“Please, come in and sit down. Let’s talk.”
The village chief stepped aside and gestured for them to enter.
Xi Ya sat down at the meeting table.
The moment he propped his elbows on it, he felt something prickling.
He looked down and saw several splinters sticking up from the edge of the table.
He lifted his arms to avoid them, but as his gaze followed the table edge, he saw that the entire border was covered in splinters.
This village was truly shabby—not even a decent meeting table.
He silently withdrew his hands and placed them on his knees, then scooted his chair back a bit to avoid the splinters.
But the chair creaked loudly as it moved.
The joints connecting the four legs to the seat had large cracks.
Xi Ya didn’t dare move anymore, afraid the chair would suddenly collapse.
The village chief and Dailina also sat down one after another.
Xi Ya glanced at their chairs—steady and not wobbling at all.
‘So the only broken chair was the one I was sitting on?’
Noticing his reaction, Dailina gently patted the chair beside her.
“Xi Ya, sit here.”
Xi Ya carefully stood up, avoiding the splinters on the table edge, and sat down to Dailina’s right.
But this chair was also a rocking chair—the previous one rocked front and back, this one rocked left and right.
Sitting in it was hard on his waist.
“Maybe switch again?”
Dailina said awkwardly.
“No need. Just get to the point.”
Xi Ya tried to sit as straight as possible to keep the chair from making noise.
He pulled out the commission letter and handed it to the village chief.
“Village Chief, this is our commission letter. Please check it.”
The village chief took it, gave it a brief glance, nodded, and handed it back.
“Yes, the letter is fine.”
Xi Ya put the letter away and instinctively wanted to prop his elbows on the table, but his hand accidentally brushed the splinters and got pricked again.
“Hiss~”
He looked at the spot on his hand that got pricked, confirmed there was no scratch, and got straight to the point.
“Village Chief, could you first tell us about the situation with this commission?”
The village chief calmed down a bit from his anxious state and began explaining the matter:
“It’s like this. Last month, someone reported that a few chickens from their household had gone missing. At first, I thought someone in the village had sticky fingers, so I called a village meeting and warned them. But in the following days, several more households came to me, all saying they had lost livestock. I started to feel something was off. Our villagers may be poor, but for so many years, we’ve never had such petty theft.”
“Then what? Did you send someone to investigate?”
“Yes, I arranged for a few young men to take turns keeping watch at the village entrance and near the chicken coops. But after several days, the livestock continued to disappear, and we never saw a single trace of the thief.”
“Were there any clues left at the scene?”
“No.”
The village chief pondered for a moment and shook his head.
“No? That’s impossible. There should be some trace, no matter what.”
Xi Ya didn’t believe it.
No matter how careful a livestock thief was, they would leave some evidence—unless they used transfer magic.
But transfer magic is 5th-tier or higher.
What high-rank mage would be bored enough to come steal chickens from this village?
“There really wasn’t any. I didn’t believe it at first either. I even stayed up several nights watching myself. But every chicken coop door was properly closed, the fences weren’t damaged, and there were no extra footprints on the ground. Those livestock just vanished into thin air.”
Xi Ya furrowed his brow.
‘Vanished into thin air? Could it really be transfer magic?’
‘Is someone really using transfer magic to steal chickens? Are they crazy?’
‘With that kind of ability, they could earn money and buy a whole bunch. Is it somehow tastier when stolen from others?’
He didn’t dwell on this point further and moved to the key issue:
“What happened next? How did the people disappear?”
Losing livestock wasn’t a huge problem, but people going missing meant the perpetrator definitely had other motives.
“Last night, three people went missing. One is the village’s hunter, Jack, and the other two are the buddies he often drinks with. The three of them suddenly ran out after drinking last night. Everyone thought they had just stepped outside to sober up, so no one paid them any mind. But this morning, we realized they were gone. We searched the whole village and spent a long time looking outside the village, but we couldn’t find them. Where did they go…”
The village chief started getting anxious again.
Ever since the livestock started disappearing, the villagers had been suspicious of each other, making the whole village uneasy.
And now that people were missing today, many villagers couldn’t take it anymore.
They came demanding answers from him.
Some had even packed their bags, ready to leave the village.
Dailina thought for a moment, leaned forward, and asked:
“Could someone have kidnapped them?”
“That’s what I think. They couldn’t have just disappeared for no reason.”
The village chief nodded.
Xi Ya said nothing, trying to think hard.
This was a B-rank commission from the academy, so it couldn’t be this simple.
Better to assume it was complicated than jump to conclusions.
This village was so poor—what could a kidnapper get from tying up the villagers?
Hardly any money at all.
Unless the three missing people had enemies, and the enemy was taking revenge regardless of the cost.
But if it were really revenge, why steal the villagers’ livestock first?
Did the culprit have a strange hobby, like creating a tense atmosphere and enjoying everyone’s uneasy expressions before striking?
Another possibility was that the Demon Race was behind this.
The Demon Race doesn’t care about anything—they attack humans indiscriminately, and among them are races that enjoy toying with humans.
But there was no evidence the Demon Race had been here.
He could start by asking if they had any enemies.
“Village Chief, the three people you mentioned—have they offended anyone? Had any arguments recently? Even with people from the nearby town?”
“Hmm…”
The village chief furrowed his brow, thinking for a while.
“Probably not. Among the three, the one with the hottest temper was Jack. He used to get into fights often, but this month he’s been pretty well-behaved—no arguments with anyone. The other two basically just followed Jack around. They’d only help when Jack was fighting; they wouldn’t start trouble on their own.”
The village chief said “probably not.”
Xi Ya noticed that phrase.
The village chief wasn’t certain, which meant he himself wasn’t sure.
Someone like Jack, who often got into fights, had been quiet lately.
That was suspicious.
He must have done something wrong and felt guilty.
Jack had likely offended someone.
If that were the case, this was undoubtedly a revenge murder case—even if they hadn’t confirmed whether Jack and the others were dead.
Xi Ya thought about it and felt a bit upset.
‘How is this really an investigation mission?’
‘I came here to improve my abilities, not to solve mysteries.’
‘I need experience! I need combat!’
At this rate, this commission would probably just involve finding Jack’s enemy and reporting it to the town.
There was little chance of a fight.
Wasn’t he just wasting time here?
No, he had to think again.
This definitely had to be related to the Demon Race!
He remembered the stake at the village entrance.
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