Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 43
Lannor and Bernie had settled back into their usual work.
The young man had considered, in the tavern the day before, whether he ought to stop Little White. His need for crape myrtle petals was not yet urgent.
But then he thought it over again. So long as the boy stayed clear of the forest, the roads around the village were still safe enough. So he let White go about it as he pleased.
Once more, the two of them followed the shore of Lake Feck, searching for signs of monsters.
Lannor now sat at the bow, and the great weight of his body and armor made the boat ride lower there than where Bernie stood at the stern.
The young man was laboriously pressing at his temples.
Last night had been, as usual, another night of “Mentos shaking the soda bottle.”
After more than half a month of hunting together, the Trace Detection skill Lannor had drawn from Bernie had reached eighty-seven percent proficiency.
Combined with a Witcher’s superhuman senses, that proficiency had already pushed Lannor’s tracking ability beyond the limits any ordinary man could achieve.
His knowledge of monsters might still be terrible without a teacher to instruct him. But in tracking alone, he would not rank near the bottom even among Witchers.
With the computational support Mentos provided, he could even, to a certain degree, replay in his own mind what had happened at a location over the course of a week.
Sherlock Holmes himself might have done no better.
But what concerned the young man most was still the surgical skill tied to the growth of his own strength.
Thanks to repeated practice on Drowners, Swamp Hags, and on occasion Nekkers and Ghouls, that skill had now soared to fifty-five percent proficiency.
The number did not look high, but Lannor’s goal was not to become a reliable surgeon.
His foremost purpose was to operate on himself and install that Mutagen in his chest.
A steady hand, familiarity with his own organs, precise cutting and stitching...
For Lannor’s primary goal, this level of proficiency was already enough.
“So ... the only thing left is the Elixir.”
Lannor lowered the hand rubbing his forehead and scrubbed at his face to stay alert.
Just then, a jolt came up from the bottom of the boat. The hull shuddered, then steadied.
“We’re here. Time to work ... though, did you sleep badly last night?”
Bernie jumped off first and began adjusting the boat’s position at the bank.
“I slept well enough ... ah, damn it, mudflats again.” The young man muttered.
Yesterday, on the road, Bernie had given Lannor a detailed account of one hunt, how he had tracked a pack of wolves.
How he traced them, read their signs, lured them, split the pack. By his own telling, that hunt had wrung out every scrap of knowledge and improvisation he possessed.
The mood had been good, so his tongue had been loose, and he had gone into great detail.
That alone would have been one thing.
But Mentos’ analysis prompts had not stopped chiming once.
Then when Lannor finally lay down that night, a full twenty percent of proficiency had been dumped into his head at once, and the sensation had been worse than on the first day.
By now, the two worked together with practiced ease.
Bernie rested a hand on his sword hilt and crouched to examine the traces.
After removing the bandages, he had stitched himself a new long leather glove. The old glove that the Drowner had torn apart was now a matched pair again.
“This way. Let’s go.”
Before long, Bernie’s “tracking spell” led the pair to another group of monsters.
No Swamp Hag this time. Four Drowners were scavenging dead fish and crabs along the flats.
Lannor dealt with opponents of that level with brisk, ruthless efficiency now.
In less than two minutes total, his silver sword was thrust into the mouth of the last Drowner, the tip punching out through the back of its skull.
After that he did not even bother dissecting the corpses. He simply slogged through the mud, one step sinking deeper than the next, and headed toward Bernie.
As far as Drowner materials went, he was nearly out of room already.
And unless there was some strange deformity or disease, Drowners now contributed almost nothing to his surgical proficiency.
“Come on. Wearing full heavy armor, I don’t want to spend another moment standing on these flats.”
Each step plunged his boots into the wet, sticky muck. The sensation left the young man with his lips pressed tight in discomfort.
Bernie, lightly equipped from head to toe, gave Lannor a teasing look, and the two turned toward the next hunting ground.
But just then, from the road not far from the mudflats, where the ground had already dried out, a shout suddenly rang out.
“Hey. Wait a moment.”
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