Chapter 600: 603. Delivery
Sixty warriors with bows strung, swords drawn, followed the Demon Hunter out of the camp.
Not far behind them, cheers erupted from the camp.
The refugees once again celebrated a closer step to a stable and peaceful life, celebrating the elimination of a security risk.
Ciri gritted her teeth, angrily whipping at anything passing by with a dead branch she picked up from the ground.
On the road, Dandelion unusually refrained from making any jesting remarks.
The Demon Hunters seed accustod to being shunned and driven away after saving people, thus Geralt and Ged remained indifferent.
The only sounds were the silent footsteps crunching on dry branches and leaves, along with Ciri’s branch hitting tree trunks and bushes.
Nobody cared to watch the ti; they walked in silence until the horizon showed the first light of dawn.
"We’ve been walking for at least four hours."
Dandelion suddenly spoke coldly.
"Isn’t this enough? At least four hours! You ’great’, ’brave’, ’fearless and bold’ Sintra Warriors should return to reunite with the people you swore to protect to the death..."
"Frankly, I’d rather encounter the so-called large group of Niflgaard pursuers you talk about than see any more of you."
"I’d feel better being slaughtered by the Niflgaarders than staying with you Sintra people!"
"Don’t speak of Sintra people like that!" Ciri shouted sharply.
"I don’t acknowledge it! I don’t acknowledge them as Sintra people! We’re not so cowardly! So despicable!"
"Grandmother... Calanthe and those who died defending Sintra City are the real Sintra people!"
The banter between the big and small was evidently quite cutting in its sarcasm.
Lann listened from the side, thinking if he were a Sintra person, he’d probably be fuming by now.
However, with the sixty warriors surrounding the Demon Hunters, they remained silent, only lowering their heads further.
Their grip on their weapons tightened.
The three Demon Hunters simultaneously furrowed their brows, realizing sothing was amiss.
Setting aside the Sintra refugees, they had already been frightened into submission by the harshness of war.
But these warriors fought fiercely against the Niflgaard troops just yesterday at dusk.
Now each bore wounds, bandages still seeping blood!
Such people wouldn’t lack spirit.
Even if feeling guilty for expelling the Demon Hunters, it wasn’t enough to keep them all silent.
"Crack"
Lann’s boot crunched a dry leaf, halting.
As he stopped, the entire team imdiately followed suit.
The jarring stop created a cacophony of tal clashing from armor.
Yet the surrounding sixty warriors kept their heads down, none speaking up.
A foreboding feeling suddenly erged in Lann’s heart.
"Who’s your leader? Have them step forward. Without Stuart coming along, you must have been given a leader!"
No one spoke, nor stepped out.
It was as if a spell had been cast over the sixty warriors.
Their eyes shifted away, as they instinctively avoided making eye contact with Lann’s probing gaze.
Ciri, initially red with anger, now blinked with confusion. Dandelion, however, went stiff.
"Well, well!"
In a flash, the poet seed to have drawn so wicked inspiration from his past theatrical works, crying out loudly.
"Are you using us as bait? Driving us out to lure the Niflgaard pursuers?!"
Among the previously silent warriors, a voice seed incensed by this, loudly countering.
"No! We have not!"
Lann’s eyes lit up as he strode toward the direction of the voice.
The warriors tried to block his path, but Lann brushed them aside as if they were re children.
Finally, Lann seized a slightly shorter warrior among them.
"What do you an?"
Lann looked down intently at him.
The short warrior hesitated slightly but then sighed deeply, removing his helt.
"Four hours... should be enough."
He murmured softly.
He lifted his head, and Lann’s expression abruptly froze.
It was a half-grown kid.
But age mattered little on this war-torn land; more noteworthy was that—
He was the little scribe who always followed Hacksaw, constantly noting things in a big notebook!
Geralt and Ged, standing by, also widened their eyes, drawing closer.
Wasn’t Hacksaw’s little scribe nad Lincoln?
From the mont he removed his full-cover helt, his expression was laid bare for all to see.
It wasn’t the fear and cowardice one might expect from soone seized by the likes of Lann, who could crush him with a handshake, but rather extre sorrow and grief.
He seed to regard speaking under Lann’s watch as a mission, speaking thodically.
"Now, we have been away from camp for four hours. Given the sufficient ti and distance, and since the esteed Lann master has detected sothing amiss, I will deliver a commission to you here."
As he spoke, he sniffled, his still sowhat childish voice muffled and nasal.
With solemnity and seriousness, he drew from his backpack the large book he had always kept taking notes on.
He raised it to Lann with both hands.
By this point, unable to hold back, tears welled up and stread down his dusty face, leaving visible tracks.
Lann’s gaze flickered over the large volu. His expression was not calm, clearly suspecting sothing but unwilling to believe it.
His hesitant hand eventually settled on it, picking it up.
What needed both of Lincoln’s hands to lift was like a regular-sized book in Lann’s hand.
He opened the large journal.
"This is the first day the Niflgaard broke through Sintra City’s outer wall. Within a day after the city walls were breached, fires broke out successively in Oak District, Barrel District, and two other districts, with death tolls reaching..."
"On the second day of the siege, the Niflgaard began besieging the palace, while they started executions across the moat. According to , Sintra Royal Steward—Hacksaw Lynn’s direct observation, seventy percent of those executed were unard civilians. Should the chance or necessity arise, I am willing to swear to everything I’ve said before the statue of ili at the retelli Temple."
Flipping through, Lann’s reading speed was pushed to the utmost.
The entire large volu was roughly read through in re seconds.
The content was not, as Dandelion guessed, a self-glorifying autobiography by Hacksaw.
Instead, it was a record, from Hacksaw’s perspective, of what the Niflgaard had done on Sintra’s soil!
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