Before tragedy struck, Anne had lived in a relatively comfortable home. Her parents were grain merchants who made their living buying harvested crops directly from rural villages to resell in the city. By supplying affordable food, they earned a decent livelihood and gained the heartfelt gratitude of many struggling neighbors.
Their quiet routine continued peacefully until the recent disaster spilled over the region. As displaced villagers flooded into the city, her parents could no longer travel out to purchase grain.
Despite the halt in business, the savings they had built up over the years were substantial enough to see the family through hard times, even as local prices began to skyrocket. Better yet, they still had a sizable supply of grain stored away.
Then came that fateful day. After much agonizing, her parents made the choice to leave the city one last time for a final trade run.
Anne could say with certainty that something was off about that transaction. She had seen the troubled looks on her parents' faces before they departed.
"I don't know why, but nobody had come looking for them for days," Anne recounted, her eyes red as she spoke to Jeanne. "Then, out of nowhere, they just packed up and left the city for the wilderness. And after that... nothing. All we received was news of their deaths. They didn't even bring their bodies back."
Tears trickled down the young Feline girl's face as she laid bare the mysterious past. The affair was shrouded in countless unanswered questions. The only reason she hadn't investigated was her utter lack of power; she had no choice but to bury the grief deep inside.
"Did your parents take out a massive insurance policy right before they left?" Jeanne asked, recalling a detail the girl had mentioned earlier. Her interest was piqued.
While it could have been mere prudence or coincidental caution in dangerous times—after all, securing insurance before venturing out into the wild wasn't uncommon—looking back, it felt almost staged. Had her parents foreseen their own demise?
Jeanne couldn't be certain. The tragedy had occurred weeks ago, leaving little behind in the way of physical evidence.
"Yes, because the roads weren't safe back then," Anne nodded, resting her swollen eyes on the floor.
"Sea beasts hadn't started popping up on every street corner like they do now, but the wilderness was still dangerous enough that most merchants took out policies. Plenty of people did it, but most of them just threw money away. Why did it only pay off for my family..."
Hearing this, Jeanne understood why the insurance firm had paid out the sum to the orphaned sisters without attempting to wriggle out of the claim using technicalities.
The firm had likely made a fortune off panic-bought policies. Refusing a single claim wasn't worth risking the entire company's reputation.
Jeanne rubbed her temples as she processed the complex web of information. The connections were tangled, making it nearly impossible to pinpoint a single suspect.
In a city falling apart at the seams, almost anyone could have had a hand in the tragedy.
"What do you think?" Jeanne turned to Skadi, who had remained silent. As an Abyssal Hunter who had spent years fighting sea creatures, perhaps she noticed something others might miss.
Sure enough, after a moment of heavy contemplation, Skadi looked up at the Feline girl, her red eyes narrowing as a thought took shape.
"Can you take us to see that grain?"
Her mind immediately went to the parents' line of work. If anything had triggered their murder, it was extremely likely that they had stumbled upon something dangerous while making their rounds.
Jeanne's eyes widened slightly as she caught Skadi's drift. The possibility was remarkably high.
"What... what could be down there?" Anne asked, bewildered by their sudden request. Still, realizing it might hold vital answers, she scrambled to her feet. "Follow me! I'll take you right now!"
The storage area wasn't a standard warehouse, but a hidden underground cellar built beneath the back of the house, accessible via a manual freight lift.
Inside lay stacks of remaining supplies. Though called grain, a large portion consisted of dried marine products. Iberian soil was notoriously poor for farming, making preserved seafood a staple substitute in inland markets.
Stepping into the dim cellar, Jeanne and Skadi meticulously surveyed the surroundings. To Jeanne, the space appeared completely mundane—just ordinary sacks of dried rations.
What could possibly be hidden here? Jeanne scanned the small, cramped space, wondering what kind of secret might be lurking under their noses.
As she stepped forward, her boot accidentally struck a canvas sack lying near the wall. The bag tipped over, spilling its contents across the stone floor.
Out tumbled dried, blackish scraps that looked like preserved sea life—commonly known as dried fish.
"Where did you get these?" Skadi's eyes locked onto the dried scraps, a dark, solemn look settling over her face as she turned to the child.
"Father bought them for a friend," Anne explained hastily. "An uncle named Tom who lived out in the countryside. He used to ask Father to bring him dried fish from his hometown whenever Father went on grain runs. In return, Uncle Tom helped Father source higher quality grain..."
"All of these... are the same?" Jeanne gestured to the open bag, then at the several heavy sacks lined up against the stone wall, starting to question who the father really was.
"Yes, all of them," the girl answered, confused. "Uncle Tom always said they tasted amazing!"
It was clear her parents had kept the true nature of the supply hidden from their children.
"No, not all of them," Skadi corrected after stepping down to inspect a handful of the dried meat. "Only a small portion of this is dried sea beast flesh. If I couldn't mentally piece this specimen back together into a complete beast, I would have assumed someone just scavenged a dead carcass and chopped it up alongside regular fish."
"Have you ever eaten these?" Jeanne asked, her eyes sharp. If this "Tom" was a cultist, wouldn't his first move be turning the merchant's family into fellow host vessels?
"Never! Nobody in our family has ever touched those!" Anne shook her head frantically, realizing the dried meat was tied to her parents' deaths.
Noticing their lingering doubts, she blurted out an explanation: "My father was severely allergic to fish, shrimp, and crab! My sister and I inherited the same allergy! We never touch any seafood except for a bit of dried kelp. Since three of us couldn't eat it, Mother stopped cooking seafood altogether!"
The explanation was airtight. Who could have guessed a Feline family would be completely allergic to seafood? Even if Tom had intended to infect them, he couldn't have predicted such a biological quirk.
That explained why so many bags of dried meat were piled up in the cellar. Tom was almost certainly a member of The Deep Sea Church. Back when the cult operated in the shadows, he had used the merchant as an unwitting courier to smuggle sea beast flesh into the city.
Yet this alone wouldn't explain why the parents were murdered. If Tom only wanted a courier, killing them risked exposing his network—especially when the operation had run smoothly for so long.
Jeanne stared at the surrounding sacks. If the dried fish wasn't the catalyst for their murder, then the secret had to be hidden inside the actual grain!
Jeanne and Skadi exchanged a quick, knowing look, coming to the exact same conclusion at the exact same moment.
"Anne," Jeanne asked, pointing to the stacked sacks. "Is the grain your father brought back from his previous runs still here?"
"Yes! Yes, it's all here!" Anne replied eagerly. "The grain from the final trip was burned in the fire when they died, but Father kept the shipments from the two trips before that! He was waiting for prices to rise higher before selling."
She lowered her head, feeling a bit ashamed of her father's speculation during a crisis.
Neither Jeanne nor Skadi cared about market speculation right now. Moving with swift precision, they dragged the heavy canvas sacks into the center of the cellar and ripped them open one by one.
Streams of dried grain poured out onto the floor—and mixed within the crops were strange, organic objects.
Five or six hidden in one bag, nearly a hundred in total across the entire batch: soft, fleshy spheres covered in pliable spines, resembling squishy sea urchins.
The moment Skadi set eyes on the fleshy objects, her gaze turned icy cold. Jeanne could tell that if Skadi had her massive sword in hand, she would have drawn it instantly to strike down an enemy.
What on earth were these squishy things?