Chapter 237 - Abrupt Stop

The moment that Eiro saw the corpse laying on the ground in front of him, he pushed out a wave of mana out of every single place in his body that he could, manipulating anything that he was capable of right now so that he could start sensing every detail of this space around him.

"The 'Collector' has incredible skill in the area of 'Stealth'. That might be why you sometimes having a tough time with him. Luckily I'm the worst opponent a stealth-based fighter could ever ask for, but still, it's troublesome. Very much so." Eiro pointed out as he squatted down in front of the dead body. It was mostly in peak condition, and if Eiro didn't know any better, at first glance he might think that this woman was just taking a nap. Outwardly, she didn't have any visible wounds, and her torso was covered in a thick shirt that was hiding the fact that it was completely caved in where there were no bones.

The Collector had taken out every single internal organ that he could find inside of this woman. Eiro ground his teeth and turned around toward Bahlsen, "Look for whatever clues you can. If you can give me anything that has even the slightest trace of the Collector's scent, I'll be able to find him." The Demon announced immediately. He didn't know why, but Eiro felt... disgusted by this sight. Despite the fact that he watched a man slowly devour corpses by ripping them apart with his teeth, and that while feeling emotions akin to pleasure or delight.

But seeing this woman like this, laying there without the slightest possibility of life, Eiro felt... a sort of emptiness. As if his body had a deep gaping abyss inside of it just like this woman. It wasn't a feeling he liked experiencing, but it was something that he definitely had to deal with.

"Sure, but calm down first. We don't want you to somehow make a mistake just because you're upset, now do we?" Bahlsen pointed out with a light smile directed at Eiro as he approached the dead girl. Immediately as he looked at her, he furrowed his brows and took a deep breath himself. He was also being affected by this, probably being reminded of his family.

The Demon waited for a while as Bahlsen did his thing, and after not even having to wait for too long, he soon seemed to have found something that could help Eiro out.

"While I don't think I found something that you could use to pick up his scent, I can give you other information. Like normal, he used an incredibly sharp knife that should be around 7 inches long and 1.5 inches wide. It is a one-edged knife, most likely one that was repurposed from being a simple kitchen-knife. Compared to older wounds that I've taken a look at, these seem slightly more... messy. Not incredibly so, just compared to the state they were in before. And with 'messy' I mean that the edges of the cut are not as clean as they were before. That means that the knife should be slightly worn-down at this point in time. While I can't be perfectly positive, for the longest time, I've had the assumption that he also used a sort of magic to help him out, maybe something that let him decrease the bleeding or simply make it easier to cut through the skin. Obviously he is capable of using magic, but I couldn't be sure that he did make use of it here, although I do think he did."

"I get it, I get it..." Eiro replied with a slight grumble. To him, the cuts seemed incredibly clean. Sure, there was a little bit of irregular ripping instead of regular cutting, but it was so small that Eiro was surprised Bahlsen was even able to see it. In the first place, Eiro couldn't imagine that it was really possible to cut any more cleanly than this. Even more than before, Eiro was impressed with the skill that the Collector was showing. He was obviously an incredibly strong person, there was no doubt about that in Eiro's mind anymore, not that there was all to much doubt in the first place.

Either way, Eiro stood there and tried to find anything else that Bahlsen maybe didn't see, and started to try sorting through the scents in this room. Maybe he would be able to figure out the lingering scents in this building just like that.

Eiro did hear that it was possible for people that had an incredible level in the stealth skill to reduce their heartbeat to a point where it nearly wasn't beating at all, slow down their breathing to where it wasn't far away from simply not breathing, and nearly completely erase their bodily odors. Most likely, this Collector was also capable of things like this, as he was also able to even disguise things like others' dead bodies after killing them, but the thing was that there was nearly no way to completely get rid of all traces. And it would help him find the specific scent he was looking for as well, since it was unnaturally weak compared to anything else.

But still, just because it was so weak, Eiro wasn't really able to get a good grasp on its properties. He knew that it was there, but he just didn't know what it actually was like fully. It was like the feeling of a word being stuck on the tip of your tongue, just with scents.

