During the time I was busy making my notes and investigating the scene the Knights of the Black Order arrived. My initial thought on how to use their assistance seems to be the right one, as the system doesn't shove me into auto mode this time. After recounting what happened and telling those things to the captain, I order, trying to sound authoritative. “Captain, I will need your assistance in guarding the scene, patrolling the parameter and taking the needed samples from the scene,”

  The captain, a gruff older ma, who has been the captain since the time my grandfather was still around, nods with a slight bow and gets to work. He seems like a person who prioritises doing things over long discussions. Once the knights have taken over this part, the system guides me in getting ready to collect the eyewitness reports.

  I try to focus on the things ahead. I have my aunt helping me, and I will also need the help of the Students Council to coordinate all the students. Headmaster Solius would be good to coordinate the teachers, I guess. After musing about it for a bit longer, I turn my attention to Miss Kalea.

  This poor, cute squirrel is shivering like a leaf in the wind. “Miss Kalea, I need you to focus on me,” I tell her, drawing her attention to me away from the gruesome scene. I try to refocus her to pull her out of her thought stream. “Miss Kalea. I need your help,” I start, my voice firm but gentle as she focuses on me, “I will need the help of the student's council to coordinate the witness questionings. Could you bring me to the students council office ?”

  I am not good at being comforting. I don’t really know how. Not in my old world, not now. I am blunt and maybe cold and harsh as well. Even when I try to be kind and gentle, I never know if it's actually perceived as such. But I am just trying my best, with what I understand and not.

  Kalea nods, still a bit white in the face but much more energetic than moments before. “Follow alon,g Miss Black. But you will have to talk with President White yourself,” she demands, putting up a brave face. I can see that she would like to crumble and curl up in some corner, yet she focuses on the task ahead.

  ***

  President White's full name is Conrad Emerald White. He is the next Lord of the White Family, from what the system told me, I have worked with him in the past. We are not close, but we work efficiently with each other. “Long Time no see, Heir White,” I greet him as soon as I recognise him, the system stepping in again, I assume it is to keep me in character since I've just been dumped into this game.

  He turns around and seems a bit startled to see me. “Certainly. It’s been quite a while, Lady Black. I wasn’t sure if you would be the Black that would be entering our Pentastar High, but it’s a nice surprise. How may I be able to help you?” he asked me.

  My eyes wander over his figure; he seems calm and cold. His hair, reaching his shoulders, was put together in a sleek and strict manner, the platinum blond colour reminding me of white gold. His ice blue eyes are hidden behind his thin glasses, with a filigran glasses chain connected to them. Like the other students, he wears the school uniform of the Pentastar High School, the pentagram proudly displayed on his chest. His jacket is draped over his shoulders like a cape. I refocus on the conversation.

  “Sadly, I can’t stay long, and even that will be business-related. There was another murder. I will need your help as the Students Council President to coordinate the questioning of the witnesses as well as collecting the information all around the alibis,” I tell him, trying to keep my tone professional and businesslike.

  His stance changes slightly. It is not something normal people would notice, but when you work with criminals all the time, you start to look for the body language of someone. “Then we will be at your service, Lady Black. If you need my family’s help, you only need to ask,” he answers formally.

  “For now, we can handle it, but I will certainly come back to it. I have a feeling this case won’t be easy,” I retort before I explain in more detail what needs to be done and how the Students Council would be able to help. Again, I feel like this body is working on autopilot, forcing down anything related to the emotion burning and bubbling under the surface.

  ***

  It takes us around twenty minutes till we have planned out the order of the questioning. I give the lists out to my knights and collect the reports from the scene while I am on it.

  Today will be one of those never-ending days of work, it seems. I sigh internally on to it. If I don’t start now, the work will take even longer. It reminds me of how I was in my old world every time I had to clean up my room. Such an annoying task where you are only motivated for like five minutes in the beginning. Everything after feels like a chore from hell. This day will be similar. It's this repetitive thing where you have to do the same thing thousands of times in the hope of finding a needle in a haystack.

  Slowly, as the day went on, we processed the number of people questioned most of them had an alibi that didn’t mean anything. An alibi is only then waterproof if it doesn’t crumble as the case continues on. We will need to look for the flaws in the alibis when we go through the reports tomorrow at the case discussion.

  In the end, it took us till five in the evening to question every student and teacher and the other workers as well for such a big institution like Pentastar High, it is not a bad time. It was a combined effort of my aunt, my knights, Headmaster Solius and the student council, who coordinated everything. So, it's taking about three and a half hours for around 2000 people, not too bad in my books.

  I look over some of the reports while we drive towards the Forensic Medicine Institution, which is a building where the Knights of the Blue and the Black Family work in cooperation on either victim of cases, executed culprits or strange deaths. Of course, there are also burial institutions besides the FMI, but this is the one when it comes to deaths connected with criminal cases.

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  The FMI Building is an old hospital building. In my old world, I would say it is a German building from before WWII or from WWII built by the Nazis. Still, the architecture fits the purpose of the institution. An institution handling Death in all its forms and working with it. In this world, it’s a normal building style for functional buildings.

  ***

  I am still confused by the mixture of things we have. The dresses seem partially from the Middle Ages yet also modern, like when you grab a ball gown, but you make it less pushy and fluffed up. Corsets are a common thing and considered comfortable, yet there doesn't exist a single common bra, not even one. How?

