Goblin Heavy Dependence

Chapter 164 Beastification Syndrome

"You've got some nerve."

Xia Nan sized up the slender, curly-haired girl in front of him, his gaze somewhat strange.

Although Newme is a well-known metropolis, it is only compared to the small towns and villages nearby.

The people living there are probably of a higher average quality than those in the river valley town, which is full of adventurers.

But it's definitely not as peaceful as the modern society I lived in in my previous life.

Theft, robbery, kidnapping, and murder occur very frequently.

Not to mention, this world also contains all sorts of strange and supernatural forces.

A walking skeleton, a witch who drags you out of your house at night and skins you alive...

Even for myself, if I encountered something like this in the middle of the night, without my current strength, I wouldn't be able to go out and investigate. At most, I would just wrap myself tighter in the blanket, bury my head in it, and pretend I didn't hear anything.

The young woman named "Harriet" in front of them was clearly just an ordinary person, and there was no possibility that she could grow muscles and transform into a two-meter-tall barbarian with a roar.

The Greytree Lane where he lived was clearly not a wealthy neighborhood with constant patrols by guards; in fact, it was a place where people lived alone.

In this situation, he actually dared to go out alone late at night to find the source of the obviously strange sound.

I don't know whether to say she was courageous or that she felt she had lived too long and wanted to end her life.

"I'm not usually like this!"

Seeing the sharp-looking adventurer on the sofa in front of him, he seemed to have misunderstood something.

Harriet quickly waved her hand.

“I have been living alone for many years since my parents passed away, so I still have basic awareness of prevention.”

"Sometimes if I get up late, I'd rather go hungry all night than go out. I'll wait until it's light and there are more people before I go out for breakfast."

"But that night, for some reason, I suddenly became so careless."

"Looking back now, I still feel very scared."

Listening to the other person describe her feelings, Xia Nan frowned slightly, guessing that it might be the effect of some kind of bewitching spell that had affected the girl in front of him.

At the same time, I became more curious about what had happened to the Buck family next door.

"You must have followed the guards into the house, right?"

"What's going on inside?"

Upon hearing this, Harriet's expression suddenly became uneasy, as if she were recalling some rather unpleasant scene, and her body even trembled slightly.

"Dead, they are all dead."

"It was like being attacked by some kind of wild beast... severed hand, toes, arm, blood everywhere."

"I'm sorry, I was too scared at the time, I only took one look and then left."

Xia Nan nodded in understanding and then asked further.

"So, does that mean Buck and his entire family died that night?"

“No, Mr. Buck… might still be alive.” Harriet shook her head. “Later, the sheriff said that Mr. Buck’s body was not found in the house.”

Then things are very simple.

However, there are two possible outcomes:

1. Buck is still alive; 2. Buck is dead.

Regarding the former, if Buck did not die that night, he was most likely the murderer who killed his own family member, or perhaps he was kidnapped alive by the attackers for some reason.

As for the latter, considering what the girl mentioned, no body was found inside the house, so perhaps it had already been taken away by the real killer.

But just as adventurers exchange goblins' left ears for bounties, if someone actually receives a bounty on Buck and takes action, they would at most cut off his head as proof; there's no need to take the whole body with them.

Unless there's something special about Buck's body.

Clear thoughts flowed through my mind.

Xia Nan suddenly felt that he might have a bit of a detective talent, and his thinking was quite comprehensive.

"So... my mission is to find the murderer?"

He waved the small piece of paper the association had given him, which contained the address of the house, and asked.

“Yes.” Harley nodded.

"But shouldn't this be the responsibility of the West District Sheriff?"

Xia Nan felt increasingly confused.

But as soon as the words were spoken, some other thoughts popped into my mind.

In the eyes of the world, "adventurers" are often seen as those who hunt monsters in dangerous forests and caves and make a living by earning bounties.

Xia Nan thought the same thing when he first transmigrated to this world.

