Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 105: Frost Along Dead Roads
Lannor’s precise control over his body brought him out of meditation at exactly six in the morning.
Two fingers pressed lightly against the floor, and the broad frame wrapped in heavy armor rose soundlessly to its feet.
On the bed, Arya murmured in her sleep beneath the blankets.
“Sansa’s stupid...”
“Robb, help...”
“Jon, save me...”
Everything that had happened the previous night had come too suddenly, too brutally. Even with Arya’s stubborn temperament, the terror had still sunk its claws into her.
The names spilling from her lips were the names of her family.
On the surface, the girl seemed consumed every day by excitement over new places and strange sights. Yet somewhere deep beneath that cheerfulness, homesickness and fear of being alone had already taken root, so quietly that even she herself had never noticed.
In the dim gray light of dawn, Lannor shook his head faintly.
The distance represented by the Conjunction of the Spheres was too vast, even for interstellar civilizations.
He was only a somewhat unusual witcher.
He could not save everyone.
And perhaps because of that, he wanted to save the few people he might actually be able to reach.
Even if it meant merely trying.
He pulled his studded leather gloves back on, tightened the steel bracers into place, then hoisted the stiffening corpse onto his shoulder.
The increasingly towering witcher moved with surprising lightness as he left the room and headed for the lakeshore where they had agreed to meet.
Morning mist drifted across the lake. Unlike the mysterious depth the water held beneath moonlight, dawn gave it a cool, damp freshness.
Lannor rented a small fishing boat by the shore, not much different from the one he had once used with Bernie while hunting drowners.
He could handle it himself.
Declining the fisherman’s offer to row, the witcher paid extra deposit coin for the privilege.
The prow split water and lily pads alike. Barely a dozen meters from shore, another sound joined the soft wash of the boat.
The Lady of the Lake’s Operational Courier, the nymph from last night, glided through the water beside him like an aquatic elf.
“Morning, nymph.”
Lannor glanced at her once, then deliberately shifted his gaze elsewhere rather than looking directly at her.
A useful fact, perhaps: soft fat was a semi-solid substance.
As the water rolled and struck against her bare body, the nymph displayed the elasticity of that fact in vivid detail.
“Good morning to you too, witcher.”
The nymph herself paid it no mind. Folk tales among villagers were full of stories involving nymphs, marsh maidens, even harpy orgies.
Peasants usually spoke of such things with eager fascination.
Witchers tended to remain noncommittal.
Some men truly did find pleasure among the wild creatures of the world. Most, however, simply ended up becoming a meal for them.
Literally.
Lannor did believe a nymph serving the Lady of the Lake would not behave with the same savagery as her untamed kin.
Still, she did not look especially pleased this morning.
“You run into trouble?”
The nymph guided him through the waters ahead. Lannor found steering somewhat dull and asked directly.
She answered just as plainly.
“I lost my necklace. Gold and rubies. Very expensive.”
“Doesn’t the Lady listen to everything in this region? Didn’t she tell you where it is?”
“She probably will. I’m bringing you to her anyway, so I thought I’d ask while I was there.”
The nymph answered so naturally that Lannor found himself genuinely surprised.
For most of his life, gods in stories had either been aloof and inscrutable, refusing to respond at all, or omnipotent beings who solved every cause and consequence with a casual flick of the hand.
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