Chapter 100: Kiyan: Listen to Me
The footprints that Kiyan had "left" were intermittent.
Appearing and disappearing.
But Lynn, relying on his professional tracking skills and the enhanced senses of a witcher that surpassed ordinary humans, finally led the group to a patch of reeds.
"Master Lynn, is Master Kiyan in there?"
Lynn nodded.
Suddenly, his expression changed drastically.
He raised his hand to signal everyone else to stop.
"Wait, did you all hear that?"
Professor Dijkstra and his group exchanged bewildered glances.
All of them looked confused.
"Master, what are you referring to..."
"Look over there."
The group followed the direction Lynn's gaze indicated.
Then, they saw what Lynn wanted them to see.
The faces of the group instantly turned pale.
They saw that deep within the seemingly calm reeds, small, terrifying, deformed figures, no more than a meter tall and as thin as skeletons, were moving through them.
Their steps were strange.
On their flat, wrinkled faces were bulging eyes like those of a jaundiced person, and their frog-like small mouths revealed rows of sharp fangs.
From time to time, they would emit a spine-chilling hissing sound.
Misia instinctively wanted to scream.
Professor Dijkstra, being old and experienced, reacted the fastest.
Before Misia's scream could escape, he clamped his hand tightly over her mouth.
Professor Dijkstra's other two students, Marco and Gottfried, were relatively better.
But their faces were also ashen.
"Master Lynn, what exactly are those monsters?"
"Nekkers, bizarre creatures brought by the Conjunction of the Spheres," Lynn's gaze swept over the faces of Professor Dijkstra and the others one by one, then he said, "The footprints extend into the reeds. I'm afraid Kiyan has already..."
This was a lie.
Kiyan's death had nothing to do with these nekkers hiding in the reeds.
It was just that yesterday, when Lynn was carrying Kiyan's body away from the camp, he discovered this patch of reeds and the nekkers that had built a nest within.
Lynn, who had originally only planned to burn Kiyan's body to ashes, had an idea.
He first carried Kiyan's body away, found a place to cremate him, then disguised it as Kiyan leaving the camp, going all the way to the edge of the reeds, and erasing all other traces.
"All of you step back. I'll go and eliminate them."
"This... Master Lynn, can't we just leave before they discover us?"
"We could, but if uninformed people pass by, it would cost them their lives. A witcher's duty is to protect humans. If I hadn't seen it, then so be it. But since I have seen it, I must intervene."
So, everyone else retreated to a distance.
They watched as Lynn drew his mastercrafted silver sword and walked into the reeds.
The nekker pack in the reeds discovered the intruder and hissed as they charged towards Lynn.
The nekkers were very fast, simultaneously raising their thin, stick-like forelimbs, clawing at the air as they pounced.
Misia didn't dare to look any further.
Professor Dijkstra and the other two male students also involuntarily held their breaths.
Then they saw that the nekkers' sharp claws didn't grasp flesh but silver sword light.
The nekker's claws and head flew into the air together, trailing two lines of blood.
This seemed to be a signal.
Lynn charged into the remaining monster pack, his mastercrafted silver sword swinging left and right.
The cold, gleaming sword was as sharp as a razor.
The nekkers attacked him from all directions, screeching and flailing their limbs.
The speed of the fight was too fast, and the scene was too chaotic.
Coupled with the obstruction of the reeds, Professor Dijkstra and the others couldn't see anything except the occasional flash of silver light.
The monsters surrounded Lynn like ants.
The hissing of the nekkers was incessant, as if trying to drown the witcher like a tsunami. But it was soon replaced by the sound of the blade slicing through the air, screams, and cries of pain.
They didn't know how long it lasted.
Finally, after a blood-curdling, desperate roar, everything suddenly stopped abruptly.
The surroundings fell into silence.
What had been so chaotic before was now eerily quiet.
Professor Dijkstra swallowed hard, raised his head, and straightened up slightly.
Silence still enveloped the surroundings, and even the reeds stood still.
Finally.
A young man covered in blood emerged from the reeds.
Still carrying his gleaming mastercrafted silver sword.
Professor Dijkstra was the first to rush over.
His students reacted a little slower.
But they also followed closely behind.
"Master Lynn, are you alright?"
Lynn waved his hand. "I'm fine. They're all dead. Don't worry... You all go back to the camp first."
Professor Dijkstra was taken aback.
"Then what about you, Master?"
Lynn took out a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wiped the blood from his sword before sheathing it.
"I have to burn these monsters' bodies, otherwise the smell of blood and rotting flesh will quickly attract other carrion eaters."
At this moment, Marco suddenly mustered his courage and said, "Master Lynn, you and the professor go back to the camp first. We can handle things here."
"You?" Lynn shook his head. "Are you sure you can really handle a scene with entrails and fresh blood all over the ground?"
"Of course," Gottfried said, his face pale.
In fact, everyone present could roughly imagine what the scene in the reeds was like.
The heroic epics sung in the bards' poems were one thing.
But in reality, the scene of corpses lying everywhere and blood flowing all over the ground was another.
Bards wouldn't rack their brains to describe how heroes cleaned up the battlefield.
But Lynn's words just now aroused Gottfried's inexplicable competitiveness.
He admitted that he couldn't do what Lynn did, slaying demons and monsters.
But at the very least, he thought he could handle the simple task of burning corpses.
"In that case, I'll leave it to you."
Lynn smiled and patted Gottfried on the shoulder.
Then he left with Professor Dijkstra and Misia.
Leaving only Marco and Gottfried staring at each other with wide eyes.
Feeling Marco's gaze, Gottfried couldn't help but say, "What are you looking at me for? Didn't you also ask to stay? Hurry up, don't dawdle. The sooner we finish, the sooner we can all leave this damn place."
...
Lynn and the professor's group waited a long time for the two at the campsite.
Only then did they see the two return with terrible expressions and smelling awful.
Professor Dijkstra had just prepared to greet them when the two vomited messily and dramatically.
Lynn said nothing.
He just listened quietly as Marco and Gottfried, with unpleasant expressions, described the scene they had witnessed in the reeds.
Professor Dijkstra sighed with emotion.
He immediately stated that once they returned, he would definitely find a bard to compose a song about the "heroic" Kiyan's story and have it sung.
That was good.
That was enough.
At least, compared to being used as experimental subjects and tortured to within an inch of their lives in the other timeline, at least in this timeline, Kiyan was still a hero.
He would live forever in the bards' poems.
(End of this chapter)
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