Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 780 Detective Ver.
Can you still recall what happened at that time?

Although Ramizane's voice was kind, Ignas clearly took it very seriously, and sweat began to bead on his forehead and temples.

“I…I must think about this carefully, sir. It’s like this, I haven’t actually seen Senefre’s body either, and I don’t know the specific details, but I heard that when Company Commander Cyanos arrived, he was just close enough to see the poor man take his last breath.”

“Senefrete? Interesting. So, it's possible that Sejanus heard his last words?”

"Perhaps, sir, but I didn't know Lord Cyanos back then, and he couldn't possibly come to discuss such matters with us."

The conversation seemed to have ended there.

Loken wondered, what does this mean? What is the Iron Lord trying to say with this?

Ramizam waited patiently.

However, the chubby poet scratched his curly hair that was stuck to his scalp and spoke hesitantly.

“But… sir, if it weren’t for someone like you personally asking… I would have forgotten… actually, because jewelers really don’t have many friends, I was the one who ended up collecting Senefrete’s belongings.”

"Oh?"

"Yes, yes, there were some things inside. When I first arrived, I didn't understand what they meant, but they were still valuables and relics, so I kept them. That's all. Now that I know you and Lord Loken, I think they might have some meaning."

“Show us these, Ignas.”

So the poet moved his body, opened his cabinet, rummaged through the pile of clutter for a while, and finally pulled out a small package haphazardly wrapped in felt cloth used by jewelers for polishing.

He took it in his hand, walked to the desk, casually pushed aside other books and things, then unfolded it, revealing its contents under the light.

"That's it."

There are four silver objects on the grayish-brown felt.

"What is this?" Messati leaned closer and compared it to her slender wrist. "A very thoughtful design... Is this a bracelet?"

Loken's stomach felt heavy, as if it were filled with lead.

Ramizan, who was standing nearby, spoke up, "They are rings, Oriton. There are four silver rings, to be precise, three intact and one crushed."

He got up, walked to the table, and picked up the rings to examine them one by one.

“These are Astartes-sized rings. And someone provided the detailed dimensions and made them specifically for Senefre.”

He flipped them over one by one, so that the ring faces were facing the light source, and Loken felt a wave of dizziness.

Each ring features a meticulously polished, gem-quality moonstone that radiates a soft, multicolored glow.

Intricate and ornate patterns are engraved on the band and around the moonstone, and delicate woven and plant-decorative patterns are created using exquisite bead-making techniques.

But that's not the problem; the problem lies in the shape of the four moonstones.

Loken was very familiar with the shape of the four moonstones, because one of them was located above his right eye on his own helmet.

That was what he inherited from the late Cyranus.

Four moonstones: the full moon, the crescent moon, the gibbous moon, and his own new moon.

The gems on the other three rings are intact, but the ring representing the crescent moon is damaged. The gems are shattered and the ring is completely deformed, as if it had been hammered or subjected to heavy pressure.

"What do you think, Loken?" the Lord of Steel asked him.

"I don't know, sir, I don't know."

Loken appeared very stiff, and the two narrators exchanged a glance.

"Should we leave, sir?" Messadi asked very considerately. "Although you certainly know, I would like to say that my eyes can record everything I see."

“Now that things have come to this, you should be afraid if I tell you to leave, Miss Oriton.”

This polite form of address sent a chill down her spine. "Then, shall we...?"

“Sit here and witness it,” he said, “and then guard this secret like a dragon guarding its treasure.”

The blue-eyed man turned to Loken. "What was damaged was the Crescent Ring. If I remember correctly, the Crescent previously represented Cygnus in the Council of the Four Kings, and now it represents you, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"So, it is clear that this is an order with Astartes as the recipient, or more precisely, an order with all the members of the Council of Four Kings as the recipient, but none of the remaining three members of the Council of Four Kings came to collect the goods, nor did any of them think of taking them after Senefrete's death, but instead let Ignas take them away."

