The Divine Hunter

r>It’s too lucrative.
The executioner’s assistant? No.
Too much death.
It’s bad luck for the mill.”

“Take my advice, young man.
Since this is your first job in a big city, why don’t you lower your standards?” the fat women chimed in.
“Hank left his home to work here when he was your age.
He had to work for ten years to make some money and rent this mill.
He’d done every job under the sun before that —  hogwash disposal, and even just being a stand-in for a booth owner.
I think you should try those jobs out.
The market in the city center needs workers, but do look out for certain people though.” 

Hank continued.
“Mana’s right.
If any revolutionist gives you pamphlets, remember to stay away from them and don’t buy into their propaganda.
Of all the things they can do, they decide to revolt.
One of these days, their heads will be under the guillotine.”

“I thought they were doing it to lower the taxes on peasants.” Roy quietly finished all the pig trotters and licked his lips.
Hank’s dinner was great.
The trotters were soft and delectable.
These would be on par with Letho’s grilled meat if they add some honey onto it.
Only issue is the amount.
Probably only the first day’s dinner can be this good.  

“Oh, you don’t know.
Of course.
Baron Tavik has relented once, and honestly, they should have quit while they were ahead.
But then their leader vanished into thin air, and they insisted on blaming the baron for it, forcing him to answer to them.
This is just ridiculous.”

Roy knew the leader’s corpse was rotting in a certain dwarf’s wine barrel.
The baron was wrongly accused in that case.

Hank continued.
“You’ll have to look out for the Sparrow Triad too, my friend.
Rebels aren’t the only danger in Aldersberg.
Those bastards are evil.
They do anything from scams to robberies.
Don’t go to the lower part of the city.
That’s Triad’s turf.
They target outsiders, especially young, frail, handsome boys like you.” Hank smiled eerily.
“Some nobles love young boys.”

***

“Thank you for the reminder.” Roy nodded and filled his bowl with potato soup.
“Oh, right, Mr.
Hank.
I remember seeing a girl earlier.
She’s your daughter, isn’t she? Why isn’t she here with us?”

The air froze after Roy mentioned the girl.
The fat woman who was chomping down on her food choked on it.
She thumped her chest, face red from suffocation, and Hank put his fork down.
“She’ll only ruin our appetite, my friend.
Just enjoy your dinner.
She has her own place.” 

“Hmph!” After the fat woman had calmed down, her jovial expression was replaced by a contorted one.
“Don’t mention that wretch ever again.
It’s our business how we treat her.
You stay out of it.” The fat woman didn’t bother to hide the disdain she held, though whether for Roy or the girl, that remained a mystery.
“We’re kind enough to feed and shelter her.
She can forget about dining with us.”

“What’s her name then?”

“That wretch? Call her Toya.”

***

Roy went around the place after dinner, and saw a lonely girl sitting at the storehouse’s doorstep, eating from her plate.
He finally saw her face thanks to the sconce on the wall.
The girl had a round face and petite features that matched her face’s size.
Her eyebrows were thin, her lips tiny.
Her cheeks glowed red under the light, and if only by her looks, Roy would say she was around his age.
Quite the young lady. 

The girl’s perception was sharp.
She realized Roy was there after just a moment, and she scurried away like a scared sheep.

Am I really that scary? I’m not a demon, Roy thought.
He went over to see what the girl was having.
Compared to the sumptuous dinner Hank and Mana had, Toya only had a shabby plate of dull mashed potato.
Roy wondered why Hank and his wife would torture their own daughter.
Just because she’s misshapen and unlikable? But Roy couldn’t interfere, for he hadn’t been there long.
He had to familiarize himself with the place before he could do anything.

***

The moon’s silvery glow bathed the land.
On the plot of land beside the pond stood a firm, gaunt boy with black hair and black eyes.
He was kneeling on one knee, holding a crossbow with both his hands as he aimed at a gnarly tree fifty feet away.
His body was centered, his shoulders leveled.
His left knee was on the ground, his left foot leaning against the earth.
His right knee was pointing outward as his right foot grounded him, forming a firm triangle with his left leg, supporting the boy.

The boy placed his hip gently on his left heel, while his right elbow was placed on the right knee, supporting the hand crossbow that was held in his right hand.
Roy took a deep breath as he aimed at the tree, and he let it out slowly.
The moment it ended, he pulled the trigger with his left index finger.

The arrow soared through the air, lodging itself into its target.
Then Roy performed a series of actions with his hands and feet in succession, reloading his hand crossbow in four seconds.
The boy dashed to the side and grounded himself again before changing into a standing position to shoot.

He kept dashing, stopping, changing positions, shooting, and retrieving the arrows more than five hundred times.
Three hours had passed after five hundred shots, and his muscles were screaming in protest.
Roy ended the boring shooting exercise, but he was panting.

The night breeze cut through him with its chill, but it couldn’t douse the flame within him.

‘You unlocked a new skill:

‘Unnamed level 1: You have begun to master the usage of ranged weapons (crossbows and hand crossbows) after receiving a witcher’s lessons and shooting thousands of times.
Whenever you’re using ranged weapons, your accuracy, effective range, power, and piercing power will be increased by 5%.

‘This can also be used as an active skill, doubling the increment of the effective range, but at the same time, your stamina consumption is also doubled, and your movement speed is halved.
The effect lasts for at least thirty seconds.’

***

Roy heaved a long sigh, a smile carving itself on his sweat-drenched face.
Finally, my training paid off.
I finally got a weapon skill.
Then Roy changed the name to ‘Crossbow Mastery.’

Even though the increment for piercing power and damage was only 5%, it would become a 10% increase when Massacre’s buff was included.
Because he’d killed three peasant rebels, humans were included in Massacre’s list of effective targets, making the skill one that could be used in many battles.
If Roy activated Crossbow Mastery, he would be a powerhouse for a while on the battlefield.

Roy was planning on getting a crossbow, for Gabriel the mini crossbow couldn’t keep up with him anymore.