25 days after the explosion - city


    Prince was pretty delighted since he got away without problems


    He went with Aria to the police station so she could testify (and he made sure she didn''t say anything about their group)


    After putting the recollection of every witness and the police work, it made a pretty interesting story


    First came Aria''s testimony and her dog nose


    And then it came the testimony of the guard Roger that found the blade


    It turned out that while prince and chief were asking questions, Roger decided to try mimicking Aria''s idea and tried to increase his senses


    Luckily he found a small scent of blood and after following its trail, he found the blade


    And that''s where the police finished the details


    After digging around their wagons and asking around other people in the caravan, It turned out that both of them were drug dealers and competitors


    Almost everyone on the caravan knew they didn''t get along, and some of them found it strange since the dead merchant lended money and sold antiques(where it turn out  he hid the drugs) and the culprit sold soap(where he also hid the drugs)


    Now that it was revealed that both were drug dealers, it made a lot of sense and even give a perfect explanation of why he killed him


    As for why he hid the knife on his own tent, it was because he didn''t have the time to find a better hiding place thanks to Aria quick finding of the body


    Of course the soap merchant denied his involvement on the drug dealing and the murder, saying it was a set up and what not, but no one believe him, especially after the confession of some of the civilians and guards that they brought some of the stuff from both of them


    And they didn''t get in trouble since consumption was legal, only selling was illegal


    So after leaving both the wagons from the dead merchant and the culprit(including the culprit of course) to the guards as "evidence"(bribe), the chief didn''t get blamed for the incident, and the caravan could continue on its way


    <strong>27 days after the explosion - Caravan</strong>


    After the murder, the caravan lost half it''s people


    The civilians that were taking a ride to the last city, plus some more, stayed there and thanks to the rumors, no new people joined


    And since there were fewer people to protect, some of the guards left since they felt uncomfortable there and it wasn''t necessary to stay till they reach their destination


    So even after a couple of days passed, there was still gloom on the air and everyone was quiet


    In a way, this was better for the prince since this kind of situation allowed to draw the attention away from them and save them of answering questions


    Still, even if it was better for them, it was still depressing


    As for the dead guy, the prince didn''t really care who did it, as long as he wasn''t involved in it


    Even though he wasn''t completely sure it was the soap merchant who did it, the way he saw it, there were 2 less scumbags in the world


    So as long as there wasn''t another murder, he didn''t care if the real culprit got away


    And, in a way, he got what he wished for, and in another way he didn''t, since that morning, 2 days later after the murder, they found Roger crying while holding a dead girl on his arms


    27 days after the explosion - woods near the road


    The caravan decided to stop and bury her on the side of the road while performing a small memorial service


    Unlike the murder of the merchant, there was no doubt that there was none to blame since the girl died of overdose of drugs


    She was one of the caravans "companions" and was a known druggie


    Some saw her a little more stoned than usual this last few days, but with everything that happened, no one paid too much attention or even cared


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    As for how they found her, it was Gorge who, after his night watch, went to her tent and found her dead


    No one thought that he did it since people saw her alive before he started his watch, and when he started screaming and crying the moment he went to the tent, the body was dead cold


    As for why he cared so much, simply it was because they were lovers, kinda


    It was known that the 2 were together, as the couple usually worked in caravans


    While Roger worked at night, the girl also "worked at night"


    And if the client got too rough with her, he would get too rough with the client


    So when he found her dead, he wouldn''t stop crying and when he finally calmed down, he asked if they could bury her on the road since she didn''t have a family


    It turned out they were childhood friends from the same orphanage, and when they ran away when they were young, he became an adventure and she became a hooker


    Of course he didn''t like it, but she got hooked on drugs and would go back to the night every time he went on a mission, so he ended up taking guard duties with her as the "caravan companion" to at least be able to watch over her


    A common story with a common ending, but still sad anyway


    33 days after the explosion - City


    After a long travel, the caravan finally reaches their final destination, and after getting paid, prince group left the caravan without any problems


    They even got a bonus for sticking to the end even with the two deaths


    So after eating one last time with some people from the caravan and saying goodbye, they went to the guild to confirm the success on the mission and got ready to head to the capital


    As for the people on the caravan, the prince never saw them again but each kept doing their own stuff


    Steve kept doing his guard duty on different caravans over the years


    The chief was never found as the true owner of the drugs but still lost quite a bit of money and his reputation thanks to all this. Still, this didn''t stop since he knew it was a risky business


    As for Roger, he did a subjugation request the following week since he had to eat and didn''t fell like working in another caravan, but since he wasn''t at 100%, he screw up and lost a leg


    Luckily, he didn''t die and after some troubles, he worked as an instructor, married and have some kids


    Prince never knew all this, or tried to find the actual culprit (it wasn''t worth the trouble) but he had his theory since the guy was found without pants


    For now, he had other stuff to deal with instead of trying to become an ace detective


    Right now, they were at 500km from the capital, the people that were probably searching for him already lost his trail, and he had some stuff to settle over there


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


    Note


    For those interested, I changed the prolog</a> a little and submit the mystery to the contest</a>


    I hope you guys enjoyed this little mystery, in case you are wondering, the culprit was <del>the dead hooker</del>


    <del>Roger found her all bloody after trying to increase his senses and decided to hide the knife on the other drug dealer tent</del>


    <del>She died because couldn''t handle the pressure of killing someone, so she used the drugs she stole from the dead merchant until she overdose</del>


    <del> As for why she killed him, it was a mixture of rage, drugs, disgust and greed since he was forcing her to have sex with him in exchange from drugs, and when she refused, he told her she still own him money and it was about time she "paid" what it was own, and even when they finish, he told her it only serve to "pay the interest" making her completely flip</del>