Who Massacred A Million Monsters

It is in this way that Renard becomes a slayer of ghouls.

In the following months, then following years, he travels around the backcountry of Lacren. Though initially reliant on heralds and rumours, he soon understands the ghoul habitat: most often, they linger in isolated areas where ambitious men attempted to do things few others had done, and been punished badly for that ambition. Mountains, caves, canyons, and forests — these are dwellings of ghouls. Then are the disaster zones, where harsh weather or sudden rains wiped away settlers, explorers, or labourers. Deserted villages from before Nix’s opening, too, number among these. And finally is the pure accidents — the unfortunate cases of elderly men dying unseen in their houses, producing a vicious ghoul, and slaughtering a town overnight. Though somewhat rare, such cases do happen.

As much as Renard acquires that sense of where ghouls are, he comes to understand how to fight them. While the underlying principle of slaying any ghoul is not too complicated (stab them until they are dead, using Kingslayer’s enchantment to cripple them if necessary), the specific constitutions and malevolences of any two ghouls are as varied as any two people. Some may fly, and some are constructed of lava. Renard comes into the habit of knowing, broadly, what he is about to fight before fighting it, and exploiting the idiosyncrasies of individual ghouls to lure them into traps or expose their own weaknesses.

That being said, many ghouls do simply unlace once exposed to Kingslayer. All do posses at least one supernatural quality for Kingslayer to reject — if that quality is one basal to the ghoul, or serves as a vital organ, it will die the second that Kingslayer touches it, as was the case with the worm. Ironically, it is these cases, which are the easiest foes for Renard, that are the most dreaded and impossible enemies for everyday people. But that is why Kingslayer is what Pleione called it, incredible.

This means, ultimately, that Renard comes to slay many terrifying beasts people had thought so unconquerable, locals had stopped encouraging anyone to even try.

And what that all means, is a reputation.

People know Renard. Though he sincerely wishes to be dead and a nobody, most all who meet him have preconceptions about him: that he is a Lacrenese knight, and so a distinguished noble who demands that courtly respect, or the Iron King’s servant still, a monster who slaughtered hundreds of innocents. Renard jeers at those who treat him with knightly admiration, spites those who imply such a ghoul’s servant could be living for anything, and rejects all others curtly. What am I? A corpse! He would yell, and throw out those interested to know him, beat them if they kept trying. He never kept companions, and even his hunts, he did alone.

Hah! Good! Thought Renard, once he let himself deny all filters. Now they all see — I am no one worth knowing.

But to say that Renard despised people… no, that was not true. He was just a man with little hope, who felt he deserved nothing, and rather lived so that he would not dare to think he would ever have more than a sword. Each and every ghoul he hunted was a suicide attempt. The engagements he entered, he entered yearning for this one to kill him. That was the only hope he let himself have.

But it never happened.

More and more, it just never happened.

Years of this, ceaseless hunts, countless ghouls, and yet, it never happened.

The resentment and anger supporting Renard breaks slowly into confusion. As a younger man, he may have cursed the world and taken his longevity as another of God’s mockeries, but having lived by such a dark credo for so long, any shift means a shift to the positive. Despite himself, Renard has to wonder if maybe, he is not necessarily meant to die dashed across rocks at the talons of some beast, but is rather marked for mercy and has permission to live with joy as he’s able.

Is he really allowed that?

Attitudes towards him have shifted. Of course he’d done his best to make everyone hate him, but when he looks clearly at the townsfolk, all who cross his path are — smiling. Beaming. Children, mothers, workmen, they are happy Renard is here.

Fools! You do not know me! His spiteful mind would snap, but today in this weird liberty, such a retort feels unnecessary. Because of course they know him, or at least know what he’s shown. He has been a terror, rude, wild, rejecting, disrespectful, and sometimes even violent across every corner of Lacren, and has begrudgingly represented the country in this hideous fashion even in kingdoms beyond. He has publicly cursed and contradicted the Queen hundreds of times. Despite all that, no matter how horrible of a person Renard has been, there is no doubt or hesitation in the overwhelmingly positive sentiment everyone has towards him.

It is like they are all keeping a secret, or playing a game, that Renard is only now noticing. Oh, there is Renard the wicked… hoho, we must keep mighty our distance, else he may safen our communities, reopen lost trade routes, and return us access to lucrative soil, stone, and lumber!

The profound benefits of what he has been doing simply outweigh the thorniness of his attitude. A hundred times over. A thousand times over. In the eyes of the people, no matter how wrong he’s been, he has done good enough.

Is defeating evil all you need to do to really be a good person?

Renard staggers into the tavern of the small town he is in, reeling at this revelation. Too stunned to even touch his drink, he rests his temple in his palm and watches the patrons, aghast. The men who play cards, or laugh, or joke, or dance, no longer feel like displaced residents of a brighter dimension that Renard can spitefully observe but not enter, but rather quite ordinary and cheerful people whose atmosphere he could connect with, provided he let himself muster the courage to try.

Though enticing beyond anything, the prospect is also terrifying. Renard swallows so hard he chokes on his beer.

As he cleans himself up, Renard notices a buxom barmaid. Taverns like this often double as brothels, whether by the owner’s or the employee’s design. Having repeatedly encountered that underbelly to traveller’s lodges, he senses that this establishment indeed has it too. The warm, cloying gaze the serving-lady gives upon noticing his stare feels to confirm it, as she smiles and approaches Renard.

While she refills his drink, she discreetly signs her availability in what is undeniably the way of a prostitute. Renard awkwardly asks to see her in his room and she answers with a nod and subtle smile. Her movements flow with grace as she takes his empty stein, and her form is obviously beautiful in the way of a ripe plum. Renard’s tongue dries and insides melt with a warm, wobbly feeling for the first time since forging Kingslayer, as he lets himself even imagine that he could indulge in that fruit.

Her shift ends in twenty minutes. Renard wraps up his meal, and bolts upstairs to his room, nervous and excited as a schoolboy.