Bear School Astartes

Originally, this group of gangsters with cheap tattoos across their chests, though harboring ill intentions, were not at the point of wanting to cause fatalities.

Novigrad is bustling, the largest city in the entire North.

But because of the dense population and intertwined factions, every day the undertaker can take a cart full of bodies to process, then live on the municipal subsidies from Novigrad.

Murder, accidents, hunger, injuries, the monsters hiding in the city...all these can claim lives.

However, the gangs weren’t at the level of threatening strangers to fight to the death right off the bat.

What mattered was money; if you could get money, why go out of your way to risk your life fighting, right?

But when Lann, with a probing tone, pointed out certain things, the gangsters’ eyes suddenly looked murderous.

This wealthy district wasn’t physically separated from the areas where the poor lived, so when Lann and Triss came by, they could see a few beggars on the street corner.

No different from any other beggar in Novigrad.

Eyes sickly yellow and bloodshot, staring blankly.

The dirt and grime on them were so thick that even mosquito mouthparts couldn’t pierce through. The harsh life covered their bodies with scars and sores.

Those with leg problems had made a pallet for themselves with broken wooden planks and wheels, their disabled legs curled atop it, using their hands to push against the ground moving along.

No one particularly cared about these ever-present beggars in Novigrad.

But as Lann passed by them, he couldn’t help but detect the sour stench coming from them with his Demon Hunter senses.

And he detected the same smell on these intruding gangsters.

The smell was faint, likely stuck on them after a brief contact.

”Now you want to kill us. Hmm, interesting...”

Lann withdrew his foot from the first step of the stairs, turning to face the group of gangsters directly.

It’s not surprising this group dared to make a move on him.

After all, when they hadn’t seen what true power looked like, people tend to have unwarranted confidence in their numerical advantage.

It wasn’t uncommon to see bandits, hungry themselves, trying to rob fully-armed Demon Hunters.

On the contrary, this gang simply seeing Lann as a ’big fool in a cloak’ made the Demon Hunter somewhat amused.

Finally, someone who didn’t recognize him.

The gang leader’s face turned sour.

”You—you think it’s funny? Well, I’m damned unlucky!”

”It was just supposed to be about robbing some money, now I’ve got to make this damn place see blood! And have to clean it up myself!”

”Do you know how hard it is to wash off blood and chunks of meat, and grease? Damn bastards! Yuck!”

After cursing about his increased workload, the gang leader waved his hand, and his underlings squeezed past him.

Drawing their weapons from their belts.

There were iron-headed cudgels, hand axes, a Velen Longsword standard issue, and also the Novigrad Longsword, prevalent among gang enforcers for its portability and concealability, just a bit shorter than a normal hand-and-a-half sword.

A focus on affordability, durability, no heartache if broken.

Typical gang weapons.

Four or five people squeezed forward haphazardly, knocking over and skewing cabinets, small round tables, and chairs in the room, creating a series of chaotic wooden collision sounds and the sharp friction of table corners.

Bottles and fruit trays shattered on the ground with a crisp sound.

Lann stood at the staircase, and before he could move his foot, he felt the air warp beside him.

Triss’s hands flickered with the brilliance of Chaos Magic Power.

Fine orange-red magic currents trailed from her hands.

The gangsters involuntarily paused their steps, and their fierce momentum came to an abrupt halt.

But in this, the urban gangsters’ advantage showed.

Novigrad never lacked casters, no matter how skilled or not they were, there were many.

Some ran magic shops, some treated acne and diarrhea, and some held crystal balls apparently seeing the future.

To laymen, all the sound and light effects made no difference.

Having seen it often, they weren’t that afraid.

This is the advantage of Novigrad’s gangs: they have no qualms acting against mages.

They’re all in the city to make a living, damn it, who’s afraid of whom?

”Hit that witch first!”

”Don’t let her chant!”

”Damn witch bitch!”

The chattering gangsters knew more clearly than the secluded nobles of the Northern Countries about magic.

They knew Turtle-shaped Stones couldn’t nullify magic, and disrupting a mage’s concentration was key to victory.

But clearly, these folks probably had never seen a mage like Triss in their lives.

The red-haired witch, with a mischievous malicious smile on her lips.

Her originally opened hands clenched together swiftly.

The magic glow that had blossomed in her palms shrunk drastically, but at the same time, light started to emit from between the legs of those rushing gangsters.

