All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 176: Detective Spot

Over the next few days, I had a blast. Other than what the soldiers had started calling "The Hot Springs Incident," everything had been rather routine. I followed behind the army, cleaning up the best I could. Sometimes Arthur would ask me to come to spend some time upfront with him, and we would talk.

Well, he would talk. As we moved, I would write by engraving words on a large flat stone with my lamp. After I was done, I would erase the surface by blasting it smooth with a more broad beam. It was surprisingly efficient, and over time I got faster at this than at actual writing with my grabby arm. After a few messages, though, I needed a new rock. Engraving and erasing like this systematically shrunk any stone I used over time, especially with how deep my engravings needed for the optimal reading experience.

These breaks were nice. As fast as the army was able to march, I was able to clean much faster. This gave them plenty of time to accumulate large amounts of work for me. Then, I could do them all at once. It was much more efficient than if I was following along right at their heels.

Arthur and I would talk about all sorts of things. It would start off with some basic questions and answers, but Arthur seemed to enjoy just speaking about his past. He'd tell me stories about past campaigns or skirmishes he had been involved in. In return, I'd ask questions about tactics and leadership and how he made sure that all the waste and kitchens were cleaned properly in time to march. Overall, it was a nice exchange. I wouldn't say we were becoming friends, but it seemed like something close. There was definitely respect between us.

During the night, my duties became more typical of my usual experience. I previously would have wandered the castle, taking care of small tasks. I would wander the camp doing the same. This was a necessary job as we moved on quickly in the mornings. It was important not to leave any unfinished business behind when we did.

It wasn't much, but it gave me something to do. Besides, I didn't like leaving the camp dirty, even if it was only going to be seen for a short stint in the morning while everyone packed up. It always became messier when we packed, and then I'd have to wipe the area clean afterward anyways. This pointless work was a bit disheartening, but I did take solace in it. At least it kept me working on my skills. By now, I could level up a dirt patch so that I could barely tell the microns of difference in height from one side to the other. I was rather proud of this fact.

Several nights after The Hot Spring Incident, the first real disturbance occurred. I heard some odd noises outside long after everyone went to bed, and as I worked my way over on my cleaning route, I ran into a sleeping human. Well, I thought he was sleeping at first. Still, after a closer examination with my advanced sensors, I realized he was not breathing. Also, he was leaking a lot of his internal fluids. Blood, I corrected myself.

This leaking fluid was forming a puddle around his head. Odd. I did my best to repair him with my domain and poked him in the head a couple of times, but there was no response. It seemed I had found a broken human.

Now what? I really didn't know what to do next. I had seen some dead humans, but not many. Only the zombies and those few troublesome mean humans that tried to threaten the castle. I'd never seen just a body like this before, and I didn't know what to do.

After a few seconds of processing, I realized it was probably important to find out why this human had died. So I scanned the site extremely thoroughly. I did notice several things. Several sets of footprints passed in between the tents where I found the body. I couldn't really tell the freshness, but I had just cleaned this area 15 minutes and 46 seconds ago, so none of them were older than that.

Unfortunately, all the footprints were of the same military issue boot. I only had the size to go off of, and the military was rather stingy about making proper footwear. There were only four basic sizes, but I could tell that one was from a large man and two were from a medium man. Looking at the soles of the shoes on the dead human, I realized that it was one of the mediums, so I was looking for one larger man and one average size man. Neither of them had the narrower soles that the female soldiers left.

On top of that, the majority of the leakage was clearly from a wound inflicted by a knife to the throat. It looked like the attack had been from a stabbing motion into the side, but I couldn't tell if it was from someone standing behind the dead human or in front of it. I wasn't sure how I could tell. I'd have to compare it to a lot more stab holes, and I don't think anyone would be down for me testing that. Maybe I could try and model that some other way later.

Okay. What else could I see? I scanned the body carefully again. I couldn't place the exact time of death, but I could tell that it was within the last ten minutes. I also knew that I heard sounds from around here, but I couldn't tell if that was from it being stabbed or from someone moving the body. Judging based on the scuff marks, the body had indeed been moved. But I didn't think that kind of action would produce the sounds I had heard.

