Bear School Astartes

If you threw Lann into a deathmatch with Ludwig, who’d been tortured into the same freakish shape, this young Demon Hunter would go through the entire fight without being distracted in the slightest by his enemy’s appearance.

Because that really would be a battle where he had to steel himself and throw his whole mind into it.

But right now, Lann was a lot more casual.

He watched Henrik silently and neatly unleash a Vital Organ Strike on this twisted Werewolf, and couldn’t help grinding his back teeth a little.

It wasn’t because of the brutality and gore of Yan Nan Hunters’ killing methods; he’d long since gotten used to that.

It was that twisted Werewolf itself.

When Henrik’s hand plunged into the tangled mess of dog legs and arms knotted together in its chest and belly, all those other scattered limbs that had grown out of the Werewolf suddenly went taut, like they’d felt pain.

By the time Henrik completed the final motion of the Vital Organ Strike, yanking his hand out from the Werewolf’s chest and belly with a vicious sideways pull, clutching its entrails!

The many limbs making up this Werewolf started twitching and thrashing like mad, just like the flailing legs of a centipede when it dies.

”That’s why I said...” Henrik casually flicked off the sticky mince of flesh and blood from his hand, while glancing at the young Demon Hunter who couldn’t help clicking his tongue. ”These monsters are nothing like the old days. You’ve got to be careful.”

Just like before, the Old Hunter spoke to the young Demon Hunter half as a warning, half as a kind of rough concern.

Only now, Lann was no longer that green newcomer who’d just arrived, still needing an Old Hunter’s reminders to adapt to Yan’an customs.

So the Demon Hunter only clicked his tongue in distaste, ”tsk tsk tsk”, while nudging the twisted Werewolf—already completely still after taking that Vital Organ Strike—with the toe of his boot.

”Something like this showing up here... is that actually normal?”

Lann spoke with a frown.

Yan’an might be a nightmare these days, but monsters warped to this extent, he’d only ever seen in that nightmare born from the murder of the Cos Orphan.

And that was already Yan’an’s deepest, most terrifying nightmare.

”Of course it’s not normal.” Henrik’s eyes, the thin strip caught between brim and mask, were utterly calm. ”I’ve been a Hunter for too damn long, but this is the first time I’ve seen creatures this twisted.”

”I actually had to kill two of them before I could get a feel for the timing to use Gun Counter on them.”

Gun Counter was one of the more advanced techniques among Old Hunters.

You use a gunshot in a razor-thin instant to throw the enemy off-balance and out of control.

The underlying principle isn’t far off from the stance-breaking of the Iwami Style or the Combat Skill: Guard from the Flame World, it’s just that the timing is different.

And Lann knew very well that, given Henrik’s nature, when he said he’d ”gotten a feel for the timing”, what he meant was that after killing two of these things... he could Gun Counter them at will.

No matter what move these enemies pulled, the Old Hunter had already seen through it. One shot, and they’d obediently kneel there waiting for a Vital Organ Strike.

Even among Old Hunters, Henrik’s experience was rich enough to be downright frightening.

Just on experience alone, he could pull off things most people wouldn’t even dare imagine.

The Crow Hunter Erin, in order to hunt him down once he went mad, had even rewound who knows how many times, and still never felt sure.

Until this cycle, when the actions of a young Demon Hunter from the Otherworld kept this terrifying Old Hunter from going mad at all, even now.

Thinking back to that nightmare, to his second encounter with a young Henrik who’d only been a Hunter for a few days—so raw and reckless—Lann felt an even stranger sense of dissonance.

”Why are you looking at me like that?”

Henrik found Lann’s gaze on him a bit odd.

”Nothing.” The Demon Hunter shook his head and shifted the topic. ”I was just wondering, once this Hunt Night passes, what an Old Hunter like you plans to do. Yan’an’s pretty much completely ruined, isn’t it?”

”Once the Hunt Night passes?”

Henrik’s reaction to Lann’s words was first a clear moment of blankness, almost identical to Erin’s.

Obviously, that long, blurry span of time had completely erased the notion of ”this Hunt Night could actually end” from the Old Hunter’s mind.

But with one hand pressing down the dusty yellow brim, after a moment’s silence, his muffled voice finally sounded from behind the mask, hesitant.

”I’d probably... leave Yan’an? And of course, I’d have to talk Gascogne into coming too.”

”Blood Healing, the thrill and Life Force of Holy Blood... if those things have already started endangering my family and friends, then it’s time to quit them.”

”I’m just... sick of hunting. Ahh~”

By the end, Henrik let out a huge, exhausted sigh, like he wanted to blow out all the fatigue in his body along with his lungs.

”Is that so? Leaving Yan’an...” Lann gave a faint chuckle. ”For someone born and raised in Yan City, that’s definitely not an easy decision.”

Yan’an was dangerous and uncanny, but for whatever reason—like a Curse—people who came here never found it easy to leave.

