“Feel better now?” Corinne was holding a petite pipe and puffing some smoke at Todd.
The mercenary was leaning against the bed stiffly. He held his head in agony and seemed to have aged ten years in an instant. The last scene he saw kept replaying in his head, and his heart felt like it would be torn apart.
The morgue and coroner could only mean one thing: the daughter he was searching for was no longer alive.
Just when he thought his hopeless life was finally showing a sliver of light, it was dashed right away. Compared to the physical pain he sustained in his line of work, this torture was far worse.
But his long mercenary life polished his will enough to make him shake off his sorrow quickly. “Sorry you had to see that," Todd answered raspily, like he just healed from sickness. His eyes were bloodshot, but he got up anyway.
"It's alright. I can understand." Corinne puffed another circle of smoke. There was sadness in her eyes. She was reminded of a distasteful past. "Nothing's more painful than losing your family. That pain can never heal."
They fell silent for a while.
"Let's go. We don't want to keep Roy waiting."
"Yeah." As Todd turned around, he felt the world spin. For a moment, he thought he saw that mist-shrouded man again, and he buried his nails in his palm. "When I find Elsa, I'll make him pay for what he did… in blood."
***
The skies of Novigrad yellowed as the sun slowly descended. Roy and Todd raced to the morgue only to find it guarded by a pair of armed soldiers.
That was bizarre. Most of the time, nobody would assign patrols to the morgues, since the corpse collector would have searched the corpses and taken the valuables away. There was nothing for anyone to take. Even if necrophiliacs were to show up, the coroner and his assistants would chase them away.
There's no need for soldiers, unless…
Roy and Todd exchanged a glance.
The soldier on the left asked sternly, "What are you two doing here?" He looked at the unlikely pair and stretched his arm to stop them. "Stay away and don't make any trouble. This place is off-limits."
"Good afternoon, guardians of the Eternal Fire. I'm Roy of the Viper School." Roy stepped forward and scanned the soldiers. He said, "My friend's daughter ran into some trouble, and her corpse is right in there. Can we go inside to look for her?"
The soldier saw the pendant hanging from Roy's neck, and his face fell. Even so, he craned his neck and stubbornly protected the entrance. "We've never crossed you, Viper. Please don't trouble us whenever you feel like it. A murder just happened here, and it's of great importance. Please do be understanding." The soldier emphasized 'whenever you feel like it.'
"I see. I need to have my reasons, correct? You've been standing under the sun a whole day. It must be exhausting. You know witchers are good trackers, and perhaps I could help the 'great Eternal Fire' out. Tell me what happened. I'll look into it free of charge. If I manage to find a clue or two, Chappelle will reward you."
The soldiers exchanged a look. It was a tempting offer, but they were still hesitant.
Roy winked at Todd, and the mercenary realized what he needed to do. He tossed a bag of coins to the soldiers, and that worked like a charm. The soldiers told them the reason for the patrols.
Two days ago, the coroner and his assistant were found dead in the morgue, but there was something strange about their demise. The Eternal Fire's soldiers tried to look into it, but they found nothing.
Roy had a bad feeling about this case. Todd dreamt of Elsa showing up in the morgue just a while ago, and now the coroner's dead? "Is this a coincidence? Or are they related?"
Todd paid the soldiers again and managed to slip into the morgue. The soldiers told them what to look out for and left them to their own devices while they went to Spear's Pit for some fun.
Novigrad was the city of trade. Everyone was working for profit, life, and connections, and coins were necessary for that.
***
The morgue was situated lower than ground level, though not that far beneath. Corpses could remain fresher for a long time in this environment. The thicker walls made sure the room would stay cool almost perpetually.
Unlike the warm and bright outside, the morgue was humid, dark, and cold. Sconces hung from the wall, but their dim light provided little illumination. Shadows would drag on forever on the walls like black snakes waiting to pounce on their prey.
The morgue was split into six smaller chambers that had complex structures. It felt like a shaelmaar's abode. The stench of medical preservatives and rotten flesh hung in the air.
Roy and Todd kept going ahead for a while and went past a few empty beds. Most of the stuff there was either standing haphazardly or stuffed into a corner. It was obvious they were hit recently. Messy footprints lined the ground, and splattered blood dripped from the walls and pillars.
Roy activated his witcher senses and saw ribbons of flesh and blood intertwined with one another. The murder happened very recently. "The coroner struggled before he was killed, but the murderer was too powerful to even fight back against. A dozen fifty-pound wooden beds crashed in different places. Most people would destroy themselves by doing that."
The young witcher found some human dander around the bed. Wonder if the coroner or the murderer dropped this.
Roy went on with his investigations before eventually reaching the deepest room. He stopped in his tracks and held the vibrating pendant. Something's up.
