Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 25: The Monster Wearing Velvet
“Why would you think that, master?”
Mrs. Donna looked back at Lannor in surprise. Then something seemed to click in her mind, and she burst into warm laughter tinged with teasing.
“Oh, I see now. That look on your face ... is that guilt?”
She smiled at him as she asked.
“Guilt because the witcher who killed my husband belonged to the same School as you?”
The young man parted his lips, but before he could answer, Mrs. Donna laughed again, louder this time.
“Oh, for plague’s sake, don’t make that face.”
“A man ought to pay for murder, true enough. But my husband was a drunk through and through. Mean as a Drowner most days, and he barely worked. Truth be told, the house runs about the same with or without him. Might even be a little better now.”
“You expecting some tragic tale? You won’t find one here, and if there was one, it wouldn’t have anything to do with that drunkard.”
Her wrinkled hand waved dismissively through the air.
“O-oh. I see.”
Lannor’s upbringing made it hard for him to speak ill of the dead. Hearing a widow talk this way about her own husband only left him more awkward.
“Haha! Though honestly, I never imagined witchers lived so differently from us common folk. Looking at you, I’d wager you came from a respectable, well-off family before becoming a witcher?”
After saying that, the bright smile on her face softened for the first time, settling into an expression Lannor could not quite understand.
Gentle. Calm.
What does that look mean?
He asked himself inwardly.
Mentos had no answer either.
“I’m disliked here. I do work even a healthy man would struggle to finish.”
Donna spoke softly. She no longer had the strength for forceful speech.
“But that’s just how village life is.”
“A village can’t afford burdens. Honestly, I’m grateful people still dislike me enough to keep giving me work. And I’m grateful to the villagers, and to the elder too, because...”
“At least this way, I can raise my child.”
Her voice was quiet.
Yet to Lannor, every word struck like Thunderbolt.
Suddenly, Mrs. Donna, this farmwife already beginning to show the wear of age, seemed beautiful to him.
Not the kind of beauty stirred by the overactive hormones of an adolescent witcher.
No.
This was the beauty of someone who had looked straight at the cruelty of life, accepted it without flinching, and still chosen to press forward with steady resolve.
Lannor felt he would remember that beauty for the rest of his life.
The tears in the gambeson were small after all, only scattered and messy. Just as Lannor expected, Madam Donna repaired everything in less than twenty minutes.
When he stepped back outside, his eyes stayed lowered as he walked the wooden paths.
“Actually ... there were a lot of things wrong with what she said, weren’t there?”
The conversation in his mind began again.
At present, there was only one being in this world to whom Lannor could truly speak his thoughts.
“Yes, sir.”
Perhaps it was imagination, but Mentos’ voice seemed quieter than usual.
“She claimed to have had a violent alcoholic husband, yet there are no signs of domestic abuse in the house. On the day her husband died, his boots were still covered in manure and mud from the fields, despite her calling him lazy and unwilling to work ... there are many inconsistencies.”
But the purpose behind them had been simple.
She did not want Lannor carrying guilt that did not belong to him.
Even if it meant speaking poorly of her dead husband in private, she still refused to let the young man live under the weight of shame.
She really was a good person.
And she was exactly the kind of person Lannor had returned to Auridon for.
His spirits lifted, Lannor headed straight back to the smithy without pause. Right on time, Ivan was sharpening the freshly silvered edge against a stone wheel.
Less than two minutes later, the young man once more carried twin swords across his back.
By noon, Lannor had already dragged Bernie back onto the boat and out onto the lake.
Both men carried crude sandwiches made from bread, salted fish, and pickled vegetables. Lunch.
“I gotta say, you seem ... unusually fired up today.”
Standing at the stern with one hand on the rudder and a salted fish sandwich clenched between his teeth, Bernie shot Lannor a puzzled look.
Lannor sat at the bow. He had already wolfed down his own meal and was now methodically checking the buckles on his armor and boots one by one.
“I still need plenty of Drowners to practice on, Bernie. We’ll head west today. With luck, maybe we’ll even stumble onto a nest.”
“You’re the boss. Fine by me.”
Bernie shrugged indifferently.
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