Ramizan said slowly, “This leads us to conclude that the order was ultimately intended as a gift for the other members of the Council of the Four Kings. Therefore, such a gift was either placed by Horus himself, but more likely by one of the members of the Council of the Four Kings—which explains why Cyyanus himself appeared in Senefreth’s workshop and why he was the first to discover the body. This is Cyyanus’s order.”

“That’s a perfectly reasonable deduction,” Ignas said softly.

"So after Senefrete's death, did you see Cyanos again? What did he say to you?"

The poet unconsciously scratched his head again. "No, sir. You know, it took me two months to get permission to interview Togarden and Company Commander Locken. Without you, I might not have been able to get in touch with the Astartes even now."

“So,” Ramizan concluded, “theoretically, no one knows Senefret’s last words now.”

"Perhaps he didn't even have time to leave any last words, sir."

"In a murder mystery, there is always a last word from the deceased as a clue... This is an unalterable ancestral rule."

...Is there such an ancestral law? Or rather, who is the ancestor of the original entity? Does the beloved emperor think so?

"Then we should go now..."

They all stared at Ramizann, their eyes gleaming with a heightened curiosity and excitement at the prospect of witnessing a thrilling deductive process.

"Let's check the surveillance footage first."

"..." ————————

The Mechanicus representative in the Sixteenth Legion was named Regulus. Like his high-ranking colleagues, most of his body had become a collection of gears, pipes, engines, or other mechanical structures. One could only say that the priestly robes were indeed a very suitable form of clothing, as they at least made them look somewhat human.

Clearly, Representative Regulus disliked these uninvited guests who were interrupting his study of the newly acquired loot from 63-19. However, because they had a warrant issued by the Primarch and were accompanied by a Space Marine company commander, he reluctantly sent an assistant to help them search the warehouse for the previously recovered parts.

"Some time has passed, and I can't guarantee whether the things you want have been sent into the casting furnace or reformulated and transformed into other equipment."

That's what he said, and the narrator who was fortunate enough to follow Ramizane into the territory of the Mechanicus was even more amazed, looking around aimlessly despite his assistant's eye-rolling.

Of course, the good news is that they actually found the servo skull they wanted, marked as a skull from the Senefrete workshop.

The bad news is that the servo skull has indeed been formatted and is ready to be issued to the next person who applies for a servo skull, just one day before they arrive.

“It was so close!” Ignas said dejectedly. “If only we had come a day earlier…!”

"That's not surprising. Hmm."

Ramizan gestured for Locken to bring the skull over so he could see it. Although the tenth company commander didn't quite understand why he had to bring it, he did as he was told.

After studying it for a while, Ramizan announced that these Martians were indeed quite skilled at formatting and deleting; the thing was cleaned up extremely thoroughly, with no intention of leaving any trace.

"To be honest, it's a mystery why they cleaned it so thoroughly instead of destroying it outright. Wouldn't the former have been more costly?"

Ignas shrugged. "Perhaps it's a quirk of the Om Messiah followers? I've heard that some of them value all mechanical creations highly and don't allow others to modify or abandon them casually."

“That’s something that hasn’t changed in ten thousand years, or even gotten worse.” Ramizan circled the skull in Loken’s hand halfway around again. “I feel like… something’s not right. Wait, I know. Ah, but wait a minute, we have warriors, photographers, videographers, and poets here, but no painters.”

Ultimately, Ignas easily caught two painters in the assembly hall with just two bottles of wine and got them to paint a portrait of the servo skull in his lifetime.

The painters selected for the narrative each possessed unique skills, and soon, a sketch and a hastily done watercolor were delivered to Ignas's cabin.

"My goodness, Your Majesty, you are truly insightful!"

The poet stared in amazement at the two strikingly similar portraits. "How did you come up with that?!"

"So this really is Senefrete?"

“It’s him!” Ignas nodded with certainty. “Although it’s not quite the same, there are certain features that make it unmistakable when the two are placed side by side. This servo skull is not the one in his workshop; this is his own skull!”

“Making the most of what you have really suits the nature of these red-robed men…” Ramizan muttered. “They must have thought that Seneflet’s intelligence, self-control and brain maintenance were perfect for making a servo skull, so they did it… After all, this thing can’t be made if the brain is too stupid, and there isn’t enough space in the cloning culture tank on the Vengeful Spirit.”

