Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 1969 1941. The Believer

Since revealing that Lord Mare Mare of Sunshade was a follower of the Crimson Corruption, Lann has acted exactly as emphasized in the conversation.

Nothing particularly noteworthy happened to Mare Mare himself, or to Sunshade City.

As agreed with Maré Maré, he began treating the city's severely injured and tormented victims.

It was as if they had never discovered Maré Maré's true faith.

Lann's behavior even baffled Mare Mare himself.

After all, although he believed in Crimson Corruption and Marlene, he was born and raised in the real Golden Dynasty, on the Altan Plateau under the Golden Tree.

In such a place with a strong and pure religious atmosphere, it is truly rare for someone like Lan En to meet a heretic and act as if nothing happened.

Those who have faded should be staunch believers in the Golden Law, right?

Does he have no sense of responsibility or anger at the need to eradicate heretics and cultists?
However, people from the border region probably wouldn't understand Lan En.

They probably wouldn't even understand the concept of 'believers'.

After all, in their world, faith is a necessity for the entire world. Everyone lives in an atmosphere filled with faith, just as fish live in water and animals live in air.

Once gods and laws are established in this world, they can immediately cover the entire world and outline their own colors on the underlying principles of how the world operates.

As a result, everything in the world changes.

For this reason alone, faith should be the most fundamental ideology in the world. No one can think or live without this foundation.

There is no such thing as a 'faithless person'.

Even the "Golden Law Fundamentals," which emphasizes logic and mathematical principles, is merely seeking another perspective on the Golden Law.

Faith, from the moment it was born, basically requires believers to attack dissidents with aggression and strong hostility, and it is very exclusive.

Everyone in the world is like this, so both Marley Marley and Melina, who was also in the conversation at the time, were incredulous at Lann's 'indifference'.

—Is it possible for someone to have absolutely no hostility towards the heretical beliefs and heretics before them?

This is truly beyond the habits and understanding of the people in the border region, and even the people of this world.

But Lan En simply didn't care.

They mean what they say: they won't do anything against Marey Marey.

After all, Lan En had gone from being a complete stranger in the borderlands when he first arrived, feeling that the Golden Dynasty and its golden laws were incredibly abundant and orderly.

He was one of the parties involved in almost every aspect of the massive upheaval that led to the collapse of the Golden Law.

The Witcher's understanding of this world has been refreshed more than once.

Lan En knew that this was not some divine dynasty where 'order and rationality were close to that of his homeland, modern China'.

On the contrary, the order and rationality here are all built on a foundation called faith.

Once faith falters, all other aspects of social order will shed their glamorous veneer of supernatural power and revert to their most primitive form.

Lan En had seen the Black Knife assassin shot and killed by Krep's [Black Key]; the corpse, ravaged by crimson decay, was a truly gruesome sight. And incredibly disgusting and stinking.

However, according to 'Little Wood,' the power represented by scarlet decay is the decline of life and its subsequent rebirth.

This is actually a completely normal phenomenon.

The scene of organisms being decomposed by microorganisms and fungi after death is supposed to be disgusting and smelly.

In Lan En's eyes, this was actually a very natural part of the process.

Lann does not worship or believe in the Golden Law, nor is he afraid of the Crimson Corruption.

He himself probably didn't realize just how unusual his appearance seemed to the people in the border region.

"Melina, bring me that bag of processed fallen leaves."

At this moment, the Witcher is tending to the wounds of the victims previously killed by Elon Mel.

These wounds looked like a bloody mess, quite frightening. But actually, they weren't difficult for Lan En to treat.

After all, Elon Meir, when committing his crimes, enjoyed torturing his victims with iron spikes out of his own perverse sense of humor.

However, such devices are not likely to cause deep harm; they only cause pain.

So in Lan En's hands, these messy wounds were sorted out one by one and repaired surgically.

Remove the shredded and rotten flesh from the iron spikes to smooth out the wound and skin, and then proceed with the subsequent treatments one by one.

In this process, the most important thing is actually obtaining painkillers or anesthetics.

After all, these people of the Golden Tree couldn't die, but the torment caused by the iron thorns lingered in their nerves. Over the course of a few days, Lan En had already seen several people go mad or become mentally unstable.

A girl wearing a large cloak approached from behind, dragging a bulging package along the ground.

