Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 1297 1269. Falling Leaves Impulse
The female hunter, who should have walked out of the research hall and followed the old hunters' group to a place outside Yharnam for a big hunt, now stood in front of Lan En with a knife in her hand.

And the blades are facing each other.

That's a beautiful knife.

But it is not of the same type as the beauty of Lan's Sword of the Lady of the Lake.

Even from the outside, Alondite has a sunny, noble beauty. No matter where it is placed, it will not look out of place, but will only make people feel that it is an outstanding work of art.

But Maria's sword is very suitable for her and for the whole of Yharnam.

It was a kind of gloomy and extravagant beauty, like an aristocrat who had been eliminated by the times but was still obsessed with the glory of the past.

The shape of the blade is similar to that of Arondite, with a smooth but not excessive curvature, but the guard is a hemispherical guard commonly used on dueling swords.

Behind the weighted ball on the handle, there is a short knife attached, turning it into a double-edged sword.

【Fallen leaves】

Maria's exclusive weapon is the weapon she brought from her hometown of Cainhurst.

However, unlike the weapons favored by ordinary blood nobles, [Fallen Leaves] does not require the use of the power of blood. Instead, it places more emphasis on the user's own skills and qualities.

This is also one of the signs that Maria has different ideas from her collateral relatives.

This was the first time Lan En saw the weapon at Maria's waist unsheathed.

"It's really cold."

The gloomy blade seemed to be stained with old blood, and Lan En narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked at the person opposite.

Maria's emotion in the face of the witcher, her beautiful and cold face under the shadow of the tricorn hat was now filled with a sense of danger.

"who are you?"

She repeated her question.

"The [Acceleration Technique] you displayed just now is hard to find in the entire Yharnam. And what you are doing now."

Maria glanced at the patient on the steel bed next to her with cold eyes, cautiously and quickly, then quickly turned back to Lan En.

"What did you want to do to him just now?"

"I just wanted to help him."

Lan's tone was calm, but his brows were slightly furrowed, and his left hand was on the hilt of the Sword of the Lady of the Lake at his waist.

"The church is helping him! And you..." Maria's usually cold voice was now unusually volatile. "Have evil intentions!"

With a sound of 'whoosh'!
The gloomy and flashy female hunter disappeared like smoke! The one-shoulder cape on her side trembled at the intense speed of movement!

【Acceleration Technique】!
The Yharnam hunters advocate ultra-fast transitions between offense and defense, and what enables them to do this is their miraculous ultra-fast dodging skills.

It bursts out with an exaggerated instantaneous speed at a not-so-long distance.

As for [Acceleration Technique], it is the ultimate sublimation of this skill for the old hunter who is immersed in hunting day and night!
The moment Maria disappeared, Lan En almost dodged backwards at high speed at the same time!
"when!"

Because the smoke and dust raised by the [Acceleration Spell] had not yet landed on the ground, a ball of sparks suddenly burst out in another direction and spread in a circle!
【Climbing Carp】!
The silver-gleaming Sword of the Lady of the Lake collides with the gloomy and luxurious blade of [Fallen Leaves].

Lan En's sudden backward dash in the same direction as the opponent's advance just now greatly reduced the relative speed between him and Maria.

In the end, he was able to suppress the opponent's thrust with the sudden flash of his sword with almost no effort.

"The knife is very fast, but despite this technique, which is so fast that even I consider it excellent, your breathing is disordered."

The witcher held the knife in one hand, lowered his head slightly, and moved closer to Maria's face, looking at her meaningfully.

"People with this technology can't control their breathing. Why is that?"

"This is because you want to hurt the patients here!" Maria gritted her teeth, "The Healing Church is the only hope for these patients to survive! And you want to destroy it!"

Maria is now certain that the terrifying feeling of oppression she had felt about Lan En before was not an illusion at all!

This man's power is like that of a terrifying beast!

Lan was looking down at her, and the brim of his tricorn hat prevented him from seeing Maria's face.

But with a "clang", sparks belonging to Yharnam's transforming weapon suddenly flashed amid the sound of the mechanical deformation!
The short knife that was originally connected to the end of the long sword was removed smoothly and directly by the female hunter. Then, she used skillful means to break away from Lan's suppression by coordinating the long and short swords.

The blades were entangled with each other, and the up and down directions and the force of suppression changed during the sword fight between the two people.

The blades of the two long swords rubbed against each other, creating sparks of steel.

This process lasted for about two seconds.

The reason why it was only two seconds was because Lan En had already withdrawn.

