Under the Horn Tree

"What was that rustling?"

It was the sound of salt grains slipping through someone's fingers.

The crescent moon shone over House of Cadell. Beneath the towering Horn Tree in the courtyard stood three figures bundled in thick padded coats. They bowed their heads over the tree, which would have taken several people to encircle, each holding a torch as white salt grains slipped through their fingers and scattered across the rough bark...

A moment later, the intact bark split open in a bizarre way. The crack quickly widened, gradually resembling an opening vertical pupil. It suddenly grew round, then—whoosh—the corners stretched apart. At ground level, the Horn Tree had formed an oval hollow half the height of a person.

Roy shone his torch into the opening. He could see a gentle slope leading downward, its surface covered in vines, fallen leaves, dead branches, and dirt. A strong, earthy stench wafted out of the hollow.

"What do we do now?" Roy turned to look at the two women in pink padded coats. He was wearing one too, which made him look rather ridiculous, but there was no helping it. There were only two women living at the school, and he was lucky they'd been willing to spare him a coat.

He still had to heed the Witcher's instructions.

"If neither of you is going to say anything, then I will! We can't all go down together..." Roy said gravely. "One of us has to stay outside and keep watch. We should scatter salt in a circle around this Horn Tree to stop whatever's inside from getting out."

"I'm going down..." Roy took a deep breath. He still had a powerful weapon hidden in his inventory, and according to the Witcher's notes, he had a good chance of killing the monster.

"This is my territory. That bastard has been occupying it for so long, and it stole several of my children. I'm going to settle the score!" the middle-aged woman said with an utterly stern expression. Then she ducked and slid down the slope.

"Then you stay outside!" Roy hurriedly ducked into the tree hollow before Faywen could open her mouth. "Don't worry, Sister Faywen. I'll help you bring 'him' out!"

Holding a torch in one hand, Roy pressed his other against the soft slope and slid through the pitch-black passage.

He slid less than ten feet—about three meters—before landing safely.

The next moment, his short boots were soaked. The ground beneath the tree hollow was covered in standing water, just deep enough to reach his ankles, but icy cold. Roy couldn't help sucking in a breath and shivering all over. No wonder the Witcher had told him to wear more clothes. It was at least seven or eight degrees colder inside the tree hollow than outside.

Roy swept his torch around and spotted Cadell a short distance ahead. She was half-crouched, knees bent in an alert stance, silently beckoning him over.

They were in a dim underground cavern. Its walls were covered in sticky mud, slippery moss, and vines, while oddly shaped rocks dotted the pools of water.

Apart from the wider space in the center, several narrow openings were scattered around the corners. How narrow were they? A person could only crawl through on their hands and knees. Strange croaks and hisses occasionally came from the openings, echoing back and forth between the stone walls of the cavern.

Roy couldn't imagine whether this space had always existed beneath the Horn Tree or had been made by the monster called the Child Hunter Ghost.

He waded through the filthy, freezing water to Cadell's side and glanced at the various openings. A horrifying thought surfaced in his mind.

Could there be a Child Hunter Ghost in every opening?

No, the Witcher wouldn't set his apprentice up like that. If that were the case, he would definitely have mentioned it in his notes.

So the Child Hunter Ghost was in one of the openings, suffocating its latest prey with vomit.

Roy and Cadell exchanged a glance. The latter jerked her chin toward the nearest opening, silently drew a dagger from her waist, and held it ready. Fine grains of salt had been evenly smeared across the blade. Then, torch in her other hand, she ducked and crawled inside.

Roy followed close behind. The opening led into a cramped, narrow tunnel no more than two feet high. As soon as he crawled in, the icy water soaked through his trouser legs. The sticky mud on both walls pressed against his shoulders, making it extremely difficult to move.

The two of them crawled carefully, keeping their breathing quiet. Strange hisses and shifting currents of air kept drifting toward them through the passage, sometimes from ahead, sometimes from behind.

