Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 30
The first time people saw a Witcher’s cat eyes, they all seemed to react the same way.
A gasp, then the body leaning back as far as it could, wary and on guard.
Only after that could normal conversation begin.
These men around him were professional soldiers. Their nerve naturally exceeded that of ordinary farmers.
So after a brief stir, calm returned.
“A Witcher?” Phillip grunted twice and spat to the side. “Times are getting worse by the day. Every manner of damned thing is crawling out now.”
Lannor had little reaction to the muttering.
“Such is the world, sir. Let us speak of our supposed suspicion instead.”
“Mm?”
Phillip signaled that he was listening.
“I’m an outsider, Sergeant. I do not know exactly where Dunham lies, but Crow’s Perch, where Sir Vserad resides, is about three days from here. So by your account just now, Dunham must be at least two and a half days from Crow’s Perch.”
The young man counted it out on his fingers for the soldiers to see.
“The news of the murder reaches them, then you’re sent out to deal with it. Even at the least, it has to be five days since the day of the crime. And we...”
Lannor’s finger moved between himself and Bernie.
The meaning was plain. The timing did not fit.
It was an obvious flaw, but interestingly, Lannor sensed no embarrassment in Phillip at having been shown up.
The man frowned for a while, then suddenly looked at Lannor and said, “A few days ago, one of your kind in Velen was hunted down and killed.”
“I helped in that fight.”
Lannor had no intention of hiding it.
Phillip nodded at that.
“Good. York’s in the village too. He can take a look and identify you. Move.”
Without giving either man another chance to speak, the eleven riders closed around them and marched them toward the village a hundred paces away.
On the way, Bernie still seemed stunned by what he had heard.
Walking beside him, Lannor asked without the least attempt to lower his voice,
“What sort of place is Dunham?”
Lannor’s understanding of Velen was clear-eyed. He knew well that a death or two in this land meant little. So what mattered was Dunham itself.
Eleven cavalrymen, and from the sound of it there were more men in the village besides. Compared to this, the hunt for Bordon had been almost laughable.
That alone was enough to show the place’s importance.
“It is not some major town,” Bernie muttered bitterly. “Just a crossroads. But it’s where all the villages around us go to worship the Goddess Melitele together ... what sort of inhuman bastard would defile holy ground like that?”
As he whispered, his outrage and disbelief seemed to drive the pain from his hand clean out of his mind.
At the same time, Lannor immediately realized the matter truly was grave.
How should one describe devotion to Melitele?
Put it this way. If even one of a king’s personal guards dared lay a finger on any priestess in any temple of Melitele, then before sunset his corpse would be hanging from a locust tree at the crossroads.
And not out of some deliberate revenge, but from the common wrath of the people alone, with the king himself forced to bow his head and swallow it.
Melitele was the faith of every woman in the Northern Kingdoms. The faith of this goddess never meddled in politics, power, or the struggle for gain.
It simply spread its creed of kindness and peace.
But it was precisely that lack of contention that gave the cult of Melitele its unparalleled influence.
Because every woman who worshipped Her bore many roles.
Daughter, mother, wife. Even a king has a mother. Even a bandit wants a wife.
You wanted to harm the faith of Melitele?
Then you had best already have made peace with the manner of your death.
This was not like when Vserad clamped down on security during Auridon’s wagon races to curry favor with the king’s cousin.
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