Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 45: Forty Lessons: Money Has Never Been a Hot Potato

Chapter 45: Forty Lessons: Money Has Never Been a Hot Potato

Colin covered his nose as he entered the underground area of the abandoned fortress—although they hadn’t stormed in with troops last night, the Pantheon Church had long since considered this fortress a thorn in their side, and the individuals who had reported the issues were problematic; the Church’s Proxies had confirmed their status overnight, discovering that their memories were either altered or they had been paid to make malicious accusations.

The former were immediately thrown into a treatment center—memory modification is a fairly dangerous Spell Formation; if the modification is done with good intentions, the safety of the subject is taken into greater consideration during the process, whereas malicious modifications involve the insertion of certain special memories into the subject’s mind, which can be used not only for deception but also to kill—after all, the dead usually don’t speak.

As for those who had taken money, the matter was rather simple—hanging was the solution.

With this layer of intelligence, first thing in the morning, the Punishers from various churches and a team of Tech Hunters specially called in by the Liaison Guild had already entered the fortress area.

And as expected, they made contact with those "different kind" that Malin mentioned before.

Thanks to his warning, Colin shared this intelligence with the Punishers from the Pantheon Church; fighting the different kind was most feared due to a lack of understanding, but as long as their strengths and weaknesses were known, it was truly a walk in the park for the Punishers and Tech Hunters—aside from a few unlucky ones who sprained their ankles while trekking through the mountains and forests, there were no other injuries.

"Colin, bad news, someone has been here before we came in."

Standing at the entrance, the commander of the Punishers from the Church of the God of Justice flipped through the corpses lying against the wall without turning back and spoke to Colin.

"Death was no more than ten hours ago, it is most likely that they died around ten o’clock last night." Colin looked at his old friend and sighed—with all the autopsies he had conducted with Old Ferrero, a single glance was enough for him to feel that this person’s time of death had been around twelve o’clock last night.

He pulled out his pocket watch, opened the cover, hmm, nine eleven in the morning.

At that moment, a middle-aged man wearing a robe of the Church of the God of Justice walked over, taking over from the Punisher commander to confirm the condition of the bodies; first checking the limbs of the deceased and then flattening them out, he cut open the clothing at their buttocks and glanced at the purple-red post-mortem lividity on the skin, "Commander Camilla, the time of death for this person should be between eleven last night and one in the early morning today."

"Although I hate to admit how skilled you are, honestly, you’re more reliable than a coroner." Camilla chose to believe what Colin had said.

"After seeing so many cases with Mr. Ferrero, I noticed that the post-mortem lividity is concentrated on his buttocks and under his legs, indicating that this is the primary crime scene. He has a hole in his forehead that was pierced by an unknown object, meaning the culprit must be someone very strong, and their weapon was also extremely sharp. He was killed in one blow and then, leaning against the wall, slid down to sit." Colin smiled and explained to the somewhat puzzled agent of the God of Justice.

"Yes, you’re quite right, but why were you able to determine the time of death before confirming the post-mortem lividity?"

"As I came down, I could feel the obvious chill here; it’s colder than outside. Since the deceased isn’t obese, their body temperature would drop faster post-mortem, similarly due to the cold, which causes the body temperature to decrease more rapidly. Moreover, rigor mortis has already spread throughout his entire body. When I just saw Camilla checking his fingers, they were already stiff enough to require bending to open his palm, and despite the lower temperature here, it would still take time to reach that state." Colin walked up to the body and crouched down, flipping open the deceased’s hand, "The most critical point is, in my clairvoyance, the body’s heat had completely dissipated. In such an underground area, this too would take time, and it was at sunset when Malin and his group identified the problem with the fortress and began to flee, around seven-thirty last night. This means that at seven-thirty last night, these people were definitely still alive."

The coroner still had some doubts, but Colin, of course, had answers ready: "The most important point is that Malin told us that last night those different kind employed encircling tactics against them. When we first encountered these different kind this morning, it was two hours ago. Since then, they had been fighting each of us in an every-man-for-himself mode.

So, I think it’s very possible they had already died before seven ten last night." After finishing, Colin lit himself a cigarette.

Camilla laughed and clapped his hands, "An interesting deduction, Colin. It’s a pity you don’t join the Church of the God of Justice; you have the potential to be a great Detective."

"But I have never thought about becoming a Great Detective." Colin waved his hand and then shared a cigarette with the coroner, "You’re already quite impressive; you just fell short on the intelligence front."

"Alright, let’s move on."

Accepting Camilla’s invitation, Colin smiled and followed him inward.