The large sack filled with dried fallen leaves was almost half her size.

Because of her size, although Melina is quite efficient at her work, she is still a bit clumsy when pulling things around.

But this clumsiness, when paired with her always indifferent and calm face, creates a charming contrast.

Amidst the rustling of the burlap against the ground, Melina dragged the large bag to Lann's side, then naturally walked to the other side of the Witcher, picked up the mortar and pestle she hadn't finished using, and continued to pound the herbs inside with the small stone pestle.

Lan En, quite naturally, reached out and grabbed a handful of fallen leaves that Melina had just pulled over, weighed them briefly, and then tossed them into the boiling potion cauldron in front of him.

The anesthetic potions and perfumers' incense that were originally stored in Sunshade City have long been used up.

Lan En had to find another route for the composition of medicinal ingredients to develop a new anesthetic to temporarily soothe the injured and prevent them from being tormented by pain to the point of mental and emotional damage.

It must be said that while these fallen perfumers have degenerated from healers and scholars into addicts, their fall has also brought about more research data and progress.

The fact that these degenerate perfumers could elevate their physical abilities and reflexes to the level of professional soldiers simply by inhaling perfume powder without ever exercising shows that their research was quite sophisticated.

Lann absorbed the research findings and perfumery notes of these individuals. He felt he could make improvements and enhancements to the Witcher's potion and decoction recipes.

The flames flickered beneath the crucible, and the only sounds in the room were the bubbling of the medicine and the grinding of powder in Melina's mortar.

Quiet and peaceful.

"You're not interested in Ohe's [Qi] technology?"

Unusually, Melina spoke first in the otherwise quiet atmosphere, her mortar and pestle never stopping, and she spoke to Lan En behind her without turning her body.

“I noticed that you only had the velvet ball and the unicorn guard him, but you didn’t seem inclined to interrogate him. For a warrior like you, it’s not normal to encounter new and unusual technologies and not bother to learn about them.”

Melina didn't turn around, and neither did Lan En.

"That's just a method of controlling the life energy in the body. In essence, it's similar to a technique I learned before. Like this."

As he spoke, Lan En raised one hand, and with a soft 'bang', a light red flame of battle aura appeared on it before disappearing.

"Is that the only interesting thing about remotely controlling objects? But to learn the Ohe [Qi] system from scratch for that technology, the effort and benefits are not worth it."

Speaking of which, the fact that the light red aura of battle qi could accurately correspond to the common knowledge that 'red power is related to life' in this world was quite surprising to Lan En.

During this process, both of them continued with their own tasks. Melina was grinding the powder, while Lan was stirring the potion in the crucible with a spoon.

Their conversation was ordinary yet natural.

The room that Lan En used to develop new anesthetic agents was originally a warehouse in Sunshade City, and it was quite spacious.

However, the area he converted into a workbench doesn't take up much space.

Therefore, when the Witcher and Melina stood together and talked, it almost felt like the two of them were doing housework in the kitchen.

I don’t know if it’s just my imagination, but in this quiet and peaceful atmosphere, even Melina’s face, which is usually indifferent and calm, seems to have softened and relaxed a little.

The spoon in Lan En's hand scraped against the bottom of the crucible.

He then casually asked, "But from what you've said, you seem to know a lot about what a powerful warrior should be like. Do you know anyone like that, Melina?"

The girl paused almost imperceptibly in the mortar and pestle in her hand.

At that very moment, a hint of gentleness and calmness appeared in her eyes, which then suddenly froze.

"I guess I know... a few."

"Oh?" Lan En became interested, but still didn't turn around. "What level? A knight commander of the Knights Order? Or a well-known knight? Like the [Ancient Dragon Knight] or [Ironthorn]? Or something like that?"

"It should be... even more powerful."

Melina's voice was soft and ethereal. With his back to her, Lan En had the illusion that he was talking to someone from the world of fire, or a hunter from Yharnam.

However, after interacting with people who spoke in this tone for a long time, even though their tone sounded so indifferent that it had almost no intonation, Lan En could still discern the emotions in their voices.

"You don't want to talk anymore?"

"..."

Lan En's straightforward question went unanswered, but he nodded instead: "Then let's not talk about it."

Melina, whose expression had been somewhat stiff, silently turned to look at him before immediately turning back.

(End of this chapter)