However, as things like erasing one's odor were something absolutely unnatural, a certain force had to be used in order to achieve this. And that force was mana.

Eiro turnedh is head toward Gondos and extended his hand toward him. The Golem immediately understood what Eiro wanted and pressed up against Eiro's palm that he quickly chose to expose. Gondos traveled through Eiro's body and fused with him, giving Eiro the ability to sense mana far more intensely than the tiniest bit that he learned by combining with his spirits prior to this.

Either way, the aspect of 'mana' was put over everything that Eiro sensed. And while erasing one's scent was a good way to make one untracable by physical means, it made one the perfect target for being traced by magical means, since it took up a lot of mana. Basically, the mana fused with parts of the scent and conceiled it perfectly. Just like this, Eiro was able to properly pick up the scent left behind by the Killer, and would now be able to find him.

With a grin on his face, Eiro turned toward Bahlsen, "Follow me. We'll report this to guards later, or just leave her body here if we need to. For now, we'll go ahead and track the collector." Eiro said immediately, completely ignoring the fact that Bahlsen was trying to question him about what he just did, why he slightly grew in height, why his voice changed and why he was bulkier now, but Eiro just ignored him for now, as it was rather unimportant.

The Demon followed the scent and the trail of mana with the obvious source of it being the killer. First, it led Eiro and Bahlsen through the streets of the slums. Eiro was trying his best not to ignore others around him while he was focusing on this magical aspect of things, but it was hard to do especially the more time went on. This was actually amongst the longest times that Eiro spent fused with either Nelli or Gondos. It definitely was the longest use in a real situation, anyway. The only times where Eiro and Nelli or Gondos went past that was when they were practicing to specifically increase the time that they could spend fused together comfortably. As the fusion was anything but perfect, that was something really rather important to try and figure out.

Eiro followed the floating trail of the killer's scent through the streets, until the trail simply led out of these slums into the regular areas of town. At first, it seemed as if the collector had been running around aimlessly, but it was more like he was kind of looking for something. Possibly, the next victim, Eiro thought. That was, until Bahlsen stopped him.

"Is this where the trail is leading?" He asked, and Eiro slowly turned around and nodded his head, "Yes, it is. Does this give you any clues?"

The investigator slowly turned his head toward one of the buildings adjacent to the street before he nodded his head without saying anything. Eiro looked at the building a bit confused, before realizing what this was about.

"That's the Inn you're staying at, isn't it?" The Demon asked. Without hesitation, Bahlsen looked at Eiro, "Is it leading in there? Tell me, is it?"

Eiro took a deep breath and tried to continue following the scent, visualizing the trail in his mind. As far as Eiro could tell, it was exactly like Bahlsen assumed. The scent-trail led right into the building. Without hesitation, the two of them made their way inside there and continued following the scent. It led up the stairs, to the back of the hallway.

"It's... stopping here..." Eiro muttered confusedly as he stared in front of him. Bahlsen stood in front of the door with a blank expression, "This is my room... He came here last night? Is that bastard toying with me?" 

With pure anger welling up inside of Bahlsen, he kept staring at the door, "I didn't notice anything off when I woke up this morning, and I definitely would have noticed. So you said it stops here? Do you mean it leads inside of the room? Did the son of a bitch watch me sleep?!"

Slowly Eiro turned toward him and shook his head, "No, it's just like I said. The trail stops here. It just disappeared right in front of the door. It is quite strong right here, but it doesn't go anywhere else. Not inside the room, not further down the hallway. The only thing I could imagine he did is that he walked back the exact same path that we just took, all the way back to the victim..." 

The problem with this was simple. This was just blatantly impossible. It wasn't improbable, it was impossible. The only logical explanation Eiro could think of was that the killer suddenly stopped using his mana to hide his scent, and instead used some other means to make it disappear to the extent where even Eiro couldn't notice it.

The only way this was possible was if the killer had the Ace of Cups, which would literally make him just disappear from this world for twelve hours. But Eiro had the ace of cups with him, so again, it was just blatantly impossible.

"Whoever the 'Collector' is, he's insanely strong..."