But as he went further and further into this industry, his original ideas gradually changed.

Just like the "Firefly Garlic Vine" gathering quest he took during his previous transition, the caravan escort quest he met Jeff, and even the Spore Druid bounty that had been posted on the association's quest wall for more than half a year.

To some extent, there are no limitations on what "adventurers" can do.

As long as you have enough money to submit a commission to the association, and the association is willing to accept it and post it in the task list.

In theory, you're like someone who's lost their pet and wants to find it; or someone who feels empty at night and desperately needs a strong, hot body to satisfy their desires.

It is also possible to hire qualified adventurers through missions.

To put it bluntly, as long as the money is right and the Adventurers' Guild isn't worried about getting into any trouble, it's fine.

Even the gods who sit high in the heavens in their divine kingdoms can have bounties posted on the association's mission wall.

Of course, whether anyone is willing to take on the task is another matter.

Given this premise, it doesn't seem like there's much of a problem with me being assigned to investigate a murder case.

but……

“It takes me more than half a month to travel by horse-drawn carriage from the town of River Valley to Newme.”

"If something really goes wrong, the corpse will probably be rotting by then, right?"

"If it were a serial murder case, the killer would have had enough time to kill a few more people in this period of time."

"Considering the worst-case scenario, ten or twenty days, I don't even know if the attackers have left Newme."

"Shouldn't this kind of case have been handed over to the local sheriff in the first place?"

Xia Nan became more and more confused as she spoke.

The girl in front of him shrank back under his series of questions.

"The sheriff came by, but he only glanced at it briefly before leaving."

"It seems that something has happened to the city lord recently, so the sheriff of Newme has been quite busy."

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

After hearing what Harriet said, Xia Nan finally understood.

So they didn't take it seriously at all.

The girl herself was not the one who commissioned the mission; the mission most likely came from the Newm government.

The reason the address left by the association was used to provide quest information to adventurers who came to her door was simply because she was a neighbor and a witness to the events.

As the other party said, I had heard some things about the major events happening in Newm in the past two days from the newspaper and from casual conversations with Jeff's family. These were nothing more than the city lord's serious illness and changes in the leadership.

In this situation, chaos descends from top to bottom, and sheriffs naturally have no time or inclination to deal with a series of murders that occur hundreds of times a year. Not to mention, the murders didn't even take place in an affluent area.

At most, they would symbolically entrust the task to the Adventurers' Guild with a reward from the official authorities.

It would be best if someone answered the call, since it wasn't their own money being spent. Catching the murderer would also be a good thing for them, saving them a lot of trouble.
It doesn't matter if no one takes the task.

Once the bounty period expires and the mission is withdrawn, there will be no need to spend money to continue it.

If someone really asks, he can say that he tried his best.

With so many people coming and going in Newme every day, it's not surprising that a few necromancers and cultists would sneak in.

If every case were investigated down to the last detail, even hiring hundreds more sheriffs wouldn't be enough to handle it all.

"But isn't using this kind of commission as my advancement task a bit too hasty?"

Xia Nan muttered to himself.

Although there is no time limit and no punishment for not completing it, he will most likely just be asked to do another task.

But after learning the specifics of the commission, he couldn't help but wonder if the association staff member mentioned by receptionist Jasmine had given him the wrong task, or if he was being perfunctory because of the tight schedule.

Or is it that you just need to go through the process once, without having to put in any effort yourself, and then you just need to report the situation after returning to River Valley Town, and the mission will be complete?
Now that things have come to this point, Xia Nan can't just do nothing and spend another half a month slinking back home.

I only hope that the association itself has conducted a prior investigation into the mission, that it aligns with its own capabilities, and that it is capable of completing it.

We had to bite the bullet and continue the investigation.

"Let's go."

Xia Nan sighed silently, swallowed the last sip of tea, and slowly got up from the sofa.

"Take me to see it."

