Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 125: The Hunter in Bear Armor
“Your hireling?”
Berengar tipped back the last mouthful of Swallow from the alchemical vial and looked at Lannor strangely.
“I don’t doubt you’re rich now, but ... didn’t you already refuse to fight beside me once?”
There was no sharpness in his tone when he said it.
He admitted to himself that he was a witcher who wanted to run from battle.
Since he could accept that truth himself, he could naturally accept others seeing it too.
“My answer hasn’t changed. I won’t fight alongside you. But my hireling arrangement isn’t a mercenary contract.”
That finally drew a flicker of interest from Berengar.
“How so?”
“Teach me how to be a witcher, Berengar.”
“Kh ... cough, cough!”
There was still Swallow caught in the back of Berengar’s throat. The moment he heard that sentence, he inhaled wrong and nearly choked himself.
Teach you?
Teach you what exactly? How to pick the angle that hurts less when several crossbow bolts are aimed at your chest?
“So ... uh...” Berengar tried very hard to make his words sound polite. “Is there actually anything left for you to learn as a witcher?”
Lannor, on the other hand, answered with complete calm.
“More potion formulae. Rare alchemical bomb recipes. Knowledge about curses and magic. Knowledge about monsters ... Berengar, didn’t the School of the Wolf preserve the most complete body of witcher knowledge?”
Once Lannor clarified what he meant, Berengar finally understood.
In his eyes, Lannor was probably the sort of witcher whose training had been specialized entirely toward combat.
That was the only explanation for someone so young, certainly no older than forty, possessing this kind of fighting ability.
“The Bear School’s knowledge reserves have fallen that far?”
Curious now, Berengar pressed further. Lannor answered with fragments Bordon had once mentioned.
“There are no knowledge reserves. After the Bear School split from the Witcher Confraternity, they never built any proper system for passing down knowledge and experience. Everyone fought alone. Earned coin alone. Gathering at Haern Caduch, taking apprentices, that was mostly just inertia.”
“In fact, when armed brigands assaulted the keep, they only then realized that with the way they lived ... they never actually needed a castle in the first place.”
“ ... Well. That’s enlightening.”
The corners of Berengar’s mouth twitched.
Back in the era when he had been active, the wilderness had still swarmed with monsters.
Gliding lizards and cockatrices wheeled through the skies. Griffins nested high in the mountains. Drowners and nekkers were as common as river fish and field rats.
More deaths meant more spirits and curses.
Back then, a castle was not a matter of prestige. It was a necessity for survival.
He genuinely could not imagine a witcher order abandoning its own keep.
But since Lannor said so, then the Bear School truly must have become something like that.
This Bear Cub might well be the last result of those cold-hearted kin still attempting to explore what the witcher path could become.
“If you’re a witcher, then there’s no reason to hide such knowledge. The School of the Wolf is the direct heir of the Witcher Confraternity. I’ll pass what I know to you.”
Berengar shrugged, sounding utterly unconcerned.
“But there’s a problem ... What’s the pay?”
“Five hundred orens, until I graduate.”
The old witcher accepted almost before the number had fully left Lannor’s mouth.
“Deal!”
... Damn it.
Knew the bastard was making a fortune off this.
The tiny house he had in the Temple District had cost less than seventy orens altogether.
The villagers of Dark Water seemed entirely unaware that their king had personally visited the place.
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