Roy wanted to visit the bakery, but before he even got near, he noticed someone banging on the door. When he came closer, he realized there were two men outside the bakery. Their clothes were in tatters, and they were armed with a bat.
“Open up, you old git!” A man with a big nose and a bigger braid cursed. “Or I’ll burn this whole place down with you in it! You should feel lucky we even want your place! Come out right now and sign this contract if you know what’s good for you! This is your only chance. Keep this up and you get one hundred less for every day wasted!”
“Who are you two?” Roy came up to them quietly. He scanned them and confirmed that they were just humans. “And why are you here?”
The man with the big nose whirled around, surprised that Roy could sneak up on them. He pointed his bat at the young witcher and shot him a glare. “You wanna know who we are? People you shouldn’t mess with. Now scram! Get your bread at another bakery.”
“Don’t poke your nose where it doesn’t belong, boy.” The other man was fat and had a flushed face, though he pointed his bat at Roy all the same. But when he noticed Roy’s golden eyes, short hair, and well-built body, he started having second thoughts. “O-or you’re getting it.”
Roy shrugged. He didn’t want to waste time with the thugs, so he unsheathed his wooden sword and spun it around before holding it at his waist. He pointed the tip at the thugs and lunged ahead, his torso relaxed.
Roy might have settled this matter another way if they’d been knights or officials from the castle, but since they were only thugs, Roy was confident he could beat them without a problem. Time to test my skills.
“You little twerp! Think you’re some bigshot, are you?” The man with the big nose swung his bat at Roy, but Roy didn’t even dodge the hit. Instead, he stepped ahead and made a horizontal swing, blocking the bat before it could hit his chest. He clasped the bat between the blade and the crossguard and slid the sword ahead.
It hit the thug squarely in the chest, and the impact made him tumble back. Before Roy could do anything, he felt a gust of wind coming from the other side. The fat thug was aiming for Roy’s head, but Roy crouched and evaded the attack.
The fat thug was about to regroup when he realized his hit missed, and Roy leaped ahead silently and swung his left hand, slapping the fat thug with his sword.
The man fell down while holding his face, and dust flew around him. He gripped his bat as he got ready for a counterattack, but before he could do anything, he felt Roy’s sword inches away from his throat.
“Don’t move.” Roy shook his head and shot a warning look at the other thug, who was still reeling from the pain. Too slow. It’s like playing a game with severe lag. Having double the Dexterity points compared to a normal human made it easy for him to dodge all oncoming attacks and dish back some damage at the same time. In the end, the battle was done within three seconds.
The thugs would be dead if he was using an actual sword, and the battle would have ended sooner if Roy had used his skills, but he didn’t need to use them. It was just like Letho had told him — if his stats were impossibly higher than his enemies’, one strike would be enough to end the battle. Not that a battle like this is satisfying, though.
Roy patted the fatty’s face with his wooden sword, and he cast Observe on the thugs. “Hello, Donald. Hello, Frosi. Dennis Cranmer, one of the king’s personal guards, hired me to look into the murders that happened recently. Leave the bakery at once.” Roy shot them a threatening glare. “If you harass the baker again, I’ll tell Dennis you’re the serial killer.”
“N-no, sir, please! Please, don’t!” The fatty trembled in fear. “We’ll piss off right away. I swear to Melitele I’ll never come near Huckle again!”
“S-same here!” The thug with a big nose tossed his bat away quickly.
“Then get out of my sight right now.”
***
After the thugs had scrambled off, Roy placed his sword in his inventory space. He went up to the bakery and was about to knock when he heard someone shuffling within. Then, a familiarly hoarse voice asked, “Is that you, Mr. Roy? Did you…” He coughed. “Did you chase those bastards away?”
Huckle opened the door ever so slightly, only revealing a part of him. He was gaunt as usual and had aged a lot since they last met. His hair and beard were grey, same as his clothes. He was unkempt, and his eyes were sunken, bloodshot. Even his back was hunched. He was holding a candelabra as a weapon, but Huckle knew he didn’t need it once he saw who was outside. “Why’s your hair — ”
Roy stopped him before he could ask any questions. “Not a word about that. Burned off by fire.” Huckle thought it was weird, but he let Roy in anyway.
They sat down face to face in the dark kitchen. Roy looked around and noticed there was barely anything in the room, save for a few chairs and the old oven that was attached to the wall. “It’s been a while, Huckle. I could barely recognize you. Have you looked at yourself recently? If I didn’t know better, I could have sworn you were a ghost.” Roy shook his head. “I know Berschel’s death took a toll on you, but you should still take care of yourself.”
