Chương 179: (174) 3.39. They’re Back

The whole ordeal involving Kyle out of his hands, Vin managed to get in a few more hours of practice with Dimensional Sheath before hitting the hay. He even had the bright idea of pushing the bounds of the runic formation a little and doing more than he knew he was ready for because he still had his divine boon prepped and ready to go. Sure enough, he managed to get in a few minutes of impressive progress before he made a mistake and triggered a runic backlash.

Based on the shifting tug of pressure he felt in his side before a blast of golden light washed it away, he was pretty certain the backlash would have shoved a solid chunk of his right side into another dimension. Temporarily, at least. Shivering at the realization that he was finally messing around with runic formations that could seriously hurt him if he made so much as a single mistake, Vin slept a bit more fitfully than he would have liked.

Which meant he was all the more easily woken when someone began pounding on his door.

"One sec!" he called out, jumping out of bed and getting dressed. Once he was at least semi presentable, he opened the door, surprised to find a nervous looking man waiting for him.

"Greg?" Vin blinked, immediately recognizing the portly guard that Spur had used to stand watch against Patty and her people what felt like ages ago. He still felt a little bad about scaring Greg's partner Abby at the time with Alka and storming past her when she wouldn't let him in to see Spur, but it seemed they had forgiven him by now.

"Emergency council meeting," Greg hurriedly told him, his hand resting on the hilt of his mace as if just the feeling of it gave him strength.

"I wasn't given any details, they just asked me to forward the message."

"Emergency? You don't know what happened?" Vin asked, the last dregs of sleep leaving him as he realized something might seriously be wrong.

"Not a clue," he admitted. Thanking him for the message, Vin finished getting ready before grabbing his staff and heading over to the command center. He didn't know what exactly an emergency consisted of, but he wanted to be ready for anything. He briefly contemplated letting his team know, before deciding he should at least hear Spur out first. No sense raising the alarm if the so-called emergency was something purely town related.

In a strange change of pace, Vin was actually one of the first council members to arrive. Spur was pacing back and forth and Alice was sitting in her usual seat, looking curious, but Phil and Witherson were nowhere to be found.

"What's going on?" Vin asked, taking his seat beside Alice.

"No clue," she shrugged, nodding toward the irate looking Spur.

"I asked, but Spur just said to wait for everyone."

"Spur, you're seriously going to make us wait?" Vin asked, giving him an exasperated look.

"Isn't this an emergency?"

"Phil called this meeting, Vin, not me," Spur said, frowning.

"I actually don't know what the emergency is either."

"Phil did? That can't be good." Vin didn't exactly know the head of the combat classes very well, but he knew Phil lived for battle. If something was bad enough that the battle-hungry Challenger was willing to call an emergency meeting, Vin didn't want to know what could be wrong. Thankfully, they didn't have to wait too much longer as Witherson showed up just a few minutes later, followed closely behind by Phil and Myers.

"I thought it best Myers join us for this, because of her precise knowledge of the different Earthers," Phil explained before any of them could ask.

"Phil, what's going on?" Spur snapped, clearly not a fan of being out of the loop.

"It's Kyle," Phil said, seeming unconcerned by Spur's tone as he closed the door and turned to give everyone his full attention.

"He was found dead in his cell this morning." Vin and Alice both gasped at the news, and even Witherson's eyes widened for a brief moment. But strangely enough, Spur just pursed his lips, looking like he knew what was coming next.

"How did he die?" Spur asked.

"Crossbow bolt to the eye," Phil said blankly, nodding toward the colonel. As Spur cursed and began pacing once more, a chilling realization struck Vin.

"Wait… You don't mean…"

"I have good reason to believe it was the same person who killed Patty during the battle for wave two," Phil nodded. Vin rocked back in his chair, speechless at Phil's emotionless statement. Even after all this time, he could still vividly remember the sound of a crossbow bolt slamming into Patty's brain through her eye in the middle of their conversation. The sight of the aggravating woman lying dead on the ground, her life snuffed out in an instant.

Realizing he was shaking slightly, Vin took a deep breath, calming himself down. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Explain," he demanded.

"There's not a lot to explain," Spur sighed, finally halting his pacing and collapsing into his seat.

"As you know, someone used a crossbow to murder Patty in the middle of the battle for wave two. Only a few people even saw her corpse after the fact with the bolt sticking out of her head, and seeing as Myers is our most famous crossbow wielder, most of them came to the conclusion that I must have ordered Myers to take her out during everything that was going on. I can assure you, that's not what happened."

"I wasn't the one that killed Patty," Myers confirmed, a slight frown on her face.

"I actually recommended we kill her before the battle began, but Spur wanted to give her a fair trial and then publicly execute her after the battle."

"I didn't tell people what really happened because I didn't want people to know that we had a murderer from the first wave running around in our midst," Spur admitted.

"Seeing as Patty had done some truly horrible things, I was willing to let everyone think Myers had been the one to do the deed and let the stranger get away with the murder without looking too hard into it. It wasn't as if we had all that much to go on, anyways. A few of our crossbow wielders died during the battle for wave two, and anyone could have picked up one of their fallen crossbows and taken the shot.

