Chapter 134: After the Deer-headed Spirit and the Missing Miner
left Triss’s family mansion, Wayne did not stop at Maribo and soon, led by Allen, came to the mine where the murder occurred.
It is about five or six kilometers away from the city of Maribo. However, because the mine has a long history and huge mineral reserves, the Duke of Maribo also built a road leading to the mine. The two rented a carriage and did not It took as long as it took to reach the mine.
This is a large mine located inside the forest, covering a large area. Not only have several huge mines been dug, but many houses for workers to live near the mines have also been built.
After entering the mine, Wayne found that there were very few workers inside, and they were all just transporting ore. No one entered the mine. There were not many people working in such a large mine.
According to Allen, half a month has passed since the first murder occurred. Because there were so many dead people, even if the Duke of Maribo asked the miners to continue working and even raised their wages, not many people were willing. Risking his life, he returned to work in the mines.
Thinking about the income from this mine, this may be why the Duke of Maribo is so anxious to solve this matter.
The journey was smooth. Perhaps the people in the mine had gotten the news and knew that Wayne was the expert responsible for handling this matter. Allen took him around to observe, but no one stood up to stop him.
"Take me to the place where the murder occurred first. I didn't see any trace of the monster, and I can't tell what it is."
Allen flinched when he heard this. He looked at Wayne and said,
"Mr. Wayne, initially The murder occurred deep in the mine. It has been half a month. The bodies there have been cleaned up, and the environment inside is very dark. It may be difficult to find anything." Wayne glanced at Allen and said
, I know that this young man is probably afraid of danger, afraid of evil spirits or ghosts and other ghosts. After all, in places where there are too many dead people in this world, murderous ghosts really do appear.
This is an excusable thing. Wayne thought about it and said:
"Well, just take me to the mine where the crime happened and show me the way. You don't have to go down with me." Seeing
Wayne's insistence, Allen could only agree and guided him into the mine. .
The environment of the mine was indeed very dark, and the roads were complicated, with all kinds of gravel obstacles everywhere. However, as a demon hunter, Wayne still found the first clue of the case through his sensitive sense of smell and the smell of rotten blood and minced meat. One scene.
He poured himself a bottle of cat's eye potion, and after some detailed exploration, he returned to the ground with a strange expression.
It turns out that Wayne not only found traces of monsters fighting at the crime scene, but also traces of humans killing each other.
And judging from his knowledge and experience, the murderer in the mine should not be a deer-headed spirit controlling vines, but a large monster like a troll using a huge wooden stick.
In addition to the fact that monsters like deer-headed spirits rarely enter narrow caves like mines, it was also because he found the special three-toed footprints of trolls on the mine floor.
However, combined with the two incidents of humans killing each other and trolls attacking humans, it does seem like the actions of the deer-headed spirit.
Because the deer-headed spirit is different from other monsters, in addition to its physical strength and various spell-like abilities, it also has a special ability that is enough to frighten ordinary people.
In the forest, the deer-headed spirit will use totems, spells, and black magic rituals to create a territory that belongs to it.
Then control and mark a human being. As long as the human being is still within its territory, the deer-headed spirit can be resurrected indefinitely with the help of dark magic.
If you want to defeat the deer-headed spirit, you must kill this human being or drive it out of the deer-headed spirit's territory. Otherwise, you cannot kill the deer-headed spirit.
Moreover, weak monsters such as ghosts, wild wolves, and crows can easily be charmed by the deer-headed spirit and become its battle puppets to assist it in combat.
Therefore, if you want to kill a deer-headed spirit, you often have to deal with not just one monster, but a group of monsters that are united and under common command.
Perhaps the troll that appeared in the mine was charmed by this deer-headed spirit and became its accomplice.
Although their individual strength is not strong, even for a monster hunter who is a monster expert, a deer-headed spirit entrenched in the forest is definitely a formidable enemy.
But there are still two questions. The first is, where is the troll going now? Has it returned to the deer-headed spirit, or is it still hiding deep in these mines?
And the second question is, where are the human traitors who helped the trolls kill those miners? Was he abandoned by the deer-headed spirit and died here, or did he also return to the forest?
After returning to the ground, Allen was walking back and forth anxiously. After seeing Wayne come out, he breathed a sigh of relief and came over and asked, "Sir Wayne, how are
you doing down there? Do you have any clues? ?"
Wayne waved his hand and did not tell Allen the clues and speculations he had found. Instead, he asked:
"Alan, do you know if there were any survivors when the mine murder occurred?"
Allen heard this. He shook his head and said:
"No, when the guards from the mine entered the mine, they found no trace of survivors."
"There were only corpses on the ground, and they were all chopped into pieces. The commander of the city guard After calling a professional coroner, we managed to piece together their bodies. Even so, there are still many parts missing."
Hearing that the bodies had been chopped into many pieces and that many parts were missing, Wayne's eyes moved. Asked:
"Is there anyone whose head has not been found, or is there anyone who is definitely missing?"
After hearing this, Allen scratched his head and said:
"I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne, I'm just wondering about the condition of the body. I’ve heard rumors, but I don’t know the specifics.”
"However, Mr. Plant, the coroner sent by the city, is still in the mine and has not left. Do you need me to take you to see him?"
Coroner? Wayne touched his chin and nodded. That's fine. For professional matters, it's better to ask a professional.
"Take me there, I just have something to ask him."
Coroner Plante is an old man in his fifties. He originally had no interest in Wayne's arrival and did not want to talk to him. However, after Allen introduced him, After he was the expert brought in by the sorceress Triss, the coroner reluctantly began to answer Wayne's questions.
"Missing people?"
"What you said is somewhat consistent with my guess."
