The Divine Hunter

esence of the king.

***

He snapped out of it a moment later and turned his eyes to the second mural.
The elf king was in there too, but this time, he was swinging a crimson sword at a group of snarling invaders, while his sea of soldiers stood behind him.

“Those are humans, aren’t they?” Roy frowned.
The invaders were built like humans, but they were depicted as snarling, repulsive creatures.
What came next was a land drenched with blood and lit ablaze by the flames of war.
The once glorious empire was reduced to rubbles, elf corpses strewn across the land, while the human executioners stood on top of the rubble, pointing their swords at the elf king’s throat.

The last mural depicted the elf king who’d lost his crown, and he abandoned his sword and shot an arrow at the sun above.
The sun, injured by the elf’s shot, rained blood on the land.
It seeped into the ground, and mysterious plants broke through the soil and grew toward the sky.

Roy fell into a long silence after he was done looking at the murals.
Vivid depictions of war in all its cruelty popped up within his mind, as if by magic.
Eventually, his eyes turned crimson, his breathing turned heavy, and he clenched his fists in hysteria.

Letho gave him a tight slap, and Roy yelped.
He rubbed his face that was starting to swell, and his eyes were clear again.
“You could have been gentler, Letho.”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Letho gasped as his wound started to tear.
“You might have killed yourself if I slapped you even a moment later.”

“So is this mural real?” Roy knew about the world’s truth, but he wanted to hear what Letho had to say about it.

“The murals tell of the history of the humans and elves,” Letho said.
“The legends say the humans aren’t the natives of this land.
They’d come from the lands of yore and killed most of the ancient races here, including the elves.
In the end, they finally conquered the world, but legends were just that.
Legends.
The humans have lived here for many generations, so maybe they’ve changed how history was written to hide the truth from everyone.
It’s hard to say who’s right and who’s wrong.
Most humans don’t think they’ve invaded the lands of the ancient races though.”

“What do you think then?” Roy asked.

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“Me?” Letho scratched his chin.
“Witchers aren’t bound by their race.
Most Cat School witchers were elves, you know? All we have to do is keep to our creed, no matter the history.”

Letho might not have known it, but Roy did.
He knew that humans did come from other continents, and most of the human settlements like Vizima and Novigrad were built upon the ruins of elven civilization.
However, elves, or to be precise, Aen Seidhe, were also beings of another world.
They came to the present land and killed the natives and ruled the land for a long time.

If they wanted to be more precise, the dwarves and gnomes were the real natives of the land, but they were forced to hide in a remote corner of a mountain range.
Oh, the Mahakams used to be a part of the elves’ kingdom too.
I can see why an elven hidden room would show up here.
Roy guessed, “Maybe an elven sorcerer with a grudge made this room to keep the historical records to make sure everyone who came later would know about the evil humans had done.”

Letho nodded, but then shook his head.
“That’s not all there is to it.
This sorcerer’s goal isn’t to keep history intact.
Look here.” Letho pushed himself up and knocked on the wall, and then he pushed his hand against it and murmured.
A moment later, the winds howled in the room.

Roy looked closely and saw the mural destroyed by Aard, and when the dust had settled, something hidden was revealed.