System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 314: A Choice Between Scars and Memories
Early morning. Golden sunlight spilled through the cracks in the window, illuminating a cheek covered in dark-red scars.
Kaen, lying comfortably in bed, opened his eyes. His scarlet pupils swept across the yellow-brown ceiling.
He turned his face ... yellowed, cracked walls; a narrow, old but fairly clean room; a mattress made of straw and linen.
An ugly smile appeared on his hideous cheek, awkward to look at, but sincere.
So it had all been real. He had escaped the boundless dark and returned to the world of men.
For the first time in thirty years, he had slept soundly, like a normal man.
He had even had a fine dream.
In the dream, this inhuman body had healed as good as new, and he had retired from the “Monster Assassin Realm.” In Novigrad, he ran a small business, used his savings to buy a house, married a wife with a generous backside, then adopted a pair of mischievous children.
The family lived a simple, happy life on that little trade.
But dreams were dreams. One still had to return to a crueler ledger.
Kaen touched his blood-red, corpse-dry body and shook his head.
He put on the gray shirt from the clothes rack, the tight leather trousers, and the thick hooded cloak.
Of course, most important of all, the mask and tinted glasses that hid his face.
If any part of him showed, Novigrad folk would likely take him for a ghoul.
“Creak.”
Outside, the sun was bright. The morning wind from the canal brushed gently across his cheeks.
Kaen narrowed his eyes in comfort.
It was still early. In the broad yard before the door, the young Viper School Witcher was humming a little tune, moving with practiced ease as he used a wet, brown, soft-bristled brush to scrub the glossy coat of Vyrt, that brown stallion which had yet to be gelded.
The horse enjoyed its master’s attentive service, lifting its upper lip in comfort and showing a row of white teeth. With a chain of puffing noises and flying spit, those teeth touched the Witcher’s neck and cheeks, expressing affection.
And on the white star-shaped mark on its forehead stood a tiny, adorable pearl bird, blue-gray all over, with a short chestnut-red beak.
The little thing shook its head, stretched its neck, and sang.
After a while, it mischievously hopped into the Witcher’s short black hair and built a crude nest there.
“Chirp, chirp.” Its clear, melodious song rang on without stopping.
As if cheering the Witcher on.
Roy wore the pearl bird on his head like that, waving the brush and patting the horse’s mane, his smiling face gilded by a soft glow.
Watching this, Kaen felt some of the gloom in his heart ease.
That distant dream seemed to be missing something after all. Yes, animals for company. A cat and a dog would do nicely.
...
Kaen moved his lips, just about to greet him.
A girl with a mohawk and a fit, graceful build suddenly rushed into the yard from outside. Like a gust of wind, she came to the Viper School Witcher’s side and warmly pulled his arm into her embrace.
Then she snatched the brush from him and helped scrub the horse, brushing away while making little movements nonstop, her shoulder and back touching her companion now and then.
Outside the door, Kaen’s masked face froze. His raised hand stopped in midair.
This young man and woman were actually flirting in broad daylight, in front of a ninety-year-old bachelor?
The man shook his head and sighed, unable to stop himself from thinking of his own wretched situation.
Back when he had served as a guard aboard the Flying Stag, he had planned to save some money, quit, and marry a wife.
Who could have thought he would become this despised thing? Forget women, even a drowner would turn its nose up at him.
“Good morning, Kaen!” Roy gently pushed away the giggling Zerrikanian girl crowding against him and smiled at the man. “How have you felt these past two days? Getting used to the place?”
“Compared with an operating table hard enough to kill a man by knocking his bones against it, this place is practically heaven.”
“Then you should sleep longer. Make up for all the sleep you missed.”
“I slept for almost thirty years. Add these two days, and I have had enough.” Kaen shook his head with a bitter smile. That broken-gong voice, and the meaning behind his words, drew Kantila’s gaze.
But the girl remembered her companion’s warning and did not ask rash questions.
Kaen said with some expectation, “Right now I just want to walk around and see the world ‘thirty years later’ ... Speaking of which, where are Griffin and the others?”
“At this hour, they should be outside the potion shop. They will probably be back by noon ... Come on, mate. Today I will indulge you. We will stroll around Novigrad together.”
Roy led the horse back to the stable, gave the lively pearl bird a few instructions, and tucked it into the saddlebag.
Then they left the house in the civilian district.
The three of them passed through winding alleys, crossed an old stone arch bridge, and came to the noisy commercial district on the other side of the river.
Through his tinted glasses, Kaen’s scarlet eyes looked around with fresh curiosity.
For a very long time, this Free City, this capital of commerce, had been changing at an astonishing pace.
Compared with thirty years ago, Novigrad was undoubtedly more prosperous now. The streets were broad and clean, the houses elegant and refined, with red tiles, pretty stained windows, and white cement walls.
Along the way, the people of Novigrad he saw were far more fashionable than they had been thirty years ago. Their clothes were no longer the same dull black, gray, and white.
Brilliant purple, red, and blue were everywhere. Styles varied endlessly, neat and bright, paired with rings, belts, earrings, necklaces, hair ornaments...
In Novigrad, highborn or low, everyone seemed to carry a heart that chased fashion.
“In the Free City, as long as you are not lazy, you can always find work and survive.” Roy looked around casually.
It was still early, yet the street was already thick with people ... laborers pushing wheelbarrows loaded with goods, pot-bellied merchants in silk robes walking as fast as wind, bare-chested exercisers slick with oil and sweat.
Their faces were full of vigor and drive.
“The reverse is also true. If you are gluttonous and idle, you will be weeded out fast and live worse than a rat in the sewers.”
...
The three of them passed a row of shops selling vegetables and dried fruit.
Then they entered the central part of the commercial street.
Unexpectedly, they drew the attention of nearby Eternal Fire guards.
The sun was high and bright, which made Kaen’s outfit, covered tightly from head to toe, look especially strange. Even in Novigrad, where tolerance and mixed crowds were part of the air, he stood out.
Add to that the Witcher with beast-like pupils beside him, and the Zerrikanian lady with a mohawk and exotic bearing, and the trio was hard not to notice.
Two Eternal Fire soldiers, longswords at their waists and chainmail over their bodies, quickly approached.
“Stop! Routine inspection!”
“Keep quiet, please!”
The guards looked them over with assessing eyes. Their gaze lingered longest on Kaen, filled with suspicion and distrust. Kaen’s heart tightened.
Being locked in that “dark prison,” cut off from the world for thirty years, had made him unused to this kind of excessive scrutiny.
By instinct, his muscles tensed.
A faint, sharp, seasoned air leaked from him.
But Roy gave him a reassuring look.
...
The Eternal Fire soldier with pale-blue stubble on his chin and a still-young face stepped forward, just about to search them.
But his companion grabbed his arm.
The other soldier’s brown eyes swept over the Viper School medallion on Roy’s neck, then over his dark-gold pupils.
His superior’s warning echoed in his ears.
A flash of fear crossed his face.
“Viper School master, this fellow is new. Bad eyes, mistook you for someone else. Sorry to disturb you three.”
He nodded apologetically to the trio and forcibly dragged away his puzzled companion.
Kaen watched in great surprise. He had thought the two guards would make trouble for him.
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