“These are the bodies we found by the granary last night…”

After the militiamen’s rundown, Hill crouched and lifted the white cloth covering them. Under it lay a male corpse, emaciated past recognition. His face was a blackish-blue, features twisted, like pain tangled with a warped bliss.

Hill stood. The not-so-large room was already filled wall to wall with bodies like this. All of them had been found in the granary.

Every victim’s face showed the same traits. Their bodies, when discovered, were skin and bones, completely naked, like they’d been drained dry.

Hill wrestled with it for a moment, then abandoned the idea of pulling the sheet off all the way. He turned to the militiaman. “When you found them, did anything seem off?”

“…Probably not. We searched the whole granary ourselves. Aside from some bloodstains, we found almost nothing suspicious.”

“Bloodstains…”

Hill glanced back at the corpses on the ground. “Was that blood from these bodies?”

“Probably not. When we collected them, we couldn’t find any wounds on their bodies…”

“I see…”

Hill thought for a bit, then asked, “You know these people, right?”

“We do. Aside from a few we rarely talked to, the rest we saw often.”

“Then tell me their recent movements. I mean anything odd when you ran into them.”

“Odd… I don’t think so. We’ve been off these past few days. At most we saw them at the tavern for a drink. Nothing seemed strange.”

“Do they share any common trait?”

“A common trait? Not sure. Maybe it’s connected to that prostitute who just came to town… I saw them heading to where she lives pretty often.”

“Where does she live? Can you take me?”

“Mm, okay!”

Hill followed the militiaman out. Then Sophia stepped into the room.

Unlike Hill, Sophia lifted the whole sheet in one go. She carefully examined the marks on the naked male corpses.

“No real wounds. They all died the same way.”

“Their souls…”

Rein spoke evenly. In her memory, plenty of magic could leave corpses like these. The common thread was an attack on the soul.

“Rein, what did you say?”

“Nothing…”

Beyond the soul, there was no residue of vital essence at all. That was one reason these bodies looked so gaunt. To preserve a soul, the best method after extraction was to store it with the victim’s vital essence. And for men, the easiest way to draw out that essence was sex. Which tied this directly to that prostitute.

But then you had to separate the murdered family from these corpses. Their ways of death were too different.

Rein judged the most likely answer: the prostitute was a Sorceress. She would come to the town first, cozy up to the locals, then order a patient with Beastification Sickness to attack that household. That would divert everyone’s attention so she could move.

A Sorceress with that ability… Rein remembered a record of one called the Lust Sorceress. She appeared in the slums of Gloria back then, used her power to kill many, then turned their bodies into meat pies and sold them dirt-cheap. The slum folk hailed her as the Holy Maiden reborn, not knowing she was a Sorceress. When the truth came out, she even escaped a hunt by the Holy Knights. Her whereabouts are still unknown.

Her method of killing was strikingly similar to this. If it’s really the Lust Sorceress, this could blow up big.

Her power isn’t simple seduction with her body. She grants desire, or inflames desire until it breaks reason. That’s why these men died under a woman’s hips. Then comes a Sorceress’s innate soul-devouring trait. Through sex, she can draw the other’s soul out quickly.

But why gather so many souls? That part Rein couldn’t figure out. Looking over the corpses, she thought the Sorceress might have snuffed the souls directly. But that doesn’t mesh with extracting vital essence.

“Where to next? Do we go with Hill to that prostitute’s place?”

“Let’s check the granary.”