Bear School Astartes

Lann didn’t know how to comfort the murdered divine child, so he could only follow the Demon Hunter’s knowledge, using methods to soothe the untimely dead or children who had died prematurely, to perform some simple rituals.

He took out some Hundred-Relief Grass, lavender, and five to six other herbs from the Alchemy Pouch at his rear waist, and lit a small fire with them.

The incense of these herbs, in the meaning of mysticism, has the effect of soothing spirits and purifying evil thoughts.

There was already salt in the seawater, so he didn’t need to sprinkle salt at Kos’s corpse, encircling it with the ocean.

Finally, after placing the ashes of the incense, still emitting smoke, onto the little boat, Lann stepped into the polluted seawater, pushing the boat step by step into the distance.

Under the deep moonlight, the candle lit on the boat and the sparks of the incense flickered in light and shadow.

”Should something be said?” Lann waded back, looking at the drifting away small boat, lightly speaking to Edd and Maria behind him. ”To send off the departed, something should be said.”

”Us?” Maria stared blankly at the diminishing candlelight on the small boat, her tone icy and self-mocking, ”The sins we’ve committed are irreparable, and now can we still deliver a eulogy?”

Lann did not speak, just stood silently.

While Edd squeezed Maria’s arm, looking at her pleadingly.

Despite the rejection from her mouth, Maria still took a deep breath and, raising her hand, took off the triangular hat adorned with swan feathers, placing it to her chest and opened her mouth toward the departing small boat.

”Ah, dear child of Kos, return to the ocean.”

Maria’s voice was difficult and parched, her hand unconsciously tightening around the hat she held to her chest.

”An unfathomable curse, an unfathomable ocean, fully accepting all existing and possible existences.”

A voice hardened by regret and apology, yet ending in a tone calmly accepting reality and punishment.

”Return to the body of your ocean mother.”

The polluted waves swayed gently, as if rocking the small boat like a cradle.

Until finally, the candlelight and incense on the boat disappeared on the other side of the horizon, vanishing without a trace.

It was over... The curse from the murdered divine child.

The moon in the sky suddenly seemed much brighter, the large swath of clouds that obscured it now appearing to be pushed back by the light.

Moonlight shot beams through the gaps in the clouds, illuminating the people on the coast and Kos’s corpse.

”That was a good eulogy.”

Just when the three present were still gazing into the distance, an aged and calm voice softly opened behind them.

”That was a fitting eulogy for that orphan, Maria.”

The Female Hunter suddenly turned around, leading Edd to stagger and turn as well.

[First Hunter] Gremman, at the moment, was sitting beside Kos’s corpse, on a wheelchair that had appeared unknowingly.

The Old Hunter was like any other elderly man, hunched over, as if his spine had no strength to support the body.

A normal foot and a piece of wooden prosthetic resting on the footrest of the wheelchair, a cane in his hand.

”Teacher...?”

Maria slowly donned her triangular hat, asking uncertainly.

Gremman, as the mentor who personally taught the Female Hunter, even whole Yan’an should have no one more familiar with him than Maria.

But this old man sitting in a wheelchair... Why did he look so haggard?

And why did he appear here, silently, at this moment?

”You seem to have many questions to ask me, dear Maria.”

Gremman, this elderly Hunter who not long ago personally sent the divine child’s corpse to the Great Cathedral in Church Town, watched the people there dissect, go mad, finally leaving quietly.

Now he seemed near death, speaking with his head down, the brim of his high-top hat drooping to almost cover his eyes, seeming too weak to adjust it.

However, no matter how abnormal Gremman behaved, to Maria, this was the mentor she had been seeking amidst the tumultuous changes of only one day, the pillar she needed.

Unlike his previous carefree manner, the Blood Nobility placed their hat with more force due to a subconscious deepening the fit.

”Teacher...” Maria hesitantly stepped forward, speaking with a tangled voice. ”In this day, I have seen too many things, too many events.”

”In the research hall are Gray Blood Patients, with worms in their blood! [Blood Healing] doesn’t save people, instead it nurtures those worms!”

”And Hunters! Hunters who just injected blood bottles into thigh veins! They went mad! They transformed into beasts right before me!”

”Isn’t [Blood Healing] supposed to cure everything?!”

”Healing Church, [Blood Healing], Gray Blood Disease, Beast Transformation Disease... I thought I knew these things, but now... what are they truly?”

