Chương 231: Beneath The Mask

"As you can see, the clown lady isn't exactly the most discreet or subtle. Nearly everywhere she goes, she can't help but do something heinous–In this town here, for example, I discovered that the one person she went after was slain by falling off the very top of the local Divine Feather church… How did it happen? She gouged the man's eyes out, picked him up, and just let him go. He was bleeding, in pain, and had no idea where he had ended up. So he fell to his death""... What about here? Well.

I don't feel like elaborating on the details. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. To simplify, she deprived a cradle of the life it housed. I don't think anything more is required… All that to let you know, I don't think she has a strong grasp on the concept of self-control""She feels the need for people near her to be afraid. To know that they could be her next victim…

Gathering information on her is difficult, even with my advanced investigative spells, but it is pretty much certain that she's a being born out of negative energy. My guess is that she feasts on any amount of negativity around her, which is why she feels the need to be so brutal and to make her presence known wherever she is""That's how she eats… If she even needs to sustain herself in this way…"

Binibelle, Jupo, Hilene, Hortus, Yeldt, and Gontra were all standing around a table upon which the halfling had laid out a large map. The piece of paper bore many notes, all showing the known actions of the colourless clown and the supposed path she might have taken. Binibelle had struggled a fair bit to get a good idea of where this monster had gone. At one point, the clown had seemingly moved further into the countryside, and finding traces of her there was much more difficult.

She had had to rely on accounts from farmers who had spotted something odd in the night, or hunters who had found the maimed bodies of animals in the woods… The clown was far from the only thing that could have been responsible for all of this, especially when odd creatures were popping up left and right nowadays. After much seeking, however, Binibelle was confident that she knew where the creature had gone.

With her trusty spells lacking efficiency, it had been a rather annoying trek to get there, but it seemed that ever since she had cast a spell using the monster's severed arm, she had become less affected by the bizarre obstruction preventing her from properly investigating. … It was only a small improvement, however, and only pertained to the black and white clown, not the case of the missing girls.

Nonetheless, it was fairly obvious that the monstrous clown and this other case were tightly linked, with the monster taking an appearance reminiscent of the Glown costume that was used to lure most of the girls away. There was only one more roadblock in the way of her investigation…

"Miss Binibelle… I don't think we can just waltz into another country like that. We need to use the proper channels to connect with a local guild there to make it clear that we are here to complete a quest. Otherwise, we might seem suspicious. It happened to us once in Malkazert, and it was a pain in the ass" Binibelle sighed. She had almost forgotten that those four were adventurers. She herself was well-known across several kingdoms. People didn't really bother her with questions.

She was respected enough for no suspicions to be cast upon her, but it was true that it wouldn't be the case for those four. They were fairly famous in the adventuring scene, but not enough that their faces were a pass in itself. It was just a matter of waiting, however. So while the quartet was busy getting everything done using the outdated and inefficient channels of a local adventurer guild, Binibelle took rooms at an inn for her and Jupo.

Once all by herself inside a room, she paced around for a few minutes before using a spell to push a table to the middle of the room. The halfling reached into a bag she always carried around, and began bringing a whole bunch of items–Far more than the size of the bag implied it should have been able to carry. She laid what looked like beastskin over the table and drew a circle alongside several symbols before placing mana crystals and other resources in specific spots.

Binibelle clapped her hands after stepping onto a chair to get a good look at the array she had just built.

"Looks good. Hopefully, I can get past it this time…" Even if something was interfering with her investigative spells, she had never given up on using them. While she didn't have the prime material that was a direct body part of the creature anymore, she still had the whole of magic to back her up. When a mage did not know how to further improve their spellcasting with mana alone, they would begin to shove other energies into the mix. A primitive, but effective way of making a spell stronger.

Alternatively, they could learn more beyond simple spellcasting. Binibelle fell into the second category. Since her spells weren't offensive and were meant to be cast while in a safe place, it was simply far more efficient to learn how to draw circles, runes, sigils, and build arrays. She had learned how to do this a long time ago, but in her career as a detective, she had only ever needed to use such means a handful of times.

Few enough times that it could be counted on a single hand–A single hand missing fingers, at that. In previous times, Binibelle had needed to use such means because the cases she had taken on were ludicrously old. The interference she was dealing with now was something that had never happened to her in any capacity.

Regardless, this could drastically augment the strength of her spells, coupled with the slight weakening of the obstruction, she might just be able to glean something–Something that wasn't taking place inside a damned alternate reality, but something that had truly, genuinely happened in the real past. The halfling felt quite confident today. She had tried several times previously, but she had gotten better materials for the array this time. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road.

Report any occurrences.

"Here we go" She carefully channelled the spell inside of her body, making sure it was made at the strongest she could possibly manage, before placing her hand against the beastskin, letting the spell flow into the array, where it would be further augmented before being properly cast. The process lasted several minutes. After all, she wasn't in a hurry, so she made sure that everything would take its time to make sure that as little as possible was left to chance. … Five minutes passed.

