The journey to the Blue Mountains required crossing the Eastern Kingdom.
John treated it as a bit of sightseeing. Two days after leaving the capital, he stopped at a small inn to rest.
He stuffed a carrot into Boro's mouth—the horse's favorite treat.
As Boro munched lazily on the carrot, John swung his silver sword and cleaved a bat that swooped at him out of the air.
He was currently in a mountain cave, a shortcut that led toward the Blue Mountains.
Once again, he found himself wondering if there was some secret network behind these inns—since even such routes were recorded.
Beyond the cave lay the territory of the Eastern Kingdom.
Wiping the blood from his sword, John glanced at the runes engraved along the blade.
Four of them still glowed steadily. Yesterday, he had run into a strange, pheasant-like magical creature; slaying it had caused the fifth rune to faintly light up.
It seemed that even without seeking out formal trials, hunting magical beasts could gradually complete the set of runes.
Stepping out of the tunnel, John felt the chill in the air.
Boro snorted, his hooves crunching against the frozen layer of ice-covered soil.
A sharp cracking sound echoed through the forest.
Before long, he came across a village.
The villagers were wary of strangers. When they saw John, their expressions turned guarded.
A middle-aged man stepped forward, first glancing at John's ears, then smiling as he asked, "Hello there. Is there something I can help you with?"
John nodded. "My horse and I have been traveling for a day and a night. I was hoping for a place to rest. Of course, I can pay a fair price."
A smile often put people at ease, and John's calm expression helped the villagers lower their guard.
The man's smile grew more genuine. As he happened to be heading for a drink himself, he led John toward a tavern.
"We don't have an inn here, but Old Dan will be happy to offer you a room."
The man introduced himself as Sandy, the head of the village guard.
The so-called "guard" consisted of barely ten men. The "Old Dan" he mentioned was a balding man whose clothes were stained with oil from frying fish.
Hearing that John wanted a room for the night, Old Dan greeted him warmly.
Sandy leaned toward John and muttered under his breath, "Whatever you do, don't try Old Dan's fried fish. The taste is… well…"
He pulled a face and shook his head, clearly unimpressed.
As the village's guard captain, Sandy seemed well liked by the locals.
The village's guard force, as it turned out, had been organized by the villagers themselves.
Since the village was still in the wilderness, there was little trace of human civilization nearby.
Sandy poured John a cup of hot wine. After taking a sip himself to drive out the chill, he said, "Once winter sets in, those bastards get more active."
"Monsters?" John asked, assuming he meant magical creatures.
But Sandy replied, "Elves."
Elves?
That was something new.
John hadn't yet encountered any elves in person. During his time in the royal library, he'd come across many records about them—tall, elegant beings with sharp ears, well-defined features, and a natural affinity for magic and wisdom.
"Yeah, those bastards aren't extinct yet," Sandy muttered.
He downed a few more cups, the smell of alcohol on his breath as he said, "Sometimes they ruin our crops. Thieving little brats, too."
His dislike for elves was clear—enough that the village's guard force mainly existed to keep them at bay.
Human hostility toward elves wasn't unusual; much of the human world had been built on the ruins of elven civilization.
John took a sip of the hot wine and thought to himself, When the enemy becomes something entirely different, the power of sorcerers suddenly seems far less important.
Wizards had once been humanity's weapon against the elves.
Elves, being the enemy of humankind, had ironically eased the tensions among humans themselves.
From what he'd learned of this world's history, it had already diverged far from the one John knew.
He pushed down his questions for now.
Sandy was dead drunk by the end of the night, and Old Dan had to help him back home.
John went to the stable, where Boro turned his head to look at him.
"We'll be leaving tomorrow. Get some rest first."
He placed a hand on the horse's head, letting his mind reach out.
Mental magic was truly convenient.
With the reassurance, Boro quickly settled and adjusted to the unfamiliar surroundings.
John returned to his room at the tavern to rest as well.
Old Dan closed up the tavern, and the village soon fell into silence.
By the next morning, the gloomy weather made it seem less than ideal for traveling.
John stood outside as Sandy approached, dressed in a fresh set of clothes.
The smell of alcohol still clung faintly to him, and the oak shield he carried looked to John more like a pot lid.
"You're leaving?" Sandy asked in surprise. "You might not know this, but it could snow heavily in the next few days."
"I know. But I still need to make it to the next town," John replied as he led Boro, ready to depart.
Sandy looked a little regretful. He thought this man was quite decent, but he didn't try to keep him.
Watching John's figure recede into the distance, Sandy sighed. "A life like that is something to envy…"
He couldn't help but feel a pang of longing for a life of travel and freedom, though with a family to care for, it was a dream he would never realize.
About half a day after John's departure, the village received new visitors.
The sound of hooves shook frost from the trees as a mounted group rode in.
"Have you seen this man?" asked the scar-nosed leader as he unfurled a sketch.
Sandy's wary eyes swept over the group.
There were seventeen of them in total, all armed with swords.
