Aurelia was apparently consoling Misha and her mother, while Shelly and Raynard talked to some townspeople who seemed really concerned about basically everything. The pastor called out to Raynard with a stack of papers in his hands.

Well, that was awkward.

[I am yet about to learn your definition of the human emotion you call “awkward” but I can confirm.]

Say, you wouldn’t know anything about the spell that hit Raven, would you?

My brain was flooded with information in an instant.

[Name: >>Cupid’s arrow.<<]

[MP: >>777<<]

[>>A strong hypnotic spell, more commonly referred to as a spell of love that makes the enchanted submissive to the first person they see after the spell being cast.<<]

[>>It is strongest immediately after being chanted.<<]

[>>The duration of its effects vary depending on multiple factors such as how the enchanted perceived their object of desire before the spell took effect, as well as race.<<]

[>>Gender does not play a role.<<]

[>>Succubi and Incubi have shown to be affected by the spell for the longest time, ranging from weeks to months in certain instances.<<]

[I have filtered the information to what I perceived to be you biggest interest in regard to the effect.]

[Would you like to give me some feedback about my accuracy?]

P- Perfect! Actually, that’s pretty much everything I wanted to know ...

[That is good to hear.]

I wasn’t sure what to think about that. On the one hand I didn’t like the idea of ... well, mind control, on the other hand, I could not predict if he would become dangerous after the spell wore of.

Wow, I’m in a weird predicament.

But at least I knew I still had a couple more weeks of time to figure out how to deal with him.

With procraaastinaaaation!

Yeah.

No wonder I still haven’t bothered to find a way home.

I approached Raynard and asked if he had already found anything.

“Still digging through it,” he said, shuffling around the papers in his hand. “Everything seems pretty random, except that there might be a preference for younger people to be stolen. That was a weird sentence to say.”

“Yikes.”

“Don’t worry, we will figure this out, I promise,” I heard the princess tell Misha. She took her mother by the shoulder, and they got back to the inn.

“So, that was taken care of I guess.” Aurelia approached us while running her fingers through her hair. She appeared rather exhausted.

So much for morning workout.

Raynard repeated to her what he just told me.

“So, what’s next?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

“Why are you whispering?” Aurelia asked in return.

“Isn’t that what you do at a cemetery?”

“It’s not like they’ll wake up or anything.”

“Well ...” Raynard muttered.

“Actually,” I had a weird thought, “could they wake up? I mean is that possible?”

“There are puppeteer spells if I recall correctly, but I have never heard of anyone actually using one on a human. That would be ... messed up and morally wrong on so many levels, I don’t want to talk about it. Though, to make sure we should check for a mana signature.”

“Mana signature?” I asked, to which Raynard and the Grimoire gave me a nearly simultaneous response.

“[When a spell is used it leaves traces of mana in the air, a unique signature of the caster, similar to a finger print.]”

“That’s also why unauthorized casting can get you in jail very easily,” Raynard expanded upon the knowledge provided by the Grimoire.

“There are a couple of spells that are able to make the signatures visible to the human eye,” Aurelia explained. “We haven’t learned them though, I think?”

“Yeah, I think it’s on the curriculum for year 4 for some reason,” Raynard confirmed.

“In that case, good thing you have a police officer in your group,” Shelly directed the attention towards herself, and slowly walked up to the grave.

We followed her, while she murmured some words I wasn’t able to pick up. After finishing her chant, she formed a circle with both her hands in front of her and blew through it, making her breath visible, as if we had temperatures below zero. The breath spread and dissipated after a couple seconds without anything happening.

I glanced at the other two next to me, hoping for any reaction telling me what to make of this situation, until Shelly said: “Well, this grave seems to have been dug up without the help of magic. Someone surely knows their craft.”

“That’s stupid. If they would have used their magic, they could have just closed the hole again. No one would have noticed, and we wouldn’t be investigating in the first place,” Aurelia exclaimed.

“Maybe the culprit was just stupid?” I shrugged to emphasize my opinion. “I mean, I wouldn’t probably think that far, ahahah...”

“Anyway, I think we should first try to find out where the corpses disappeared to, before making an assumption as to why and how,” Raynard stated. “The fact, that the grave has been dug up but not closed again must mean, that there is only one culprit behind all of this. They must have dug up the graves carried the corpse away but not have had enough time to close them properly again.”

“That’s also, what I thought,” Shelly confirmed.

“Isn’t it weird though, how really no-one saw or heard anything?” I voiced my opinion. “I mean, obviously this happened at night, but still isn’t it weird how there isn’t any witnesses?”

“Well, that’s because of the monsters, isn’t it?” Aurelia replied.

I remembered the conversation we had with Misha and the pastor the evening before.

“Well, isn’t that awfully convenient?”

“Anyway, seeing how there wasn’t enough time to close the graves, this could either mean, that the corpses were taken somewhere far away from here, and there was no time, or opening the graves took a really long time, and the corpses were taken somewhere close,” Raynard completed his train of thought.

“Well, the closest buildings to the graveyard are the inn and the church,” Aurelia reckoned.

“Ugh, having Aster and his gaze would be incredibly helpful now,” I sighed.

“Sorry, he sadly doesn’t have a teaching license,” Shelly explained. “Also, I’m pretty sure a lot of people are actually unaware of his existence ...”

Wow, being a good spy must be extremely lonely ...

“We can rule out the inn though, I think,” Shelly threw in. “We probably would have heard – and smelled – anything unusual, I guess.”

“Corpses in the church also seem unlikely,” I said and took a look around the area in hopes to get some input.

The forest.

... That couldn’t be it, or could it?

“What about the forest?” I asked, because there wasn’t anything else I could possibly do.

“Seems unlikely,” Raynard said.

“Exactly.”

“Aren’t there, like, monsters in there?” Aurelia asked.

“Yeah, but hear me out, no-one actually goes into the forest because of that, right?” I reasoned. “So, it would be easy and not exactly dangerous to hide a body on the edge of the forest at night, and then come back during day time to hide it somewhere else, which ideally would be further into the forest.”

“Is there any place inside the forest, where you could ... do anything?”

“I could help you find out.” Misha suddenly approached us from behind.

“Misha,” Aurelia exclaimed. “Don’t you work at the inn or something?”

“Around this time, we don’t have many customers, so I get a bit of free-time,” she exclaimed accompanied by a faint smile. “Also, my mother told me she needed a bit of alone time ... anyway did I get that right, that you are planning on checking out the forest?”

“Well ...” me and the princess replied in unison.

“I’d like to accompany you,” Misha offered. “I want to find to out what happened to my sister.”

“But isn’t it dangerous inside the forest?” Raynard voiced his concerns.

“Don’t worry, most dangerous monsters are nocturnal, it should be way safer than during night-time. In fact, I am one of the few people tasked regularly to go to the forest to gather firewood. So, I know my way around.” She again had this overly carefree smile that was kind of unfitting for the whole situation.

“Also, there is actually one unusual location inside the forest, I can help you find.”

“What would that be?” Raynard inquired.

“... I’ll best explain when we’re there,” Misha replied after searching for words for a while.

Our group looked at Shelly for approval.

“Well, there’s no helping it, I guess.” She shrugged and left her relaxed pose, to turn to Misha directly. “Please lead us through the forest.”

“With pleasure,” Misha said again with that smile.