The altar, the Cross.

Sessi was untied from the Cross. She cried out and threw her arms around her older sister, Olivia.

Olivia hugged her back tightly. Like two lonely kittens, the little girls clung to each other without saying a word.

The village chief led the villagers over to apologize to Olivia, stating they were willing to pay the price for their sins.

Maguire muttered under his breath, "First, they were dead set on killing the little girl, and now they’re begging for forgiveness. Hypocrites! Don’t you think so, L?"

Baron just smiled and didn’t answer.

The village chief looked at the tearfully embracing sisters, took out a knife, and tried to hand it to Olivia. But Olivia only wept, her innocent little face etched with grief.

He sighed and said, "Sessi, Olivia, I don’t ask for your forgiveness, for I have committed an unforgivable sin... I have failed you as your grandfather..."

At these words, the expressions of the Demon Hunters, who had been watching the drama unfold, changed completely.

The village chief who had been so insistent on executing the little girl was actually her grandfather!?

They were so stunned that they could only stare blankly, completely missing the fact that the old man had pressed the very knife he’d almost killed his granddaughter with against his own chest.

"Look out!"

By the time anyone noticed, the old man had already plunged the shortsword violently into his chest. The blade sank into his flesh!

The villagers and Demon Hunters gasped.

The vacant look in Olivia’s eyes finally cleared. She scrambled toward the village chief, crying out:

"No! I forgive you, Grandpa, I forgive you!"

A sharp pain flared in his chest as the blade sank half an inch deep. The village chief opened his eyes to see the dark-eyed Hunter gripping the shortsword, looking at him calmly.

"Your granddaughter may have forgiven you, but I’m not feeling so forgiving. Let that wound be your punishment."

The village chief collapsed to the ground, tears streaming down his face as he gasped for breath. Past the young man’s back, he saw his granddaughters clinging to one another, their sobs as thin as silk threads, stretching out into the night like ropes tightening around him.

"I... I have failed God!"

Even now, all he could think about was his faith. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

From a distance, Baron saw the Little Nun, Olivia, mouth something to him, but no sound came out.

Even without a sound, he knew it was "thank you."

With the matter settled, Yalilan assembled the group. She distributed the promised rewards to the Hunters, planning to rest until dawn before setting out again.

When it was Baron’s turn, Yalilan gave a rare smile. "What’s your name?"

"L, my lady. He’s called L."

Before Baron could speak, Maguire answered for him, looking as proud as if he were the one being praised.

"L... an interesting name..." Yalilan’s eyes gleamed.

’It’s clearly some kind of alias.’

She had her Attendant give Baron Ten Silver Coins, far more than the original reward. "This is your bounty."

Baron accepted it without any qualms and tossed two coins each to Zod and Maguire.

Zod caught the Silver Coins and weighed them in his hand. "Why the extra one?"

"The extra one is to buy you two a drink," Baron said with a slight smile.

Maguire scratched his head. "I... I don’t really drink."

Zod clapped him heartily on the shoulder. "Then it’s time you found a woman."

The other Demon Hunters who heard this burst out laughing. Maguire’s face turned crimson, but he was too flustered to say a word.

Yalilan chuckled along with them, then looked at Baron. "Aren’t you curious why I gave you so many Silver Coins?"

"It’s only right for solving the mystery of the Divine Punishment Fire," Baron said.

Yalilan’s Attendant’s expression changed, but seeing his master was lost in thought, he resentfully held his tongue.

Baron smiled calmly, but inwardly he was just glad that after all these years, he hadn’t forgotten what his chemistry teacher had taught him.

The moment he saw the Blue Fire, Baron had confirmed that the so-called Divine Punishment Fire was nothing more than the will-o’-the-wisps common in the folklore of his previous life.

In his high school chemistry class, his teacher, in the spirit of debunking feudal superstitions, had explained that will-o’-the-wisps were essentially the spontaneous combustion of phosphine.

Baron was very glad he had paid attention in that class, as he now recalled some of the scientific explanations for the spontaneous combustion of phosphine:

Things like its autoignition temperature, the fact that the phosphine concentration in the air needed to be above 1.8% for stable combustion, and that will-o’-the-wisps most often appeared in either swamps or graveyards.

Swamps, because the anaerobic environment promoted the formation of phosphine, while the humid conditions lowered the temperature required for autoignition.

And graveyards, because the calcium phosphate in human bones gradually breaks down during decomposition, reacting with organic matter to produce phosphine. This gas then seeps out through cracks in the soil, combines with the air, and burns as a blue Phosphorus Fire.

As if remembering something, he casually asked Yalilan, "My lady, was there a swamp in the forest where you previously tried to extinguish the Fire?"

’A swamp?’

Yalilan hesitated for a moment, then shook her head.

"A graveyard, then?"

Yalilan shook her head again.

Baron’s expression grew solemn. "Did you find a large number of dead animals, or decaying plant matter?"

This time, it was Andre who answered. Seeing Baron standing so close to Yalilan made him even more irritated.

"What are you getting at? In the forest, we only saw the phosphine fire you mentioned. Besides that, there were only the two moons in the sky and trees on the ground, nothing but trees."

’Just as I thought...’ Baron’s heart sank.

Yalilan sensed something was wrong and immediately asked, "L, what have you discovered?"

’I can’t be sure yet.’

Baron said, "I have a theory. Please allow me to enter the forest to confirm it, my lady."

...

In the forest, Baron walked with a solemn expression, observing his surroundings and tapping the soil with a wooden stick. Zod and Maguire, holding shovels, followed on either side, clueless as to what he was planning now.

