An otherwordly murder.

I failed.
I came all the way here searching for him only to find out he was murdered.
And it wasn't even a monster that killed him.
Somebody decided to end his life.
Why?
Why is this world so horrible to us?
Are we going to keep suffering as long as we keep living here?
The world itself doesn't seem to be welcoming us.
It wants us gone.

Who was the old bald guy and why did he kill Marcus?

I needed answers.

I felt as if my energy had been fully drained.
But I had to find out what happened.

Leonel: Let me guess... you couldn't catch the bald guy. I said with a very weak voice.

Guard: Well... that's correct. When we tried to get close to him, he threw a metallic cylinder at the ground. Smoke came out of the cylinder and filled the area, reducing visibility . Then the guy vanished without leaving a trace.

A metallic cylinder that releases smoke... sounds like a smoke grenade.
And the guard mentioned he was wearing "pieces of dark glass" on his eyes. I guess sunglasses do not exist in this world.
There is no doubt about it. This bastard came from our world. And he was dangerous. Probably a criminal.
But why would he kill Marcus? And why is there another person from our world here?

Leonel: Did you notice any other unusual things about this old bald bastard?

I needed more info if I was going to hunt down this bastard.

Guard: He was old, probably in his 60s. He was wearing a dark cloak, so we couldn't even see if he had any weapons. But he used a powerful magic to create a fire pillar that reached the sky. I've never seen anything that powerful. In fact, I've never even heard of anything like that , even in the wildest stories told by travellers.

If he comes from our world, the fire pillar must be his magic skill. If he got his magic in the same way we did, then it most likely has a cooldown and some kind of additional penalty for using it. This would explain why he resorted to a smoke grenade to leave the scene. He probably couldn't fight anymore.

Leonel: Were there any other things you might have noticed? 

Guard: Well, we saw it from far away, but it seems that after he reduced the boy's body to ashes, he picked up a shining red crystal from the ground. It must have been around the same size as his hand. That crystal must have been his target. In fact, the boy dropped a compass on the ground, and the killer didn't seem to be interested in it.

Leonel: Do you still have that compass?

Guard: Yes, here it is.

I received the compass from the guard. It seemed to have a bunch of weird symbols instead of the usual cardinal directions you would expect to see on a compass.
It also had a dial on its side. 
Moving the dial also moved a tiny blue needle on the compass , while a big red needle was always pointing... somewhere. I don't think it was pointing north.

Leonel: Do you happen to know what kind of compass this is and how it works?

Guard: It's a prospecting compass. Alchemists and miners use them to find natural deposits of certain minerals.

Leonel: The dial that controls the blue needle seems to be set to a specific symbol. What can you tell me about it?

Guard: That happens to be the only symbol I don't recognize, sorry. All the other symbols are for well-known minerals such as copper, silver, gold, iron, flamium, azurium, and mithril.

I wonder if Marcus was searching for the mineral represented by the unknown symbol on this compass.
It resembles a stylized potion bottle, with a long thin bottleneck and a bulky lower part.
This mysterious mineral could be an ingredient in certain potions.
It could be the red shining crystal that the bald guy grabbed after murdering Marcus.

The compass was at least allowing me to speculate on some stuff, but I wasn't going to get any more actual info out of it today.

Leonel: You said the guy vanished after smoke covered the area. Did he have a land dragon or any other means of transport?

Guard: No. He probably left the place running away in the smoke. Sorry...

I had no idea where he went.

All I knew was that he probably came from our world.
He was dangerous.

It's safe to assume he had re-created certain weapons from our world.
He killed Marcus to steal a large red shining crystal from him.
And he used an extremely powerful fire magic.

If we were targeted by his fire spell, we would be reduced to ashes in a matter of seconds. 

I needed to be very careful. Even Astra and Faylinn wouldn't stand a chance against a fire spell of that magnitude.

My only clue to finding him was his fire spell.
It created a fire pillar that reached the sky. It seemed a little excessive considering he was fighting a weak human with very little mana.
It's very likely that he cannot control the power output of the fire spell. It must be one of the penalties associated with using it. But I wonder where he got the mana needed for such a large-scale magic spell.

In any case, if he used it again near a town or city, people would inevitably see it. And rumors would spread. That would be the easiest way to find him.

But my classmates didn't know anything about this fire pillar.
Or about the guy behind it.
I told them I would find Marcus.
And now I had to tell them that he was murdered by some random old bastard from our world.
This world was slowly draining all my willpower...