  Then we have the society. MiddleAgess with kings and royals, a full-fledged authoritarian Monarchy. Still, the power resides not with the Queen, it's split into five, resting on the four Ducal Houses almost equally to her. The orders of the Queen are absolute. Currently, the 1st Prince Teodoric Silas Aurum-Corax is the heir, but that is rather uncommon and more so because the 1st Princess is only about a year old. A surprising thing I noticed here is that gay or lesbian couples are completely normal, yet there is still discrimination between nobles and commoners. They even have legal queer marriages. When I heard some of my classmates talk about their aunt marrying her Beloved, I thought for a moment I misheard.

  Then, some things make me believe I landed myself in some kind of steampunk universe. The cars run with Water, which, chemically, if I wrote it out fully, would be Dihydrogenmonooxid. The engines here take the Hydrogen in the Water and use the mechanical energy that is generated during the movement of the car to heat the water, through pressure is created, which moves the engine, which in turn moves the car. I am not someone who can grasp that concept fully, but I know if my old world had this, we wouldn’t have a climate crisis. There is no internet here. Yet they have communication devices which are similar to a mobile phone they call Talkers.

  They have a medical system where everyone is treated. People here just have to pay a certain percentage of taxes from their annual income, and it works even better than in my old world. Keeva told me some things, and from what I could gather, they found a cure for cancer a hundred years ago, and the pill has no grave side effects. No thrombosis risk, no risk of gaining weight, no fear of it influencing your behaviour, I had a hard time keeping up the fa?ade when she told me that, truly baffling.

  ***

  My thoughts drawback to the case falling down another hole in my mind. I just now realise the full weight of everything that just now happened. My body was moving on autopilot almost the entire time. The system guides my actions and words.

  My mind pulls up the pictures of the car crash. This morning, my head was so focused on this game system stuff that I forgot about everything else. For a moment, it even felt as if I was still hanging upside down in the car. Again, I feel the pain in my throat, the safety belt stretched across my neck like a cobra constantly tightening its grasp.

  No! Stop thinking about it. You aren’t there anymore. Hey, come on, Lukida, you can’t have a mental breakdown right now. You are not an unimportant little girl anymore who died in a car crash. You are the Head of the Ducal House of Black. You are a character in a game, not her anymore. Get your shit together you can be depressed later. Stop your mind from spiralling down that dark hole. You know how to do that since you have done it a thousand times before. Remember, you aren’t allowed to be overwhelmed. Remind yourself how it worked.

  I take a harsh breath after scolding myself. I try to put on the mask. A calm fa?ade hiding the storm on the inside, trying to break loose. As always. Fake it till you make it, Lukida. I can't tell if it worked, but even if not, I pretend that it did. As always, just like I did since the moment I woke up here, just like I have done for years in my old world. A little smile on the corner of the lips, a calm face, a gentle voice. All while the storm is raging underneath. Ignore all that is. Ignore all that could throw you out of balance. It hurts, yes, but I cannot break now, nor could I then.

  Keep moving forward, Lukida only this part is left; once you’re home, you can break down all you want. Now focus. It is just those autopsies. You only need to take a look at those four murder victims, do some lab work, and then go home. Okay, that makes it sound worse than before. Yet lab work has always had a calming effect on me, in my old world, I mean.

  As we arrive, I start to feel a sense of unease. It is the first time after my consciousness arrived in this world that I will be around so much death. I may have some of the memories from this body's life before I arrive and my world knowledge. That helps, but my emotions aren’t under control right now, not like they were this morning.

  In my old world, after such a trigger or flashback, it would take me at least a few hours to get the littlest bit of control back, and here I am, unsure if I'll do better or worse. I don’t want to fail my duty. I don't want to fail at all.

  No, I can’t fail. If I do, the chance that was given to me will be wasted. I could never accept that, and I spoke about having more fun with this option. Yeah, as if. Working with and through the trauma, I must have been fully insane to choose this way. On the other hand, I now have the opportunity to do so many things I couldn’t do in my old world, like going to a real-life ball. After another deep breath, I step into the building.

  ***

  A knight leads us towards the autopsy rooms in the lower parts of the buildings. The Medic responsible for this case is already waiting for us. I put on a pair of gloves, and then we started the autopsy for the first victim.

  “The permission for the autopsy was granted by the family?” I ask the Medic before we begin. It is the protocol to ask not all autopsies need permission, only those who aren’t proven to be connected to a crime.

  Yes, she is the first victim of our case, but right now, she is categorised as a suicide victim found in school. So, even if we suspect a crime connected to it, we still have to ask for permission in such cases. Which considering the ethics is legitimate.

  The next step is to collect every bit of data that we can get. Dirt underneath the nails, for example. After this is done, the body is examined for wounds, bruises, etc. Everything we find is noted down in detail. And I mean, in detail, the sizes are noted down to the millimetre, as are the positions of scars and all else.

  An important part of the outer examination, as it is called, is the search for traces of abuse, neglect or assault, including sexual assault. We go on with doing some X-rays in her case from the neck and some other parts as well.

  Now, we are taking some blood samples from the victim for later testing. After this is done, we do a Y-Section to open the body. It is my first time doing it, and not only the memory of doing it a couple of hundred times.

  I have to say it’s a very different experience. Still, I can’t show it. Not right now, at least. While inspecting each organ, we notice nothing out of order for someone who died by strangulation. So, we go on and inspect the extremities. We find that the fingers are slightly bruised, but we only note it down for now. The last two steps are to inspect the eyes and the head. Booth parts seem normal for the course of death. Now, we start to put together the information we collected from the autopsy.