Berserk: The Prophet

early morning.

"Cough cough..."

Seranti had a low-grade fever last night, and the small fire had gone out. Fortunately, his clothes were dry. After checking the location of the two boulders, he still had some strength left because he had eaten some food. He couldn't stay here for too long. Although he didn't know where he had been swept away by the rushing waterfall and river, it was better to leave this godforsaken place as soon as possible. Who knew if those guys would come looking for his corpse to take back for a reward?

Seranti secured his left leg between two stones, then with a sudden twist of his upper body, he reattached his severed leg. He put on his somewhat tattered clothes and armor, donned his hood, picked up two stone slabs and strips of cloth to secure his left leg, and, leaning against the wall, retrieved a Y-shaped stick from a low tree to begin his journey.

.........

He was lucky; after walking for a morning, he arrived at a village called Kwen. He used some dinars to ask the village chief for a place to stay, with food to be paid separately each day. He needed to recover from his injuries first.

The village chief assumed he was just a traveler who had been robbed and didn't mistreat him, since Seranti's equipment meant he was a swordsman.

Once Seranti had recovered from his injuries, he went to the Lion City – Sarion, guided by the villagers.

To cover his daily expenses and indulge in drinking, Seranti frequently took on commissions from the mayor. In order to avoid attracting the attention of that family within the territory of the Lion's Domain, Seranti used the alias "Lantis" in Pendor.

Over time, everyone got to know this elusive ranger who frequented the Sarion tavern, but no one really knew his abilities. Then, a gay mercenary squad leader got drunk and started harassing him. His foul mouth touched him and almost pulled off his hood, which caused Seranti to go on a drunken rampage. He stabbed the man to death and then fought the squad leader's five men in a melee, taking their lives like harvesting rice.

From then on, the name "Curved Blade Ranger" Serantis spread throughout Lion City. As his reputation grew, naturally some people came to Serantis to do shady things; such as assassination, poisoning, tracking enemy spies, and hunting down escaped prisoners. Serantis soon entered the underground dark web of the Lion Kingdom—the Blade of Punishment.

The Blade of Punishment is a dark web organization spread throughout the Lionheart Kingdom, used for intelligence gathering and assassination. It brings together spies, informants, and assassins from all over the land who are willing to risk their lives for money. They do all sorts of dirty things that cannot be done in the open.

Anyway, it was all just for making a living. The muddled Seranti did a lot of dirty work for the Lion Kingdom and had long seen through the true nature of the country—a bunch of worms.

I've heard they've been hunting down the rumored prophesied son and... the long-forgotten royal bloodline of Pendor.

The prophesied son... Thranduil had heard bards talk about this while he was drowning his sorrows in a tavern. Every tavern owner knew about it. It was the prophecy of Madigan—a hero would unite all of Pendor.

"...He will be the King of Pendor, the Guardian of the East, the Demon Slayer, the Devourer of Evil, the Nightmare of the Gathuls, the Resurrector of the Gryphons, the Friend of the Noldor, the Grand Master of the Fearless Knights, dispelling the gloom from the distant continent shrouded in the shadow of evil..." The bard sat at the wine table, telling the children the prophecy of Madigan, occasionally playing his harp and chanting.

Pshaw... Who would believe such a baseless prophecy?

Thranduil, tipsy, poured himself another glass of ale. "Hmm...Friend of the Noldor...Friend of the Noldor?!" Thranduil's eyes widened in shock. "Why? Why can the Son of Prophecy be a Friend of the Noldor?!"

"Why should the Son of Prophecy be a friend of the Noldor?! Aren't those guys pretty xenophobic?!"

Seranti suddenly stood up from the table and grabbed the bard by the collar. The children screamed and ran away in fright, and the people drinking there, seeing that it was the 'scimitar-wielding knight' causing trouble, quickly made way for him.

"I...I only heard about it from others on my journey...Don't kill me, I don't know anything...It should, it should just be a legend, right?" The bard shrank back in fear, his legs trembling. This person...is too terrifying!

After pressing him for answers, Seranty had no choice but to release him and embark on a journey to seek the truth. The Blade of Punishment assigns missions according to rank, and members do not need to stay in the organization waiting for missions. As long as there is a suitable mission, someone will be sent to deliver the message according to the member's rank. Multiple people may accept a mission, and of course, whoever succeeds gets the reward. The longer a mission remains unattended, the higher the reward will be to encourage members to complete the task.

Since hearing about that incident, Seranty had been busy traveling back and forth across the land of Pendor, saving up his wine money to buy a fine horse to ride through various countries, reading books, and making connections. Finally, he found the detailed information in the library of Dawnfire, which belonged to the Ravenlands—"The Prophecy of the Prophet Madigan".

Aside from the passage recited by the bard, there is also—"The blood of heroes flows in the veins of the prophesied son, blessed by the gods, and the spirits will bestow miracles upon him..."

The bard's detailed explanation of the Noldor: "The prophesied son will make peace between men and Noldor elves."

Peaceful coexistence? Seranti's eyes narrowed slightly. How could they coexist peacefully? That guy... as long as that guy is around, peaceful coexistence is impossible.

Aldarian, a defender of the Noldor homeland, a cruel Noldor warlord, and a fanatical racist, harbors hatred for all humans due to the long-standing suffering of the Noldor elves. The idea of ​​humans and Noldor living in peace is simply a pipe dream, since even the Silvermist Rangers have never successfully ventured into the depths of the Noldor forest; they are merely wishful allies.

Seranti couldn't bear it any longer. He left the library to drown his sorrows in alcohol. The tavern was too noisy, so he bought a can of wine and climbed onto the roof to get drunk. The moon was beautiful, but his feelings were extremely complicated. He still hated that in such a big world, there wasn't even a place where he could openly embrace the sun. The feeling of the snow and the cold wind was just as biting as when he escaped from Long River Town, but it was far less painful than the pain in his heart.

The Ravenlands are currently at war with Philwiz, but that has nothing to do with Thranduil. There's just a bit of congestion in and out of the city, so Thranduil decides to go to Falling Bend to meet the so-called Noldor allies—the Silvermist Rangers.

Leveraging the Silver Mist Ranger's connections in Ravenlands should increase the chances of finding the Prophet.

At first, Thranduil, the Grand Master of the Silver Mist Rangers, paid no attention to this unremarkable traveler.

“I imagine you’re very interested in knowing the whereabouts of a Noldor elf. I’d like to discuss this information with you privately. Would you be interested?”

Seranti spoke up very naturally, which was undoubtedly the fastest way to gain the trust of the Silver Mist Rangers.