Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 56
Lannor’s calm voice, paired with the butchered camp around him and the hideous traces left behind by torture, created a pressure so overwhelming it bordered on madness.
Nenneke’s mind had already collapsed the moment he woke up. By the time Lannor finished breaking him down, the man who could gnaw raw flesh from human bones no longer even dared beg for mercy or a quick death.
He spilled everything.
Like a man trying to rip his own guts out and offer them up with both hands.
Afterward, Lannor gave him a clean death.
This world possessed magic, but so far Lannor had never heard of anyone truly understanding what lay beyond death.
In his view, if death in this world meant complete and final extinction, then killing alone was enough.
He disliked torture.
Now ... more than ever.
The sour stink lingering in his mouth made him nauseous. He reached into the Alchemy Sack, intending to pull out strong liquor and rinse his mouth clean.
But the moment he opened the leather bag, the first thing he saw was that small cloth pouch with its fine stitching.
It still carried the scent of flowers. Dusty-looking, yet spotless.
Lannor had kept it carefully the entire way.
His lips pressed into a thin line. Without thinking, he rubbed his hands together hard, as though trying to scrape filth off his skin.
Only after a moment did he realize the blood from the torture had already been washed from his gloves long ago.
The young witcher froze briefly, then sighed.
Only then did he open the little pouch, pull a bottle of Redanian Herbal Wine from beneath it, and pour liquor into his mouth.
The alcohol struck upward like fire. After one swallow, his head cleared slightly. Leaning against a tree, he fell silent.
“If the information is accurate, then this situation is becoming far more complicated, sir.”
Only after Lannor swallowed the liquor did Mentos finally speak.
Back in the Human Federation, it could have connected directly to psychological treatment modules in real time. Here, it could not. Earlier, Lannor’s mental state had been bad enough that even Mentos had hesitated to interrupt.
Only now did it dare shift his focus elsewhere.
“Fuck...”
Lannor cursed softly, stripping off his studded leather glove and dragging a hand hard across his face.
“Nenneke wasn’t lying. He wasn’t hiding anything either. Between his eyes and the later Axii Sign, I’m certain.”
From the beginning, Lannor had known White’s abduction, or rather the mass kidnapping of children by the man-eaters, was not simple.
Slavery was illegal in the Northern Kingdoms. But if the children were not being used as slaves and instead sold to childless families, then the scale of the disappearances made no sense.
That was not how kidnappings worked.
Every day without a buyer meant another day feeding, housing, and guarding those children.
And childless buyers would never place orders in groups. Purchases would come one at a time.
Holding a large group of children for long periods only increased danger and losses.
There were always people willing to risk execution for profit.
But nobody willingly ran a business that bled money.
The man-eaters might have rotted their brains eating human flesh, but according to Nenneke, their leader, the so-called Head Devourer, was clever.
Too clever to make such a stupid mistake.
And after Nenneke completely broke, his testimony only confirmed it further.
“One small camp holds five to seven men. Across the entire hilly region, Nenneke personally rotated through thirteen camps.”
Lannor leaned against the trunk with arms folded, fingers tapping lightly against the leather plates over his forearms as he thought.
“In the most optimistic estimate, they still have at least sixty-seven armed men.”
“Don’t forget the main camp,” Mentos added. “There are at least fifty more people at the hidden harbor.”
That meant over a hundred members.
A criminal organization with structure, manpower, logistics.
More than one hundred armed men.
“Was Vserad raised on horse shit?!”
Lannor spat the words bitterly.
“A hundred-man armed group operating inside his territory, and the bastard noticed nothing before they started openly committing crimes?”
“A hundred men carrying swords! If his cavalry rode into these hills, they’d be hacked into minced meat!”
“Where’s the census? The movement records? The population tracking? Lord of Velen? Fuck, they’d have done better appointing a pig!”
He spat sideways.
“And if that’s the kind of fool Foltest appointed, then Foltest’s a pig too.”