The Villain's RE:Life

Chapter 400: Changes to A Well-Known Case (2)

Nodding at the Detective, we both took off jogging in the direction Xilia had left in, and soon enough, after making our way through some dense foliage, we found an outcropping filled with rocks and, more importantly, large boulders.

One of which had graffiti spray painted on it.

"Holy shit…is that…a smiley face?"

Fighting the urge to groan aloud, I rolled my eyes, took a deep breath, and walked up to the boulder.

’A symbol…listen Xilia, it’s not that I want to discount or call you out here, but I think I would have noticed long ago if the Smiley face marking each dumpsite was something other than a simple smiley face…, …., …., …., mother fucker.’

’HA! IT IS A SYMBOL, ISN’T IT! Point for me,’ Feeling proud of herself for pointing out something I should have seen decades ago, Xilia smugly crouched beside me and looked for anything in my body language that would allow her to gloat further.

But when she saw the typical blank expression on my face, she soon gave up and instead decided to try being helpful.

"Yes, just like every other dumpsite on record, this Smiley face graffiti is always nearby, marking the site for god knows what reason. It could be anything. Have your crime-scene techs come over and photograph everything for evidence." Xilia said while standing up and motioning for the Detective to follow, leaving me alone and lost in thought.

’I’ve seen this before…..but where? I need to filter out anything dealing with the murders, or smiley faces in general, and focus on symbols, preferably old ones.’

’What are you....’ Spinning my mental wheels, I did something I hadn’t done for some years now; I overclocked my brain.

Picturing myself flipping through thousands of books at once, I scanned through every single symbol I had ever seen in my lifetime, both past and Origin Timeline, and apart from a few incidents that resembled the Smiley face graffiti, I was coming up empty.

Feeling my body temperature rising and the familiar pain associated with taxing my brain too much, I pushed on until a hand pressing down on my shoulder pulled me out of my