H-09 gently opened the door to the Manors second floor master office, it slowly slid open to reveal a massacre. It was impressive how so little human could cover so much space. Every corner of the room was covered in pieces of tissue, blood or skin. She began to understand Inspector Torres's hesitation to enter the room, she on the other hand was unfazed. Stepping through the door she felt something under her boot, looking down she stepped on what she identified to be the palmaris longus from a right arm.

  Ignoring it, H-09 continued into the room, beginning to create a 3D scan to store in memory. As she carefully moved around the dark room, identifying the individual pieces of person scattered about. Based on the size and shape she was able to determine they all belonged to the same individual. Impaled through the hands by two black adamantine bars, was a crucified, skinned, and partially dissected corpse with the face and throat remaining mostly intact. The bars were exactly a meter in length, the exposed ends were chamfered to a dull point, and two glowing orange rings adorned each of their ends. They were clearly manifested by H-01, why he left them behind made little sense. They were obviously left for someone to find, but for who remained uncertain.

  She touched one of them, and they both flew out of the wall, disintegrating before they collided with the window across from her. Unsupported, the corpse fell to the ground with a loud squelch. She was distracted for a second as she could hear inspector Torres vomiting in the hallway, having watched her touch the bars and causing the corpse to fall must've put him over the edge. She couldn't help but giggle at his reaction. Though it was a deviant action, she found him quite adorable in a strange, human sort of way; his revulsion and disgust was deeply amusing to her.

  "I'm, ugh, fine," he groaned, immediately throwing up again.

  H-09 did not respond.

  The room was certainly trapped, H-01 was hoping whoever touched one of the bars would be standing in front of them. Their ejection would've killed a human or beastman instantly. She was curious what else he had left behind for her to find.

  "Does it," Torres gagged again, "smell off to you in here."

  H-09 could not smell, and she assumed he was talking about the volatile compounds from the dry blood and decaying muscle that had been defusing into the air. Nervously, he began to enter the room, carefully attempting to not step into any pieces of viscera.

  "Is this really all from the baron's body?" he asked H-09 in awe.

  "There are approximately seventy two point five kilometers of nerves in the human body, five point seven liters of blood, and two square meters of skin on a body. When fully disassembled a person could easily cover this room," she answered casually.

  "I'm beginning to feel a bit nauseous," he said to her.

  "You have thrown up twice now, it is ill advised that you stay in here."

  "No, I need to document the room, Baron Konz bankrolled a large portion of the invasion efforts into ?ten. He is, well, was too influential to sloppily investigate," he protested, scratching his eyes, "It's too dark in here, I'm going to light a lamp."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Inspector Torres struck the lighter for the gas lamp on the wall, in an instant the sparks grew into flames and a flash fire began to consume the whole room. Sprinting across the room at an inhuman speed, H9 grabbed him. She did not account for the possibility of him being influenced by the elevated levels of natural gas in the room as she herself was unaffected; having a human companion had quickly proven itself to be quite troublesome. They clearly lacked any form of advanced self preservation, and were rather fragile. She found it quite impressive the species as a whole has survived as long as it has.

  H-01 must've severed the lines throughout the building in an attempt to destroy any evidence he had left behind, and kill anyone investigating the murder. Before the flash could hit Torres, she jumped through the window with him, she could feel the whiplash knocking the wind out of him, but she feared what would've happened to him had she left him behind. Though it was a deviant action, she did not want to leave him to die. Plus, she was still well within the threshold for deviant behavior.

  They landed in the grass below, with her landing on top of him. She had feared she had crushed him under her weight but it appeared not as she could hear him trying to catch his breath beneath her. There was a loud explosion as the rest of the second floor quickly caught fire, the gas within the walls igniting and rapidly expanding. H-09 stayed on top of Torres shielding him from the debris raining down onto them. Once the area fell silent, she rolled off of him standing to her feet, he was still gasping for air. She performed a medical scan on him and found he was fine, and was just recovering from the impact into the grass.

  Behind them the entire second floor and roof had been completely removed from the manor. What little remained of the once beautiful manor was reduced to a charred and burning ruin. She would be unable to gather any more evidence from this point on, it was probably best to begin attempting to figure out why H-01 had come to ?ten, clearly he had greater motives than just destroying a manor.

  Eventually inspector Torres rose to his feet and looked around, feeling himself to see if he was still alive.

  "Has anyone ever told you, you are really heavy," he said to H-09.

  "I weigh twenty-three hundred kilograms, I am using magic to reduce my height and suppress my mass to a more manageable one-hundred and fifty kilos and two meters in height," she replied, looking beyond the wrought iron fencing.

  She could see people had gathered to see what had happened, unable to pass through. They watched from afar, what faces she saw looked on with horror and concern. What seemed to be a primitive fire department was attempting to break down the iron gate to some success.

  "We should probably get out of here before they get in," he said looking at the growing crowd.

  "Why so?"

  "Only the baron's family knows I am here, if word was to get out a royal investigator is in the city it would cause chaos."

  "Understood, I will leave you to flee under your own means," she replied.

  Inspector Torres turned his gaze to H-09 to see that she was no longer by his side. Looking up, she was floating about ten meters off the ground.

  "Where are you going," he yelled at her, her levitating was the least of his concerns at the moment.

  "Away," she slowly began to float away, looking back at him as if expecting him to say something more.

  "Meet me at the café on fountain street tomorrow, you cannot miss it. We need to discuss this further, you know too much," he yelled.

  She nodded in acknowledgement, still staring at him, floating away slightly faster.

  "What is your name," he yelled back at her realizing he didn't know who she was.

  There it is, she thought to herself.

  "H o9."

  "I will see you then Hermione," he replied, running off behind the manor to hide as the gates were finally broken down.

  I will need to correct him, he got my name wrong, she thought as she flew away, though maybe I'll allow it, just this once.