Binibelle blinked a few times as she felt the array stop working. It should mean that the spell was successfully cast, but nothing had changed at all. She was still inside the inn room, and no visions popped up inside her head.

"Oh…" Something did change. In the middle of the array, there was another one of those thick, rectangular devices. Of the same kind as the one she had needed Leton's help to be able to view… Thankfully, having seen for herself that communications could happen in this manner for some reason, she had come prepared. The detective pulled her bag open wider, and something taller than she was surged out. A large screen accompanied by the item that could read what she had been given.

Leton Nebulo had told her that it was called a 'tape'. Leton had been gracious enough to even give her other devices, telling her that tape wasn't the only object of its kind capable of storing images, videos, or sounds. Thus, the investigator's seemingly bottomless bag was filled with all sorts of mechanical creations, just in case. It seemed like tapes were favoured by whatever force decided to just make them appear.

"Well, let's see what you have to offer…" Something was written upon the item. It read:'Better There Than Here' Binibelle frankly couldn't even start guessing what this could possibly mean, but the tape would probably answer her question, so she placed it inside the device. The screen was black for a few seconds before it was covered by a grey haze, flashed several colours, and finally began playing a video–Accompanied by rather upbeat music. Welcome to Harvey's Diner! Where fun is even greater!

Come enjoy our restaurant-worthy food while listening to the performances of our entertainment automatons! We will be happy to see you! A voice spoke over what Binibelle could only describe as some advertisement for Harvey's Diner. Which made no sense, this place had closed down long before such a thing could have been created. The voice, which had been that of an upbeat man, suddenly switched to something inhuman. It sounded like when a low-quality entertainment automaton would speak.

The voice was obviously not that of a person. It lacked intonation and always spoke at the same volume. Also, it sounded somewhat feminine. Hello, kids and grown-ups alike. I am Glown, The Clown Girl. Here, at Harvey's Diner, I will personally celebrate your birthday, bring you a cake, and show the full extent of the fun we can have here. If you are good, we can be friends. If you are naughty, then beware.

Glown was appearing on the screen as static images, showing her talking to children inside the diner, carrying a cake, or lightly pulling on the ear of a naughty child… However, the image when she spoke about being friends distorted for a brief second.

"What am I watching…?" Just as she wondered what value this could have, the screen went black, and a much less bright image popped up. Five girls have gone missing at Harvey's Diner. Their rotting bodies were found hidden inside a wall. The owner and an employee were found dead, both hanging inside their homes. It is believed that they feared arrest and decided to take a way out. Investigators do not believe this hypothesis. Here are parts of the security footage at the time of the incident.

These portions of footage had not been found originally. They had been missing. They were recovered at the owner's home, hidden under the floor. The screen flashed, now depicting a rather low-quality video of a young girl sitting alone at a table inside the diner, away from everyone else, when an employee-only door slowly opened. Someone wearing the Glown costume peeked their head out, motioning for the girl to come to them.

It seemed like the girl trusted the person–Or rather, she trusted the character the costume depicted–As she did not hesitate to follow this person. The screen flashed several more times… Binibelle was shown how each of the girls was lured away, but something was off. It didn't fit with what she had already seen before, in these videos, only Glown appeared, no sign of the person wearing the Coco suit. She knew that this suit had been used. Eyewitness reports from the time had been quite clear about that.

Both the clown and the coyote had been present… But as though the tape could hear her thoughts, the image changed again. Someone wearing an old automaton suit was also spotted trying to lure away two of the victims, but both attempts failed.

"... It didn't work?" The detective was confused. Was she watching another alternate reality, or was this how it had really happened? How could she know which it was? The information she was getting was distorted, but perhaps it was simply an effect of the obstruction. Even if she could bypass it at times, it still did its best to offer up information in the most unclear manner possible, muddying the waters by introducing intel from alternate realities.

It was left up to Binibelle to piece together the truth–Not just what came from the true reality or not, but what information from the other realities was truly relevant to her. Surely, not everything was to be thrown away.

"Hold on, I only saw four out of the five being lured away. What about the last one?" Sure enough, the tape was right on time once more. The fifth victim, Elowen, did not follow the person wearing the Glown costume.

"Huh?" More text tried to show up, but it was immediately distorted, and only a soundless video played out. What Binibelle assumed was a person approached the girl a little while after the clown did, but they were covered in black squares. This was the same thing that had happened when she had been shown the killer previously, completely redacted by the obstruction. All Binibelle was able to see was that this person was wearing the uniform of the diner's employees, and more importantly…

The fifth victim seemed delighted to see this person and immediately agreed to follow them. The smell of something burning began filling the room. VIEWING OF THIS TAPE IS PROHIBITED. The tape was expelled, and it melted directly upon the ground. Binibelle looked down at it in silence for a few moments.

"I think I get it"