All along the way, there were corpses everywhere, with cultists interpreting the final period of their fates with various awkward and unrestrained deaths. At the end of the underground area, Colin saw five cultists lying dead on the ground.

"I think I recognize one of the guys." After glancing at a corpse holding a short sword, Camilla kicked his head, scrutinizing his face, "Isn’t this the guy your church put a bounty on? Shelton Kaschko."

"He’s a wanted criminal of your church too. Someone killed him but didn’t take his bounty. Just on the wanted lists of our two churches, he’s worth twelve hundred pieces, not to mention those rotten fish and shrimps before, at least two thousand pieces." Colin put his hands on his hips, a bit puzzled by the situation, "Why didn’t the person who killed them come to claim the reward?"

"Who knows? Maybe for them, two thousand pieces are too cheap, not worth the effort to stoop down and chop off their heads." Camilla frowned slightly, "Great Detective, do you have anything to say?"

"I’m just a Hymnist of Sequence 6 from the Goddess of Harvest Church, I think you are making things difficult for me, Camilla."

"You’re not saying, but I almost forgot you’re a Hymnist, Your Great Detective Highness."

The banter between friends ceased then, as Colin suddenly noticed a cartridge casing on the ground: "A cartridge casing, could be a very good breakthrough." He picked it up, looked at it, and then tossed it into Camilla’s arms.

Looking at it, she said, "A cartridge without any production markings, we can’t even confirm whether it was made by dwarves or humans, it’s an utterly useless clue, why throw it to me?"

"That’s why you are still only at Step 7 of the God of Justice Church, whereas I am at Step 6." Colin twisted his mouth skillfully, "Did you see the firing pin impression on the tail of the bullet casing?"

"I saw it, what about it?" Camilla said, looking again, "A very normal firing pin impression, what’s the problem?"

"The impression is hexagonal. It belongs to the new Romeo 1418 model revolver, just launched this year by the Constance Military Factory. The firing pin is uniquely hexagonal, a design never seen before. Constance’s Southerners also boasted about it, claiming that such a firing pin could better ignite the primer and reduce the rate of dud rounds by at least 6%. I was thinking of buying a new gun recently and had specifically looked at their promotional materials, but it was too expensive—a silvered, engraved demon-slaying revolver for fifteen hundred pieces isn’t even as good as our church’s homemade revolvers. So, I think we could check their supply records to see who near Carterburg and the surrounding areas has recently purchased it."

"A fine breakthrough... Wait, how did you know this?" Camilla affirmed the detail, looking up with fervor, "I’ve always said, you are very well-suited to be a detective! Colin! Come to our church! Be my Watson!"

Speaking of Watson, it referred to the recently popular detective novel in Carterburg and surrounding areas—Sherlock Fulmo, a Panthera from the Pantheon, a top-tier Divine Detective of Sequence 4. He has a half-elf good friend John Watson, with whom he adventured in the stories set in the Union’s Central Administrative Province, Sydney.

Each volume contains four stories, every episode an engaging case to be solved. Colin inquired and found out that the first thousand copies had sold out—not only readers in the Sydney Union but the book had even reached the human kingdoms of the East. Therefore, a second print was already arranged—forty thousand copies in total, with pre-orders accounting for 70%. This was why the printing industry bosses were so troubled.

Moreover, as Colin saw it, the author was definitely someone from the Central Administrative Province because he knew a lot about it, such as inside jokes and living habits only locals would understand.

Because of the excellent writing, the detective series was very popular among those whose main professions were investigation and crime-solving. Even general readers became immersed in the love-hate relationship between Mr. Sherlock and Miss Jane Moriarty—one, the detective field’s leader and king of deadpan jokes, representative of the aloof nobility; the other, a criminal genius, robbing the rich to help the poor, and a member of the ordinary populace.

Their love-hate interactions in the stories were constant—with Mr. Sherlock never caring about his reputation, even giving his results to the police to claim as their merit, so without knowing each other’s real identities, Miss Jane Moriarty even became Mr. Sherlock Fulmo’s laundry maid.

Although some people felt this identity arrangement was not good, Colin genuinely enjoyed such stories. As for the reason for his liking, it was because he identified with them.

"No, I just think that if I were Mr. Sherlock, then I certainly wouldn’t have you as my John Watson, because you really can’t be of any help, and might even make things worse." Colin rolled his eyes and added, "You know, I’m handing this clue over to you entirely for your benefit. Understand, it’s for your good." He wouldn’t expose Malin—not when his deduction rested solely on one of Malin’s chats, where he explained that firing pin impressions could be used to identify which gun fired a bullet.

This kid... indeed seems to be the true son of insight his mentor spoke of.