Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?-Chapter 1557: Infighting Flockers: A Crime Scene

*Bing-Bong*

We interrupt this chapter to inform the readers that the original plan of having chapters dedicated to traveling and world-building has been deemed by the powers that be to be a little boring. As such, we'll now be pivoting the point of view to Zhen Yue and her lover.

Apparently the idea of political intrigue and possible assassinations was considered more marketable by the REDACTED.

|THIS IS OPPRESSION OF THE HIGHEST CALIBER!|

The writer would like to make it known that he was actually looking forward to these more relaxed chapters due to a sudden desire to try his hand at descriptive landscapes...despite the fact that I swear he recycles the same environments over and over again.

|Fuck you!|

Anyways, we'll be returning to the chapter shortly at...let me see here...ah!

We'll be returning to the actual chapter by opening on Zhen Yue and her darling stumbling upon the corpse of the guy who had sent them that cursed statue.

Thank you for taking time to read this announcement.

...

Was the screaming necessary?

| I'm emotional; shut up. |

*Bing-Bong*

________________________________________

"Oh…it appears someone had decided to take care of Baron Felipe for us," Santiago noted. "This could be a problem moving forward."

"Well…to steal an expression from my cousin and his kaijin, fuck me sideways," Zhen Yue cursed.

The First Young Lady of the Zhen Clan of Stampeding Bison had often thought that the steps leading to a life of marital bliss were going to be the most boring part of her life.

She was well aware that her family had a noticeable history of finding partners that they were more than willing to devote their lives to, body and soul, but she was also aware that aside from a few notable exceptions, most of her aunts opted to retire from the cultivation life in order to focus on their children.

Zhen Yue understood that this fate wasn't set in stone, but she still at least wanted to go out and cause a ruckus now and again.

But then she met Santiago, and her tune changed rather quickly.

Santiago, Bellona's brother, was kind, sweet, handsome, and surprisingly deft with those cloven fingers of his whenever he gave massages. In other words, it was a match made in heaven, and Zhen Yue was going to sink her fangs into his lamb-like butt, consequences be damned.

However, this engagement came with some issues that not even the world's greatest diviners could've predicted.

For starters, the Bronze Bell Kingdom was currently undergoing its first-ever succession war due to multiple viable candidates for the throne manifesting in the same generation.

Zhen Yue was given the rundown by her beloved on how the Bronze Bell Kingdom normally just passes down the crown to a member of the royal family who has the innate ability to read minds, and this had been working fine for several hundred years.

The fact that this was the first time multiple people who developed the quality at the exact same time was…a bit alarming to the kingdom as a whole.

Especially when those aforementioned candidates started drawing battle lines, recruiting warriors from outside sources, and generally coming up with ways to hinder one another and each other's allies. Evidently, that last little tidbit is what led to Zhen Yue's current situation: she and her beau standing over the corpse of a high-ranking member of Bronze Bell nobility.

Earlier that month, Zhen Yue and Santiago were sent a lovely, albeit cursed, statue from one of the latter's relatives.

And that "cursed" descriptor wasn't a euphemism; the aforementioned statute had a literal curse embedded into it that would've caused a horrible disease to befall Santiago and his loved ones. At least, that would've been the case had Zhen Yue not intervene and destroyed the damned thing outright with the power of [Chaos]

After this incident, the couple had tracked down the sender of the gift and tried to determine why they would send such a wretched thing in their direction.

Santiago wasn't in the running for the throne, nor was his sister Bellona, so what was the point of trying to curse them?

In the process of investigating this weird cursed treasure, the two soon discovered that the person who sent it to them, a cousin of Santiago, wasn't the true sender of the gift. The true sender was actually a nobleman who was a firm supporter of one of the main contenders for the throne, Prince Alder Ecaredies.

Out of all the contenders for the throne, Alder was widely considered to be the least competitive threat; however, that was only during the initial years of the conflict.

Over time, Prince Alder had proven himself quite capable of making friends with the noblemen who lived on the frontier portions of the kingdom and with outside warriors far better than his peers. In fact, in his most recent foray into outside diplomacy, he had befriended a prince from a kingdom located on the Radiant Feather continent and had begun the groundwork for an alliance.

Apparently, this prince from another continent had deep connections that could assist Alder; Alder just didn't know what form this assistance would take.

Regardless, once Zhen Yue and Santiago had established that an ally of Alder's was the source of this possible disaster over their heads, the two of them decided to pay the nobleman a visit…where they found the fucker dead in a chair with an axe embedded into his skull.

For their reaction to this grizzly scene, please refer to the beginning of this chapter.

As aether warriors, neither Zhen Yue nor Santiago was disturbed or sickened by the sight of the dead man sitting there with his eyes wide open in horror and fear. However, they were rightly confused.

Baron Felipe was a man that didn't look deadly or brave, but the man had managed to reach the Aether Lord stage at a surprisingly young age with a formula that was known to be rather powerful when it came to performing counterattacks. As such, seeing such a famed warrior dead in such a mundane manner was curious to the young couple.

So much so that Santiago had almost fucked up the crime scene when he made a move to remove the axe from the baron's caved-in skull. Thankfully, Zhen Yue managed to stop him before he could do so.

"What are you doing?" Zhen Yue asked her beloved fiancee.

"I was going to remove the axe so that we can get a better look…" Santiago trailed off, slowly realizing that removing the axe was probably a bad idea in Zhen Yue's eyes. "Is that…a bad idea?"

"One of two possibilities," Zhen Yue answered while holding up two fingers. "The first possibility is that that axe is booby-trapped. Either removing the axe will cause a chain reaction that leads to dire consequences, or the handle itself is cursed. I'm not sure which it could be; traps were never my strong suit."

"Hunting trick?"

"Hunting trick."

"Ah…okay," Santiago slowly nodded in understanding. "Then what's the second possibility?"

"You notice how we're the only ones here in this building? Seems suspicious, no?"

"Oh…"

Baron Felipe was… a bit odd in comparison to other nobles in the kingdom.

Despite his status and wealth, the Baron had a habit of living a surprisingly modest lifestyle.

The baron's estate consisted of a huge tract of open fields and a single wooden cabin that the baron built with his own two hands. There wasn't even a single servant or maid acting as his retinue; instead, the man did all of the cooking, cleaning, and other meticulous bits of housework by himself.

He wasn't exactly a hermit, since Baron Felipe would regularly visit the territories he managed and attend the royal functions when needed. But for all intents and purposes, the man didn't have anyone else in his life.

Which was the exact reason why Zhen Yue stopped Santiago from removing the axe from the deceased baron's head.

The moment they removed that axe, there was a very high possibility that the death of Baron Felipe would be placed squarely on their shoulders via nothing more than circumstantial evidence such as the fact that the murder weapon had been in their hands for a brief moment. Granted, there were methods to determine the validity of a murder, but not everyone had access to them.

Hell, in some cases, these methods could be used to manufacture evidence.

And who would benefit from that sort of thing playing out?

"So…I am basing my guess as to why this is happening on some books I picked up from the library, so try not to hold these ideas up to too much scrutiny," Zhen Yue informed Santiago.

"Okay."

"Whomever murdered Baron Felipe had ample opportunity to leave with his corpse; instead, they left it here unattended," Zhen Yue began to explain. "Meaning that they were in a hurry, they were trying to frame someone, or they were trying to trap us…or some other poor schmuck, I'm not entirely sure to be honest. Either way, we're being pulled into a deeper intrigue."

"Great..."