Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 10: Wolves At The Ferry Crossing
“Profit for you. Interesting choice of words.”
He was not being treated as a living man. The word made him a tool, no different from a sword, a glove, a dung fork. Personhood, dignity, all the things he had once taken for granted, were ground into scraps inside that one phrase.
Lannor even laughed softly.
Yet the chill in his amber cat eyes sat hard as frozen water.
Bordon saw it clearly. He did not care.
He was dying. What could the boy do, kill him twice?
In fact, seeing the apprentice who had killed him now burn under his words gave him a thin thread of satisfaction. At the very end of life, the witcher who had rediscovered feeling found himself talkative. Each time he opened his mouth, blood came with bits of ruined viscera, matting his beard into a foul red clump, but he showed no wish to stop.
“And you, Lannor? Why kill me here?”
Blood ran from Bordon’s mouth as it split into a red grin.
“Please, don’t tell me it was to escape my exploitation. Look at your work just now. Precise, quick, steady ... In the Bear School fortress, Haern Caduch, few novices who had finished full training could do what you did.”
“Truth is, your progress frightened me.”
“My exploitation made you suffer, perhaps. But death? Far from it. Measured against the training and protection I gave you, the harm I did was not worth the risk of facing me to the death.”
Bordon shook his head, almost amused.
“I’m nearly gone. At least be kind and tell me why I am dying.”
Lannor tilted his head, smiling at his teacher. The massive man could barely keep his words together now.
“Do you remember why you were wanted, Bordon?”
Two lives.
Bordon remembered without effort. It had not been long ago, just before Lannor finished his mutation. In a village tavern, two drunk farmers had decided to provoke a base, filthy witcher. Bordon had cut through two necks in one stroke.
Dung-brained peasants never understood. Witchers endured their spittle and contempt because they wanted steady coin, not because they were helpless.
Bordon was near his limit. Blood loss had loosened the reins on his thoughts. Only his need for Lannor’s answer kept him upright.
“Because of ... those two farmers?”
His body was growing cold, but he wanted to laugh.
Two farmers.
He had accepted commissions in palaces bright with gold, and tasks in the high, shadowed towers of sorcerers. He had killed countless men and monsters. He had walked roads and seen more of the world than five generations of some farmer’s bloodline put together.
And now the man who killed him was saying, You lost your life because of two farmers.
“Shit.”
It made no sense.
No matter how he turned it over, it made no sense.
But Lannor was there before him, meeting his gaze with that faint almost-smile, telling him clearly that yes, that was exactly how it was.
“You cannot understand it, can you? Two farmers who scraped in the dirt, cow dung on their boots, filthy, crude, low-born. Why should I risk my life against you for them?”
Lannor leaned closer, still smiling.
“Teacher, before I completed the mutation and became the kind of witcher people avoid like rot, we were already traveling through Velen’s country woods together, weren’t we?”
“We met a respected village elder.”
He raised one finger.
“We saved a merchant driving his wagon on the road.”
A second finger rose.
“We asked in several villages whether there were monster contracts.”
A third.
“But did anyone, even once, ask, Witcher, what is that young man beside you to you?”
Before Bordon’s eyes, Lannor curled all his fingers back into his palm and made a fist.
“Not one, teacher.”
“People will curse witchers and nonhumans with every insult they know. I understand most of it comes from ignorance and fear. But when they saw a young man being led around by a witcher, none of them wanted to say a word.”
“They could have reported it to the local lord. Not even that.”
“I understand. No one wants trouble. Living in this world is hard and dangerous. But...”
“Just when I was about to accept it myself, two farmers asked the question.”
Lannor spread his hands, his expression helpless.
Bordon’s eyelids had begun to droop, but the words dragged them open again. He forced his gaze back to Lannor.
The smile faded from the young man’s face. The ease burned off like drops of water on hot iron, vanishing with a sharp, silent violence.
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