In the autopsy room, there were still several corpses placed on the wooden beds in the hall. The smell of decay permeated the room. I rarely experienced this. At the scene, Allen was hanging his head, his face was pale, and he did not dare to look at the rotten corpses.
Plante touched his beard, then took out a list from a worn-out box. After thinking for a while, he said to Wayne:
"Actually, I also discovered this problem. According to the list, the people in the mine should be Thirteen people died, but I could only piece together twelve of the body fragments they brought back." "Unfortunately, the body fragments they brought back were too damaged, and there were many disfigurements on the face. I can't be sure. Whether it was spelled incorrectly, of course we cannot be sure who the missing person is."
At this point, the old man showed a sarcastic smile on his face, and then said:
"I originally asked the deputy captain Ramsay Knight who was in charge of this matter. I reported this matter and suggested that he investigate the possible missing persons one by one, but the knight thought it was too troublesome and ignored me at all." "Later, they sent soldiers
to search the forest, and a whole team was found. After the army was wiped out and ten more corpses were brought back to me, this matter will be settled."
As he said that, the old man also looked at Wayne's young and handsome face with a careful look. Although he did not think that, like Wayne, Such a young man could find out something, but he still handed the list to Wayne and said:
"Later, I also investigated and used characteristics such as age, skin color, and scars to eliminate the thirteen people to three people. If there are really missing people, they should be among these three people."
After handing over the list, the old man waved his hand and signaled Wayne and the two to leave his workplace. He did not forget to warn:
"Anyway, be careful. I have been handling corpses for so many years, and I can see that there must be something behind this matter." There is a powerful monster."
"Don't lose your life while investigating."
With the information he obtained, Wayne left Plante's autopsy room. Unexpectedly, this old man was not only very dedicated, but also a kind person. kind.
After memorizing the three names on the list, he handed it to Allen next to him and asked,
"Alan, do you have any impressions of these three people?"
Allen looked at the three names on the list. After scratching his head and thinking for a while, he said:
"They all seem to have some impression."
"Craig and Estok are both from the city, both under thirty years old, but they should be very poor. He lives in the workers' dormitory provided by the mine and rarely goes home." "
The last Link lives in our village. He is in his early twenties, but he is a bit mysterious. He wandered to our village three years ago, alone. He lived alone and had no relatives, and later he went to work in the mines."
After hearing the simple information from these three people, Wayne instinctively targeted the young man named Link. After all, he was a loner and very mysterious. , when people encounter this kind of thing, they will definitely be the first to suspect him.
However, for safety reasons, he still asked Allen to take him to the foreman in the mine and inquire in detail about the three people.
After some comparisons, it turns out that Link is the most suspicious, because the other two have families and children in the city. Although they live in poverty, they should not cooperate with monsters and kill their co-workers.
Neither the motivation nor the ability.
Only a person like Link, who has a mysterious origin and has no worries, can be suspected of this.
Soon, he was led by Alan to his village and found the house where Link lived.
It was a rather ordinary wooden house located in the corner of the village. After opening the door, the layout inside was also quite simple. They were all things that ordinary people needed for life.
However, after a search by the great detective Mr. Wayne, he found some abnormalities.
The house is so tidy, with pots, pans, clothes and bedding all neatly put away. If most people go out to work every day, unless they have mysophobia or obsessive-compulsive disorder, they will not keep their residence so tidy.
This Link seemed to have expected that he would never return, so he tidied up the house.
Secondly, and most importantly, Wayne found a well-hidden letter under Link's mattress.
A surrender letter waiting for someone to find it. It declared simply and clearly that the murderer was Link himself, and also told the reason why he did it.
It turns out that Link was not originally called this name, and it didn't matter what his original name was. His father used to be a miner in this mine, and he lived happily with his wife and son as a family of three.
But six years ago, there was a mining accident, and his father was buried directly in the mine and turned into a corpse.
But the strange thing is that the only person who died in the mining accident was his father, and the subsequent compensation was not handed over to the mother and son.
When his mother wanted to go to the mine to ask for the compensation, her mother also disappeared.
Fortunately, Link was already fifteen years old at that time. He sensed the danger, escaped from his original home, and was adopted by another elderly couple.
Three years passed like this. When Link grew up, he bid farewell to the old man and came to live in Allen's village. He went to work in the mine anonymously.
It took two years to find out the truth.
It turns out that the mining disaster that year was actually planned by several of his father's workers. In addition to wanting to get the compensation, it was also because those workers had a grudge against his father that they killed him.
His mother was also killed on the way to the mine, and her body was insulted by several people. In an environment like the Middle Ages, if a few poor people died in the wild, no one would care at all, and no one would find out the truth. .
There was no way to redress his grievances. In order to take revenge, Link planned the massacre half a month ago. Together with the monster, he killed the murderer who had killed his father and mother.
After explaining the whole story clearly, most of the content of this letter was about the shamelessness and cruelty of those who were absent from work, as well as the hatred and resentment he had in his heart when he became an orphan.
However, it is worth mentioning that almost half of the miners who died together were innocent people.
But Link didn't mention a word about their deaths.
After reading the letter, Wayne sighed. No matter how tragic the past was, no matter what was right or wrong, the murderer was found anyway.
Although Link's letter did not mention the deer-headed spirit, there is a high probability that he is the human being marked by the deer-headed spirit.
Although it is unclear why the monster helped Link get revenge and why it let him leave the territory controlled by the deer-headed spirit.
But if Link thinks that he can escape the law, change places, and continue to live incognito, it can only be said that as an ordinary person, he still knows too little about magic.
As long as he is alive, his whereabouts are no secret to the sorceress, and after confirming his location, he can almost find the area where the deer-headed spirit is.
Wayne collected some of Link's personal belongings in the room, especially his fallen hair that was still in the bedding, and then returned to Maribo City with Allen.
(End of chapter)