“FOUND IT!” JohnWillStab exclaimed, holding up a page showing a vastly different smiley face, in fact, whereas the one found on the corpses was composed of two dots and a curved line for a mouth, this one had a nose, detailed eyes and a realistic face shape.

“That… looks nothing like it…” Foxly remarked, looking over to the image of the corpse-face for reference.

Desperate for some sort of leads, JohnWillStab looked at the two images with a forced look of confidence.

“I dunno… looks pretty much the same!” he remarked.

The four still sat in the small office located near the centre of Glummington, Dylan had to leave the group in order to take care of more paperwork.

Bonifacius yawned.

“Perhaps we should rest for today, I fear overworking ourselves so early into our investigation is a bad idea,” he remarked, somewhat guilty about selfishly delaying such important work.

John slumped his shoulders, the promise of a break from the mind-numbing task of looking through a mountain of paperwork was enough for him to admit his find was a stretch.

“Yeah… maybe we’ll find something tomorrow…”

Zachary stood up and grabbed all a hold of some of the papers, placing them back into the right order before sliding them back into the folder.

“I’ll take care of the papers, I got some sleep a few hours ago by accident.” he laughed, recalling how he passed out in the middle of checking some files.

John and Bonifacius were as good as convinced of the idea that Zachary was, in fact, no evil as their estimated journey home became several minutes shorter.

“Alright! No complaints here!” John exclaimed before cracking his knuckles and turning to Foxly.

“Shadow-step?” he asked.

Foxly nodded.

With a puff of smoke, John and Foxly disappeared, moments later John returned.

“Alright, you should come too, Bonifacius,” John suggested.

“Tis alright, I shall help with the cleaning, first!” he explained.

Zachary waved him away dismissively with a smile.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be done in no time!”

John nodded.

“Yeah, you need to get some rest!” John said, stepping over to Bonifacius and shadow-stepping him out before he had a chance to argue.

Left alone in the room, Zachary continued to place the file back into the folder as promised, except for one.

He lifted the page and looked at the stained paper.

Zachary folded page in half twice before slipping it into his pocket.

After completing his clean-up, Zachary grabbed the folder and placed it back into its original spot.

He looked down at his watch and quickly made his way home.

On his way home, Zachary was approached by a group of three individuals, a human, a wolfman and an ogre.

“What terrible luck you have, stranger!” exclaimed the human, he had black hair which he had dyed white very poorly, leaving patches of black, brown and every gradient in between in patches around his head.

On his finger, he wore a generic golden ring which granted a small boost to your charisma stat.

“Huh?”Zachary questioned, seeing the three stranger blocking his way home.

“Can’t you tell?!” demanded the wolfman, his deep, gravely voice combined with how loud he was made Zachary jump.

The ogre gestured to the “blond” human.

“This is the legendary man-slayer of Glummington! Fredrick!” he exclaimed.

The human elbowed the Ogre before aggressively whisper-yelling: “FELIX! HIS NAME IS FELIX!”

“Oh, sorry, boss…” the ogre apologised.

Zachary nodded.

“Alright... cool… do you guys think you could let me go home? It’s kind of late…” Zachary asked, standing on his tip-toes to look behind them where he saw his home.

“Sure thing, buddy! Just hand over all the money you have.” the human replied.

He reached for a clearly fake, wooden sword from his side.

“Otherwise, I’ll have to cut you up and perma-kill you!” he threatened.

Zachary slowly slid his hand into his pocket.

Before Zachary could pull whatever it was he wanted to take from his pocket, a wall of blue flames surrounded them.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” the “blond” man demanded, running up to Zachary and grabbing him by the collar.

The conman’s accomplices drew their weapons as through the flames walked in a man clad in blue with a talking sword at his hip.

“Hey, ”

His hair was blond, it was shaped into cat-like ears.

“Alexander?” Zachary asked.

“Yo~,” he remarked gesturing towards Zachary with his hand.

His eyes moved from the visibly confused adolescent to the three thieves.

“So, funny story…” he began.

“I just got back from check-up on somebody and I was hoping to get something to eat…” he began.

“Now, imagine my shock when I hear a rumour that a murderer by the name of Felix roams this city at night!” he exclaimed, faking shock.

Anxiously, the Felix look-alike lifted his sword and put on a brave face.

“That’s right! You’re looking at him!”

Alex nodded.

“I see…”

With a snap of his fingers, the blond man’s hair burst into azure flames, swiftly burning off and leaving him nearly-bald.

He dispelled the wall of blue fire allowing the conman to leap into the dirty water and put out his hair with a satisfying sizzle.