Finally, Baron stopped in front of a patch of earth that was a noticeably different color from the surrounding soil. He told Zod and Maguire to start digging there.

"Could there be treasure?" Maguire grumbled as he rolled up his sleeves and started shoveling.

Zod, however, was nonchalant. "Good way to sober up... Hmm... I think I hit something... Don’t tell me it’s a thief’s hidden treasure..."

He raised his eyebrows, gave a mighty heave, and with a pull, the object buried deep in the earth was unearthed amidst a spray of dirt.

"Whoa..." Zod said. "I guess you could call it treasure. A horrifying treasure."

The other Demon Hunters, drawn by the sound, came over. When they saw what lay in the dirt, their brows furrowed and their expressions immediately became grim and solemn.

It was body after body of naked girls!

Seeing this, Yalilan’s face turned to ice as she commanded her Attendant:

"Go inform the mayor of Mundra Town. Besides a coroner, tell him to send people to Wisemo Village to organize the excavation of the bodies. And get a Priest..."

She paused, looking at the naked corpses of the girls, and added, "Make that a Nun."

Suddenly, an argument broke out nearby. Yalilan inquired and learned that Andre was arguing with L.

’At a time like this...’

Seeing Yalilan approach, Andre rushed to tattle. "My lady, these bodies have been cordoned off as you commanded, with no one allowed near. But this Feinan insists on desecrating their Wandering Souls..."

Yalilan looked toward Baron, who was surrounded by Andre’s men and separated from the group of corpses.

The latter stated bluntly, "Most of the deceased are young women between sixteen and twenty-eight years old..."

"You don’t need to tell us that, we can all see it," one of Andre’s men shouted.

Baron, not angered by the interruption, continued, "The estimated time of death is about one week ago..."

"You say a week, so it’s a week? You’re not a doctor..."

The man shut his mouth when Yalilan shot him an icy glare.

"It’s simple. The bodies don’t lie. We can determine this from their observable characteristics."

Baron explained, "Livor mortis fixes in twelve hours. Greenish discoloration appears on the abdomen in twenty-four to thirty-six hours. After three days, the skin starts to slip, and around the one-week mark, the marbling of the veins becomes visible..."

’Good thing I systematically studied this stuff in my past life when I was helping my team leader write scripts for crime dramas. Who knew it would actually come in handy after I transmigrated.’

With that thought in mind, he continued:

"I don’t know if you all have noticed, but some of the bodies already show signs of maggot activity... Excuse me, please make way..."

The Demon Hunters surrounding him, including Andre, dumbly parted to let him through. They watched as the young Demon Hunter knelt before a decaying corpse, completely unfazed by the stench, and asked Maguire to catch a wriggling maggot and place it in his palm.

Maguire pointed at himself. "Huh? Me? You want me to catch a maggot?"

’Maggots are so disgusting... And I’m a noble Demon Hunter, for crying out loud...’

Yalilan said, "Assist L, and I’ll double your reward again."

"Will ten be enough?"

Maguire immediately grabbed a handful and held them in his palm.

Everyone now looked at Baron. Unwittingly, they had fallen into the rhythm of the young Demon Hunter’s investigation.

Baron cleared his throat and gestured as he spoke, "Flies typically lay their eggs zero to twenty-four hours after death. The larval stage—maggots—lasts for one to seven days. Their body length increases by about this much every two hours..."

Unsure of this world’s units of measurement, he made a gesture with his fingers.

From the side, Maguire said, "Isn’t that about a third of a common inch?"

Hearing this, Baron instantly understood that the so-called "common inch" was just the same ridiculous imperial unit. He continued:

"These maggots are about an inch long on average, and they’re starting to show signs of pupation... and with Mundra’s current hot and humid weather, they might pupate even earlier... These bodies have all been moved..."

This time, Yalilan couldn’t help but interrupt. "How can you tell they’ve been moved?"

"By the livor mortis," Baron said.

"Livor mortis is caused by the pooling of blood half an hour to four hours after death, and it becomes fixed in the lower parts of the body after four to ten hours. If the location of the lividity is abnormal—for example, these girls are all lying on their backs, but the livor mortis appears on the front of their bodies—we can deduce the bodies have been moved."

He then added, "But what I find strange is their cause of death."

"What’s wrong with the cause of death?"

Andre didn’t even notice that he, too, had been drawn into Baron’s impromptu lesson on forensic medicine.

Baron knelt down to touch one of the girl’s bodies. After his previous logical and well-reasoned analysis, no one would dare accuse him of desecrating the dead now.

"There are no obvious external injuries, suggesting a non-violent death. However, the color of the livor mortis isn’t the normal purplish-red. It’s paler, almost a light pink, which is usually caused by a reduced concentration of hemoglobin."

Baron checked the deceased’s mouth, nose, and palms. "Furthermore, the mucous membranes in areas like the lips and nail beds are pale, which usually indicates a sudden drop in blood volume..."

"What was the cause of death?"

Like the dumbfounded Demon Hunters around her, Yalilan didn’t understand what this "hemoglobin" Baron was talking about was, but she understood that the young man had likely reached a conclusion.

Baron didn’t keep them in suspense. "If my judgment is correct, all these victims died from rapid blood loss."

Rapid blood loss... with no wounds...

It was as if a thought struck all the Demon Hunters at once. Their faces instantly turned as pale as the corpses of the girls.

Maguire murmured, "It’s a Blood Demon!"