“So do we, but we need to prepare for the worse,” Sherly said.

“Is there no clue as to the perpetrator? What about their motive?” Jack asked.

“I’m afraid we have no idea about the motive,” Canon said. “But we might have something about the murderers.”

“It is still unclear, though,” Sherly said as she gave Canon a disapproving look.

Canon chuckled. “Forgive my partner here. She disliked sharing things that are still ambiguous.”

“After questioning the eyewitnesses just now, we might have found something that links the murderer in this town with the one two days ago,” Sherly said. “But I don’t want us to jump into assumptions, we are still waiting for the report from the other towns where the other murders occurred. Once we cross-check the facts, we should be able to make a better deduction.”

“Let me know once you have something tangible,” Jack said. He didn’t want to push for an explanation if the two were not certain.

Jack turned to Lance and asked, “Where is Hans being held?”

We escorted him back to his mansion. I placed some soldiers there to keep him from leaving.

“Bring me to him, please,” Jack commanded.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but is that wise?” Lance said. “He is currently not in an appropriate state of mind. His family is also still grieving.”

“I understand… That’s why I need to meet him. An emotional person might do things that harm himself or others, especially a person of his influence. I need to determine how unstable he is to make sure if a house arrest is enough.”

“… If it’s not, do Your Majesty plan to put him in jail?” Lance asked. “As Your Majesty mentioned, he has influence. Jailing him will just rile up his supporters. We will then have a worse situation to deal with.”

“We will cross that bridge when that happens. Right now, I just want to meet with him.”

Lance sighed. “Since it is Your Majesty’s command, so be it.”

Jack and Lance went back into the carriage. Jack invited Sherly and Canon to tag along. They had already finished the interrogation and investigated the crime scene. They just need to review the available evidence as well as wait for the reports from the other investigative teams.

Inside the carriage, Jack asked Sherly and Canon about the recent case.

Hans’ second son, Neil Orline, was a commoner, meaning he had no combat ability and was thus easy to kill. Canon suspected this was perhaps the reason Neil was targeted.

Neil also enjoyed hanging out with the civilians in the taverns around the business district. The incident happened an hour before dawn when Neil was leaving the tavern. He was with his friends, all of them were drunk. On their way, they bumped into an orc and an argument ensued.  The situation had not been good between orcs and humans after the theft and vandalism two weeks ago. The news about the murder two days ago also caused the already tense situation to become worse. Many of the townspeople preferred all the orcs in the town to be chased out.

The orc they argued with chose to leave, but he threw some insults before leaving. This aroused Neil and his friend’s anger. They ended up chasing the orc who ran away into an alley.

His friends continued to chase the orc through the alley until they came out to another street. The orc they were chasing was pretty fast. They soon lost the orc. At that time, they noticed that Neil was not with them.

Neil had always been the slowest among them, so they went back to the alley to look for him. As they walked, they saw another orc come out of the alley but went the opposite way. They ignored that orc and went into the alley, only to find that Neil was already dead inside the alley.

“Neil’s friends hate orcs, don’t they? Maybe they make a false statement about seeing an orc leaving the alley?” Jack asked.

“Although the street was mostly deserted during that hour, there are some people who start opening shops,” Canon replied. “They collaborated on Neil’s friends’ stories.”

Jack nodded. These two should have gone through the testimonies, he won’t waste time second-guessing them.

“How was Neil murdered?” Jack asked.

“A stab wound to the heart,” Sherly answered. “The wound pattern matched with the daggers that are common in Verremor which was slightly curved.”

“There are also signs of struggle,” Canon added. “We found trace evidence in Neil’s hand. A small piece of torn fabric. We have analyzed the fabric by comparison. It was a special one that is only sold in Verremor.”

“All the evidence pointed to the orcs,” Jack summarized.𝒩𝑂𝐕𝚎𝔩𝑵𝓔xt.𝑐𝓞𝗆

“They do,” Sherly agreed.

“Don’t you find them a bit too convenient?” Jack asked.

“Are Your Majesty implying that someone is trying to frame the orcs?” Lance asked. He was not too happy about Jack’s statement. It was as if Jack was trying hard to find a reason to suggest that the murderer was not an orc.

“I’m sorry if I didn’t say it out correctly,” Jack said. “I agree that from all the evidence, the murderer is no doubt an orc. What I am saying is that this orc might be acting under command to ruin our country’s relationship with Verremor. Do the witnesses tell what the orc that came out of the alley looks like? Have we tried searching for this orc among the ones that are still in this town?”

“I issued the search not long after the murder was reported,” Lance answered. “But as we previously discussed, the murderer must have left town immediately. We didn’t find any orc matching his descriptions.”

“What about the one Neil’s friends were chasing?” Jack asked. “There might be a chance the two were working together.”

“I have thought of that probability and informed the good governor here earlier,” Sherly said.

“This other orc is also no longer in this town,” Lance said. At the same time, he peeked outside through the carriage’s window.

“We have arrived at the Orline mansion,” he informed.

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