“NO! MY BEAUTIFUL HAIR!” he lamented, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a health potion.

He drank it to no effect.

“WHAT THE HELL!?” he demanded, patting his hair.

Alex shrugged.

Zachary spoke up.

“Uhm… it’s like… scars and stuff, sometimes stuff like tattoos, scars or hairstyles stay the same after death and healing…”

“WHAT?!” cried the now-bald conman.

Alex turned to Zachary who put whatever he had in his pocket back.

“Thanks for the help!” he exclaimed, turning towards Alex.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m not fond of rip-offs…” he replied, turning to look at the nearby restaurant which was specifically open after dark.

He smiled, practically imagining the taste of the cream-cheese dumplings he was planning to order.

“Anyway - ya hungry?” he asked, holding out a pouch of gold.

The two made their way to the restaurant where Alex didn’t even bother introducing himself or saying hello, he simply shot the shop-owner a thumbs-up.

He frequented this place twice a day, every day since they moved into Glummington.

The frogman behind the till only replied with the same thumbs-up as he made his way into the kitchen.

He had long, greenish-blond hair tied into a ponytail as well as a goatee.

“Weird greeting…” Zachary thought, sitting on the wooden stool beside Alex.

The restaurant was a small, two-story, square building, one-third of it was separated by the large, wooden till behind which a wooden wall hid the pots, pans and other cooking instruments.

The thin, wooden walls were covered in posters and paintings.

“What are you doing out so late anyway?” Alex asked curiously.

“Murdering people?” he laughed.

Zachary frowned.

“That’s not funny…”

“We were trying to figure out who’s killing everybody in the town…” he explained.

Alex nodded.

“Yeah, Bromy and I went to check on somebody to make sure they weren’t the source of perma-killing,” he explained.

Zachary cocked his head.

“Some murderer?”

Alex nodded.

“Yup.”

Zachary looked down and noticed a paper menu before him.

“The food’s pretty cheap…” he remarked, looking through the menu.

“So, Zachary - mind if I call you Zack?” Alex asked.

“Nah,” Zack replied.

Alex nodded.

“Right, so, how do you know about the scar and or tattoo thing?” he asked.

He folded his arms and laid his hands upon them.

“I’ve never seen anybody’s haircut change between deaths, not to mention scars and tattoos…”

Zack looked down to his feet and then over to Alex.

“Back when I was first isekaid here, I teamed up with a group of four people, one of them knew about this kind of thing because she used the art skill and some magic together to make custom spells,” he explained.

“She said that if you subconscious accepted a change of your body, be it positive or negative - it’ll become a part of you.”

“That’s why some players can still get scars, for example, if you were to stab me and I was to get healed with magic, there probably wouldn’t be a scar.”

He looked over to Alex.

“But if I died worrying about getting a scar, I might then develop one when I respawn!” he explained.

Alex nodded.

“I see…”

“I have this theory…” he began.

“What if the tattoo is somehow special? Like a magic tracking mechanism? Y’know.”

“They could slowly kill somebody, track them down and kill them again, and again and again until finally, they perma-die!”

He looked over to Zack in hopes of some input on the theory, instead, he was met with the visibly sick face of Zack.

“Oh, sorry - I forgot we came here to eat food.” he apologised.

“I- It’s cool…” Zack replied, noticing the glass of water with ice that somehow made its way before him.

He looked up seeing the frogman shoot him finger-pistols.

Confused he nodded.

“Thanks…”

“That means he likes you,” Alex teased.

It didn’t take long for Alex’s and Zack’s food to appear.

Alex handed the frogman several gold coins, covering the price of both meals as well as a sizeable tip.

Before Zack was a wooden plate with six large, white balls of dough.

“What are these?” he asked.

The boiled dough balls were covered in dark, crispy onion bits.

Zack cut into the ball exposing a solid, creamy filling of cream cheese, mashed potato and black pepper.

“I have no idea what they’re called, but they’re great!” Alex exclaimed.

“Mmmm, though I think they’d go better with some creamy, savoury sauce…” Thal remarked, having assumed his human form, he snatched three of Alex’s dough balls, impaling them onto one knife.

“HEY!” Alex cried, trying to snatch the stolen food back from Thal who easily evaded Alex’s movements.

“Quit acting like a spoiled child, you’ll get fat if you keep eating these.” Thal shrugged.

“BUY YOUR OWN FOOD!” Alex cried.

Thal clicked his tongue.

Zack continued to watch Alex desperately trying to grab his food back from the thief.