Goblin Dependency
Chapter 309 - 163 Beastification_2

Chapter 309: Chapter 163 Beastification_2

With that premise, taking on a murder investigation task didn’t seem to be much of an issue.

But...

"I take a carriage from River Valley Town to Neum, and it takes half a month just for the journey."

"If something happens during that time, the body could have already decomposed by then."

"If it’s a serial murder case, the perpetrator could have killed several more during this period."

"Considering the worst-case scenario, I might not even know if the attacker has already left Neum in the span of ten to twenty days."

"Shouldn’t such cases be immediately handed over to the nearby sheriff for investigation?"

Xia Nan felt increasingly confused as he spoke.

The girl before him couldn’t help but shrink back as he relentlessly questioned her.

"The sheriff did come, but he just glanced around and left quickly."

"It seems there were some issues with the City Lord recently, making the sheriffs in Neum quite busy."

"I, I don’t know..."

Listening to Harriet, Xia Nan began to grasp the situation in his mind.

It seemed no one took it seriously.

The girl herself was not the client; the task most likely came from Neum’s officials.

The reason the Association left the address with her, to provide adventurers with task information, was just because of her identity as a neighbor and witness to the incident.

As mentioned by Harriet, Xia Nan had heard bits and pieces over the past few days from newspapers and chats with Jeff’s family about the current big events happening in Neum, mainly the City Lord’s illness and power shifts.

In such circumstances, as chaos descends from above, the sheriffs naturally don’t have the mindset to deal with one of the hundreds of murders happening every year.

Especially since the crime scene isn’t in the wealthy district.

At most, they would attach the official bounty to symbolically entrust the task to the adventurer association.

If someone takes it, that’s great; it’s not their money being spent, and catching the murderer is beneficial to them, saving them a lot of trouble;

If no one takes the task, it doesn’t matter.

Once the bounty time expires, the task is withdrawn, and they won’t spend money to renew it.

If someone seriously questions it, they can say they tried.

With so many people coming and going in Neum daily, it’s normal for a few necromancers or cultists to mix in.

If someone analyzes every case down to the smallest detail, even hiring a few hundred more sheriffs wouldn’t be enough to handle them all.

"But using such a commission as my promotion task—isn’t that a bit too makeshift?"

Xia Nan muttered to himself.

Though there’s no time limit, and failing to complete it wouldn’t incur any penalty, he’d most likely just be assigned another task.

However, upon understanding the commission’s situation, he can’t help but doubt whether Miss Mo Li from the reception desk or the Association staff sent him the wrong task, or perhaps they rushed it without consideration due to time constraints?

Or is it that he just needs to go through the process, report back in River Valley Town, and the task would be considered complete?

At this point, having come all this way, Xia Nan can’t simply leave with nothing done and spend half a month returning empty-handed.

He can only hope the Association itself has already investigated the task in advance, making sure it matches his ability and can be completed.

Bracing himself to investigate further.

"Let’s go."

Xia Nan silently sighed, swallowing the last sip of tea, and slowly stood up from the couch.

"Take me to see."

...

Compared with Harriet’s two-story building, her neighbor Buck’s family house, although not so different in overall architecture from outside,

There’s a noticeable sense of abandon standing at the doorway.

From Xia Nan’s words, it’s devoid of "human presence."

Though only over a month had passed since that night, vines already crept up the edges of wooden walls, cobwebs formed among railings, and a thin layer of dust settled on the window sills.

Taking the key left by the sheriff from Harriet’s hand, he pushed the door open and entered.

What greeted him first was a cold current mixed with a faint stench.

Under the shattered rear window scattered with glass shards, the curtains lightly swayed in the breeze from outside. Under the morning light, dust particles floated in the air.

The room remained as it had been on the evening of the incident.

The overturned wooden table, shattered dinner plates, the sofa with stuffing protruding from the torn seam, several pieces of unusable clothing scraps...

And blood.

On the floor, the walls, even the ceiling, there were large amounts of dark, dried brownish-black blood stains.

Standing at the door, simply looking at these ghastly marks, one could imagine the horrific scene from that night.

"What about the bodies, have they been taken care of?"

Walking inside, Xia Nan gazed around the room without looking back as he asked.

"Yes, the sheriff had them dragged away the next day."

The fearful voice of the girl followed closely behind, echoing near his ears.

Without cold storage facilities, a month was sufficient for ordinary corpses to decay and stink; they couldn’t remain here.

"Then they must have examined the bodies, right? Any findings?"

"They said there were many beast bites and tears."

"And then?"

"That’s all..."

Xia Nan stopped, slightly furrowed his brows, and turned to Harriet.

"They could generally determine the type and size of the beast from the wounds, couldn’t they?"

Her response was silence.

"Fine."

Shana felt a deep sense of helplessness.

Looks like he overestimated this world’s sheriffs’ professionalism.

Oh, wrong.

He should say he overestimated their conscience and work ethics.

Based on Xia Nan’s understanding of the world’s development levels across various fields, he believed that it’s certain the sheriffs in Neum City have basic criminal investigation skills.

However, faced with urgent matters, they wouldn’t necessarily spend time and effort on ordinary rural civilians.

He felt the growing burden.

Despite having read some detective novels during his student days, he was merely an ordinary office worker in his past life.

Currently, maybe due to improved physical conditions, he gained keen observational skills, but still lacks relevant knowledge in his brain.

For example:

Xia Nan’s deep dark eyes could clearly see those fine textures stained with blood over the wall like a magnifying glass, and the dried and coagulated blood marks in it.

But he couldn’t reconstruct the scene from the night Buck’s family was attacked based on the directions and amount of blood spray like detectives in novels.

"Making it this complicated, I don’t even know where to start."

To Xia Nan, he preferred straightforward commissions.

Who to kill, where, for how much.

Simple and clear.

Why make tasks so brain-wracking?

"Did the sheriff mention anything else?"

After wandering around the room without finding anything, Xia Nan asked Harriet behind him.

Speaking, without waiting for her reply, he seemed to suddenly notice something.

Stepped forward quickly, coming to the broken glass window.

There, on the slightly collapsed windowsill lay a deep claw mark.

Fingers joined together, extending his hand to match it, he discovered the claw mark was much larger than a human hand.

Five digits, two slightly shorter on each side, three in the middle were a bit longer, overall parallel distribution.

"Beast", "upright", "night low howl"...

Chaotic clues appeared in his mind one by one, Xia Nan pondered carefully.

And it’s at this point, under his inquiry, Harriet finally recalled additional crucial information.

"The sheriff seemed to have mentioned at the time."

"It might be... related to ’Beastification’."