Roy felt utterly miserable. His face was tense, and he hardly dared breathe. If the monster attacked him from behind while he was stuck in this awkward position, how was he supposed to fight back?

He could only keep looking over his shoulder, wary of a ghostly face suddenly appearing in the black tunnel.

Soon, the two of them reached the very end of the tunnel without incident: a slightly drier, spherical nest carpeted with branches, fallen leaves, and the bones of small animals.

The Child Hunter Ghost was nowhere to be seen, but there were signs of its feeding in the nest. Human bones—small skulls, leg bones, and vertebrae—lay scattered in every corner. They were much more slender than an adult's, and their surfaces were stained a strange pale yellow.

They clearly belonged to children.

Cadell picked up a bone, her face murderous and her teeth nearly clenched to breaking. She might have had some other purpose in founding the school, but she held nothing back when it came to protecting her students.

They quickly searched two more openings, carrying the dead children's bones to each entrance as markers after finishing each one.

When they reached the fourth opening, they had crawled only halfway through when they heard a distinct gurgling sound, as if something was vomiting.

They held their breath and shone the torch ahead. A ghostly figure appeared in the darkness.

It was a tall, thin humanoid, its skin crawling with black sludge and moss. Its limbs were as slender as branches. It was crouched in the corner of the nest like a dog, retching yellow fluid in fits and starts onto a bulging mass.

The moment the torchlight hit it, it turned its face toward them. Its cheeks were gaunt as a skull, its two black nostrils sunken inward, and its pale eyes bloodshot, filled with viciousness and madness. Its lips had been torn away, leaving its gums exposed. It had just vomited, and its teeth were coated in translucent saliva.

Startled by the torchlight, it darted back into the shadows of the nest like a spider.

The two of them chased after it with their torches, but couldn't find the creature.

Roy stayed alert, scanning the area, while Cadell frantically dug through the mass of vomit. To their surprise, she uncovered a little blond head.

"Hey, kid. Can you hear me?" Cadell wiped the filth from his face, revealing a thin, delicate-looking boy. The child's eyelids twitched twice.

Roy looked at his face, and the fog in his mind instantly cleared... A memory long buried came alive again.

He suddenly understood.

"I remember now. So you were the one who went missing, little Tom!"

The little boy who had greeted him on his first day—the orphan who lived at the school, smiled brightly, and liked to show off his two front teeth.

For more than half a month at House of Cadell, the kid had joined him to study after school every day. They'd become a little closer... "I almost forgot you completely."

He ruffled the boy's hair, unable to stop the corners of his mouth from lifting. His earlier tension and fear vanished, replaced by excitement. "Good thing we got here in time! How are you feeling, little Tom?"

"Roy? Principal Cadell? What... happened to me?" Tom's eyes opened groggily, and his voice was weak and feeble. "W..."

"What did you say?"

"L...ook out above!"

Pff—

A ghostly figure dropped from the ceiling without warning, knocking Roy down and pinning him beneath it. They tumbled together twice across the ground.

Up and down.

It had the upper hand, sitting on Roy as it raised its right claw. In the torchlight, its long, sharp nails gleamed like awls. It slashed toward his neck—

A hand intercepted its wrist halfway.

Roy's left hand, its veins standing out, seized the incoming claw. With his right hand, he conjured a modified crossbow bolt and gripped it tightly, jamming the arrowhead into the creature's eye socket before it could react.

"Wuu—wuu—"

The Child Hunter Ghost let out an eerie cry like a baby sobbing. Thick white smoke poured from its eye socket, and dark green blood streamed out. It suddenly unleashed a burst of strength, wrenching itself free of Roy's grip. Screaming wildly, it dashed to the side and disappeared into a tunnel.

It writhed through the passage in an extremely awkward posture, like a slippery mudfish, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

"Roy, take Tom outside first. I'll deal with this thing!"