”Ugh!!!”*N

The sharp yet violent scream lasted only for a moment.

Because the pain from the critical spot was so sudden and intense, they were deprived of even the ability to scream.

Their eyes were bulging as if they were about to pop out of their sockets, neck muscles taut with bulging veins.

Their faces turned as red as a boiled shrimp, at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The objects in their hands clattered to the wooden floor in uncontrollable spasms.

In the end, each of them could only suck in a cold breath, maintaining a position: bodies curled up on the ground, hands clamped around their vital parts, trembling in pain.

”Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

Lann couldn’t help but click his tongue.

”I...”

Still a step or two away, the gang leader, who hadn’t yet rushed over, just pulled out the club from his waist.

He raised it above his head, prepared to rush over and smash it down.

But in the blink of an eye, none of his men were left standing in front of him.

At this moment, as long as one isn’t a fool, one should know they’ve hit an iron wall.

His legs hadn’t even started to move forward, and without any hesitation, his center of gravity was already tilting backward, and his feet were about to follow the shift in weight.

The street-smart cunning of a gang leader from Novigrad was fully displayed.

But the wisdom of small men always has its limits... especially in the face of powers that exceed those limits.

His escape was adept and decisive, yet just as he was beginning to move his body.

He felt a gust of airflow stirred by an object moving at high speed.

A broad black shadow occupied the edge of his peripheral vision.

It was a tall, despair-inducing figure.

”Bang!”

The gang leader didn’t even have time for his brain to react, and after the loud crash, the side of his face was already pressed against Dudu’s house wall.

The massive hand covered his entire face, pressing from the side, distorting and twisting the face trapped against the wall, with the skin almost ready to be rubbed raw by the rough wall surface.

Just almost... held back deliberately by an inch.

This sensation of having your skull pressed in someone else’s hand, dangerously oscillating on the brink of being crushed, immediately shattered the gang leader’s composure.

”Ah! Ah!!”

He screamed, uncontrollably. The fear in his mind had taken over his body’s actions.

Lann handled this point exceptionally well.

When the man in his hand was exhausted from screaming, breathless and unable to scream any longer, Lann slightly eased the pressure from his hand.

Controlling this hand not to crush that skull was actually quite challenging.

”You say Dudu owes you money, so you’ve isolated Dudu’s goods, is that right?”

Lann spoke calmly under the hood.

Now, the gang leader fully understood that beneath the hood wasn’t some malformed giant, but an efficient warrior, a calm killer.

So he gasped for air, desperately trying to produce a hoarse hum from his throat, indicating that Lann’s statement was correct.

But Lann wasn’t done speaking.

Apart from this evident fact, he had become interested in these gang hooligans.

”It was only after I mentioned your connection with the street corner beggars that you suddenly decided to kill. Before that, you didn’t want the situation to escalate to bloodshed.”

Lann inquisitively further questioned.

”Is this your unique business secret?”

In the underworld, people are ruthless and sinister, but anyone with a brain, after spending a few days in the gang, should know.

In this line of work, being ruthless is only a basic requirement. To truly succeed and expand, you need brains and influence.

So having a sense of propriety and an ability to read situations is sometimes more useful than fighting and cruelty in the underworld.

When to kill, when to only cause injury, and when just saying a tough word is enough...

Unable to grasp the subtleties of these matters, one would be destined to only wield a blade on the streets, making a scene and eating free meals at the dumpling shop at the corner.

And undoubtedly, entrusted by their boss with the task of debt collection, especially from a successful businessman like Dudu,

such a lucrative task could not be given to fools.

So don’t be deceived by this gang leader, who in Lann’s grasp seemed like a fish flopping on the shore, stammering his words, but he certainly wasn’t foolish.

Lann’s statement made him realize that they had no choice but to silence their mouths here, thus the need to kill.

”Triss,” Lann turned around and asked, ”Have you ever seen such gangs? Organizing beggars as intelligence sources and working them in tandem with their enforcers?”

At this moment, Vizima’s Royal Advisor had already stopped her mischievous delight, but any man whose vital parts have been injured knows that the incapacitation caused by such pain wouldn’t recover for at least half a day, even without any substantive harm.

So although these people on the ground were no longer tortured by magic, they were lying there blankly with vacant eyes, as if in a daze.

”No, I haven’t seen it.”

The red-haired witch expressed her surprise.

”Gang networks recruiting beggars as lookouts... never heard of it.”