The other narrators clearly felt a certain unspoken aversion to this practice of making full use of the corpses of their own kind, but given that finding the body was a small victory and they obviously had something to do with it, they wouldn't be foolish enough to bring it up at this point.

"But his cranial cavity has been thoroughly modified, and his cortical memories have been deleted... Even if it is confirmed to be him, it won't be of much use."

“If it’s confirmed to be the person’s skull, then its usefulness… will become very significant.” The person who was the avatar of the Lord of Steel smiled. “For example, we can first confirm that Senefret’s cause of death can be ruled out as a severe blow to the skull.”

---------

It took a while to find the modification records for this skull again, but the Mechanicus's recording process, though very rigid, showed some advantages at this moment.

They saw the circumstances under which Senefrete's body was disposed of in a hastily prepared record.

"Yes... The cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation; fractures of the laryngeal cartilage, hyoid bone, and cervical vertebrae; bursting abrasion of the skin of the mandible and above the clavicle; massive subcutaneous hemorrhage... This description is rare: 'The thyroid gland was completely crushed by external force and distributed around the depressed trachea and muscle tissue.'"

Messadi looked like he was about to throw up, and Ignaz was almost there too.

"What do you think?"

Loken remained silent.

“Strangulation, right? And judging from the description and extent of the wound, it was strangulation with one hand, with tremendous force, and the impact covered such a wide area.”

Ignas shuddered and slowly moved closer to Messati, keeping a slight distance from Loken.

“Considering the kind of warship we are on,” Ramizane’s voice was calm, “it is highly likely that an Astartes strangled him, and, quite obviously, a Shadowmoon Wolf strangled this craftsman and chronicler himself.”

“This will immediately escalate into a huge scandal…!” Messadi whispered. The female journalist, known for interviewing celebrities and all sorts of people, clearly understood the implications of this matter better than Ignaz.

“What are you saying, Oriton? We’re talking about a murder that’s just been exposed!” the poet cried. “It’s murder! We should be seeking justice!”

“But it was Astartes’ murder that killed ‘the mortals on our side,’” the dark-skinned woman said, trembling. “The Emperor has returned to Terra, the Warmaster, leading the Shadowmoon Wolves, is away, and the newly formed Terran Council is aggressive… Oh, God!”

"Obviously, if this were to become known to those with ulterior motives, the outcry and calls for the culprit to be handed over and severely punished would be considerable, especially with the encouragement of the Terra Council."

Ramizan looked at Loken, "And what do you think would happen if Horus Lupecal were to abide by mortal laws and hand over the Astartes murderers, given how rampant 'brotherhood' is within the Sixteenth Legion?"

Loken pursed his lips.

"In the legions, especially in societies where discontent can be freely expressed and shared views can be found, the collapse of Horus's prestige would be a relatively mild reaction, wouldn't it?"

"And if he refuses to hand over the murderer, then the Terra Council will obviously begin to make things difficult and provoke him in secret... The Warmaster is not the Emperor. What everyone fears is the Emperor, but the Emperor obviously has other important matters to attend to. He left this mess that is about to be unmanageable to the Crown Prince and ran back to become the retired emperor... Why does this feel so familiar?"

"In short, whoever the murderer is, he must have thought it was a trivial matter when he committed the crime. Or rather, he didn't think he would be punished for killing a mortal who served the Legion. Why was he so sure of that?"

Loken remained silent.

“Cejanus must have seen the exact condition of Senefrete’s fatal neck wound; the huge, clearly visible strangulation mark was striking. But the problem is, he, the first eyewitness, is also dead.”

Lamizain shook his head. "Once murder begins, death follows; just as a lie can never be a single one."

"So what do we do now?" Ignas asked with difficulty, trying to stop his legs from shaking so badly.

“Now… we still need to replay the process record, but,” Ramizane said with a strange look, “this time we don’t need to visit the followers of Om Messiah.”

(End of this chapter)