What was very strange was that Maria, who had been so aggressive just now, was now maintaining her attacking posture, but her whole body was frozen in place.

"If you just want to get angry and use violence to cover up your panic, then I can only play with you so far."

The witcher put the Arondite back into the sheath at his waist, as if the situation of the swords facing each other just now had never happened, and spoke to Maria in a deep voice.

"It's okay to deceive yourself when you lose control of your emotions, but if you keep going like this, then I think you'll only be a hindrance to me if you stay here. You'd better stay away."

After saying that, Lan En picked up a brass syringe from the lab table again, and walked past Maria, who was frozen with the knife, without looking away, and walked towards the patient on the steel bed. He inserted the brass needle into the patient's skinny arm, and then struggled to draw out a little sticky gray-white blood.

And behind Lan En, there was a creaking sound.

Lan En knew that it was the leather gloves squeezing and rubbing against the metal handle of the knife because he was using too much force.

Then there was the sound of weapons being put away.

"I thought these patients would really get better here." Lan En was drawing blood with difficulty while listening to the voice behind him.

Maria's voice still contained a rare emotional fluctuation, but it was not the anger just now, but bitterness.

"I thought that as long as the patients here could hold on, they would be better. At least it's better than waiting to die outside."

Lan En's hand holding the syringe paused for a moment, then his movements became smooth again and he pulled the needle out of the patient's arm.

He knew that there were not many people in this research hall who truly cared about the patients.

And when those patients were in so much pain in their hospital beds that they wanted to hurt themselves or even die, they would still curl up in their beds and call out Maria's name.

Lan En couldn't believe that Maria didn't really care about her patients, as the patients, who were basically living a life worse than death, remembered and talked about it like this.

But it was precisely because Maria cared about those patients that she felt most uncomfortable when she broke into a laboratory she had never been to before and saw this scene.

After watching the scene in this laboratory, who can say that the clergymen care about the lives of the patients?

If it is true that 'in the process of studying and exploring the plague, there will inevitably be loss of life', even Maria can accept this statement.

She would be sad, but understanding.

But now the bodies of the patients were just piled on the ground like rotten pillows! There was no respect or pity.

Just treat it like an object, use it nakedly! Throw it away or replace it when it is broken!
She only needed to take a look! Just a look in this locked laboratory with only one door!
Maria bit her lip, her leather-gloved hands unconsciously placed on her chest, tightly clutching her clothes.

"this is not your fault."

Lan En held the syringe and walked steadily past Maria, who was standing there in a daze, and returned to the side of the test bench.

"You trust the church, and you don't understand this knowledge, so you can only pin your hopes on them. It's not your fault."

"But it was me who comforted them, asked them to be patient, and gave them hope that they could be cured here. In the end, they only got these more painful deaths."

Maria's cold voice trembled a little as she spoke in a low voice.

After a brief silence, she took a deep breath.

The breath was so deep that it seemed as if it wanted to inhale all the strange smell of medicine and the blood of the patients in the laboratory into its lungs.

After taking a breath, Maria's voice returned to its usual emotionless tone.

"I apologize for my impulsiveness."

Maria adjusted her mood so quickly, or rather, she suppressed the pain and sadness in her heart. Lan En turned back with a little surprise.

Facing the amber cat's eyes were a pair of cold blood-red eyes.

Maria's mental state is very dangerous now.

The demon hunter was keenly aware of this, but then he sighed and shook his head.

How can a hunter in Yharnam have a healthy mind? More or less.

"I accept."

Lan En continued his work as he spoke. He put the gray blood he had just drawn into a test tube and prepared to drip his alchemical reagent into it.

But before adding the reagent into the test tube, he turned his head and asked a question.

"How many people outside saw you come back now?"

"Except for the descendants of Sumeru at the stairs, no one saw it." Maria shook her head, still in a low mood. "I turned back halfway to take a look because I was wary of you."

"I can roughly sense how strong you are, so I also know that alarming others is equivalent to alarming you."

Because the first impression you made on yourself was not good, are you becoming more and more suspicious afterwards?

That's normal.

Lan En thought to himself.

In fact, this is also related to the tight time.

If things weren't so urgent, then with Lan En's ability, he could completely slow down his pace so that people wouldn't notice his abnormality at all.

Not to mention Maria.

The demon hunter glanced at the female hunter who was born into a blood noble family.

She looked stern and capable, but after spending some time in the research hall, she still felt something was wrong with the clergy, and did not realize that the original purpose of setting up this research hall was wrong.

Dealing with Maria Lane didn't even seem like a problem.

(End of this chapter)