“I know that the lord cares less about the commoners than those above them in status… But are the two of us really qualified to be in charge? And by ourselves? I mean…Benait disappeared too and-”

  “Stop worrying about everything! There is no proof that any of this stuff is related, and besides, there is a spike in serious crimes around these parts, but the crimes are different enough that we could assume that it isn’t just a single person, but just a bunch of different people taking advantage of the confusion to steal and kill!”

  Two guards were walking down the street, one was shorter and looked skinny in his armour. The other was taller and boisterous, loud even, and other people on the street were glaring at him for this very reason.

  These two men, guards of no particular status, judging by their worn-out chestplates and boots, were the ones who had been put in charge of solving the crises happening in several neighbourhoods for a long while now.

  At first, the residents had thought that what was happening was just a string of unfortunate events. They weren’t suspicious immediately, but as things intensified, they made several moves to get the guards involved in the matter, and for their efforts, they got two random guards who were commoners from the other side of the city.

  Neither was impressive, nor did they seem particularly adept at solving cases. They just looked like the sort that were put at the gates and on the walls and were just meant to look around all day without doing anything.

  Not exactly beacons of hope.

  And also, they were quite ugly, which was another minus point.

  They had been patrolling the area during the day, from morning to sunset. Which would be good to reassure the people, if there were guards to patrol at night as well! All crimes happened in the dead of night, so what could be the point of being present at the exact opposite time?

  “We seriously need to at least look like we are doing something substantial! I am starting to think that these people will beat us to death if we continue messing around like this”

  “Once again, you worry too much! Things will calm down eventually… And we aren’t paid for doing a good job anyway, we are paid for being here”

  “Seriously, we need to patrol at night. If we can at least deter crimes from happening, that will be good–I mean, something is happening every night! That can’t be normal”

  The smaller of the two guards argued back and forth with his fellow until the taller man relented, eventually leading them to walk the dark streets with only a lantern each as light.

  “Damn… This was supposed to be a full moon. Why won’t these damned clouds go away?”

  “Oh… So you wanted to patrol tonight because it would be illuminated? What, are you scared of the dark or something?”

  “Are you saying that you would be perfectly fine with walking around a place with a spike in brutal murders in pitch blackness?”

  “You got me there…”

  The streets were disturbingly silent. Both of them usually had their shifts during the day, or at most would just be in the barracks as reserves during the night. Never had they had to actually patrol dark streets, and frankly, even though he acted braver. The larger guard was visibly worried.

  When submerged in darkness, one was afraid of being prey to something hiding within. Only those who believed themselves to be the predator would not experience fear.

  “There are way too many alleys all over the place… Couldn’t they build everything against one another?”

  “It is–Stop, the door over there… It’s open”

  Light shone upon the front of a medium-sized shop for the area, a hanging sign that this was the place of operation of an apothecary, and as the two guards stepped closer, they realised that the door was not actually open. It was missing entirely.

  “Who the hell steals a whole freaking door?”

  “Some of the more well-off business owners have been changing their doors to be reinforced, if not entirely made out of steel, and I even hear that a local smith has been making discounts on those… So it has value, but…”

  Even the smaller guard found this to be a head scratcher. Pushing a steel door open was easy enough if it was properly installed, but taking it off its hinges and just running away with it? The mental image of that just wasn’t right.

  The previously boisterous guard was the first to bring out his weapon, which was just a standard-issue sword that he had probably not bothered sharpening for a while. His fellow did the same, and although they did not want to, they both stepped inside the apothecary, raising their lanterns only to find a shop that was in perfect condition.

  There were no signs of destruction or robbery. The same was true in the backroom, where medicines were stored. The door leading to it was still intact and tightly locked. There was still upstairs, however.

  The duo looked at one another.

  “You’re the stronger one”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “And you're more sly than a fox”

  “Perhaps, but it’s not a good quality for this situation”

  “It’s not a quality at all…”

  The larger guard breathed in and out.

  “Should we not just call out to see if the owner is here? Maybe, for some reason, only their door was stolen and nothing else happened”

  “You’re right, actually, it’s not like we're discreet enough to not have been noticed with how dead silent everything is…”

  “Well then… ANYONE HOME?”

  “By the gods, did you have to do it so loudly?!”

  The smaller guard was hearing a constant beep in his left ear now, and no one responded to them, nor did they hear the sound of someone rising from their bed and setting both feet down onto the ground… It was just more silence that replied to them.

  “Well… Go ahead then”

  “I hate this…”

  The bigger guard tried to relax and soon began ascending the steps, slowly and carefully, making sure to cover all of his blind spots, while the other guard instead made sure that nothing was coming up behind them.