Let alone the locals.

The two continued onward, retracing the path they had once walked together.

First the stone-brick streets of Yan City, then the dirt paths overgrown with weeds in the Forbidden Forest...

Fortunately, those beasts that had turned grotesque and nauseating were not too many along this road the two of them had already cleared once.

On a route that wasn’t particularly urgent or dangerous, the Old Hunter began, following the track of their earlier conversation, to haltingly describe what life would be like after the Night of the Hunt, in the most beautiful ending he could imagine.

”I’m really good at repairing Transformable Weapons. Maybe once I leave Yan’an, I could become some kind of mechanic? Weapons and machinery aren’t that different, right?”

”Gascogne could keep being a Priest… no, actually, forget it. In this life, the farther I stay from all that holy spooky crap, the better. For Viola and the two kids, if nothing else, I ought to keep my distance.”

Henrik had never thought about these things, because he had never once imagined the Night of the Hunt would ever end.

But even though they had only just started talking about it on a whim, Lann could still sense, in his words and in his tone, the old man’s vision of a peaceful life to come.

It was the yearning of an Old Hunter who had been weary for far too long, for a future.

”But after saying all that, have you actually thought about where you’ll go once you leave Yan’an?”

Lann scratched his head as he asked, and that earned him Henrik’s sudden stall.

The mouth that had been almost rambling a moment ago suddenly went quiet.

”...No. I don’t know.”

A Yan Nan Person born and bred, Henrik had no idea what the world outside this ancient city was like, nor what lay beyond its walls.

But then the Old Hunter turned his head and glanced over.

”Speaking of which, you’re an outsider, aren’t you? Got any cities you’d recommend?”

”I do, actually.” Lann rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ”But… let’s talk about it after this Night of the Hunt really is over.”

They walked quickly, and on top of that, when he’d come last time, Lann had directly used the [Light Body Skill] to leap across, open Byron Vis’s main gate, and thus unlocked a shortcut.

So, talking as they went, the two of them soon found themselves once more at this academy that had stood so long within Yan’an.

Lann’s boots, shod in Dragon Scale plates from his ”plug-in,” stepped off the forest’s muddy earth and onto the stone floor within the academy.

From long ago, the corpse of the strange enemy he and Henrik had killed—a thing with fly wings, spindly arms, and a swollen head packed full of eyeballs—still lay sprawled on the ground.

It was as if everything truly still lingered in a single night… a mere single night.

And, not at all contrary to Lann’s expectations—

With a dull ”thump,” the Old Hunter behind him dropped as if he had suddenly fallen sound asleep; one foot had only just stepped through Byron Vis Academy’s main gate when he simply collapsed to the floor.

The Demon Hunter stood with hands on his hips and let out a sigh, then at least dragged the Old Hunter into the academy building.

The place looked unchanged as well. The luxurious sofas students had used for salons and gatherings now seemed dull without candlelight, and Lann laid Henrik down upon one of them.

Then he planted his boot soles on the expensive, sturdy wooden floor and stairs, and in the absence of any illumination, walked straight up to the second floor of Byron Vis Academy, heading directly for that terrace.

The open-air terrace extended out from the building, running all the way over the surface of the great lake in front of the academy.

And as Lann walked from inside the building out onto the open terrace, he felt his eyes brighten… in the most literal sense.

A full moon, huge to a shocking degree, close to a shocking degree, bright to a shocking degree, was occupying the greater part of the night sky from Lann’s vantage point.

Completely different from the blood moon that had hung in the sky outside before he came to Byron Vis.

And the person Lann had come looking for was, as ever, dressed in ornate, complicated finery, clutching a staff, hunched into a gently rocking easy chair.

Under the moonlight, that easy chair swayed slowly and steadily, as though it would keep the old man company alongside the moon in the heavens forever.

Full moon, great lake, an old man sitting in a rocking chair on the terrace, quiet and mysterious.

It all seemed just the same as when Lann had first come here.

But in Lann’s eyes now…

The Demon Hunter’s amber feline eyes were not looking at the blindfolded old man in the easy chair, nor at the bright full moon in the sky.

Instead, they were only taking an interested look at the ground beneath his feet, and the terrain and buildings beyond the edge of the terrace.

”Back then, even after I slew Rom, my vision still couldn’t make out what you really were. Only now do I realize… even my boldest guesses at the time were still way off the mark.”

Lann was not speaking to Master William on the rocking chair.

He simply kept his head bowed, looking around, and talked idly, without any particular addressee.

Yet even so, Master William did not seem surprised—if anything… he seemed pleased.

He gave the staff in his hand a light shake, and the bell at its head chimed with a pleasant sound.

”Ah, you can already see this much. It seems your vision has been well fostered by you.”

”Come, approach. Let us talk properly, talk about…”

”How you should put an end to this nightmare.”