"Why is the door open in broad daylight? Is someone inside?"
Pasha observed the area around the doorway, but didn't find any valuable clues, so she raised her hand and knocked on the door of Mike's house.
"Hello, is anyone... Eek—"
As soon as Pasha knocked, a huge rat dashed out the door, startling Pasha and causing her to take a step back, her back pressing against the mossy stone wall behind her.
"Blood?!" Pasha quickly realized something was wrong. The gray rat that had just dashed out had dark fur around its mouth, as if it had been stained with some kind of ink.
But when that "ink" dripped down its fur or brushed against the floor, leaving bright red streaks, one could immediately realize what it was.
Pasha pulled the door open and looked inside the house. A lying corpse came into her view.
Her breathing stopped for a second.
Pasha reached into her pocket, took out two pieces of linen, lowered her head to wrap her shoes, and changed into a new pair of gloves.
After finishing all this, Pasha reopened the door and walked inside. As she walked, she carefully avoided the bloodstains dragged by the rat on the floor, while struggling to suppress her nausea as she looked at the strange corpse.
It was a short, fat man whose chest had been pierced by a sharp weapon. Blood had soaked his shirt and the surrounding wooden floor, and his face had been painted with clown makeup, as if someone were playing a joke.
However, the paint used for the red nose and the smile was blood.
Following the corpse's head toward its hands, Pasha saw its right index finger seemingly pointing in a certain direction.
Was this... a clue left before death? Or was it maliciously staged by the killer to confuse the investigation?
Pasha looked in the direction the finger was pointing and saw a signature written in fresh blood on the yellowish-white wallpaper nearby.
And because the blood was slow to coagulate, the written name looked as if blood were flowing downwards, making it feel exceptionally terrifying.
"— — Clown?"
"What is this? Provoking the police after a crime of passion?" Pasha frowned until she saw something that made her pupils shrink.
It was a bloody table knife, currently stuck not far from the signed wall, the knife covered in black blood.
Normally, a table knife being used as a murder weapon wouldn't be anything special, but at this particular time, the table knife reminded Pasha of another case that also suspiciously involved a table knife...
Suddenly, Pasha's ears twitched; it seemed she had heard some movement outside.
"Damn, they tracked it here so quickly?"
Pasha quickly took a piece of paper from her pocket and placed it in front of her, softly chanting: "(great saya language) Magic Rubbing — —"
A pale purple halo spread from the white paper in her hand, covering the entire first floor before contracting again. With a flash of purple light, the white paper in her hand recorded all the details of the scene.
As long as one meditated while facing this white paper, they could re-enter the virtual scene and investigate carefully; this was a spell that all high-ranking Investigators must learn. It was also one of the few spells that required chanting.
After saving the scene, Pasha snapped her fingers, and her whole person disappeared into the shadows, quickly rushing out of the house and escaping along the wall.
Not long after Pasha left, two Investigators, one tall and one short, with pipes in their mouths, walked to the door of Mike's house.
"Heh, the door is wide open. It seems he's home, saving us the trouble of looking for him."
"Heh, maybe he was robbed."
"Anyway, let's just... Oh, damn!"
"Fuck..."
After two or three minutes of site investigation, a green spiritual light, invisible to mortals, bloomed once again over the Ivisa South District.