Bear School Astartes-Chapter 582 - 584. Face Off

Chapter 582: 584. Face Off
When Lann, Geralt, and Ged arrived at the inn at the crossroads.
They saw a mobile barber unfolding his gear from his cart, with his body tense, shaving the head of a woman with a soft hat around her neck.
Beside her, three men stood scattered.
All wore leather vests, light attire, each touching their freshly shaved heads.
The free barber let them fully unleash their creativity.
One had a Mohawk, another a yin-yang haircut.
But apart from their various new hairstyles, Lann could subtly discern their quality from their subconscious postures and positions.
The men used the inn’s structure to block most shooting directions.
They were likely very familiar with the performance of various standard bows and crossbows, so even subconsciously, they avoided angles threatened by different intensities of bows and crossbows.
With current market-standard bow and crossbow performances, if one wanted to shoot cold arrows from afar, they’d have to aim within their line of sight to find a feasible angle.
This was a display of tactical awareness.
Geralt slightly lifted a branch blocking his view and whispered to the side.
"Their weight is focused on the front half of the left foot’s sole, the easiest position to react swiftly."
"Maintaining such a state naturally during rest periods shows they’re indeed on par with the group we first encountered... this is a special forces unit!"
Geralt’s tactical thinking was different from Lann’s, who was used to the long periods in the [Deep Memory] interstellar wars.
Geralt focused first on swordsmanship, whereas Lann noticed shooting angles first.
This difference wasn’t about superiority or inferiority; it stemmed from different war perceptions and experiences.
"So what now..." Ged looked at Geralt and Lann with an inquisitive gaze, his hand eagerly caressing the steel sword handle on his back.
The new Valerian Steel Sword he hadn’t yet used against a worthy opponent.
Lann nodded towards the two of them.
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The barber was shaving the woman’s head according to her request, creating patterns on the short side.
The woman seemed to be a hybrid, with a quarter elf blood.
The barber imagined fearfully how this group, who casually wiped out a gang, would treat him after they were done.
Meanwhile, he noticed the woman’s mouth opening wide with laughter.
No canine teeth were visible, a testimony to her elf heritage.
Among elves, canine teeth were seen as a primitive, incomplete evolutionary trait.
Yet, the actions of the woman devoid of ’primitive traits’ were anything but civilized.
Her throat and nasal cavity made a snoring sound, then she tilted her head and spat a thick phlegm mixed with mucus into the slushy ground.
This was already the countless time she had spat.
People high on drug powders salivate and produce mucus uncontrollably.
The high-quality drug powder found on Long-toothed Rat’s corpse was consumed entirely within less than an hour!
They were thus in a frenzy, moving with abnormal agility, their eyes dreamy and glowing.
The barber was truly frightened.
Although they promised that after service he could leave unharmed, everyone knew the truth—
Not even demon spirits believe what those addicted to drug powders say!
These people could lie without blinking even in a temple!
Yet the hybrid woman under the barber’s razor spat out another phlegm and mucus, then raised her eyes towards the direction outside the inn’s courtyard.
Her drug-induced nervous eyeballs first looked puzzled, then seemed to understand, suddenly widening!
"Aha! Two ’guests’ have arrived!"
The three men scattered in the yard instantly changed their movements.
Their previously lazy stance turned sharp and menacing with tightened muscles.
Their positions didn’t change, but their hands had already grasped the sword handles on their waists.
Their neurotic gazes locked onto the two approaching shadows.
Silhouettes with long swords slung like bows and arrows.
If this were before the event that spread across the continent, these southern travelers might have been merely baffled and amused. But nowadays, anyone would understand what these two swords represented.
"Looks like today’s our lucky day? First, we got premium drug powder for free, now a target is delivered to us?"
Blas, who wiped out an entire gang with a single sword, grinned widely.
The man with the soft hat, despite consuming a fair amount of drug powder, remained somewhat rational.
"Assuming they truly are Demon Hunters, not impostors deceiving farmers for extra girls and coins amidst the chaos."
After saying this, the soft-hat man also tilted his head to spit out another mix of phlegm and mucus. In a less hostile tone, he called to the two nearing shadows.
"Who are you? If friends, why not come for a drink of vodka. It’s not easy finding good people in these turbulent times, my treat."
The atmosphere was peculiar, both inside and outside the inn’s courtyard.
The barber instinctively paused.
Ged and Geralt kept moving.
The Demon Hunter with the bushy beard split a gap in his thick facial hair: "Vodka? I like."
"But at the very least, it shouldn’t be vodka with additives."
The Demon Hunters walked close enough for the courtyard’s occupants to see the silver pendants around their necks.
The ’friendly atmosphere’ instantly vanished.
In a moment of drug-induced strange gaze meeting the Demon Hunters’ cat eyes...
"Crash!" *4
The sound of bowstrings twanging! Four hand crossbows were fired, prepared ahead!
Short but still lethal crossbar arrows volleyed toward targets!
But the surprise shots didn’t hit anyone at all!
The two Demon Hunters swiftly sidestepped, which wasn’t surprising.
After the widespread tales about Demon Hunters, people had come to begrudgingly accept such formerly shocking actions.
But even the opposing side reacted in the nick of time to the surprise crossbow shots!
Ged’s crossbow arrow aimed at the least mobile woman, but the elf hybrid woman wickedly twisted her body.
Though getting a cut from the stunned barber’s shaving razor, the crossbow arrow aimed at her thudded into the barber’s cart instead.
The other’s actions exceeded normal human limits.
Harris, originally drinking with Blas, flickered a near-dagger short sword in a flash of silver to strike down Geralt’s crossbow arrow mid-air!