Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 138: Ravens Circled the Battlefield
Why was there a butcher’s boy now?
“How many people did that one swing at the prince drag into this?”
Arya flushed, hands tightening at her sides. “It wasn’t my fault! Geoffrey was being vile! Mikael and I were playing with sticks by the river. Then Geoffrey came over, Seven know why, and ordered Mikael to duel him. He had a real sword. Mikael froze stiff and begged him to take it back, but Geoffrey said refusing was contempt for a prince. Then he started cutting at Mikael’s face. If I hadn’t hit him, Mikael might have been killed there.”
Arya had a talent for telling stories. With flailing hands and sharp little gestures, she brought that half-mad, overbearing prince to life so vividly that the corner of Lannor’s eye twitched.
A real sword against a peasant boy with a stick, and a demand for a bloody duel? Was that prince touched in the head? A sadist? Stessa, for all his filth, at least had profit as a logic. This Joffrey fellow ... did torturing peasants improve one’s standing here?
And so the three of you ran in different directions, only to gather back here in the end.
Under Lannor’s stare, Arya lowered her head. Nymeria tilted hers, a perfect wolfish mimic of a dog pretending innocence.
Whatever the case, the cheering had come from nearby. Lannor decided to take Arya and have a look. If he brought the Lord of Winterfell’s daughter out in public, these people, even if hostile to House Stark, should not dare put a knife in her back in front of witnesses.
Lannor nodded to Arya. The girl understood at once, gave a small cheer, tugged Nymeria’s ear, and stood up. The direwolf moved at her side like a seasoned hound, alert and silent, guarding her flank.
With Lannor leading, shrubs and branches ceased to count as obstacles. Before long, the two of them and the wolf reached the source of the shouting.
A red-haired, freckled boy in rough homespun sat collapsed against the roots of a tree, terror shrinking him into himself until he looked as though he wished he could vanish into the dirt. Around him stood five soldiers with torches in hand and longswords at their belts.
Lannor noticed the lion stamped on the leather over their chests.
The five soldiers closed in on the boy with delighted, brutal grins. Fists and boots fell together, knocking him down like a sack of wet meal.
Lannor pressed a hand against Arya before she could rush out.
He knew little of this world, but from Arya’s account and what he saw now, the girl’s family was clearly entangled in a struggle for power. Whether that struggle was large or small remained unclear. Great noble houses rarely escaped such things.
And the butcher’s boy, once dragged into it, would likely not live long.
If a beating here could cut him loose from the matter, Lannor thought the price might even be worth paying. When the one called the Hound arrived, Lannor would take Arya out directly. By then, attention would naturally shift away from Mikael, who had little value in himself.
Looking at how badly he had already been beaten, the worst that should follow was probably a scolding.
After all, he was only a butcher’s son. Why cling to him?
Lannor was judging the likely course of events from the mind of a normal person.
He had forgotten one thing.
The world had no shortage of abnormal ones.
“The Hound’s here!”
The circle of five men opened. A huge figure, at least seven and a half feet tall, came through the trees with a torch in hand.
It was a knight in fine black armor. His helm had been shaped into the head of a hound.
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