It would have taken some impressive aim, but half of our men and women have extensive firearms training, not to mention literal superhuman dexterity."

"Hold on… All this time, there's been a murderer running around camp, and you guys have just… kept this to yourselves?" Alice asked, looking just as shocked as Vin felt.

"Are you both mad?!"

"Again, my hope was that it was a one-time thing in retaliation for everything Patty had done," Spur replied.

"You yourself threatened to gut the woman with a dagger at one point."

"But it's not just a one-time thing," Vin said, nodding toward a still-standing Phil.

"You think whoever killed Patty was the same person who killed Kyle?"

"There are countless ways they could have killed the man," Phil pointed out.

"The fact that they went with a crossbow bolt through the eyes means they're sending a message."

"Or leaving a calling card," Alice snapped.

"I can't believe you guys kept this from us! We might have a serial killer walking around camp!"

"Exactly what message do you think they're sending?" Witherson asked over her, finally speaking up.

"My guess? They are acting as some sort of vigilante," Spur said.

"Hell, after what they did to Patty, they may have even earned the Vigilante class upon prestiging, if such a thing exists. Patty did terrible things, and thus, she got a crossbow bolt to the eye. Kyle picked on those weaker than him, injured more than one person from fighting, and threatened to take over camp and murder countless people. So what does he earn for all that?"

"A crossbow bolt to the eye," Witherson finished, seeming to understand the bigger picture.

"Though who's to say this isn't simply a copycat killer?"

"It might very well be, that's half the problem," Spur sighed.

"Myers, from what you know, assuming this is not a copycat killer and both murders were from someone within the first wave, how many suspects would you have?"

"The majority of the first wave," Myers frowned.

"Those that are still alive anyway. After everything we've been through, we're down to just over fifty people left from the first wave. Normally, I'd say only the military members are suspect, but it's hard to say with our new attributes because an increase in dexterity or unique skills and passives could make up for a lack of firearms training."

"Why not just line everyone up and ask them point blank using the truth-gem?" Vin asked, feeling like they were missing the obvious.

"Surely that's the fastest way to solve this, right? I'm pretty sure 'did you kill Patty' is a yes or no question."

"The problem is if we go that route, it would be admitting to everyone Myers wasn't the person that did her in, and that we've known there was a killer in our midst all this time and chose not to tell anyone," Spur said, looking like he just wanted to go back to bed.

"You saw how the two of you just reacted to the news. Imagine that spread across two thousand people."

"Not to mention there's a good chance they might have some method of fooling the truth-gem," Myers pointed out.

"If I didn't think that was the case, I'd be out interrogating all the surviving members of the first wave right now, regardless of the consequences. But I agree with Spur, I don't think we should cause a panic just yet. Especially with all the fresh third wavers watching us."

"The last thing we want is showing a thousand new people that they can get away with murder here on Edregon," Witherson nodded.

"Well now, this is a conundrum indeed." The room was silent as everyone thought about their current situation. Vin couldn't believe that all this time Patty's murderer was freely walking around camp, happy and fully capable of killing again. Spur's plan to let everyone assume it was Myers that had killed Patty had been genius, because admittedly, it had worked on him as well.

Vin had tried not to think about it, but knowing how good a shot Myers was with her crossbow, he'd just assumed she'd taken out Patty on Spur's orders, just as the colonel had hoped. But now that the killer had struck again…

"We can't let some random vigilante run around camp killing people they think are problems," Spur declared, getting nods from all around the table.

"Thank God they decided to start with Patty and Kyle, who both actually were serious problems that I was planning on executing, but there's no telling when they'll start to lower the bar and kill people who don't deserve it."

"So what's the plan?" Alice asked, looking more angry than concerned.

"We could pretend there's another horrible criminal in jail and I could leave a trap for the vigilante. Other than that, I've got nothing."

"That's actually not bad at all," Spur said slowly, thinking the suggestion over.

"At the moment, everyone is well aware of how much of a problem Kyle has been, and thanks to his loud voice, I bet more than half the camp knows he just promised to kill everyone. For now, I'll spread the news that we had him quietly executed. In terms of finding the actual killer though, Vin, I don't suppose there's any chance you've come across any sort of detective-style magic during your wandering that might be useful?"

"Nothing comes to mind, but I can ask the others," he said. In fact, along with Shia, Scule, and Alka, this is yet another situation Lumel might be able to help with. I bet the palace she grew up in had guards capable of solving stuff like this. Though asking her about murder after what just happened between us might not be the best idea… I should probably start with everyone else.

"You do that. I'll check in with Kym and Golrim and see if they have any ideas," Spur decided, rubbing his eyes.

"Phil, make sure nobody disturbs the crime scene. Don't even touch Kyle's body, not until we confirm there's nothing we can do. Myers, I hate to bring the new girl in so soon, but this seems like as good a time as any to bring in the Investigator from wave three. Just make sure she understands she can't tell anyone about this. Witherson, if you hear any rumors spreading among the crafters, do your best to squash them quietly. Alice…" Spur turned, giving the Trapper a hard look that spoke volumes.

"Start coming up with an idea for a trap we can use to catch this bastard. And don't worry about making it non-lethal."