Mystery: Mr. Witch and Ms. Hunter

Chapter 14 Chat
The sky in Backlund darkened very quickly. In fact, the daylight hours were no more than six hours. As the thick smoke from the industrial zone slowly settled in the East District, it was already dark by seven in the evening.

After finishing her meal, Venata sat back on the sofa and carefully put away her degree certificate and other documents. However, when Altaïr finished his work in the kitchen and sat on the other side of the sofa as usual, the atmosphere in the living room suddenly became awkward.

Although the two had a relatively friendly time for the time being, the conflict of last night was not so easy to resolve. However, due to the nature of their previous work, going to bed at this time was tantamount to torture.

Altaïr, who lived alone at home, had lived in Baron Syndras's mansion as a servant for nearly three months in order to assassinate Baron Syndras. It was impossible for him to come back to pay for the newspaper. The Backlund Morning Post that Venata brought had already been read over and over again by the two of them.

"...Or, I'll go make a cup of tea."

Altaïr could no longer bear the awkward atmosphere and made a suggestion.

"Or do you prefer coffee? ... As for tea, there is only Marquis black tea, and as for coffee..."

Altaïr was about to introduce his beverage inventory, but was interrupted impatiently by Venata.

"Excuse me, I don't want to lose sleep at night."

Venata waved her hands as if to shoo away a fly.

There was no point in chatting today! Artair was angry, but he couldn't get angry. In fact, he was eager to go to bed early. Taking caffeine in such an occasion would obviously make him uncomfortable, so he could only find a pottery jar of milk in the cabinet. He bought it at the convenience market when he came back from the bar yesterday afternoon.

Altaïr poured himself a glass of milk and heated it in a small porcelain basin filled with hot water, letting the faint aroma of milk drift away. He scooped two tablespoons of sugar from the sugar jar and put it into the milk, then leaned back against the sofa with the warm milk cup in his hand, feeling all the muscles in his body relax.

"Hey,"

Altair had just been intoxicated for a short while when Vinata began to feel restless.

"Well, I want to drink it, too."

The other person lazily laid his upper body on the low table, his long legs facing the flame of the fireplace, his body bent in an alluring curve.

"Didn't you just say you didn't want to drink?"

Altaïr was annoyed.

"I said no tea and coffee, not milk."

Venata retorted.

"Go get it yourself."

"I don't want to move."

"You think I want to move?"

The two of them stared at each other across the low table. After a while, Vinata realized that she was being unreasonable and finally felt guilty. She stood up and went to get the milk.

Thus, the ruthless gangster executioner and the cold-blooded and cruel professional killer sat together in front of the fire drinking hot milk and lying on the soft sofa in two puddles of liquid.

"I think, since we are just sitting around doing nothing, why not chat about something?"

Altaïr scraped the white milk stains from the corners of his mouth with his fingers and tried to speak again.

"Is this how you usually approach people?" Venata tilted her head and put down her glass of milk. "But you're lucky. I'm in a good mood right now. For the sake of your milk, you can ask whatever you want. But I don't necessarily answer."

"Don't worry, I'm not interested in your secrets either."

Altaïr added two more pieces of anthracite to the furnace.

"Your hometown is Feysac. Can you tell me what Feysac is like? I have been in Backlund since I can remember, and I don't know much about foreign affairs."

"You asked this."

Vinata first gave an expression that said "I thought you wanted to ask something", and then her expression gradually softened.

"Where should I start..." Venata exhaled slowly, revealing a reminiscent expression. "I was born on the northern coast of Feysac. The air there is better than Backlund, and the sunshine is abundant... Since I came to Backlund, it has been a long time since I basked in the sun as I did in my hometown."

"After all, this is Backlund... The local residents hate its environment and try to escape during holidays. But people outside are jealous of the job opportunities in the factories and are willing to try their best to get in."

Altaïr sighed.

"However, the winter here is much milder than that in Feysac. Of course, the cold and damp air in Loen that can penetrate into the bones is also annoying, but the winter in Feysac is different. In late January every year, my hometown is about 1 to degrees colder than here."

Venata opened her hands and showed Altaïr the scars on them.

"This is the result of frostbite when I was a child. It won't go away even after I grow up. I thought that becoming a Beyonder would change things, but it seems I was overthinking."

