SSS-Ranked Surgeon In Another World: The Healer Is Actually OP! - Chapter 326: The Hunt Begins!
Chapter 326: The Hunt Begins!
He leaned forward slightly, voice lowering.
“An entire kingdom just exhaled, Bruce. They do not know why but they feel it. The tension in their shoulders has loosened. The background dread they could not name has lifted.”
He gestured vaguely toward the streets below.
“Relief creates loyalty. Stability breeds opportunity.”
His smile softened, not playful this time, but thoughtful.
“And opportunity is the seed of the future.”
Bruce studied him in silence. For a long moment, the lecherous eccentric vanished completely. The exaggerated perversion. The theatrical indulgence. All of it peeled away like a discarded costume.
What remained was something older.
Measured.
Sharpened by time and long observation.
“You’re still hiding things,” Bruce said calmly.
Duke’s grin returned immediately. “Of course I am.”
He spread his hands lightly.
“If I revealed everything at once, you would grow bored. And I cannot allow my favorite ally to become bored.”
Bruce exhaled quietly.
“Isolde doesn’t know about this place.”
“She knows it exists,” Duke replied. “She does not know who shaped it.”
A faint pause.
“And she does not know about the Traveller.”
Bruce’s eyes flickered briefly. “So this identity”
“Is useful,” Duke finished smoothly.
He walked past Bruce without hurry and refilled his teacup from a porcelain pot resting on a low table, steam rising in delicate spirals.
“An eccentric old man is invisible. A wandering storyteller is underestimated. A perverted regular is dismissed as harmless.”
He lifted the cup.
“Which makes him ideal.”
Bruce’s gaze remained steady. “You stayed here during the purge.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Duke sipped his tea before answering.
“Because if something went wrong, I needed to observe the reaction. Panic spreads faster than fire. I needed to know whether the public would fracture or unify.”
Bruce’s expression darkened slightly. “You would have intervened.”
“If necessary,” Duke admitted.
The words were simple.
The weight behind them was not.
A brief silence settled between them. The night air felt colder now, sharper.
Then Duke studied Bruce more closely.
“You’re thinking too rigidly again.”
Bruce did not respond.
Duke’s tone softened, just slightly. “You cleansed Eiskar. But do not mistake this for the end.”
His eyes glinted faintly. “They are more. Infestations do not appear in isolation. They test. They probe. They measure resistance.”
The wind shifted again. Lantern light flickered across the balcony stones.
Bruce’s gaze narrowed.
Duke’s smile remained playful.
But his eyes were no longer laughing.
And that was where the real conversation began.
“Thankfully,” Duke continued at last, his tone easing back into something lighter, “with your help things are settled, for now.”
He set the teacup down with deliberate care.
“I can now meet with the members of the Adventurer Guild of Eiskar without worrying that I am speaking into compromised ears.”
He glanced sideways at Bruce.
“They will be confused. Relieved. Suspicious of their own relief. I intend to guide that confusion toward unity.”
A faint smirk tugged at his lips.
“Adventurers are easier to steer when they believe they chose the direction themselves.”
Bruce said nothing.
Duke stepped closer to the railing, looking toward the distant spire where the guild headquarters stood.
“Before we proceed to the next kingdom, I need their cooperation. Quietly. Efficiently. No declarations. No panic.”
He turned back to Bruce, eyes gleaming with anticipation rather than amusement.
“If this infestation reached Eiskar’s throne, it did not stop here.”
The playful mask remained in place.
But beneath it, something far more serious had awakened.
“And this time,” Duke added softly, “we will not be reacting.”
His gaze met Bruce’s evenly.
“We will be hunting.”
The words lingered between them like the quiet echo of a drawn blade.
For a moment neither man moved. The wind stirred gently through the balcony, brushing the silk curtains behind them and carrying distant sounds from the city below, laughter, clinking cups, a musician somewhere playing a slow wandering tune drifting through the winter air.
Eiskar breathed peacefully.
Lanternlight shimmered across the snow dusted rooftops, casting warm pools of gold against the darkened streets. Taverns were still lively. Merchants still bargained. Somewhere in the lower districts, a group of late night revelers shouted drunken songs into the cold night.
The city had no idea it had stood on the edge of something monstrous.
And that it had already been pulled back.
Duke picked up his teacup again, turning it slowly between his fingers as if considering the delicate blue patterns painted along the porcelain.
“You know,” he said casually, his tone almost absentminded, “Isolde once told me something interesting.”
Bruce remained silent.
The night air brushed faintly across his coat, stirring the edge of the fabric. His posture remained still, but there was a quiet alertness in the way he watched the older man.
Duke took a slow sip before continuing.
“She told me that long before you, there was a king who had been actively fighting against invaders. His class uniqueness possessed a certain resistance towards invaders possession. He is King Don Bastion of Drekai.”
His gaze drifted outward across the sea of lantern lights.
“That kingdom will be our next stop. It’s time to confirm if Drekai is invader free as Don Bastion, the one who opened my eyes to their existence, claimed they are.”
The word was spoken quietly.
But it carried weight.
Bruce’s eyes sharpened slightly.
Duke leaned one shoulder against the balcony rail, posture relaxed, the casual posture of a man enjoying an evening breeze. But the ease in his body did not extend to his gaze.
His eyes were thinking.
“When he told me, at first,” Duke continued thoughtfully, “I assumed it was simply one of his exaggerated political metaphors. You know how rulers can be when they are forced to speak about enemies they cannot openly name.”
A faint smirk curved across his lips.
“But Don is not the type to indulge in paranoia. After testing a few things I did indeed confirm his words.”
Bruce said nothing.
Duke glanced at him briefly, acknowledging the silent agreement between them.
“He said something else that day,” Duke continued. “Something most people would have dismissed.”
