Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 1: Whispers Along the Swamp Road
The clatter of hooves drifted along the winding, broken road.
The place lay neither close to the village nor truly far from it. Most of the land was given over to fields and muddy strips of cropland. Along the ridges between them, dogs began barking in sharp, uneasy bursts, while the cats reacted far worse. Fur bristling, they vanished into the brush as though something unseen had brushed against their whiskers.
Animals had always been sensitive to magic.
Out on the road came an old horse worth little more than its hide, a young man riding atop it.
Lannor held the reins tight, jaw set, guiding the mare with deliberate care.
Velen, a province of the great Northern Kingdom of Temeria, was the poorest stretch of land in the realm. At first glance it looked almost beautiful, thick green growth splashed with color beneath the summer damp. Yet any decent man forced to remain there more than two hours would discover the truth soon enough.
Under all that greenery sprawled endless marshes, stagnant water, and fever-breeding mist. The weeds and reeds grew thick enough to choke roads and drown fields. Life flourished there, just not the sort that made living easier for humans.
Truth be told, the creatures breeding unchecked in those swamps were far deadlier than the bogs themselves.
Trackless wetlands, starving villages, rude peasants, and monsters crawling out from nowhere, that was all most folk remembered of Velen.
A farmer working the ridgeline straightened slowly, leaning on his hoe. Travelers were rare enough here to become conversation for weeks afterward, so he studied the stranger carefully.
The young rider looked pale, the sort of pale that came from exhaustion rather than sickness, though there was still life in his eyes. His features were strange by the standards of the Continent. His eye sockets were too shallow, his nose bridge too soft. Yet he was clean-faced, almost handsome, with skin far finer than most peasants ever saw.
Still, he was plainly human.
Not elf, not dwarf, not gnome.
Probably some foreign breed of human from a land so distant even the king’s piss could not reach it.
... Better that than one of the damned nonhumans.
The farmer sniffed thickly, spat a wad of phlegm into the dirt, and squinted harder.
The rider wore cheap blue gambeson darkened with old grime and sweat, stuffing already bursting from the seams around the waist. His leather boots were thin-soled rubbish, the sort that rubbed feet raw but at least kept mud from swallowing them whole.
He carried a sword too, nothing unusual in Velen.
But the blade was strapped across his back.
Even a peasant knew that made no damned sense.
How was he supposed to draw the thing like that?
The farmer’s lips had just started curling into a mocking grin when he finally saw the rider’s eyes.
Cat eyes.
“Cat eyes! Mutant freak!”
The sneer vanished instantly. Panic tore across the man’s face like a knife slash. He stumbled backward as though he’d seen plague rot walking on two legs, tripped over himself, and crashed into the mud. Even sprawled flat, he kept scrambling backward with hands and heels.
The hallmark of a witcher, those slit-pupiled cat eyes.
Long ago, human sorcerers had created mutated warriors to scour monsters from the world. A noble purpose once. These days, folk looked upon witchers the same way they looked upon disease.
Lannor let out the faintest sigh.
Medieval fantasy was still medieval, after all.
Ignorance always came with cruelty attached.
His amber eyes slid toward the farmer only briefly before he tightened the reins and tried to steady the horse.
The mare was old, obedient, and weak. Lannor himself was hungry, half-starved really, and had only learned riding a week ago.
If being thrown onto a saddle and whipped every time he fell counted as learning.
The mare whinnied sharply.
The farmer’s dog, black-and-white and fiercely loyal, darted between the horse’s legs toward its master without hesitation. One misplaced hoof could have crushed the beast flat. Lannor hauled hard on the reins, fighting both the horse and his own trembling arms to keep it from happening.
By the time he succeeded, breath scraped raw through his chest.
Still, when he saw the little dog bounding safely toward its owner, some of the tightness left his shoulders.
Only for an instant.
A black blur slid past his leg.
“Whsst!”
The bolt cut through the air with a sound cold enough to freeze marrow.
The dog burst apart in mid-leap, blood spraying across the field alongside a shrill, choking yelp. The crossbow bolt punched in through its lower back and burst from its chest at an angle.
Instead of reaching its master, the twitching corpse slammed down at the farmer’s feet.
The man stared, frozen stupid with terror.
The trace of relief vanished from Lannor’s face. His expression hardened at once into something blank and cold. Even the old mare seemed to stiffen beneath him.
A large figure rode slowly past.
The man atop the heavy warhorse was broad as a barn door, wrapped in thick muscle and heavy armor. His beard and hair were wild enough to make him resemble a walking brown bear.
Yet his face held nothing at all.
No anger. No disgust. No satisfaction.
Just ice.
Two swords rested across his back.
His armor was a layered composite of chainmail, leather, plate, and quilted padding, fitted together into a heavy coat reaching nearly to his calves. Around his neck swung a medallion shaped like a roaring bear’s head.
And his eyes matched Lannor’s exactly.
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