“Thank you, Mr. Roy.” Huckle was filled with rage and sorrow when his son was mentioned. “But I could think of nothing but avenging my son. I will find the bastard who hurt my son, and I will kill him.”
“I see. What about those thugs, then?” Roy asked. “Why’d they force you to sell the bakery?”
Huckle sighed. “I spent all my money on my son’s case. I don’t have any customers now, and I don’t have enough crowns to keep running the bakery, so I wanted to sell it off for some money. Those bastards found out about it and started threatening me right after I listed the place on the market. They wanted to purchase it at a price far lower.” Huckle glowered. “I say to the shithole with them.” He picked the candelabra up and swung it in the air. “I’m not a coward. They aren’t getting away with it. I need the money to keep looking into the case, so I’m not going to accept any offer that’s lower than what I want.”
“And nobody’s tackling this?” Roy realized the reason the moment he asked the question. “Oh, is it because they’re busy with the murders?”
“Spot on. The knights are busy with the serial murders. They don’t care about extortions. It’s trivial to them. That’s why those bastards got away with it. I would have hired a mercenary to whoop their behind if I had the money.”
“It’s alright, Huckle. I just told them off.” Roy looked at him seriously. “They’re getting it if they try to pull anything funny.”
“Thank you, Roy.” Huckle made a decision. “I’ll pay you once the bakery is sold off, though it won’t be much.”
“You don’t have to. It’s fine,” Roy declined. He wouldn’t take any payment, since he hadn’t spent too much time on it. They started talking about Berschel’s case. “So what did you find after all this time?”
“If you’re talking about a lead, then I did find something. At least I didn’t spend my money for nothing.” His eyes glimmered when they finally started talking about the case. “Do you remember the exact date of Berschel’s disappearance?”
“Last year’s twenty-seventh of December,” Roy said. The scene of Berschel’s death was still fresh in his mind.
“The knights wouldn’t venture to Wigan at that time under normal circumstances.” Huckle nodded. “But it was a special day. I went around the city, and I can confirm that there was one group of knights who left in the morning and came back later in the day.”
“What day was it?”
“The day Queen Ermellia left the city to pray at the temple. She was escorted by a group of knights.”
Roy wondered what Huckle was talking about, so the baker stopped for a moment to explain. “The queen and king have been married for many years, but they aren’t blessed with a child. Melitele’s a goddess of fertility, so you get why she’s praying to her.”
That makes sense. Then Roy realized he had heard something similar before when he was training in the temple. The priestesses were talking about the queen. “Wait? Ermellia? The queen’s name is Ermellia?” Roy poked his temples. “That sounds familiar.”
“So you remember.” Huckle was happy that his investigation led to something significant. “My poor son said two things before he died. One was the order, while the other was Emily.”
Emily… Ermellia. “Wait. He wasn’t talking about Emily, right?”
“Correct. My son said the queen’s name before he died, and I spent a lot of time thinking about it.” Huckle was sure his conclusion was right. “Berschel mentioned the order and the queen, so the bastard who hurt him must be among the group that escorted the queen that day.”
Huckle’s face was flushed with anger, and he was trembling. “I don’t know why that bastard left his post, I don’t know why he went to Wigan, and I don’t know why he hurt my son, but by Melitele, I will get my hands on him and drag the answer out of him.” Huckle’s chest heaved as he let out a few heavy breaths. “What do you think, Mr. Roy?”
Roy put his chin on the back of his hand. “Does Berschel know Ermellia?” He gave it some thought, but something seemed off about Huckle’s conclusion.
“Of course he does. Everyone and their mother has seen her majesty. She’s a gorgeous and gentle woman.”
“Did Berschel know she would visit the temple that day?”
“Well…” Huckle hesitated for a moment. “I don’t think so.”
Berschel didn’t know? Then why did he say her name?
Huckle suddenly went to the living room and came back with a piece of wrinkled paper that had names written on it. The one who wrote the names had obviously never written before, for the writing was nearly illegible. “I bribed a servant of the palace. Spent most of my money to get my hands on this list. This is the list of the knights who escorted the queen. There are fifteen of them. Take a look.”
Roy was impressed that Huckle managed to go that far to avenge his son. If Huckle’s assumption was true, then the knight who hurt Berschel would be among the escort team. He took the list from Huckle and read through it. “Linton Forman, Simon Patrigadin, Clyde Grint, Sylvester Beidi.” Roy paused for a moment, since he saw a familiar name, though that particular knight was already dead. “Arthur Tailles.”
