Isaac felt that even if he were in charge, he wouldn't be able to handle what he was looking at.
"Stay here and don't wander off," Isaac could only say to the maggot-like man.
The maggots didn't give a clear response. Isaac looked at Carlo, Carlo had already walked to the door and opened it.
Isaac had expected to find a room full of flying blood, flesh, and fragments of organs when he opened the door, and he was mentally prepared, but the scene inside the door was beyond his expectations.
It wasn't that bloody; there was only a tattered, limp body lying where Corotty had been standing, splattered with thick, sticky fluid.
Carlo stood in the doorway and glanced around. " Maggot Locomotion Technique, another work of the Ghoul Cult."
" The Maggot Locomotion Technique..." Isaac felt that tonight's gains had exceeded his capacity to process them.
"The summoning you're maintaining right now is, in a way," Carlo gestured with his chin toward the maggot-man, "Many of the Ghoul Cult's secret arts are related to corpses or things associated with corpses. For example, this time they're using maggots that feed on corpses. But corpses don't move on their own, and maggots don't swarm together into human form, so they need a Spirit Body being that can control them."
"Like the one I just summoned?"
"That's right, there are creatures that can control scavengers, called Foul Spirit, and the one you summoned is one of those," Carlo said. "Next question, guess why this Foul Spirit responded so quickly this time, as if it had always been nearby."
Isaac froze, a bad feeling creeping into his mind. "Could it be... that this Foul Spirit is the one that was controlling Corotty's corpse just now?"
"After all, you can't just encounter Foul Spirit casually." Carlo nodded. "The basic principle of the Maggot Locomotion Technique is to summon a Foul Spirit to attach itself to a 'processed' corpse, allowing the corpse to move like a living person and perform some simple commands."
"This Foul Spirit just finished its mission, and the corpse it was attached to exploded. It's currently in a state of having nowhere to go. You just happened to issue a summoning request at this time, and it responded because it met the requirements. Since we're just idling around anyway, we might as well take on some temporary work."
Isaac smirked, meaning he had hired a murderer who had just committed a crime to clean up the crime scene.
However, since this Foul Spirit was just controlling Corotty's corpse, it should know who its previous master was.
"Boss, since this Foul Spirit is the same one that controlled Corotty earlier, could we ask it who sent it?"
"Sure, but the actual effect is hard to say. These kinds of Foul Spirit are intellectually deficient, can only understand basic commands, and even their memory function is not very complete. But try asking them, there's no harm in asking them wrong."
Isaac turned to the maggot-man. "Who was the last one to summon you here?"
The maggot-man stood still for a while, and the maggots on its surface began to wriggle more frequently.
Then it knelt down, Isaac saw where the maggot-man's palm touched the ground. The maggots began to detach from the body and crawl on the floor, arranging themselves into a name written in Hiro Script.
Morzul.
Is this the person who summoned Foul Spirit to manipulate Corotty's corpse and assassinate Byrne?
Carlo glanced at it. " Morzul..."
"Boss, do you know this person?"
"This is not human. Morzul, the God of Decay, is described as the master of the natural cycle of life and death; the process of decay is His authority, carrion-eating creatures are His creations, and Foul Spirit are considered His messengers."
Isaac was taken aback. "God?"
Carlo shrugged. "However, after the Church of Morzul was defeated in the War of the Churches, it didn't even manage to become an independent Cult, and the rituals pointing to Him no longer work. He is considered a deity who has vanished."
" The Ghoul Cult absorbed a group of His remaining followers in its early days, but there are probably only a few left now. After all, a god whose rituals cannot even be fulfilled has little appeal as a symbol."
Isaac pondered for a moment, "Could this incident have been the work of a member of a Ghoul Cult that worships Morzul?"
"That's possible, but not certain. The name Morzul could reflect the caster's own beliefs, or it could be a deliberate misleading clue. For example, if the Foul Spirit is summoned in Morzul's name, it might believe that Morzul ordered it to do it."
Isaac understood, so with the intelligence of Foul Spirit, when asked "Who sent you?", it gave the answer it understood—the name of the god to whom it belonged.
The maggots on the ground crawled back onto the maggot-man, who stood up and awaited the next instruction.
Isaac thought to himself, "This thing can't stay with me forever, can it? Boss, how long will this summoning last?"
"You can keep it until you remove it yourself, or you can let it dissipate on its own. If you can't bear to part with it, you can take it home and keep it, but you'll have to find a place for it yourself."
Isaac promptly rejected the suggestion. Carlo said, "Then let's wait for the Joint Investigation Bureau to arrive and give them a headache about how to handle it. But don't let it run wild. If other members see it, it'll become another urban legend."
"However, it seems we've already been seen."
Isaac followed Carlo's gaze and saw half a head peeking out from around the corner of the corridor, staring straight at them. Seeing that the two had noticed him, the head quickly withdrew.
... Freddie, who was playing billiards earlier, probably followed out of curiosity, and it seems he stumbled upon something he shouldn't have seen.
Carlo raised his chin. "Stop him."
Isaac smirked, and seeing Freddie turn and run, he had no choice but to chase after him.
The distance between the two quickly closed. Freddie glanced back, lost his footing, tripped on the carpet, and swayed. Isaac seized the opportunity and slammed him to the ground.
Freddie struggled to roll over, his mouth open, clearly trying to call for help, but Isaac grabbed his chin and pushed him upwards, silencing Freddie's shout and turning it into a muffled thud.
Carlo strolled over leisurely and squatted down in front of Freddie: "Hmph, since he saw what he shouldn't have seen, he'll have to shut him up."
Freddie's eyes widened as he struggled, but Isaac's 11 points of strength were not so easy to break free from.
Isaac sighed and loosened his grip, "Boss, isn't that unnecessary? The waiter saw it too."
"Waiters can be bound by confidentiality agreements; they know what they should and shouldn't say," Carlo shrugged. "But this young master is different. When he's drinking and chatting, he doesn't keep his mouth shut; he spills everything. The next day, the whole of Vista knew roughly what happened at the Oak Club."
Freddie said with difficulty, "I won't tell anyone..."
"Heh, that's what everyone says when they stumble upon something they shouldn't see."