Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 184: The Second Heart Awakens
The one thing that softened the blow for Lannor was the simple fact that he had earned a great deal of gold recently.
Master smith Toul Butcher’s price was painful, but paying it would not leave him counting coppers for supper.
“You’ve got talent. Too much talent to spend your life plowing fields, too much pride to rob travelers or raid homesteads. But a man still needs to eat.”
The line drifted back from a film he had once watched, and for a moment he felt a surprising kinship with it.
Then the young witcher shook his head hard.
So what if a man needed to eat?
Was he paying for his own meals these days?
Walking through the streets, Lannor glanced back toward the magnificent silhouette of Aretuza rising upon the island off the coast. The corner of his mouth twitched upward.
People who had to earn their own food truly lived in a different world.
⸻ Late that night, inside the rectoress’s chambers, Margarita lay sprawled across the vast bed, sleeping heavily.
In the darkness, Lannor’s cat eyes gleamed faintly.
Their earlier exertions had taken place mostly in the enormous bath and the surrounding area. Hygiene and amusement had both played a role in that decision.
As a result, the bed remained dry, clean, and inviting.
Moonlight spilled through the open windows. Sea wind drifted in behind it, stirring the gauzy curtains.
The rectoress’s chambers occupied one of the finest positions within Aretuza.
The elevation provided a sweeping view of the sea. On clear days, one could even make out the white trails left by gulls skimming across the waves.
Lannor enjoyed the lingering warmth of the moment.
But enjoyment and indulgence were different things.
Discipline had become part of him.
His body was still incomplete.
His skills were still incomplete.
Nothing about him could yet be called perfect.
And he had no intention of stopping here.
“Mentos. Activate firewall algorithms. Initiate Deep Memory Dive.”
The command had barely formed when the brightness of his vision abruptly shifted.
He already knew what that meant.
The flood of memories was forcing his brain into overdrive, temporarily interfering with the optic nerves.
Deep Memory Dive Status: Initiated Notice: Exploration sequence commencing User experience: Unrestricted After countless rounds of adjustments, Mentos had finally learned how to maintain its refined tone.
No matter what nonsense it was saying, it always sounded like an impeccably educated London gentleman.
“I don’t want an enjoyable exploration. I’d rather you drag the useful material straight out of the depths, now would you, ahhh!”
This time, Lannor never got the chance to suppress Mentos.
Mentos simply opened the floodgates and drowned his consciousness beneath the torrent of memory.
It had grown particularly sensitive to that complaint.
If you want more computational power, go study and take exams.
If I want to study, don’t you need to give me materials?
Find them yourself in the memories.
How am I supposed to search without more computational power?
The endless circular argument had become routine between them.
Lannor was long accustomed to it.
He relaxed his thoughts and prepared himself to receive memories stretching across ten thousand years.
Yet something felt different this time.
The perspective had changed.
Inside a vast hall constructed entirely from steel, Lannor saw himself standing over a man laid upon an operating table.
Calling it an operating table felt inaccurate.
With the surgical knowledge he now possessed, the size of the incisions, the degree of organ exposure, the extent of skeletal cutting ... It resembled a slaughterhouse far more than a hospital.
Yet no trace of cruelty came from the owner of the memory.
No thrill of mutilation.
No perverse delight.
Only concentration.
Precision.
Care.
The same focus an artist might bring to a masterpiece.
This was surgery.
A procedure lasting months, perhaps years.
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