena asked.

  “Thanks...I wanted to be a monster researcher. What got me into it as a kid was a cookbook that showed ways to cook monsters. Never got to try it until now.”

  Viviana observed the food as Lucian grabbed a large serving spoon and scooped some onto her plate, and then Bena’s, and then Thomas’s and finally his own. “Looks great, Thomas.”

  “Thanks…”

  Lucian paid his complements to the chef as well, right after taking an initial bite. They ate for a bit until Lucian spoke up. “I’ve been thinking about the murder cases. Have we considered that VAC might be the most likely culprit? Think about it. Someone from Pact died. Someone from Ferric Meridian died. No one from VAC.”

  Thomas nodded as he ate. “Plus, both the two were high rankers… The FM guy was ranked 304. The Pact guy was ranked 359. If they really died that easily, like you said, they were probably significantly higher ranked…. High tier two or higher…”

  Viviana was glad her Landsknecht members were actually smart. And that Thomas was good at cooking. “This is definitely a start. High tier two or higher… let’s give it some leeway. Let’s assume the killer is at least tier two, meaning ranked at least 299. That gives us about three hundred suspects. Now, assuming that they’re VAC, we can cut down the list significantly.”

  “Down to sixty-four people, actually!” Bena said in between bites, one hand on her phone. “I pulled up the database of all the ranks. It’s pretty easy to sort through it!”

  Viviana nodded, cutting a piece of fish and stuffing it into her mouth. Not bad for a monster. “It’s a start,” she said. The rest of Landsknecht looked to her for guidance, but Viviana only shrugged. “It’s not enough information. We can communicate our suspicions with Mizuki, and maybe drag out some more data, but either way we have to wait for information.”

  “...What do you mean, information?” Thomas said.

  “Another murder.”

  “You think it’s gonna happen again?” Lucian asked.

  Viviana nodded. Of course. When it was one murder, it could’ve just been a freak accident. But another, in the same way?

  We can’t even begin to glean a motive. And honestly, I don’t think it’s VAC. At least, not the students that represent VAC here at the academy. Yes, the guilds are at war. And permanently taking out an enemy is a good thing. But they could have done this much more tactically. If I were them… I would have planted evidence to suggest that FM and Pact did it. I would throw my enemies into chaos.

  But they’re still students. They wouldn’t risk it. It would destroy their careers to break the tense peace the guilds have in the academy. For decades, the academy was just a game for raising strong soulbound. Murder and war would destroy everything.

  So then…. “There must be an outside factor.”

  Thomas and Lucian were deep in their own thoughts, but then they snapped back to her attention. Bena looked up from scrolling her phone and eating as well. “Outside factor?” Bena asked.

  “Thomas, can you look into their backgrounds? The victims, both of them. Not just what they did in the academy. But who they’re connected to outside.”

  “...Well, the Pact guy is pretty well known. He’s the son of a food distributor for the Pact controlled sections of Central.”

  “Armstrong?” Lucian asked.

  “That’s the one…” Thomas said.

  Lucian shuddered. “Fuck that guy. Worst slums in the city. Everyone was starving,” he said, looking at his own food like it was the best thing in the world.

  “What about the other guy, Thomas?” Viviana asked.

  “No clue. I’ll look into it…”

  With that they kept on eating. They talked about the missions they did today, and their plans for the future. Thomas had hinted at a bigger, war related mission coming soon. Viviana had specifically requested to not turn away larger missions despite still working on the murder cases simply because the contract’s terms were so lax. She was glad to see that Thomas was working on it.

  At some point Bena had pulled up an episode of ‘Mageborn Might’, so they all moved to one side of the table and watched. Viviana didn’t understand much of it– she had never watched an ‘anime’ before. She found herself entertained. Mostly because Bena kept on yelling “fuck you Mizuki!” every time some guy named Entei was on screen.