"Might you be Casimodo the corpse collector?" Roy saw a gaunt, hunched man before him. He had a mask on his face and an apron around his waist. A basin of transparent liquid sat under his hands. Roy sniffed the air and realized it was medical preservatives. The soldiers told them that Casimodo took over the morgue's work after the coroner and his assistant died. It would go on until Oxenfurt sent another coroner their way.
The man jumped a little and turned around to look at them weirdly. He took his mask off and answered, "Yes, that's me. And you are?"
"This is the deceased's family, and I'm a witcher working for the Eternal Fire by their request."
Roy told them the story both of them agreed upon, and at the same time, he looked at the man closely. He's got a hunchback, and it's not from overworking. He had a grotesque face, his hair was almost nonexistent, his eyes were as small as beads, his nose resembled a garlic, and his teeth were yellow and rotten. Any baby would shut up in fear if they saw him.
'Casimodo
Age: Thirty-six years old
Gender: Male
Status: Corpse collector'
***
Casimodo was horrifying. He was second to Kiyan in terms of ugliness. And he's afflicted with all kinds of conditions. Probably because he’s worked in this environment for too long. And his stats are nothing to write home about. Roy said, "We need to check the corpses again."
Casimodo obviously doubted their story, but for some reason, he decided to go with it. He pointed to where the coroner and his assistant's bodies were located. They were on the outermost beds, and white cloths were draped over them.
Two mangled corpses lay underneath the white cloths, but Roy could vaguely see that they were males. One was in his mid-thirties, while the other was a teen younger than twenty.
Todd whispered, "I'll find Elsa in the other room."
Roy stayed behind to check on the corpses. First, he noticed their eyes, or the lack thereof. Their eyeballs were gouged out, leaving empty sockets behind. And then he noticed marks of stitches on their bodies. Apparently, Casimodo had checked on them thoroughly.
"I've never seen someone die so gruesomely." Casimodo stood behind the witcher, and his eyes glinted strangely. "Their whole bodies were covered in a bunch of complex wounds. Bone fractures, cuts, and bite marks."
"Bite marks?"
Roy knew what he meant when he saw the heads of the deceased. Part of the cheek was chomped away, and a bit of the scalp was gone too, but judging from the mark, Roy was sure that the assailant wasn't a wolf, bear, or even a ghoul. It was a human. Who the hell would do this? And they didn't just kill the coroner; they were torturing them. "How do the insides look?" Roy asked.
Casimodo didn't answer right away. He gulped. "They're missing some organs. You sure you wanna see it?"
The young witcher nodded. He took the scalpel and cut the bodies open. Five minutes later, he stitched the wounds back up cleanly and took the bloodied gloves off.
He didn't see any chaos energy coming from the coroner or his assistant, but they were missing some internal organs, and there were even more bite marks inside their bodies. The murderer is no ordinary human. "And what's with the bells?"
Roy noticed a silver bell dangling from between the deceased's ankles, hanging from a rope. He shook it, and the silver bell clanged.
"It's to prevent anyone from moving the bodies. You know how perverted some Novigradians can be."
"Yeah. I'll look around." Roy went to the other side of the room.
Casimodo followed him nervously. "Be careful. Don't ruin the bodies.”
The room inside looked normal. Unlike the room outside, there weren't a lot of marks of a battle here.
As Roy felt his pendant tremble, he checked up on every corpse, searching for Elsa. And what he saw was surprising. Novigrad was home to all kinds of creatures. Humans, part-elves, dwarves, and more. There were bodies of almost every humanoid species here. There were a lot of causes for their deaths, but most of them were due to battles.
More than a dozen gangs of different scales ran rampant in Novigrad. Gang wars were the most prevalent reason for their deaths. Diseases and hunger were next, while accidental deaths were last. No matter the reason, these bodies looked ugly after they were dipped in preservatives and patched up by the coroner.
"Poor bastard." Roy looked at the records of a corpse and covered the dwarf up. Died because he got drunk and fell into a shithole. He turned his attention to a half-elf. He died because his lover's husband castrated him after finding the half-elf sleeping with his wife.
"This place would drive anyone crazy. But why is this guy's mouth open?" Roy pried the half-elf's mouth open more and pulled out a strand of black hair. "What the hell is this? Beard? Nose hair? Or hair?"
He tossed it away and went on with his investigation. When he reached the thirteen body, Roy finally got serious. His pendant was trembling violently. Roy eased up quietly for a moment before he pulled the white cloth away, revealing the body of a young woman underneath.
About fifteen or sixteen. I expected as much. The girl was beautiful, and her skin was fair, but her face was pale and lifeless.
Roy's hand trembled. She looked so serene, as if she were asleep. There wasn't any obvious wound on her body. She's like Sleeping Beauty, but whose kiss is going to wake her?
Roy cast Observe, and a page of information showed up.
'Corpse filled with chaos energy
Gender: Sixteen years old
Status: Civilian
???'
Todd looked in Roy's direction, and the sight of that girl's body petrified him.
***
***
