Chapter 18: Chapter 18.

I grinned. If only these abilities were available on Earth, then investigations would have been over in days instead of months or years.

“You killed them,” I said as a matter of fact.

His eyes widened. “What?”

“You’re the Hillside Butcher. Aren’t you?”

He seethed with hate in his eyes. “Get out!”

“Where are they, hmm? Where’d you hide their skulls?” My notes showed that the Hillside Butcher had decapitated all his victims, and their heads were never found.

I flipped another cover from the crate but it contained jars and bottles. He tried to shove me aside, but it didn’t work. I stood up and pushed him back. “You killed these women.”

He staggered back, moved in the direction of the kitchen. I watched him reach for a knife.

I didn’t stop him, instead I cast Burst of Clarity. Time slowed. I had only intended to gather information. I didn’t realized I’d get into a fight. I hadn’t brought my star, my shield or plate armor. I was in my sweat pants and t-shirt with the chainmail shirt over it. No sword either. Next time I’d come more prepared.

He lunged at me, and was insanely fast. All despite my accelerated perception. He flew at me with the kitchen knife in his hand. I had time to turn, but the knife dug into a link in my chainmail shirt. The tip got caught, I felt the shallow stab through the shirt.

I used the turning of my body to elbowed him in the face as hard as I could. He windmilled about, but didn’t go down.

I raised my fists to my jaw, motioned at him. “Alright, come on.”

His eyes darted madly, from me to Arina to the exit. I stood in the way. He pounced again, aimed for my head. I shifted to the side. The knife darted past on my right. I grabbed his wrist. Held it tight against my neck. I turned and hit at his elbow. Heard it crack, heard him yell out in pain.

I swept his legs from under him. He crashed to the floor. The knife clattered beside him, and I picked it up.

He held at his elbow, bent at an unnatural angle. Screaming and cursing at me. He tried to crawl away on his fours. He wasn’t going to get away. Not from me. I stabbed down hard, through the rib-cage, through the heart.

[Essence gained: 39,324]

It took a moment for me to figure out why the Essence gained was so much more than usual. Stefan and this murderer were both Azure ranked. This time however, it was just me and Arina. Whereas last time there were four in the party. Arina looked at me with wide eyes, held her hand at her mouth.

I gestured at the body. “Meet the Hillside Butcher.”

She looked at me skeptically. “How did you know?”

That was a good question, but I wasn’t about to tell her about my Bounty Hunter profession. Not if I could help it.

“Innocent people don’t lunge at you with a knife.” I lied. I seen it plenty before. People did stupid shit when scared all the time. Hell, stupid people did stupid shit. Period.

But, she had a point. How was I going to prove that this man was the Hillside Butcher to the Brotherhood. Afterall, I wanted to collect the bounty.

I examined the bleeding gash on my chest. It was short and shallow, thanks to the chainmail. It stung a bit. I had never seen anyone move that fast, and could only imagine how much faster he would have been if I hadn’t used Burst of Clarity. I would have been dead.

I pointed at my chest. “You can heal this, can’t you?”

Arina pursued her lips. “Mmm. It doesn’t look bad.”

“But, you can heal … right?”

“There’s no point in wasting mana on something so little. Just put a bandage on it.”

“Are you serious? It can get infected, you know?”

She groaned. “Fine.” She took out a small knife and sliced her thumb open without hesitation.

I jerked my head back. “What the hell are you doing?”

She didn’t answer. Blood dripped from her thumb into the palm of her other hand. It merged into a lump, and the lump bulged out into a sphere of red that floated up. A tendril from the sphere shot out to her thumb and the cut instantly closed up.

Arina moved close to me. “Hold still.”

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She brought her hand with the red orb up to my chest. Another tendril shot out and whisked across my cut. It felt like I was licked by a dog. Wet and warm.

“What sort of a paladin are you?” I asked.

“Blood paladin.”

I smiled. “Oh. That’s … neat. Why didn’t you say so before?”

“Because,” she said and turned away, went over to rummage through the crates.

“Good answer. Let’s take what we can here. I don’t believe he’ll be needing it.”

The place didn’t have much for anything. Bare-bones really. I tapped the walls, checked under the rug, then walked across every floor board, testing them. One groaned.

Using the kitchen knife I pried up the floor board. It came up surprisingly easy. I checked underneath and found what I was looking for. Skulls, and plenty of them too. This guy has been at this for a long while.

Arina jingled a coin purse in her hand. “Two crowns and thirty two silver.”

“Anything else?”

She shook her head. “I would rather not touch anything more here.”

“Yeah, this place is creeping me out too.”

I had considered taking the iron stove, but didn’t want to lug it across the city to the brotherhood. Cast iron was terrible for making armor or weapons. Besides, my hands would be busy. I emptied out one of the crates, lined the bottom of it with cloth. Arina looked on in disgust as I collected the butcher’s head.

“Let’s go.”

*** Commander Brent ***

Someone entered the office, but the commander could tell by the sound of their steps who it was.

“Back already?” the commander asked, but he wasn’t all that surprised.

The stranger placed something down, prompting the commander to get up and walk up to the counter. This time, he did well to hide the pain with every step. The stranger pulled back a cover to reveal a severed head in a crate. The commander peeked inside, but didn’t recognize it. The blood looked fresh though.

The commander extended his right hand. “My name is commander Brent of the Brotherhood. And you are?”

The stranger shook his hand. “You may call me Jack.”

The commander turned the severed head in the crate a bit with his finger. He felt the presence of the one who killed him in the area. But he already knew that would be the case.

“Hillside butcher,” Jack said.

“Can you prove it?”

“Go see for yourself under the floorboards. Dozens of skulls. Young women skulls.”

The commander was impressed that Jack could tell the difference in gender based on skull alone. And age too. Unless he was lying, and he just killed some innocent in order to collect the bounty.

“And where would they be?”

“Osoric’s place.” Jack recited the address.

The commander was a master at spotting lies. He also asked the woman that came with him. “Is it true?”

She nodded while looking away from the crate.

The commander covered up the head. “Very good, I’ll check into the matter. If what you say is true you may collect the bounty after the next moon. Any questions?”

Jack shook his head.

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