Beowulf’s eyes opened suddenly, accompanied by a jolt.

And instantly the waves of pain hit him, it was as if his whole body had gone through a meat crusher. With a slight groan, he darted his eyes around. Only to find a very worried and frightened looking Viglaf staring square into his eyes, only a few centimeters away from his face.

Damn, that sight almost sent him back to whatever comatose realm he residing in a few moments ago.

He tried to move his face away by lifting his hands, but he could not. His arms felt extremely heavy, he was in no shape to lift his arms covered by those gauntlets.

“...Could you move away a bit?” he managed to voice his thoughts.

“Beowulf! You’re alright!” Viglaf’s expression went from worried to glowing in a few moments and he moved back a bit.

“Well, certainly not alright. I believe ‘alive’ was the word you were thinking of”, he tried to lift his head but was having trouble; it seemed the elixir hadn’t coursed through his body yet. “Could you lift my torso up?” he asked Viglaf.

Viglaf seemed to be dumbfounded for a brief instance, but recovered quickly, “Yes, of course!”

He lifted Beowulf’s head first slightly, with his hands, and then he managed to straighten his torso, resulting in a sitting position.

With a rather disoriented vision, Beowulf glanced around.

At front of him, the monstrosity lay on the ground with huge tree logs scattered around it. Upon closer inspection, he could see ice spikes sticking out of its body.

The Ghost.

Leaving that aside, he tried looking around the street, full of destruction and dismembered corpses. The damage was localized to only a few streets, leaving most of Morvest unscathed; physically, at the very least.

With the help of Viglaf, he managed to stand up, there was something that had to be done when it was still possible. Namely, the extraction of vile essence from the greater monstrosity, as it was quite a lot more valuable than standard essence.

However, in this state, he could barely take a step forward, let alone walk. Viglaf seemed to understand this as he kept on supporting him as he approached the abomination’s carcass.

As his arms still weren’t in a moving condition, he instructed the boy to take it out of his satchel and use it.

“How?” Viglaf was confused.

“The sharp end... with the needle, stab the corpse with it, but first... fit the other end with that vial you’re holding onto”, Beowulf replied slowly.

“Ah-”, he realized he was still clutching the vial in his left hand.

As instructed, he placed the vial in the apparatus, hard to do with one hand, and then stabbed the corpse with it.

Only a few seconds had passed, when the vial started to fill with some dark colored liquid. It was different from the liquid from earlier, which was rather grey in color. Possibly because they were taken from two different types.

After it filled completely, Viglaf took out the apparatus out of its corpse and detached the vial, and placed it into Beowulf’s satchel, alongside the apparatus. Without them noticing, a crowd had started to gather around them, they had seen them extracting the essence.

“Get your arm looked at”, Beowulf said to Viglaf, observing his broken arm. “The pendant may have helped with the pain and stopping the bleeding but it won’t heal your arm completely”, Azlan managed to take a step.

“Will you be alright?” Viglaf expressed concern.

He didn’t ask where he was going this time.

Beowulf took another step.

Good, he could at least walk now, although with a severe limp.

“I only want to confirm something”, he answered and took another step towards the spokesman’s abode.

However, as he was heading there while inspecting the area, he caught sight of something.

There were two corpses at the side of a house, a man and his child.

The man had tried to protect his child by shielding her with his body. A vain effort, as the monster’s foreleg had torn a hole in both of their chests.

But it wasn’t the corpses that he noticed.

It was the fact that he knew them.

Enizo and his daughter.

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Beowulf knocked on the spokesman’s door.

He waited for a while and knocked again, no response. He was about to knock for a third time when a concerned looking spokesman opened the door.

“S-sorry, I was busy talking with someone”, he apologetically said. “Come on in”.

Beowulf entered the house and stood in the hallway.

“I suppose you want the reward for completing the pact? I have been informed of what has transpired. Terrible, it is”, he said while walking to his study. “Hm?” he turned around when he sensed that Beowulf wasn’t following him. “What is it?”

