Chapter Sixty-One: Her death... was a bit too clean.

Another theory also confirms something—that is, the way the Mourning Watcher attacks.

After some contact, Colin had already determined that its method of attack was to first launch a “psychic assault” with the eyes all over its body, and then, taking advantage of its prey’s loss of resistance, come over and smash them to death with a candlestick.

Once struck by such a “psychic assault,” there’s no way that woman could have remained so “composed” in her posture; she would inevitably have clutched her head, howling and screaming. Yet, there wasn’t the slightest sign of struggle on her…

It must be understood: aberrations have an unbridled desire to slaughter humans; they would never leave an intact corpse simply because you gave up resisting.

Thus, it was almost certain—she died before the lord-level aberration made a move, killed by something else.

Because she had already lost her life, the Mourning Watcher simply came over for a look, and then lost all desire to attack.

When it comes to corpses, these monsters have always been… extremely tolerant.

After that, it left.

This was the direct reason why Colin had first believed it was the murderer.

Of course, these weren’t the real reason Colin sensed something was amiss and started to connect the dots.

It was something else—the “treasure map fragment.”

“Why did she have a treasure map fragment?”

Based on what he currently knew…

Treasure map fragments only appeared as rewards for trigger quests, and as for those quests—

In the entire world, almost no one had ever completed one.

Some had managed to finish the “simpler” trigger quests, but they’d died in the process, leaving behind only warnings for those who came after: “Don’t do trigger quests.”

Only a handful—fewer than ten—lucky souls had finished a quest and, like Colin, racked their brains to escape the hunt of a lord-level aberration, thereby surviving.

Suppose she was one of those who died after completing a quest, and the quest simply involved going somewhere to have a look…

Then why did she have two treasure map fragments?

Each trigger quest only awarded a single “treasure map fragment”—how could she have two?

Bear in mind, from the time Colin woke up and went outside to when he found her corpse, less than an hour had passed.

Almost all survivors woke up at roughly the same time.

One hour…

How could she have two “treasure map fragments” within that brief span?

Even if she was lucky enough to finish the first quest and then died after completing a second…

Where would she find the time to do all that?

It wasn’t a question of ability—it was a question of possibility.

No matter which way you looked at it, such a thing was simply impossible…

“Tell everyone to keep an eye out—if they see a woman’s corpse leaning against a large tree, let me know at once.”

Colin gave a few instructions. At that moment, he was sitting in the passenger seat of the armored vehicle, retracing the road he’d traveled on his first day here.

He intended to examine the corpse once more, to see if he’d missed anything.

Due to time constraints and other factors, he hadn’t buried her yesterday; barring any accidents…

The corpse should still be there.

It was clear she’d been to the underground area, given she carried “luminous stone” from that region on her person and was hiding many secrets.

If he could uncover even one of those secrets, his chances of surviving an expedition underground would rise.

Colin’s mind worked furiously, and on the dashboard before him, the sheepskin scroll displaying his quest list showed a blood-red line, glaring and conspicuous.

Sanction countdown: six days and four hours.

Roughly, that meant when night fell six days from now, there would be about an hour left.

The hint he received for observing it, however, remained unchanged.

[Given your current strength and progress, you feel you’re finished.]

This only added to Colin’s sense of pressure. He had clearly acquired several mysterious items, his title had been upgraded, and his strength had grown vastly compared to yesterday…

Yet, the hint remained the same.

In other words, in the eyes of that thing, his growth was negligible…

Colin felt a tightness in his chest.

He wondered whether he should move up his plan by a day—finish scouting the location, then enter the tunnels and begin exploring today…

Just then, a voice snapped him out of his tangled thoughts:

“My lord, we’ve found the corpse…”

“Good.” Colin breathed a sigh of relief. Looking out the window, he could see the woman’s body still lying beneath the tree.

The distant battlefield had not affected this area.

His greatest fear was that the body would simply disappear of its own accord, untouched and unmoved.

If that happened, surviving the Mist would turn into surviving a haunting…

Without delay, Colin got out of the vehicle and, accompanied by Shana and the others, made his way quickly to the corpse.

Now, the body looked even paler than yesterday; the blood had fully congealed, becoming a dark, almost black, red.

Because the temperature wasn’t high, there was no stench of decomposing protein.

Overall, the body hadn’t changed much, except that the aura of death it gave off made the living instinctively uncomfortable.

However, Colin’s gaze quickly shifted to her leg…

There were marks there—something had gnawed at the flesh, leaving several fist-sized, bloody holes.

[From your observations, some of the bite marks resemble those made by rodents. It seems a number of rats visited here last night.]

[There weren’t many—probably a dozen or so—otherwise they’d have devoured the entire corpse.]

“Rats…”

Colin muttered. He hadn’t seen a living animal so far—not even a rat.

At that moment, a survivor was brought over by Number One.

There were no forensic specialists here, but if necessary, anyone with medical training could be of use.

“Um… I’m just an intern in colorectal surgery. I’m not sure I’m the right person for this…”

The survivor seemed awkward and hesitant—not out of fear of dead bodies (medical school was full of them), but because his expertise didn’t seem relevant. There wasn’t much he could do for a corpse—certainly not a digital rectal exam or hemorrhoid removal.

Still, despite his words, the colorectal intern obediently began to examine the body for Colin.

It was his first time handling such a “fresh” cadaver, and he was a little excited.

“…She seems to have been bitten by rats. Hmm, probably bitten yesterday… As for time of death, I’d say roughly seventeen to eighteen hours ago. She looks about twenty, around a hundred pounds, five foot seven. No signs of poisoning. The neck wound is a tear—looks like something pulled it off… Like picking a mushroom. No obvious internal injuries under the skin. Judging from her posture, she died quite peacefully…”

Listening to his deduction, Colin was surprised. “Colorectal surgeons know all this?”

“Amateur detective…” the survivor replied, his eyes never leaving the body.

But as he continued looking, something seemed to occur to him, and he frowned. “Something’s not right, sir. Did you move her body at all…?”

“No. Found something?” Colin asked curiously.

“Uh, it’s a bit odd…”

The intern’s expression was puzzled. “This might sound strange… but she died a bit too… cleanly.”