On their saddles was a sigil—an emblem marked with a wolf's head being struck down.
Sandy, having been to larger cities, recognized the symbol.
It belonged to a faction that called themselves the Bane of Witchers—dedicated to hunting down and killing every last one.
They called themselves the Hunting Band.
In truth, they were little more than a band of brigands.
Their reputation for savagery preceded them—stories of massacres had spread far and wide.
Sandy didn't dare provoke them. He glanced at the sketch.
A black-haired man with a sword.
After a careful look, he shook his head. "No. I haven't seen him."
"Hmm?" The scar-nosed leader frowned. "Has anyone new passed through here recently?"
Sandy answered honestly, "Just one man. But he wasn't carrying any weapons, and he had brown hair."
Now it was the scarred man's turn to look puzzled.
They questioned a few more villagers, but everyone gave the same answer.
Just when Sandy thought it was over, the scarred man said, "We'll be staying here for a while. Show us the way."
Sandy's heart sank. Faced with these men, all he could do was hope they wouldn't cause trouble.
He led them to the tavern, then immediately ordered the village guards to arm themselves and stay alert.
Inside the tavern came the sound of drinking and rough, menacing laughter.
Sandy had thought that as long as they stayed prepared, everything would be fine.
At first, there was no conflict.
But he forgot what a gang of fugitives, drunk on liquor, was capable of doing.
When one of them, reeking of alcohol, tore the clothes off a village girl, it signaled the beginning of disaster.
…
Night fell.
Flames rose from the village.
Men screamed, women's cries and wails pierced the night, mingling with the sounds of slaughter.
Sandy's oak shield lay abandoned in the burning tavern. Old Dan lay there, belly torn open, still clutching his cooking pot.
The flames spread outward from the tavern. Horses rampaged through the streets as the Hunting Band violated the women, slaughtered the men, and set the village ablaze.
Sandy fell inside his own home. He had tried to get his family to safety but was run through by a sword.
In his fading vision, he saw, near a pile of hay, a boy with pointed ears.
The boy stared in terror at the horrific scene, clutching in his hands a stolen sack of grain.
The village's guards, once meant to protect against elves, had perished at the hands of humans.
A grim and bitter irony.
Sandy weakly lifted his hand.
Startled, the elven boy bolted from the haystack, vanishing into the dark forest under the glow of the flames.
Sandy remained in that final gesture as death claimed him.
…
Three more days passed.
The horse's hooves left one sakura-shaped print after another on the snow-dusted ground.
John gazed into the distance, where the blue mountain range stretched endlessly across the horizon.
The snow lent the landscape a pale, glimmering brightness.
He had finally reached the Blue Mountains.
The brown hair he had assumed with All-Forms Change slowly shifted back to its natural black.
The runes on his sword shimmered faintly, as though guiding his way forward.
Buzz—
An arrow whistled toward John's head.
Just as it was about to strike,
he raised his hand and caught it in midair.
John slowly turned his head to the side, meeting the greedy, bloodthirsty gazes of a group of men watching him.
"Finally found you… Black Witcher."
The man at the front had a scar running straight across the bridge of his nose, making it look as if the nose had once been cut clean off.
"Kill him! Collect the bounty!"
At his command, the hunters spurred their horses forward, charging straight at John.
John slowly drew his sword. The runes on the blade flickered for a moment—then suddenly went dark.
Just then, a massive black shadow swept across the sky.
Its enormous shape cast a looming darkness over the snow-covered ground, as though dusk had fallen in an instant.
"ROAR—!"
The thunderous roar of a lion sent up a flurry of snow. The charging horses reared in terror, neighing wildly.
The hunters' faces, once twisted with savage glee, froze in horror.
The shadow descended. With a single bite, it tore half the body off one of the men.
The ground shook as the beast landed, and the tremor shattered what little courage the hunters had left.
"It's a manticore!"
No one knew who shouted it first, but the cry alone was enough to break the morale of the so-called Witcher-Slayers.
The manticore had the vast, powerful wings of an eagle, and its body was even larger than that of a leshen.
Devouring one man was nowhere near enough to sate its hunger.
Another victim was snatched up and torn apart. Those who tried to fight back only met the same fate.
The band of hunters who had once slaughtered an entire village now found themselves reduced to prey.
The irony was almost laughable.
The scar-nosed leader, his face twisted in panic, actually shouted at John:
"Witcher! Kill it! Isn't it your duty to protect humans?"
John let out a short, dry laugh.
He didn't move.
The man screamed again, his voice cracking in desperation, "Do something! You're a Witcher!"
"Sorry," John said lazily, his tone almost bored. "Witchers don't protect beasts."
The scarred man tried to retort, but before he could utter another word, the manticore's massive jaws closed around him and swallowed him whole.
The remaining horses screamed in terror, bolting in every direction as John stood and watched the slaughter unfold.
From a distant rise, another pair of eyes observed the scene.
A white-haired man, his gaze steady yet thoughtful, studied John in silence.
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