“You can drop the act”, Beowulf answered, looking at his face.

“I am afraid I do not understand”, he said with confusion in his voice.

“The cave”, Azlan replied.

When he heard those words, the spokesman’s expression changed from warm and welcoming to that of expressionlessness and indifference.

“You’ve met with a rather bad case of misfortune, haven’t you?” the spokesman said. “Your job was only to slay a minor inconvenience and yet here you are, bloodied and beaten, two steps away from death”.

“There was no simple lesser monstrosity, your pact was misleading from the start”, Azlan was supporting himself by leaning his shoulder a bit on the wall.

“Why yes, of course. If it was up to me, I would not even have published a pact for the extermination either, we had the situation under control after all. But these ignorant fools insisted on getting outside help, and I obliged, only because there was no way a huntsman would come to Morvest”.

“Under control?” Azlan asked incredulously.

“Yes indeed, before you came, the monstrosity stayed in the cave. Of course it occasionally killed off cattle, but it was not attacking the town”, the spokesman went on. “I was soon to arrange a hunt into the cave, comprising of all the village members. Maybe these folks are not experienced but with numbers anything can be solved”.

It seemed the spokesman did not understand.

His self-centered way of thinking made him unable to understand.

“Why did you lure it here from the misty valleys?” Beowulf ignored his rambling and asked.

“You would not understand”, the man smiled. “Perhaps to you it looks like I am some atrocious individual who is manipulating these poor people for some greater purpose. There is none”, he continued. “I am just sick of this life, you would never understand how it feels, how it is to live like a worm wriggling on the ground after spending your early life as an eagle”.

“You lead it here for that reason?” Beowulf questioned.

“I only wish to be acknowledged. Besides, I did not force any hands. The guards agreed with my proposal, for a hefty sum. And we would have succeeded if it was not for your arrival here, followed by slaughtering those lesser monstrosities. That agitated it and look what happened. All this death and suffering could have been avoided if only you did not come here”, he continued deliriously.

“It is you who doesn’t understand spokesman, maybe I did screw up your hallowed attempt at retaliation, but there was no chance for success in any scenario, you did nothing but lead your men towards certain doom”, Azlan stood up straight, stumbling away from the wall.

“Have you come here to judge me for my actions? Is it so wrong to strive towards a better life? You cannot judge me”, he mocked Azlan.

“I don’t care, how you live your life isn’t my concern”, Beowulf took a swaying step towards him.

“Oh, but you must.” The spokesman approached. “My dear friend, what made you think you will be leaving this place? I cannot have you going about and reporting me to the sovereignty, and the people need someone to take blame”.

Ah, so that is how it was.

“I see”, Beowulf took another step.

“I have some sources among the people in town; they saw you earlier, I know what you truly are. I already had a hunch. If not for that miserable fool Enizo vouching for you, I would not have allowed you to accept the pact. I suppose he got what he deserved”, he was now standing right in front of Beowulf.

“You are wrong about a few things, I didn’t come here to judge you due to some misguided sense of justice. I came to collect my coin, and to see what kind of person you were”, Beowulf took a deep breath. “And you didn’t disappoint”.

In the blink of an eye, he grabbed the spokesman by the neck and threw him through a glass window into the study, shattering the glass in the process.

It happened so fast from the spokesman’s perspective, that he had no idea what had just transpired.

The spokesman was as much as ignorant about wendigo as he was narcissistic.

Only an idiot would threaten a wendigo in front of their face, even on the verge of death, they could butcher a human without much trouble. Beowulf could have bashed his skull in, but there wasn’t enough strength in his arms.

The spokesman lay on the study floor, undergoing a fit of coughing.

“You cannot d-do this!” he said while crawling back using his heels and elbows, watching Beowulf as he approached him. “You wendigo only hunt monstrosities!”

Azlan walked into the room with shaky steps and grabbed a large glass shard lying on the floor.

“What a-are you trying to do? W-wait!” he pleaded as Beowulf approached him.

“Finishing the hunt”.

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