Chapter 94

“Tap. Tap. Tap.”

Two figures emerged from the forest in quick succession, each carrying a naked child of five or six in their arms.

The children’s tender skin was slick with blood, their porcelain faces drained of all color. Their small bodies were curled like infants’, as if trapped in a nightmare, their closed eyelids twitching from time to time as though shocked.

Aaron’s blood had splashed across their backs, and the two children had lost consciousness at once, never seeing their father’s brutal death.

That, at least, was a small mercy.

“There was clearly a Blood of the Sun. If we knew how to refine a universal antitoxin, Aaron wouldn’t have had to die.”

“There are no ‘ifs’,” the Witcher said coldly, as if stating an unquestionable law. “This was Aaron’s fate. He broke his vow to the priestesses. Death was the punishment he deserved.”

Roy agreed, yet when he looked at the newly added entry in the record, his eyes and nose twisted together with a heavy sadness. “Kill the Cursed, Werewolf Aaron. XP +200. Witcher Lv .4 (830/2000).”

This was the most conflicted experience gain he had ever received, not in body, but in spirit.

There was no doubt that the Werewolf was not innocent. He had betrayed an oath and could even be said to have repaid kindness with treachery. Yet his love for his children had been sincere and profound, a reflection of something genuinely good.

“Kid, why brood?” the Witcher suddenly sighed. “That man chose self-redemption. And couldn’t you tell? He had already resolved to die.”

...

Most of those who had gone out searching for Aaron had returned. Faint traces of blood clung to them, especially the Zerrikanian girl Kantila, who lazily stroked her gleaming curved blade. The light in her eyes made her look like a female beast sated after a successful hunt.

When Roy and the Witcher came back carrying two unfamiliar children, everyone’s attention snapped to them at once. The women’s maternal instincts flared. They cleaned the children, wrapped them in blankets, and warmed their icy bodies by the campfire.

“We dealt with a few Drowners in the swamp, but never found the Boss’s mark. Master Letho, what exactly is going on? Where did you find these two children?”