The Divine Hunter

r its neck.
As the gleam of the sword illuminated the chieftain, everything around it started to spin, and it saw a headless body standing before the boy before everything faded to black.

Blood spurted out of the chieftain’s neck, and it fell back with a thud.

‘You have killed a nekker chieftain.
EXP +100.
Level 4 Witcher (600/2000).’

Roy had leveled up, but he didn’t have time to check the details, for the fight wasn’t over yet.
He held Gabriel and Gwyhyr, preparing to fight, but the nekker tribe ignored them.
Instead, they dragged their dead chieftain’s body out of the tunnel.
Obviously, that was a far better reward than two humans, so the nekkers engaged in a skirmish over it.
They started killing their brethren brutally all for a bigger share of the chieftain’s body.

Letho snapped him out of it.
“We’d better leave now, boy.” He looked at Roy’s chest and neck, but there weren’t any wounds, much to his shock.
He had questions, but those could come later.
“You don’t want to stay around and wait for a new chieftain to be born.”

***

They moved ahead in the tunnel, but the nekkers didn’t give chase anymore.
The sun was getting brighter and brighter, while things were starting to get more lively around them.
Millipedes and spiders scurried between the cracks of the boulders, while star-nosed moles were burrowing out of the cracks, squeaking at the weird creatures before it.

Roy was going ahead, working as hard as a mule.
He was waiting for Letho to shoot his questions, but Letho hadn’t seemed to notice the magical change that had happened in Roy.
Even Roy couldn’t believe it.
The moment he leveled up, Full Recovery not only healed the lethal wounds, but also the injuries caused by the leshen.
The skin of his injuries looked like it had been reborn.
It was clear, clean, and didn’t seem scraped.

His whole body was healed, inside and out.
His wounds weren’t the only things that went away.
Hunger, fatigue, poisoning, diseases, and even the exasperation after the long battle in the tunnels, had disappeared.
He was, in a sense of the word, perfect.
Full Recovery is more powerful than I thought.
There were a lot of new messages in his character sheet, but he’d leave that until they escaped successfully.

“Letho — ”

Letho knew what he wanted to say, and a smile broke out on his blood-caked face.
“I don’t want to know about your secret for now, boy.
Not even if you’re going to tell me you’re Melitele’s son.
You can tell me when you really want to.”

***

The atmosphere finally returned to its peaceful state.
After passing through three cobwebs, Melitele finally smiled at them.
A hole appeared not far ahead of them, though it was high in the air.
Dried vines and broken rope were dangling around the hole, and a broken ladder swayed beside them.

The weather became warmer after they left the Mahakams.
Roy didn’t feel too cold, even though he wasn’t wearing much.
A golden light was shining down on them.
Once Roy had settled Letho down, he put his hand above his eyes and went to the space under the hole.

The light was blinding after the week of darkness in the tunnels.
He had to squeeze his eyes shut when he looked up.
After taking a while to adapt, he slowly opened his eyes.
“Gods, are you kidding me? I can’t fly.”

Fate seemed to be pulling another prank, for the exit was thirty feet in the air.
Even witchers couldn’t jump that high, and they were a lot stronger than most people.
Roy was most people.
He could see the blue sky, the glaring sun, and some dried grass through the hole.
It was alluring, but he couldn’t reach it.

“Which bastard cut the rope?” He was like a lost traveler who saw an oasis in a desert, but when nearing it, found that it was nothing but a mirage.
Roy didn’t want to give up, so he fiddled with the ladder.
Dammit! Even if Letho could stand above the ladder and lift me up, we still wouldn’t reach the exit.
And with how he is right now, Letho can barely walk.

They had no choice but to give up on that exit and they went ahead, finding something a short while later.
On the wall was a sign with a pair of crossed hammers on it.
“Looks like Melitele hasn’t given up on us.”

A wall stood at the end of the tunnel, seemingly blocking their path, but a few meters ahead, the ground sloped steeply downward.
Roy went to take a look and noticed an underground pond that gleamed.

The bit of light wasn’t enough to shine on the whole pond, but Roy could vaguely see conical stalactite jutting out of it, as if they were the fangs of a beast.
It was a nice pond, but its surface and the ground around it was covered in heaps of foul excrements.
The pond was a shithole made by the nekkers.
This is probably one of their toilets.
It’s flowing, so it probably leads outside.
How else would those nekkers get their food? But a shithole at the end of the tunnel? Is this a joke? Roy felt disgusted, and he had a bad feeling about this.

“No.
I have to find a way to escape through that hole.
I can tie a rope to Gwyhyr and toss it up.
Th-that might work.”

“Keep this for me, boy.” Letho unraveled the bandage around his leg and handed the short sword that was holding it in place to Roy.

“Okay.” Roy kept the short sword and looked at the pond again.
“Why did you do that though?”

“We don’t have time for questions.
Can you swim?” Letho asked.

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“Yeah.
My home’s near a river, you know.
I always went swimming.” Roy was talking about his previous world.
“Hey, wait.” He knew something was up, so he made a break for the hole, but Letho was faster.
He pulled Roy back and shoved him into the pond.

Roy’s eyes widened in horror, and then he held his breath and scrambled to grab something, but to no avail.
He fell into the pond with a splash, plunging into the area with foul-smelling water.

“Congratulations.
You’re one big step closer to being a witcher now.” Letho hunkered down and took a deep breath before jumping into the pond after Roy.

***

Book Two: The End.