Cadell dropped the words, then chased after it along the trail of blood, dagger and torch in hand.

"Phew... That was close. I almost got caught off guard!" Roy let out a heavy sigh of relief. The creature's sharp claws had nearly sliced his throat. If they had, everything would have been meaningless.

"Are... you hurt?" a weak voice asked from beside him.

"Tom, don't worry. I'm fine." Roy wiped the cold sweat from his face and quickly pulled the boy free of the sticky vomit. He had no idea how the stuff worked, but its smell and appearance were a little like boiled, softened cheese. On impulse, Roy kneaded a fist-sized lump and stashed it in his inventory.

Then he carried Tom on his back and crawled out of the tunnel. They encountered no trouble along the way. Roy had no idea which tunnel Cadell had driven the Child Hunter Ghost into.

Roy made it safely to the entrance of the tree hollow. He grabbed the vines, climbed the slope, and handed Tom over to Faywen outside.

The woman was both startled and delighted. She quickly wrapped a coat around the trembling boy.

"Roy, did you find...?"

"There's no time to explain. The monster hasn't been dealt with yet. I have to help Cadell. Take care of him!" Leaving her with that, Roy returned to the tree hollow before she could ask anything else.

Following the trail of blood, he found the two opponents facing off at the deepest point of the fifth tunnel. Both Cadell and the Child Hunter Ghost were injured. Cadell pressed one hand against her heavily bleeding abdomen and waved her torch with the other to defend herself. Her face was deathly pale; she clearly wouldn't last much longer.

The Child Hunter Ghost wasn't doing well either. It had lost an eye and had dozens of tiny cuts from Cadell's dagger, but they had stopped bleeding.

Clearly, the bit of salt on the weapon hadn't been nearly enough to kill it.

Roy considered the situation and summoned his hand crossbow.

Whoosh—a bolt struck the Child Hunter Ghost in the knee. It shuddered and hunched over, then bared its gaping maw at Roy, who had ambushed it. It let out a threatening growl and looked ready to pounce.

Roy ignored it, drew back the string, and nocked another bolt. It struck the creature's other knee.

In seconds, the Child Hunter Ghost was limping. Even if it could use Self-healing, that would take time. At least for a while, it wouldn't be able to move quickly.

"Principal Cadell, get behind me!" Roy kept backing away as he continued to shoot the monster in the legs.

Cadell looked puzzled, but followed his instructions, maintaining a defensive stance as she slowly retreated with him.

The scene now was two people backing down the tunnel while the Child Hunter Ghost lurked at the far end of the nest. From a distance of twenty feet, its skull-like, ugly face bared its teeth at them as its devilish black claws flailed wildly in the air, threatening them.

It was like a rabid dog provoked by humans. Though it was furious, it was wary of the weapons and torches in their hands, and never dared rush them.

When the distance between them reached thirty feet, a green glass jar suddenly appeared in Roy's hand. He wound up and threw it forward. The jar traced a straight line through the air and struck the Child Hunter Ghost.

Bang—

The glass shattered. A brief, violent explosion erupted, and brilliant flames burst throughout the nest. Fiery serpents leaped and twisted wildly, the air seemed to ignite, and the temperature rose by several degrees.

The Child Hunter Ghost at the center turned into a human-shaped torch. Burning with astonishing heat and light, it trudged toward Roy and Cadell, howling in pain. But its legs had already been badly crippled, and it couldn't catch up with the two of them as they retreated.

The Dancing Star was incredibly powerful. Even the sparks falling from it quickly set the nearby dead branches and fallen leaves alight.

The flames grew stronger and stronger. Beyond the tunnel, the entire nest caught fire.

It walked through its burning nest for about two minutes, then exhausted its strength and fell to the ground, turning into a pile of charcoal.

Killed the Child Hunter Ghost.

Gained 100 Experience Points.

Roy had already retreated to the entrance of the tree hollow. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"We have to hurry and take the remains of those poor children outside!"