The Fallen Knight

"The Cursed One - The Headless Horseman..."

In the deserted village, Witcher silently recalls what has been written about the cursed creature.

"Most of the time, such knights defeated with a grudge don't get a truly long sleep, but thanks to effective sealing, they're kept dead in their graves until awakened by an outsider..."

"Most cases of the Headless Horseman attacking villages are the result of tombs being accidentally dug up, archaeology and grave robbing, or the lure of nightmares and the charm of evil spells; corpses that have not undergone the ritual of requiem have proved to be universally dangerous, and even the corpses of ordinary people with no transcendental activity are exploited by unscrupulous people, and although the Church was quick to enact Although the Church quickly established new burial regulations, the large number of tombs left over from the ancient era still allowed those fools to dig their graves..."

"The conditions for the formation of the Headless Horseman are harsh; humiliating defeat, severing of the head, a strong unfulfilled wish, and a strong enough transcendental activity to support it through the mutation, which leads to this class of the damned being extremely threatening as soon as they are born!"

Eleazar rubs his overthinking head and lets out an exclamation.

"Hey Knight ....."

"Strong physique, excellent mental will, great soul quality, which leads to them being the best carriers of all kinds of evil, knights were once still the main fighting force of the royal family and major nobles, the same huge base, which leads to the fact that most of the dark legends circulating in the folklore are related to this sequence..."

Having determined what thing caused the transcendent event here, the next step was to continue to follow the trail and assess the true strength of the other side.

The hundreds of civilians killed didn't leave many clues; they died without a single struggle.

But those four Acolytes who were also resolved one by one with a single slash revealed a very frightening thing.

The holy light itself restrained most of the transcendents, and against the dark pathways, the effect exerted would be doubled again, but they died unopposed just like that, and that was with the 4 melee specialists that the church had sent out on purpose after realizing that the victims had all been wounded by weapons.

The Acolyte team consisted of 2nd rank Divine Punisher and three 1st-rank Holy Knights, if they had known that the enemy was so terrifying, they might have been able to resist a bit when they gathered, but because of the missing key information, they were still in the investigation stage when they were able to find out the team's weaknesses, and they were directly annihilated in a wave.

"It's so nice, being subservient to the church in life and hitting it hard in death."

I'm afraid the strength of that headless horseman has already reached the 4th rank legendary.

"A true Legendary Knight?..."

Eleazar silently recalled the near-invincible gallantry of the Mayor of Dokron.

Then he looked around again. "This doesn't look like Knight territory, there must have been grave robbers who survived by chance and escaped to this village, only to be caught up by others."

"You made a fool of yourself and got so many people killed..."

Silently judging, Eleazar made his way back to the tavern.

"If they are outsiders, then they usually come to such places and are the only ones to entertain them..."

The tavern lobby was normal, with no signs of a struggle.

It's normal, those bodies in the monastery, basically all of them died from assassinations and sneak attacks.

"Well, just like the rumors, because they lost their heads, they also know that they are different from the norm, so their behavioral style has become shady and they want to get their heads back before they go back to being normal again, even sometimes they don't care if it's their own..."

Knowing what things are being targeted gives a very different sense to investigating again.

Coming to the guest rooms on the second floor of the tavern, he pushed them open one by one to check them out.

The Headless Horseman's most initial footprints were finally found in a guest room where the blood had dried off.

"So it was this kind of footprint, and then it disappeared? No, it was it wearing the shoes of a grave robber!"

"Well, there's still some antiseptic smelly herb smell, but that has largely dissipated outside."

Locking onto the line of tracks, Witcher tracked back to the tavern lobby.

That footprint lingered at the bar for a long time.

"Not only did it wear the shoes of a grave robber, but it also mounted the other guy's head, managed to blend in with the crowd, and drank..."

Lifting his head slowly again, Eleazar looks to the back door of the tavern.

"But for reasons unknown, it got into a confrontation with someone and subsequently walked off to the back alley."

Pushing open the back door of the tavern, he silently looked at the faint scratches and blood left on the walls.

"Then came the crushing kill..."

"The outsider who created the vicious incident simply could not continue to hide in the village, and the villagers then launched a search for it..."

"And then, there's more killing..."

"The continuous casualties finally emboldened the villagers and they called the police."

"The case of the headless body eventually led to an acolyte investigation..."

In the barn, Witcher finally finds out where the last acolyte died.

"Well, the roof of the barn was seared through by several holy lights, a signal to call for backup, and this acolyte didn't realize until he finally did that all of his companions had been killed."

Eleazar suddenly crouches down and picks up a soaked grain of wheat.

"Is this a tear?"

"Well, the sacred tears containing the characteristics of holy light that were erupted by strong emotions..."

Take out a small test tube and drop the wheat kernels into it to store it.

Then clapping his hands and standing up, he looked around.

"Well, the investigation of the village of Orillia is complete."

"And then there was the Great Migration..."

The tracks of the grave robbers, also mixed in with the evacuating crowd, made Witcher look indifferent for a moment.

"It switched heads again and managed to blend in with the villagers."

"Good thing I didn't change my shoes..."

Eleazar stands at the entrance to the village in thought.

"I'm surprised it didn't go back to the mausoleum?"

Is there anything else about that place that intimidates it? Or perhaps lingering, longing, disenchantment, the sort of things that tend to make it give up the fight.

And those things are, in all likelihood, its weaknesses.

"It still seems necessary to make a trip to the grave, and perhaps learn about the other person's life and past..."

Eleazar is again trying to find the tracks of the grave robbers coming into the village.

There are only two ways to deal with the Headless Horseman.

One is to retrieve its head for it, fulfill its last wish, and in that moment of complete repose, there is a chance that it may actually regain consciousness for a moment and then give something special in return.

That troublesome and cumbersome process corresponds to some other sequence of promotion requirements.

The Witcher didn't have that much trouble to just slaughter and be done with it, the only reason why they had to do so much investigation, all the same, was just to slaughter a little bit easier and make sure everything was okay.