Bear School Astartes

The news from the young man made Lann’s journey even more urgent.

In his words, this Niflgaard invasion clearly wasn’t like a standard medieval western war.

They didn’t care about the population, and even recklessly destroyed cultivated land... this abnormality was truly terrifying.

It was like facing a lunatic murderer whose patterns were impossible to decipher.

Thus, the Demon Hunter didn’t even think twice and gave up on the idea of crossing the river at the ferry.

He walked downstream, looking for a shallow point where the water could just reach his waist, and crossed directly.

It was strange for such a not-so-deep crossing point to have no refugees.

Because during Lann’s journey, almost every crossing point with decent water conditions was already crowded.

However, the closer to downstream, the fewer the people.

The young man, out of touch with information for a long time, still didn’t know why this was.

But shortly after he crossed the river, he understood.

At the time, Lann was leading Bopai, walking between the fields and forests.

He was unfamiliar with this land, as the last time he traveled with Regis, they had only taken one route and hadn’t even heard of the rest.

So he could only follow the faintly visible country roads, hoping to find human settlements.

This line of thinking was correct, where there are people, there are roads.

Soon, the Demon Hunter and his warhorse saw sweeping farmlands.

Lann’s spirits lifted because where there are fields, there must be farms or villages nearby, and cities supported by those farms or villages even further off.

At last, he was to see people.

But contrary to his expectations, as Lann delved deeper along the path between wheat fields... he heard nothing.

No interminable dog barking from each village; normally, these farm dogs, upon catching an outsider’s scent, would bark for a good ten minutes!

No lowing of oxen, no noisy clucking of chickens, ducks, and geese running wildly... not even human voices.

Lann’s expression under the hood gradually turned from confused to indifferent.

Because he smelled something, something that in the cold weather, due to molecular inactivity, hadn’t spread far —

The smell of protein, or in other words, flesh and blood, burnt and cooked!

Lann led his horse to the center of the fields, reaching a village.

Or rather... the remnants of a village.

Scavenging birds wheeled in the sky, circling around a plume of smoke that was almost too thin to see.

The village had turned into a wasteland, a layer of white ash spread over the charred burn marks.

This was the trace left by the wooden building materials burned away.

The locations of the tavern, residences, butcher shop... these still vaguely discernible, but only the frames remained.

Bopai’s hooves tread upon this ruin, and they continued walking inside.

Soon after, Lann saw a sight he had witnessed before in the Greek world—

Piles of human bones, charred and burned.

In the strongest flames, people’s bones had been turned to black charcoal, but one could still faintly discern their shapes.

Men, women, children, the elderly... their limbs twisted together, even melting into one mass as they became charred!

Lann’s face turned completely cold, and beside him, Bopai seemed to sense a kind of danger in the air, incessantly trying to retreat.

The reins creaked in Lann’s hand.

He had seen this scene before.

Though not as large in scale as what lay before his eyes, the methods were the same.

On the island of Cephalonia in Ancient Greece, priests worshiping the gods of Olympus, to prevent the spread of plague and save more innocent lives, chose to kill all the patients at the outbreak point, then burn everything.

At the time, Lann felt pity for those bodies, but he held no anger towards the priests who acted.

Because he understood: limited by historical constraints, limited by the knowledge of disease and medicine— in that era, this was the best way to stop a plague!

Those priests who killed, they even made sure the residents passed quickly and painlessly by taking action themselves at close range.

On those piles of corpses in Ancient Greece, all the wounds on the bodies were clean and precise.

It was only after mentally preparing to bear such a sin that the priests mustered the courage to approach the plague-afflicted and act.

But... what about here?

The ones who killed everyone clearly weren’t trying to burn all the bodies.

Next to the pile of bodies, they had placed several wooden poles with a cartwheel mounted atop each.

On each wheel, there was a mangled corpse unrecognizable as human.

The hands and feet that could originally extend beyond the cartwheel were all deliberately broken, then twisted and tied to the wheel’s perimeter.

As if deliberately made to serve as a feast for carrion birds and vultures.

Cartwheel punishment.

A form of punishment that combined humiliation and execution.

Lann slowly exhaled.

The breath steaming from his heated body, in the current temperature, transformed into a thick white mist, reminiscent of smoke escaping from the fiery gaps of a demon’s teeth!

If on the island of Cephalonia, before the god statues, seeing those piled bodies made Lann feel despair, pity, and the priests’ determination under their faith in Olympus—

Here, he felt only... ’revulsion’.

Lann’s height allowed his eyes to hover just above the plane of the horizontally laid cartwheel.

There, the corpse of a young woman, an eye pecked out by birds, gazed at him, locking eyes with his amber cat’s eyes.

What had she felt before she died?

Lann wondered absently.

”The time of death isn’t long, right?”

The Demon Hunter sounded as though he were taking on a commissioned task, whispering as he observed the traces.

”Yes, sir. These people who set up the wheels seemed to act on a sudden whim, not at all professional. Typically, a target of cartwheel punishment is meant to last on the wheel for days,” Mentos’ voice remained low, as though avoiding waking something.

”Sir, I must remind you... your emotional curve is rising.”

Since the event with Steza, Lann’s physiological values had remained stable, continuously monitored by Mentos’ system in the background.

During this time, the only major fluctuations had occurred when breaking into the Immortal Peak Temple in Iwami Country... until today.

”Given such a scene, it’s hard to maintain a good mood,” Lann remarked calmly.

But the calmer he appeared, the more alarmingly steep the line on Mentos’ value graph became in the background.

”Ah, found it.”

The Demon Hunter set off from the cartwheel’s site, observing the ground expressionlessly.

Finally, amidst the chaotic human tracks, he identified an extra set of hoofprints.

Then, Lann gazed at the direction the hoofprints extended into the distance.