So. I was going to go with the assumption that this human was killed when I heard something. That was 4 minutes and 37 seconds ago. Taking a step back, I examined the body with a lot more detail, focusing on its hands and trying to see if there was any trace of the attacker left. Maybe it managed to put up a fight. Or, at the very least, maybe there were some sort of other marks left behind by the humans.

I found my first clue under the fingernails of the deceased. It was a little bit of skin. Apparently, it hadn't died instantly. The man must have scratched his attacker, either from in front or behind. I continued looking under the body and found a few other clues.

In order to contextualize them, I decided I should make an inventory. Everything the man had on him, starting with the uniform, every piece was there. The same cap, shirt, undershirt, underclothes, trousers, boots, socks, and belt were all present and standard. Looking at the spot where awards were usually pinned, I noticed that it was relatively light. Only three medallions hung from its breast. However, I did notice that it was an officer.

It looked to be a second lieutenant, which matched the man's age. The body of the deceased also had a few things tied to his belt. The first thing I noticed was a pouch with several gold and silver flat discs inside. I had often seen these disks be exchanged as part of a complicated trading system these humans had. It involved pieces of paper with numbers on them being shuffled about in a complicated system that I had yet to fully understand.

One day I had to look into that, but now I needed to focus. It was odd that those were left. Humans seemed to really like them, and whenever they found them, they usually picked them up and put them in their pouches. So if whoever killed this man didn't pick them up, they clearly either didn't care about them or didn't know they were there. But I supposed that meant that he wasn't killed over his money.

The more I thought of this man, the more I saw him as a person rather than a dead body. At first, it was easier for me to understand if I just thought of the dead body as an it. But trying to figure out his past was making me think of it as a human. Just like Arthur. Just like Beatrice.

It was surprisingly difficult to handle. If I thought of him as a human like this, I also had to think of everything that this human must have done in his life. The things that he would no longer be able to do. Was this why humans became sad at the prospect of death?

Shaking back and forth slightly to clear my processors and flush my cache, I refocused. It was suddenly a higher priority that I found out who did this.

Another thing he had on his belt was a small knife. I noticed that his hand was gripping the hilt of it when he fell, and it looked like he had pulled the knife out a bit. I was well aware that the sheaths were built to keep knives securely in place so they weren't jostled loose. The strap that would hold the cross guard of the blade in had been popped off by a quick movement of his thumb. So clearly, the man was expecting trouble.

Or I suppose he could have just been lazy. But judging based off of the crispness of his uniform, which I heartily approved of, that didn't seem to be the case. So if the person knew that he would be attacked and had tried to ready a weapon, it stood to reason that the attack must have come from the front. But if there were two assailants, as the prints indicated, then it was also possible that he had been assaulted from both sides and had been surprised.

Without much else to go on, I wasn't sure what to do next. Then I took another look at the footprints. And I was able to solve one part of the mystery.

It seemed that there was actually a person in front and behind. I didn't realize it at first, but I could actually tell the weight of a person by how deeply their footprint sunk. And I could tell that there were three distinct weights. Two were pretty similar but off by at least 5%. The last was obviously much heavier. Based on the foot sizes that lined up. And I could see more footprints coming in three sets from one side.

I ran a simulation based on my findings. One person walked and stopped, presumably the victim. Someone blocked his path from ahead - the smaller man, it seemed - while the larger man stayed behind him. I could see the footprints of the other two leaving from the other end of the alley, meaning the big man had just stepped over this man's body. So it seemed that the victim was, in fact, surrounded.

I was actually able to identify whose footprints were within a certain tolerance, depending on the amount of context provided. The information here gave a much more clear picture than I initially thought, though.

Not wanting to disturb the scene, I lifted myself off the ground a bit more so that my jets wouldn't move anything that was important to the scene as I moved. I would come back. Soon. Then I began to follow the footprints away from the body.