Nisha easily entered the capital through the gates and greeted a familiar city guard there.

The guards rotated between the gates for duty to prevent accusations of corruption, and it did not make much difference for the men and women on duty to cycle inside the city.

Both through her frequent trips and connection to the Duke Dharnas who was in charge of the guard, the elf had quite a good reputation amongst the guards and knew a few of them well enough to exchange greetings.

She crossed the commoner’s district and walked past a bridge over the river, then entered the noble district near the palace.

The day nearly passed already while she had been training in the Terus empire compound, and there was nothing to do outside, so she might as well return to the Dharnas estate and spend some time with Little Lia and play together with Henry and his contracted monsters.

Unknownst to the girl, the only area she did not walk through back to the estate, aside from the palace, had a significant event occurring.

Although it was part of the commoner district, the harbor area had more bars, cheap accommodations and merchants due to the ships that moored next to Thurgau.

One of the dilapidated taverns just outside the harbor itself had experienced a tumultuous event.

Next to the thin wooden door - which almost got ripped off the hinges and now hung at a queer angle - a city guard glared at passing sailors and commoners like a hawk while preventing anyone from going inside the place.

Although it was not uncommon to see the guards go about their business inside the establishments of the district, the acute lack of noise, singing and cursing from the place still told every passerby that a serious incident happened, which caused them to pretend to have seen nothing and hurry along, lest they were dragged into the whole mess as a suspect or witness.

And indeed, their caution was correct.

Besides the man guarding the entrance with his long spear, several of his colleagues assessed the damage inside the building.

 

The owner of the [Empty Barrel] held a towel meant for cleaning jugs against a mean cut on his cheek, trying to stem the bleeding.

Not only was his face bruised and cut up, his body similarly had large patches of blood soaking through his damaged garb.

Nevertheless, the woman talking to him did not pay attention to his wounds and continued her interrogation.

“You are sure that it was a single man who went on a rampage and caused all of this?

That does not seem very likely.”

True to her question, the entire interior of the building was in tatters and almost ruined.

Banks, tables and plates were broken and scattered on the ground, while puddles of blood were just as numerous as the scattered items.

It was not an exaggeration to think that a small storm devastated the bar instead of a man.

As much as the destruction and ruined items painted a most grizzly scene, there were no other injured patrons around, nor any servers employed here.

Only those garbed in the city guard uniform remained inside the bar, turning over the broken debris and other remains in search of clues.

“Go through the story with me again, I need to make a full report.”

Her account would eventually get put together with the witness statements from the injured and potential witnesses from the street, hence the woman was not concerned whether or not the owner of the [Empty Barrel] was going to tell the truth or not.

The entire course of events would be revealed then.

“Get off my back, this hurts like hell. Let me see a priest first, then … ah geez, no need to glare like that, let’s do this then.”

Scared of the guard who eyed him like a snake eyeing a mouse, the man suppressed the pain from his wounds and went through his memories.

Normally, a small fight between drunken patrons or even a large brawl was well within the authority of his bouncers, so the owner did not pay attention when the alteration started.

It had still been early and he prepared to receive more customers, the workers at the docks who are thirsty after long hours of working or drunken sailors enjoying themselves before going to sea once again.

He had entered the room at the back to exchange an empty cask of beer, eyeing the few sorry lads who needed to sate their cravings for alcohol so early in the day already.

As the owner, he made money off their addiction and sold them their choice of poison, but he knew their kind.

Drunken wretches were not rare in the capital anyway, his way of dealing with them was still humane.

 

“It started as an argument between customers.

While the sun is still up, most regulars are not in yet, too early for them. Some of the heavy drinkers have been inside the taproom for more than one day, ordering more drinks now and then to avoid getting kicked out.

Since they keep ordering more drinks, my boys allow them to stay and spend the time between morning and noon here, reckon most of them have no place to go.”

He had seen his fair share of drunkards in this business. Most of them had no care for the world around them and only wanted to spend the few coins they manage to scrounge up somewhere on alcohol that makes them forget the things they run from and try to forget.

Thankfully, they rarely bothered the other patrons and had no interest for anything that was beyond the rim of their ale mugs.

Of course, irregularities existed.

The current incident started from one such irregular figure.

“I restocked the barrel and noticed that one of the drunks in the corners shook like a leaf.

Ah, sometimes we have one of those who get the shakes when they drink for too long.

Generally, they either notice what’s going on and visit a temple in time or don’t show up in the future.

You can give them advice and tell them to look for a priest, yet those who end up with the shakes don’t care enough about themselves to bother getting treatment.

Half a moon to a moon later, you won’t see them again.”

Although he did not spell it out, the female guard guessed what he hinted at.

One of the many duties overseen by the city guard included picking up the bodies of those who drifted off into eternal sleep after drinking too much and falling into a ditch at the side of the road.

