Bear School Astartes

Sixty warriors with bows strung, swords drawn, followed the Demon Hunter out of the camp.

Not far behind them, cheers erupted from the camp.

The refugees once again celebrated a closer step to a stable and peaceful life, celebrating the elimination of a security risk.

Ciri gritted her teeth, angrily whipping at anything passing by with a dead branch she picked up from the ground.

On the road, Dandelion unusually refrained from making any jesting remarks.

The Demon Hunters seemed accustomed to being shunned and driven away after saving people, thus Geralt and Ged remained indifferent.

The only sounds were the silent footsteps crunching on dry branches and leaves, along with Ciri’s branch hitting tree trunks and bushes.

Nobody cared to watch the time; they walked in silence until the horizon showed the first light of dawn.

”We’ve been walking for at least four hours.”

Dandelion suddenly spoke coldly.

”Isn’t this enough? At least four hours! You ’great’, ’brave’, ’fearless and bold’ Sintra Warriors should return to reunite with the people you swore to protect to the death...”

”Frankly, I’d rather encounter the so-called large group of Niflgaard pursuers you talk about than see any more of you.”

”I’d feel better being slaughtered by the Niflgaarders than staying with you Sintra people!”

”Don’t speak of Sintra people like that!” Ciri shouted sharply.

”I don’t acknowledge it! I don’t acknowledge them as Sintra people! We’re not so cowardly! So despicable!”

”Grandmother... Calanthe and those who died defending Sintra City are the real Sintra people!”

The banter between the big and small was evidently quite cutting in its sarcasm.

Lann listened from the side, thinking if he were a Sintra person, he’d probably be fuming by now.

However, with the sixty warriors surrounding the Demon Hunters, they remained silent, only lowering their heads further.

Their grip on their weapons tightened.

The three Demon Hunters simultaneously furrowed their brows, realizing something was amiss.

Setting aside the Sintra refugees, they had already been frightened into submission by the harshness of war.

But these warriors fought fiercely against the Niflgaard troops just yesterday at dusk.

Now each bore wounds, bandages still seeping blood!

Such people wouldn’t lack spirit.

Even if feeling guilty for expelling the Demon Hunters, it wasn’t enough to keep them all silent.

”Crack”

Lann’s boot crunched a dry leaf, halting.

As he stopped, the entire team immediately followed suit.

The jarring stop created a cacophony of metal clashing from armor.

Yet the surrounding sixty warriors kept their heads down, none speaking up.

A foreboding feeling suddenly emerged in Lann’s heart.

”Who’s your leader? Have them step forward. Without Stuart coming along, you must have been given a leader!”

No one spoke, nor stepped out.

It was as if a spell had been cast over the sixty warriors.

Their eyes shifted away, as they instinctively avoided making eye contact with Lann’s probing gaze.

Ciri, initially red with anger, now blinked with confusion. Dandelion, however, went stiff.

”Well, well!”

In a flash, the poet seemed to have drawn some wicked inspiration from his past theatrical works, crying out loudly.

”Are you using us as bait? Driving us out to lure the Niflgaard pursuers?!”

Among the previously silent warriors, a voice seemed incensed by this, loudly countering.

”No! We have not!”

Lann’s eyes lit up as he strode toward the direction of the voice.

The warriors tried to block his path, but Lann brushed them aside as if they were mere children.

Finally, Lann seized a slightly shorter warrior among them.

”What do you mean?”

Lann looked down intently at him.

The short warrior hesitated slightly but then sighed deeply, removing his helmet.

”Four hours... should be enough.”

He murmured softly.

He lifted his head, and Lann’s expression abruptly froze.

It was a half-grown kid.

But age mattered little on this war-torn land; more noteworthy was that—

He was the little scribe who always followed Hacksaw, constantly noting things in a big notebook!

Geralt and Ged, standing by, also widened their eyes, drawing closer.

Wasn’t Hacksaw’s little scribe named Lincoln?

From the moment he removed his full-cover helmet, his expression was laid bare for all to see.

It wasn’t the fear and cowardice one might expect from someone seized by the likes of Lann, who could crush him with a handshake, but rather extreme sorrow and grief.

He seemed to regard speaking under Lann’s watch as a mission, speaking methodically.

”Now, we have been away from camp for four hours. Given the sufficient time and distance, and since the esteemed Lann master has detected something amiss, I will deliver a commission to you here.”

As he spoke, he sniffled, his still somewhat childish voice muffled and nasal.

With solemnity and seriousness, he drew from his backpack the large book he had always kept taking notes on.

He raised it to Lann with both hands.

By this point, unable to hold back, tears welled up and streamed down his dusty face, leaving visible tracks.

Lann’s gaze flickered over the large volume. His expression was not calm, clearly suspecting something but unwilling to believe it.

His hesitant hand eventually settled on it, picking it up.

What needed both of Lincoln’s hands to lift was like a regular-sized book in Lann’s hand.

He opened the large journal.

”This is the first day the Niflgaard broke through Sintra City’s outer wall. Within a day after the city walls were breached, fires broke out successively in Oak District, Barrel District, and two other districts, with death tolls reaching...”

”On the second day of the siege, the Niflgaard began besieging the palace, while they started executions across the moat. According to me, Sintra Royal Steward—Hacksaw Lynn’s direct observation, seventy percent of those executed were unarmed civilians. Should the chance or necessity arise, I am willing to swear to everything I’ve said before the statue of Meili at the Meretelli Temple.”

Flipping through, Lann’s reading speed was pushed to the utmost.

The entire large volume was roughly read through in mere seconds.

The content was not, as Dandelion guessed, a self-glorifying autobiography by Hacksaw.

Instead, it was a record, from Hacksaw’s perspective, of what the Niflgaard had done on Sintra’s soil!