The victim had not been found on the road, but in a pile of straw near the poultry shed.
"This is where we found Fraser."
The hunter pointed at the straw pile.
"We suspect he'd had too much to drink and came out to relieve himself."
"Hmm..."
Li Wei studied the ground beside the straw pile. Clearly, the villagers had no concept of preserving a crime scene. The footprints were a complete mess, and there was no telling how many people had trampled through.
"Do people often come here to relieve themselves when they're drunk?"
"Most of the time."
The hunter shrugged.
"That's village life for you. We're all used to it."
He wasn't wrong about that.
Li Wei stared at the straw pile. With the help of [Trace Inspection] and the wounds on the corpse's back, he could practically picture what had happened here.
Late at night, a drunk had staggered out of the tavern and stumbled over here, perhaps humming to himself, intending to relieve himself. Then a dark shape had lunged out from behind him like a wild beast and struck him with a claw. Its sharp claws had pierced the drunk's body as easily as slicing through butter, tearing through skin, bone, and organs.
The drunk had collapsed without a sound, and the dark shape had vanished. It had all happened almost instantly. The creature hadn't even touched the ground.
Li Wei looked up and soon spotted a huge footprint on the poultry shed's roof. The creature had leaped past, casually swiping at the drunk before landing on the shed. Then it had raced onward, cleared the wooden wall over two meters high, and disappeared into the forest.
Its approach had been much the same. Li Wei spotted its footprints on a rooftop on the other