Rhea Son Fairmont, first daughter of Lord Fairmont, sister of two older, war-accomplished brothers, sank miserably in her chair behind a desk heaped with wrinkled documents and empty cups of coffee, running on three hours of sleep, an empty stomach and a bruised abdomen.

  She wasn't necessarily saddened by this case or the current course of her life; it was just a lot less rewarding than she'd have liked.

  The boredom was more than she could bear.

  If it were up to her, she'd be down in one of the more infested cities, prosecuting more vicious Rogues and feeding her sword more Heretic blood.

  But then again, her father sounded genuinely horrified at the mere idea of it. He'd sent her brothers South just fine, without a second thought, but she to the colonies?

  Her father had failed to sleep the night she brought it up, so she never brought it up again.

  That aside...

  A murder was going to take place and she didn't know who would be the victim or when, but she was mildly confident about the culprit and the where.

  Four days ago, the Chief Constable assigned her to this case after an anonymous tip to the IGP about suspicious behaviour surrounding an ice cream truck.

  Personally, she would've much preferred to work on this fascinating case that'd been stumping the IGP for the last few weeks about some Rogues from various regions of the empire suddenly coming together. Rogues who should, under no circumstances, know each other but do.

  She'd begged relentlessly for the Chief Constable to put her on, but unfortunately, another department had already taken it up.

  She sighed in disappointment once again and went back to her current case.

  She'd been insulted initially by being assigned such a trivial case, but after putting her head down and getting on with it as always, it surprisingly intrigued her despite the lack of flair.

  She stared at the image of an old man with a big moustache, a big smile, and big bones. A big fella even for the camera. A family man with two daughters and a wife who works in Corporate.

  Name: Benson O'Connell

  Age: 68

  Ethnicity: Sirtian (Pure)

  Citizen Class: First Rank

  Bearer Rank: Mundane

  Grace Classification: N/A

  Aether levels: Negligible.

  Her investigation got off to a sluggish start until Alexander came up with an interesting piece of information.

  First: According to the Imperial House of Commerce, all private businesses must be completely transparent with their reporting.

  Using the IGP's authority, Rhea tasked Alexander with reviewing Benson's business financial reports, and they found something curious.

  The gas costs for his Ice Cream truck were unusually low, and Alexander had reported that, aside from arriving in the morning and going home at night, Benson's Ice Cream truck was semi-permanently parked in Monument Square, so the vast majority of gas expenditure would be for cooling.

  They went ahead and calculated the rough ballpark of what his expenditure should be, and lo and behold, it was much, much higher than what their good friend Benson was paying.

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  Second: The Miserable Man.

  She slid forth another picture of a clean-shaven, beaming man with hazel, dreamy eyes. Father of a single child and married to a Pure Sirtian woman of low birth.

  Name: Roderigo Costa

  Age: 48

  Ethnicity: Malantese

  Citizen Class: First Class (Matrimonial Privilege)

  Bearer Rank: Supplicant

  Grace Classification: Sixth Heaven

  Aether Levels: 30-100

  Although the man's Grace was of the Sixth Heaven, he'd remained a Supplicant, which was understandable.

  Rising to become an Acolyte was a chore far too challenging for most Graced, and the incentives were never there. The risk-reward was not worth it when one could live lavishly as a Supplicant.

  But nevertheless, the man was still Graced. A rare standing in society.

  Which meant his living standards should've been much higher than what Romana had observed during her stakeout. A man of his calibre should've been serving one of the noble families, joining the Imperial Army or even freelancing his services for lofty wages or extortionate prices, not living in a hole-in-the-wall as they'd found him doing.

  The man looked like a miserable thing, and even more dangerous to himself than others.

  They'd sent Rome to question his estranged son, and they'd learned the following:

  Sometime in the past few months, his father had become a completely different man. He was fundamentally still his father, but he seemed much more disturbed and consumed by madness.

  She checked the son's quote once more:

  'It was as if he'd lived a whole lifetime in hell for one night, and came back the next morning mad.'

  Roderigo had then abandoned his son and became more of a malicious vagrant than anything else.

  With all these pieces of information combined, Roderigo's visiting Benson's Ice Cream Truck once a day and taking a little longer than usual to order had become a matter of utmost curiosity.

  Then came the final piece that assured the nature of this conspiracy:

  The Ludicrous Manifesto.

  Rhea had decided to secretly trail Roderigo one night to his small hole-in-the-wall home. There, she waited until he briefly left for a piss, snuck inside, and glimpsed the first page of a ludicrous manifesto titled, 'The Unknown Sacrifice,' and co-authored by Roderigo Costa and Benson O'Connell.

  She'd read the first few lines of his manifesto and learned very blatantly that Roderigo and Benson were planning to murder 'Death in human flesh'.

  'Death in human flesh,' she mused with a smirk. 'So much ambiguity for a madman.'

  Rhea exhaled, picked the two pictures, swivelled in her seat and held them against the evening sun, an act done more out of exhaustion than scrutiny.

  The anticipation was killing her, but there was nothing she could do.

  Her back hurt from idleness. Her eyes blinked slowly from weariness. Her clothes were so uncomfortable on her skin after so much of nothing.

  Someone do something...

  They'd hit a wall in their investigation after all these discoveries. She did have enough to arrest the two conspirators, but not enough to prosecute them seriously, except maybe Roderigo, considering he was Malantese. Madness had always been a thing of sympathy in the Imperial courts.

  But the main reason she didn't arrest them was the Chief Constable's curiosity.

  The Chief Constable ordered that she not act until they learn who the two were trying to murder, and after dwelling on that questionably immoral order for too long, Rhea had grown curious to know herself.

  But time was a sluggish bastard.

  She was tired and bored.

  Is this what they meant by workaholic?

  She felt tired and restless all at once. But if she could not work, then perhaps she could let her eyes rest a little...

  'Captain! It's happening!'

  Rhea jerked up from her slumber and blinked rapidly at Rome's hulking figure towering before her desk.

  'They'd done it!' He repeated.

  'Huh.' She was still disoriented from the intense fever dream she'd just had.

  'They attacked a student and his little sister at Monument Square,' the gentle giant exclaimed, sounding like an excited child opening his presents.

  Rhea blinked a few more times, feeling the sweet grasp of sleep fade away, leaving her cold and empty, then blew out her frustration, stood up and grinned.

  'Let's go then.'

  Thanks for reading and see you in the next chapter ;)