"I know a good pharmacist who should be able to make some potion to remove scars... Of course, this is just my opinion. When you get your legal ID tomorrow, I can take you to ask him."

Altaïr suggested.

"It's good to be able to remove it, but to be honest, after so long I don't really care. At most I'll look a little uglier holding the bouquet at the wedding, but I'm still not sure if I can find the right man."

Venata shrugged and continued talking.

"Because of this, there are very few pure farmers like those in Loen in my hometown. In the village where I grew up, almost all the men were hunters. There were air rifles or double-barreled shotguns hanging on the walls of every household."

"Every winter, when they can't farm, the men will take their hunting rifles and go hunting in the woods. Whether it's deer, rabbits, wolves or bears, they are all prey for Feysac men. When I was a child, my favorite thing to do was to play hunting games with those children at the entrance of the village and wait for the adults who were out to come back. If we could drag back a bear or two deer and sell them to the merchants who came once a week, we could rest this winter."

Vinata's eyes were a little dazed, as if she was reminiscing about the past.

"It just so happened that I was good at all those things, both in games and in real hunting. I could use a sling, a bow and arrow, a blowgun, and a double-barreled shotgun at the first touch. Later, I became the best hunter in the village. The walls were covered with the heads of bears, reindeers, and wolves that I had shot. Their eyes would reflect the light of the red moon at night, which was very beautiful."

There was suddenly a hint of sadness in Vinata's eyes.

"But later, the Feysac government issued a policy to cut down the forest in my hometown and relocate the villagers. Some villagers were unwilling to leave, so they picked up hunting rifles and fought with the army."

"What happened next? How are they?" Altaïr asked after a moment's hesitation.

"What else can we do?" Vinata's voice trembled.
"Although they were the best hunters in the tribe, they only had double-barreled shotguns that couldn't hold much gunpowder. We couldn't hit them from 200 meters away with double-barreled shotguns, but they could shoot us from 400 meters away with high-pressure steam rifles like shooting rabbits. Soon the rebels were dispersed."

"What about you?" Altaïr took a sip from the milk cup, not noticing that the milk had cooled. "As the best hunter, didn't they chase you?"

"Of course not." Vinata's expression became complicated, with regret, sadness, and resentment. "Because I was one of the first hunters who agreed to move."

Looking at Altair's stunned expression, Vinata smiled somewhat self-deprecatingly.

"Is it a surprise? The best hunter was the first to give up his hunting ground."

Venata placed the cup back into the hot water and sighed heavily.

"They told me that they would move us to a warmer place, give us reasonable jobs, and we wouldn't have to rely on fighting wild beasts to survive. I admit that I was tempted at the time. Our main food is venison and bear meat. No matter how we cook it, it's as hard as a belt. Few people in the tribe live over 60 years old. When they are too old to chew venison, they will be sent into the snow forest by the young people in their families and let them return to the snowfields."

"I have never seen my parents since I was a child. I was raised by a grandmother in the tribe. One day, my grandmother asked me to take her to the mountain, saying that she was going to meet old friends, and then asked me to help them hunt a rabbit for wine. At that time, although I had inherited the extraordinary characteristics of a hunter from my parents whom I had never met (I only found out about this later), I was still a child and didn't understand anything."

"My mother-in-law was also a very good hunter when she was young. She taught me all the hunting techniques. So I left her a gun and left with a bow and arrow and a sword."

"However, when I came back, all that was left was the sled, a shotgun with one shot fired, and some blood-stained rags. There were wolf footprints all around. Facing the wolves, my mother-in-law fired only one shot and smashed her own head."

Venata's voice was trembling slightly, and although the firelight was dim and her face could not be seen clearly, Altaïr thought she seemed to be crying.

"I don't want the people in the tribe to continue like this. I want them to taste the soft bread, stewed meat, and the Deese pies that the southerners described... So I took the lead in handing over my hunting rifle and exchanged the wall of preserved animal heads for twenty Feysac gold pounds and an application for admission to Feysac National University."

Vinata fished a stack of tissues from her pocket and blew her nose hard.

"I gave up all my skills as a hunter and got a degree from Feysac University. However, one night, I ran into a robber on my way back to my apartment. Naturally, I beat him up. However, when I pinned him down and beat him up, I saw his face clearly under the light of the red moon."

"That guy is my neighbor's kid, he was my little follower when he was little!"

(End of this chapter)