The nights in the capital were much colder than thought by those intoxicated from alcohol.

While she did not blame the bar owner for being callous, she had to perform a job right now too.

“Get to the point. What happened next? We need to finish the report as soon as possible.”

 

“Of course, my bad, Sera. Anyways, the wasted guy with the shakes got increasingly irate and muttered something at the same time.

Was too far to hear it, but it was enough to annoy the other drunks around him, so one of my boys wanted to throw the guy out.

Since he did not want to leave, my boy had quite some trouble getting his hands on him, the guy was unexpectedly strong for someone who wastes away his life in a bar every day.

Most likely, the bouncer would have thrown him out, but there was a group of sailors coming in for the first drink of the evening when he steered the shaky guy towards the door.

Stumbled right into them and tore a few of their guys to the ground with him.

My boy wanted to clear up the situation and apologize to them, sadly the guys from the docks were having none of it.

The other bouncers hurried over to restore order and prevent the situation from going out of hand, it just wasn’t enough.

At first it was the same as every other drunken brawl that the [Empty Barrel] had going on in the past.

Then, one of the other drunkards or perhaps the first one, I didn’t manage to see it clearly in the chaos, jumped on the back of a sailor and bit his shoulder hard.

Really really hard, pulled a chunk of meat right out of him and then went for another bite.

I guess that’s when the brawl turned into a real fight of life and death.

The sailors stuck together and helped their pal, who was angry as a bull and wanted to pay it back.

My boys also had to fend for themselves and went for heavy blows to take out the troublemakers.

And the drunks really got infuriated that they were pulled out of their drunken stupor and jumped into the fight like mad men.

I guess that’s why the place looks like this and you guards had to take so many people to the temple.”

 

The bar owner switched his soaked rag for another one and pressed it against his torn wound.

Perhaps enough time passed for it to start healing, as the blood flowing out of the big gash reduced noticeably.

Contrary to him, the guard was quite pleased with the succinct recount and noted down some of the details for the complete report later on.

Inside her mind, the female captain wondered why exactly this brawl had gotten out of hand so much even with the account from the owner.

Bar brawls happened pretty much every time the sun went down for various reasons, yet it was still more than rare to have it escalate to the point of serious injury for a multitude of the involved parties.

The office of the Grand Marshal just recently passed out an order for the guard divisions in all of the capital’s districts to stay on high alert, hence the harbor unit spent serious efforts to clear up this case and locate the initial culprit, whose location was still unknown until now.

Right as the female guard wanted to assess the broken debris and look for clues, one of her subordinates stormed through the crooked door and hastily went over after spotting the woman.

“Urgent report, ma’am!”

Speaking in a hushed voice, the man looked left and right as if he was wary of potential pursuers.

This managed to get a raised brow out of the experienced guard, there was not a single group bold enough to make trouble for the city guard within the walls of Thurgau.

Opposing them meant opposing the crown directly, and no single power had the foundations or might to survive the wrath of the crown.

Therefore, whatever haunted this guard must be far out of the ordinary.

 

“Speak then, soldier.”

Perhaps because the bar fight already went beyond the norm for brawls in the capital, the female guard was not particularly surprised when her subordinate asked her to inspect the scene where they found the culprit herself.

Nevertheless, her calm demeanor broke down once she squatted down and studied the body hidden beneath a cloak from one of the guards keeping watch in one of the side alleys a few streets away from the [Drunken Barrel].

Studying the remains in front of her, she asked the soldier who asked her to come over in the first place.

“You said you found him here due to the traces he left behind.

Repeat them to me.”

Unable to take her eyes off the culprit, the female soldier had no way of seeing her subordinate's expression, although it was not going to be good based on his tone either way.

“Yes, ma’am! After moving away from the original starting location, we checked the streets for signs of blood and disturbances.

Some of the sailors ran away in groups, making it easy to distinguish their routes from ordinary passerbys.

Ultimately, we singled out the route where the culprit retreated from the fight and followed the blood stains and cloth scraps to reconstitute his path.

A pair of men from the district station sent as reinforcement found the suspect lying down on the path in a side alley and called us over.”

Currently, the mentioned side alley was already sealed shut by the guards, four men on each end blocking all curious citizens from entering and seeing the gruesome scene.

“Go back to the station and send a message to the commander, he has to come in person to make the calls. This is way above our paygrade, your and mine.”

In a grotesque way, the bodily remains reminded the woman of an eerie flower.

The torso split open to reveal a set of black roots crawling through the empty space where bones, organs and blood was supposed to be, while the head and the limbs had split open into bloody flowers.

Thinking of the missive spread by the Grand Marshal’s office, the captain had no doubt that this was the first casualty of the [Blackroot Plague].