……

Compared to Harriet's two-story house, the Buck family's house next door, while not appearing significantly different from the outside, had a similar overall architectural style.

But standing at the entrance, one can clearly feel an atmosphere of desolation.

In Xia Nan's words, it lacked "popularity".

Just over a month after the incident, vines had already climbed up the wooden wall, several spider webs had appeared between the railings, and a thin layer of dust had covered the outer edge of the windowsill.

He took the key that the sheriff had left in Harriet's hand beforehand and pushed open the door to enter.

The first thing you encounter is a chilly air current carrying a faint stench of decay.

Scattered beneath the broken back window were many shards of glass. The curtains swayed gently in the cold wind blowing in from outside. In the morning light, one could vaguely see dust particles floating in the air.

The interior was still arranged as it was that night.

An overturned wooden table, shattered plates, a sofa with lint squeezing out from its tear, and several mangled pieces of clothing...

And, blood.

The floor, interior walls, and even the ceiling above were covered with large amounts of dried, brownish-black bloodstains.

Just standing at the door and looking at these horrifying marks, one can imagine the tragic scene that night.

"What about the bodies? Have they all been disposed of?"

Xia Nan walked into the house, looked around at the surroundings, and asked without turning his head.

"Yes, the sheriff had them all towed away the next day."

I followed closely behind, and heard a somewhat frightened female voice in my ear.

Without the conditions for low-temperature preservation in a cold storage facility, more than a month is enough time for an ordinary person's corpse to rot and stink, so it's impossible to just leave it in the house like that.

"They should have examined the body, right? Did they find anything?"

"They say there are many signs of wild animals gnawing and tearing at it."

"and then?"

"there is none left……"

Xia Nan stopped abruptly, his brows furrowing slightly as he turned to look at Harriet.

"Shouldn't they be able to roughly determine the species and size of the beast from the wound? Didn't they do that?"

The only answer he got was silence.

"Row."

Xia Nan felt a deep sense of helplessness.

It seems he overestimated the professionalism of the world's sheriffs.

Oh no.

They must have overestimated their conscience and professionalism.

Based on Xia Nan's understanding of the world's development in various aspects, he believed that the sheriff of Newm City must have some basic criminal investigation skills.

However, when they are preoccupied with important matters, they may not be willing to spend time and energy on an ordinary family from the countryside.

I felt even more troubled.

Although I had read some mystery and detective novels during my student days, I was just an ordinary office worker in my past life.

Currently, they may have gained good observation skills due to improved physical fitness, but they haven't acquired much related knowledge.

To give a simple example:

Xia Nan's dark, deep eyes could see, as clearly as a magnifying glass, the fine lines on the wall stained with blood, and the dried, congealed bloodstains within them.

However, he was unable to reconstruct the scene of the Buck family's attack based on the direction and amount of blood splatter, unlike the detective in the novel.

"It's so complicated, I don't even know where to start."

Xia Nan still prefers more direct requests.

Who to kill, where to kill, and how much money to pay.

Simple and clear.

Why make the task so brain-taxing?

"Did that sheriff say anything else?"

After wandering around the house for a while without figuring anything out, Xia Nan asked Harriet, who was following behind him.

As she was speaking, before the other party could reply, she seemed to have suddenly discovered something.

He quickly stepped forward and came to the broken window.

On the slightly sunken windowsill, there was a deep claw mark.

If you put your fingers together and extend your hand to compare, you can see that the claw print is much larger than a normal person's palm.

It has five toes, with the two on the sides being slightly shorter and the three in the middle being slightly longer, and they are distributed in parallel.

"Wild beasts," "standing upright," "howling in the dead of night"...

A jumble of clues surfaced in Xia Nan's mind as he pondered them carefully.

It was only at this point, under his questioning, that Harriet, standing behind him, finally remembered another crucial piece of information.

"The sheriff seemed to have said something like that."

"It might be... related to 'beastification syndrome'."

(End of this chapter)