System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 2025 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 45
November 6, 1260.
Roy sat on the edge of Vol’s Tavern roof, bundled in a thick, earth-colored padded coat. His legs dangled over the side, feet swinging in empty air. In his hands he held a painting.
Two grinning faces crowded the canvas, Roy and Toria.
On November first, while the miller and his wife slept, Roy had smuggled the girl away to the Dwarf wine merchant’s great house. They had eaten like nobles that night. The memory still hummed behind his eyes.
They drank their fill of mead. They sang disastrous songs. They posed badly for a tipsy painter. They joined a ring of bearded Dwarves and Dwarf-women around the courtyard bonfire and, hand in hand, danced a long, raucous Mahakam “Furnace Dance” until the stars sank low.
The next day, hungover for the first time in her life, Toria was lifted onto the coach that would take her to Aretuza.
“Roy, how will I contact you once I’m there?” she had asked, leaning from the coach window and gripping his arm. Her small round face trembled; her black eyes shone with excitement, worry, and a sharp kind of longing.
“Witchers have no fixed address,” Roy had said, tapping the girl’s head and joking. “If I can, I’ll come to Aretuza in a few years. You must show me some real magic then.”
“Deal,” she had said, and for the first time her voice carried mischief. “If you do not come, I will hunt you across the whole world.”
Outside the memory, Roy slid the painting into his storage space and pinched the silver pendant at his throat. He had finished his term at the House of Cardell not long ago. He had said goodbye to Ffion, to Tom, to Cardell herself. The Revolutionary Army had gone quiet for the moment, perhaps cowed by their leader’s corpse. Aldersberg’s New Year passed in peace, no marches, no riots, no street fights.
He had given up the miller’s room. He had taken the miller couple’s daughter and left them nothing. If they wanted revenge, let them try, so long as they could find him. He had no intention of continuing market work. His Common Speech studies were sufficient now to parse the Witcher notes; he would turn his attention to potion recipes and preparations.
Roy dropped from the roof into the tavern hall. A familiar unease crept up his spine.
The New Year revelry still bled through the building. A pointed shoe, a striped doublet, a bard with a lute plucked a wandering melody by the wall. In the pit a ring of burly men held foamy tankards and let their bodies sway to the rhythm. Beer spray, shifting light; women in heavy makeup wore tight corsets and busied skirts, lips half scolding and half laughing as they let crude hands trail across exposed skin.
Amid that heat of bodies and noise sat an odd figure. A table groaned under ten different cups of wine, but only one man drank from them.
Letho’s pate shone like polished flint. His stern face made him seem as if he belonged to some closed room. He was a cliff of a man, a greatsword on his back, a chill that warned others to keep away.
A shape slid up against his right arm, sultry laughter in its wake. “Drinking alone, stranger? Let me keep you company.”
Letho glanced at the woman. The familiar smile thawed something in his expression. “Sorry, no mood tonight. Maybe another time.”
“You are merciless. One month away and you become so distant. I remember how strong you are.” She purred, leaning in, a practiced intimacy. “Relax that arm, let me take care of you.”
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