Chapter 304: 304. Enter the forest
"Aha, what a pity. I heard Fanier from the Brugge court is a great beauty."
Like Videns, Brugge is a country neighboring the Brook Leon Great Forest. Geralt and Lann were on horseback on the road outside the forest at the time.
For some reason, the demon hunter with milky white hair had a tone that was somewhat sarcastic, but with a hint of... small jealousy?
"It’s always like this... Geralt, ever since knowing about my cooperation with Airetusa, you’ve been speaking sarcastically. I’m her long-term contracted demon hunter; I have work to do! It’s not like I have to sleep with every witch in the academy!"
Lann suspiciously glanced at his senior beside him.
"I wonder why you’re so sensitive, could it be that a witch broke your heart..."
At this point, the young man decisively judged from his senior’s expression that he should end this topic.
Geralt’s face now looked just as foul as the feces of his horse, Marla, named ’Carrot’.
Lann hurriedly tried to remedy the situation by flattering the old senior.
"Hey Geralt, witches aren’t all that great. Demon hunters live freely, while witches are only more socially respected, have more money, are more beautiful, have stronger mana, um..."
After talking for a while, Lann realized Geralt’s face was becoming increasingly unpleasant, and he started to stumble over his words.
"Just do me a favor, Lann." Geralt’s voice sounded like he was gritting his teeth, pushing words through clenched jaws, "Can we run quietly for a while?"
"...It’s up to you, boss."
The young man, knowing he had provoked the senior, quickly agreed.
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Geralt is the type who seems like a cold and stern iron man on the surface, but in truth, he’s a bit fragile and sensitive inside.
Lann judged from the old demon hunter’s expression earlier that this guy was probably hurt by a female warlock.
And the reason for this hurt likely stemmed from his pride being wounded when interacting with female warlocks.
Demon hunters are a discriminated group, but Lann didn’t feel much because he’d been a demon hunter for only a few months and had already made a name for himself.
He wouldn’t be bothered by the disdain from farmers, and nobles who knew what he was capable of had no reason to disrespect him.
So even though Lann often stayed in the warlock academy, he didn’t feel inferior.
Knowledge, combat ability... even female sorcerer apprentices in class wouldn’t dare to look him in the eye!
Except for being relatively poor... he even felt that female warlocks were somewhat immature politically.
Speaking of which, he was actually the one who felt superior.
However, for Geralt, maintaining a long-term romantic relationship with a female warlock would cause him internal pressure and insecurity.
Thus, it wasn’t difficult to imagine creating a passionate yet painful love.
If Geralt didn’t want to talk about it, then they wouldn’t talk about it.
Lann couldn’t use himself as a standard example of a demon hunter to discuss; he knew he was different from his peers.
He was always clear about this.
After another morning from Brugge City, the two demon hunters returned to the edge entrance of the Brook Leon Great Forest.
They couldn’t simply and boldly charge into the forest; they were searching for the Grandmaster of the Wolf School.
They had to find the right trail before following it.
The trail was found quickly... by noon, they discovered the first corpse.
The corpse wasn’t surprising, much like the farmers Lann had seen on the roadside, shot dead by tree spirits.
This was an especially young boy.
Six steps and three steps away from the corpse, arrows each tipped with a pheasant feather were stuck in the ground, and a third arrow that should have been shot at his feet was straight into the corpse’s eye socket.
The tree spirits’ archery remained precise, but their patience seemed to be quickly disappearing.
"Vesemir wouldn’t bring ordinary people into Brokilon, but this is indeed his entry point."
Geralt plucked a pinch of dirt from beside the corpse and sniffed it, his cat-like pupils contracting erratically. Lann knew he had activated the demon hunter’s senses.
The young man glanced at the corpse and shared his judgment.
"This person’s clothes don’t bear the Brugge emblem, but the Videns emblem instead."
"The news of Videns wanting to push the forest boundary further inward seems to have angered the tree spirits. They’re sparing one less warning shot now."
"The situation will only worsen as the war truly begins, but it has nothing to do with us, demon hunters are always neutral. We simply hunt monsters."
The old demon hunter adhered to old-school thinking; Geralt rose from his half-crouching position, strapped his sword to his back, and headed into the forest.
Lann followed him in.
This was their planned action mode: Geralt was responsible for tracking his teacher’s trail while activating the demon hunter’s senses, and Lann was in charge of guarding against dangers amidst his vision distortion.
Lann entered this ancient, lush forest in daylight for the second time, yet he saw Geralt seemed unperturbed.
"I’ve been here a few times and even lived in the tree spirit city within this forest for a while, same with Vesemir. Humans don’t really see us as their kind, but this disdain and exclusion instead make the tree spirits and nymphs drop their hostility towards us... interesting phenomenon, isn’t it?"
Geralt explained calmly.
"You are still too young, Lann. When you live longer, you’ll naturally establish relationships with many long-lived creatures."
"Alright, alright, building interpersonal relationships... seems like this always works among intelligent beings."
Lann responded casually as he used his beautifully curved long blade to slice through obstructing shrubs and dead branches.
Daytime at Brook Leon Great Forest under sunlight was more vibrant than at night, exuding a wild and unrestrained vitality.
Even in winter, the evergreen trees still made sunlight scarce beneath the forest. Woodpeckers pecked hard at tree trunks, eager to find frozen insects. Grouses chirped incessantly.
Brook Leon was brimming with life.
But the two demon hunters did not relax their vigilance, for they both remembered the boys corpse with a skull pierced through the eye socket and the carnivorous ants already crawling over the eyelids.
Progressing towards the forest’s interior, they came across a few more corpses.
Without the cold metallic gleam from the steel swords and armor plates on the bodies, the two demon hunters might not even notice them amidst the dense forest lichen.
Their shields or clothes bore the black-yellow checkered shield-shaped pattern of Videns.
Aside from the areas where arrows penetrated flesh, their clothes showed no additional stains or damage, enough to indicate these people weren’t ordinary servants or soldiers.
"There are seven corpses already; there should be no survivors among them."
With a swift slash, Lann cleanly cut through the dense, seemingly fragile branches and leaves wavering in the cold wind.
Even Geralt, who watched with demon hunter senses activated, had a twitch in his mouth seeing that swordsmanship.
He somewhat suspected Airetusa enchated the elf long blade with a new type of rune.
Simultaneously, both Lann and Geralt raised their heads towards the same direction after Lann finished swinging his blade.
"Is it just my imagination?"
"No, I heard it too."
Their cat-like eyes met each other; the abundant wooden structures in the forest served as the best natural sound-damping material, even demon hunters would doubt if they were hearing illusions.
But the answer from both checks was unlikely wrong.
In their ears, not far away, there was a loud old voice shouting something in a difficult ancient language.
Lann had heard it once before during a night in Brook Leon; it was the ancient language tree spirits used.