After hanging up the phone, Caroline exhaled in relief and came back into the library.

“Hey, how’s your friend?” Jason was waiting for her to come back: “Did Dave do it?”

“Yeah. It’s kinda amazing to hear on the phone, actually.” Caroline smiled: “He just flat-out yanked an evil spirit from Stacy’s head and put it inside the jar with Rashmumba D’Eclaire.”

“Yikes, that’s gonna be one tough bath for the ghost.” Jason chuckled and shook his head.

“What? What do you mean? Who’s this Rashmumba D’Eclaire?” Aimee scratched her hair and asked.

“It’s a jellyfish monster. Boss brought it from somewhere in outer space.” Caroline shook her head and said, “It’s in a tank like a small floating harmless little jellyfish, but once it shows its true form - whew, one of the ugliest and most traumatising things I have ever seen.”

“Hmm, I thought it was kinda cool.” Jason said: “I mean, a space jellyfish monster with human-like faces on its body, when has anyone seen that?”

“Well, I want to see it next time when we’re in your inn.” Thomas laughed while still considerately keeping his voice down: “So Caroline, what happened with your friend there? You seemed really worried earlier so I didn’t dare ask.”

“She was haunted by some evil spirit. She reached out to Amanda, who then asked me because I told them if they encountered something paranormal I could help them.” Caroline sighed and answered: “And I asked Boss for help, he said he’s not available and I should ask Dave, so I did. Dave then went to Stacy’s place and handled it. Glad it all worked out.”

“Dave, he’s the temp guy at your inn right? Is he a cultivator as well?” Thomas asked.

“No no.” Jason chuckled: “The official name of him and his people was in our language Depth Dwellers, they are a group of immortal - well, almost immortal beings. It’s kinda fascinating, they kept track of a lot of historical stories throughout their lineage, and they apparently do get involved with our normal daily business. But I guess we can talk about that later because Aimee is staring at me.”

“Thank you Jason. I’m so glad your friends are okay, Caroline. And I want to learn about these stories. I really do. It’s just that this is our first research project together. I really wanna have a good grade.” Aimee smiled, nodded and said.

“Yeah I agree. We can talk about these stories later. Let’s finish this project first and analyze the crap out of some magic world serial killer. ” Caroline agreed with Aimee.

“I like the fact that we’ve progressed from ‘oh my god there’s vampires in this world’ to ‘yeah I know there is an outer space jellyfish monster and an immortal being currently in your inn but let’s talk about our research project on serial killers because we want good grades.’” Thomas chuckled, but when he saw Aimee’s stare, he immediately switched gears: “Yeah, let’s finish this project first!”

“Sure, why not!” Jason chuckled.

Their first research project was on the course “Introduction of Demonology”, and the topic of it was to do an analysis on one of the three monsters provided: the notorious carnivorous mushroom cluster that existed under an old sewer tunnel in London; a mutated Bear that tore through several villages, leaving countless bodies in the Midwest during the 1950s; and a serial killer that was believed to have a body count of thousands whose identity was yet to be revealed. They did not actually coordinate to take the course together - Caroline and Jason agreed that they would take this course together, and Aimee and Thomas made the same choice, thus the happy coincidence - Caroline and Jason were clearly more knowledgeable on demons, unclean presence and generally all things concerning monsters than Aimee and Thomas, while Aimee and Thomas have more criminal research experience because they were detectives before they came into this world. 

Their final choice object of analysis was decided unanimously to be the serial killer - the supposed hardest one to analyze because of the lack of definitive evidence about their identity, but it was also by far the most interesting one for all of them.

In the library, each of the collaborate tables has an soundproof array underneath, and can be activated by the occupants. But all four of them still tried to keep their voices low out of habit.

“Okay. So, we cannot find anything that resembles an obvious pattern of all of these murders.” Thomas scratched his head while he was tracing through his notes: “There’s not much of an M.O either - the lack of traces of magical power is one thing, but that’s not really anything.”

“We have that case where civilians beat trained magical combatants right?” Caroline asked: “Could it be a civilian?”

“Several of the victims have some kind of magical defense system in their homes. I don’t think normal civilians can do that.” Jason: “Not to give civilians too little credit, but it’s not like the magical world is a well known place for civilians.”

“Well, it could be a civilian who’s familiar with the magical world. And maybe familiar enough to bypass them.” Caroline wrote on her notes: “Or, it was someone who knows about the magical world but well trained in civilian assassination techniques?”

“That… that could be an angle.” Thomas nodded: “Do we know any … what’s the term… the ones who are born into the magical world but was shunned by the communities for some reason? Someone like that would be kinda perfect for this kind of crime - they’d have enough access to knowledge about this kind of magical defense systems, and if they’re shunned, they would have to seek employment”

“Yeah. Yeah. If civilians can give birth to individuals of power, then the reverse could definitely happen. And since the magical world knows about the civilian world while most of the civilian world have no idea the magical world exists, being shunned will definitely bring about some kind of shame and humiliation that breeds hatred.” Aimee quickly wrote things down: “Umm, not to be a buzzkill, did any of the documents mention this theory?”

“I don’t remember seeing anything… so it could be new.” Jason quickly flipped through his notes and found one page: “Okay, the most prominent theories include: someone who was really good at erasing traces of magic, which will require the magical levels that only a few of the greatest wizards and witches, but that was ruled out because, none of them at the time had any clear motives; another possibility was a mutated shapeshifter, but shapeshifters tend to leave strong smells and bodily fluids, which was present in none of the scenes; a vampire or lycan, but no smell, and some of the victims had vampire detection arrays that were not triggered.”

“So, at least it’s not a prominent theory.” Aimee nodded in excitement: “I think this is a good theory. They’ve never taken this possibility seriously enough, probably because they’ve never thought this could ever happen.”