“Do you have a copy?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll take this one, then.” Roy decided to tell him a bit about the reason he wanted the list. “I’m helping his majesty’s guard for the time being, so I might just come across the knights. I’ll look into this if I get the chance.”
“Thank you, Mr. Roy.” Huckle stood up straight and held his hand tightly. “I’ll give you two hundred crowns if you can get that bastard for me.”
Roy nodded. “Take care, Huckle. Stop beating yourself up.” He didn’t refuse the offer this time. Going against the knights was risky, so it was sort of a request. He didn’t want to stay over for too long, so Roy took his leave.
***
Dusk had descended when he left the bakery. Since it would be inconvenient to visit the victims’ homes at that point, Roy went to the places where their bodies had been found. However, he couldn’t find anything. The latest death had happened two weeks ago, while the first one had happened three months back. It had been too long since then, and the knights had searched the whole place, ruining any clues that might have been left behind.
Roy activated his witcher senses to see if he could pick anything up, but he found nothing. He didn’t give up at first and searched into the night. Three hours later, he came back to the inn. Roy took out a journal with a black leather cover from his inventory space and recorded the results of the investigation for the day.
He’d requested a notebook and quill from Nenneke after he became a witcher so he could record all his adventures. There were the records of the childhunter in the House of Cardell, the leshen in Mount Carbon, the nekker chieftain in Smiack, and Alan the werewolf in the notebook. If Roy survived his adventures, he could give the notebook to his own disciple. If he didn’t, then the notebook would be proof that he lived.
‘Twentieth of May, year 1261.
The serial murders of Ellander City.
Victims investigated:
Farquhar. Embezzled money. Had a wife and two kids.
Jarre the beggar. Lost both of his legs. Very lazy.
Letho is still missing. Two trails of blood found at the scene of his disappearance.’
***
Once he was done recording, Roy meditated for fifteen minutes to regain his strength. Then he left the inn and hid in a remote corner of the city. Not even the moonlight could penetrate the darkness of the place, and no guards patrolled.
It wouldn’t be possible to keep on investigating in the dark, and he had to keep up with his training. It had been months since he last trained. Roy clenched his fists, and Gwyhyr appeared in his hand. He crouched slightly, relaxed his muscles, and stood in a lunge position with his left leg forward. Roy held the sword horizontally by his face, the blade pointing at where his enemy’s throat would be. As usual, he practiced the five stances, the basics, and the footwork.
Roy had gotten quicker after passing the trial. Every movement was explosive, but the transitions still felt awkward, since he wasn’t used to his newfound strength as of yet. The only way to adapt was to train every day.
Roy was drenched in sweat after an hour of training, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he switched Gwyhyr out for Gabriel. There was one thing he wanted to try, and that was Gabriel’s new effect — Guided Arrows. First, he fired a normal shot at a tree to see how far it would pierce through the trunk. The bolt managed to bury itself a few centimeters into the trunk.
Then he cast Guided Arrows, and the moment he pulled the trigger, he felt something weird happening to him. It didn’t take him long to realize that his mana was being concentrated onto the crossbow.
‘Mana -20’
The bolt soared through the air, and Roy didn’t stop firing. Three seconds later, Roy had fired seven shots, losing a huge portion of his mana.
‘Mana: 5/145’
The moment he stopped shooting, he felt a wave of exhaustion crash down on him. Everything around him turned white and distorted, as if he were going on an LSD trip. Roy knew he was about to faint, but he bent over and held his knees to stay awake.
The dizziness lasted for more than ten seconds before finally going away. “Good thing I tested it out before going into a fight.” Roy realized his body would react adversely if he exhausted his mana too quickly. “Gotta be careful.”
After he had regained his bearings, Roy checked on the arrows that had the Guided Arrow effect cast on them. They were buried deeper in the tree compared to the normal shots, around fifty percent more. The system calls this a slight increment? The power up is huge.
Roy kept up his archery practice, and he noticed his mana had gone up by one point after an hour. He arched his eyebrow in dissatisfaction. “Guess it’s because I have barely any affinity with the elements.”
He never expected his mana to replenish so slowly when he wasn’t meditating. In other words, he couldn’t keep using Guided Arrows unless he had potions that could replenish his mana quickly. Once he found out about that, Roy finished his practice for the night and went back to the inn to meditate.
I’ll test the range and tracking ability next time. Gotta get some fast and nimble targets. They make the best test subjects.