Once believing she knew everything, only in one day, everything she witnessed with Lann made Maria realize: what she thought she knew was never the real appearance of those things.

Under such impact, Maria managed to maintain a slightly trembling tone, yet overall calm. It was her chilling demeanor as the Yan Nan Hunter suppressing it.

But as Maria’s closest mentor, Gremman seemed unable to perceive the self-doubt and near emotional collapse beneath his disciple’s calm surface.

His high-top hat rigidly and slowly nodded up and down.

”It’s been so long since you’ve asked me questions.”

”I didn’t expect this time, you did not immerse yourself in the research center, instead came here.”

”This isn’t something the ’normal you’ would do. You must be influenced by someone.”

Maria’s eyebrows furrowed deeply, and at the same time, the hand clutching the hilt of the [Falling Leaves] tightened fiercely.

”Teacher...”

She didn’t understand what these words meant, what was meant by ’normal me’, what was meant by ’this time’?

But at this moment, Gremman slowly raised his head, and the eyes beneath the brim of his high top hat did not fall on his student.

Instead, they passed directly over Maria, looking at the back of the Demon Hunter who always faced the sea amid the ’crashing’ waves.

The sound of boots stepping on seawater arose, and only then did Lann turn around.

Under the moonlight, the sea breeze blew his hair like a mass of dancing silver.

”You actually... dared to come back, ha, hahaha.”

A deep, elderly voice laughed lowly.

”Clearly, an uninvited guest who broke into someone else’s garden and then ran away, aren’t you even a little guilty or afraid? Not even a bit?”

But Lann, his gaze lowered, chuckled lightly, neither cold nor warm.

”After all, I didn’t expect that someone who once appeared in my dreams would now stand alive before me.”

”The [First Hunter], Gremman.”

He was also the wheelchair-bound old man Lann saw when he first arrived in Yan’an, wanting him to inject Yanyan’s Blood!

But upon seeing Lann again, Gremman only said this sentence and then seemed disinterested, looking instead at Maria, who appeared cold and calm on the surface but was actually on the verge of collapse.

”You want to know a lot of things? Fine, you are my best student, I will tell you.”

Then, Gremman revealed the truth to Maria and Eddelyn beside her.

The research hall was for studying the parasites obtained from Kos’s corpse.

Gray Blood disease? As Lann said, it’s an artificial plague intentionally spread by the Healing Church to explore the knowledge contained within the disease and expand the range of infection.

Treating disease was not the goal; the disease itself was a means of exploring mysteries, a research method.

Those patients in the research hall, from the moment they entered to receive so-called ’treatment,’ were certainly never going to leave alive.

Everyone would die; the only difference was whether their illness provided the Healing Church with fresh knowledge.

With Gremman’s calm and indifferent narration, Maria’s gloved hands gripped the hilt of [Falling Leaves] with a creaking sound.

At this moment, in her mind, the words those patients once said to her, and the words she spoke to them, began to uncontrollably surge forth.

”Lady Maria, my head hurts so much! Is it about to explode? Is it?”

”Lady Maria, hold my hand, please!”

Those patients accepted Maria’s comfort, or rather, it was because of her comfort that they managed to endure the painful treatment... or research process.

Maria even planted many luminous tree flowers in the garden of the research hall, hoping their fragrance would bring solace to the patients.

True sincerity can be felt by others.

So the patients, assured by Maria’s promises, believed as long as they persevered, there was always hope for a cure.

And her mentor...

In the shadow of the triangular hat, Maria’s blood-red eyes looked at the wheelchair-bound Gremman with disbelief, pain, and doubt.

The mentor she trusted most... knew everything!

He watched as those patients, due to their trust in him, walked toward endless suffering and death.

She truly was... foolish!

Before, when facing Ludwig, who believed in the Healing Church despite only having a head left, Maria just thought he was deceived, truly pitiful.

But at this moment?

Always trusting the Healing Church, always trusting her mentor... is there really any difference?

”Bang!”

A mercury bullet shot from a finely worked firearm, but when it aimed at the old man in the wheelchair, it seemed to pass through an illusion.

Hitting nothing, the mercury bullet finally buried itself in the beach sand.

Maria’s hand holding the gun was unusually trembling.

Yet Gremman even had the leisure to twist his stiff, old body slightly to look at the bullet hole.

”Yes, Maria would do that.”

The old hunter’s tone even carried a bit of reminiscence.

”But what a pity... unfortunately, you are all just echoes of the past.”

”Unable to do anything.”