  Upstairs, they were greeted by three doors, and for each of them, they had a staring contest to decide who was going to be the one to open them.

  The larger guard was the one to open them all, but unlike what his imagination made him think was going to happen once those doors were swung open and creaked as though in terrible pain–Nothing happened, in fact, they found nothing and no one inside the room.

  They shone their lanterns in, peeking into the rooms one by one, but there were no signs of anyone around.

  In fact, the bedsheets weren’t disturbed. They were all neatly folded. The beds were all made.

  Everything in the rooms was arranged in a nice and orderly manner as well. This only creeped out the two guards, as to them, two of those rooms looked like they should have multiple children in each of them.

  “Did they leave? But why would they have bothered to install a steel door then? And why would they have taken it specifically? And why would they have taken the time to make their beds?”

  The shorter guard was confused. He checked under the beds of the nearest room, perhaps expecting to find frightened children hiding underneath them, but no, there was absolutely nothing.

  There did not seem to be any attic or basement to this place either, so the only explanation was that the whole family had left and given up on their business, which seemed to be successful.

  “I have no idea, but this place looks pretty damned empty to me…”

  The larger guard’s nervousness seemed to completely evaporate as he strolled into the bedroom of the parents, looking around as he put down his lantern.

  “...Maybe they just went somewhere else for the night, and someone just happened to decide to rob them of their steel door? It would certainly make more sense to steal something so big if you knew that the owners weren’t anywhere around. What do you th–”

  “What do I what? Think?”

  The weaker guard, who had still been looking around one of the other bedrooms, raised an eyebrow as he did not receive any answer.

  “Are you messing with m–Ah”

  He only let out a quiet sigh as he walked over to the bedroom his fellow was in and looked into it.

  Rather than seeing his colleague or seeing an empty bedroom, he was met with a figure garbed in black, whom he needed to crane his neck up to look in the eyes.

  They had been standing about as close to the door as was possible without making it possible for someone coming in to actually see them, before being just on the verge of bumping against their chest.

  Just beyond them, the smaller guard could catch sight of what looked like the larger guard being sprawled on the floor, unmoving. Lying there, just in front of a wide open closet.

  For some reason, rather than reacting to the threat, the guard’s mind seemed to prefer to put the pieces together. Allowing him to understand that his colleague had walked over to the closet and opened it right as his sentence was cut off.

  As for the reason why… Well, it was right in front of him, and it was so horrifying that his response to it was a simultaneous fight and flight, leading him to just stand still as a murderous maw loomed just over his head.

  On his usual day shift, what he often did was relay orders to those down the wall, but since he was a bit lazy, he would just shout down the orders at them instead of going up and down all the time… So really, screaming was like second nature to him.

  “HE-”

  Despite his expertise, he probably should have at least taken a step back before opening his mouth, as apparently, the figure just so happened to have expertise in shutting people up.

  Before he could truly yell, he was hit right in the throat, making him stumble backwards and go into a coughing fit.

  “Ah… Fuck!” his voice was not right at all, but since words were still coming out of his mouth, it meant that he had been hit somewhat lightly. Whether that was a good thing or not, he wasn’t quite certain…

  Especially since it did not feel like a punch at all… It felt more like he had been poked very hard by something cold.

  The pain allowed him to come to his senses, so he unsheathed the sword that he had stupidly put away after assuming the place was empty.

  Swinging the blade as hard as he could, steel clanged against steel as the towering figure just grabbed the sword directly like it was a harmless toy, wrenching the weapon out of the guard’s grasp and just throwing it away before grabbing his forearm instead.

  The figure’s hands were abnormally large, big like those of a mountain troll, but not quite as their fingers were slender, elongated and thin as though skeletal.

  He tried to slam his fist into his aggressor’s arm, but the only one who got hurt by this was him. A hoarse cry escaped his damaged throat, feeling like he broke several of his fingers trying to fight back.

  His feet left the ground as another hand wrapped around his shoulder and chest.

  “You-ou, my-y friend… You A-Are in luck. I’ll kill-kill you–Very–Slo-wly…”

  “Wait!”

  He was immediately slammed into the ground, and the cold hand covered his entire face as his armour was peeled off with frightening ease.

  “D…o you know? Th-e-e sto-mach is very-very-very-very–Soft?”

  The corrupted, strangely feminine voice hadn’t even finished speaking as the guard felt fingers brutally pushing against his belly. Within moments, the coldness was right up against his intestines.

  “H-Help…Me measure them… Will-ill you?”