Chapter 390 - 390: A Lying Fable as a Warning

As for the claims made in Biology, The Relationship Between Unicorns and Pure Maidens, the witcher Victor dismissed them with a scoff.

According to the books in Kaer Morhen's library, combined with his memories from his previous life, unicorns were actually intelligent, emotional beings that had arrived in the witcher's world through the Conjunction of the Spheres.

They resembled horses, except for the single horn growing from the center of their foreheads, usually in a spiral shape. A unicorn's color changed with age. They communicated with one another through telepathy and would occasionally communicate with other races as well.

As for the legend that only virgins could lure unicorns, naturally that wasn't true. Unicorns simply despised wicked hearts and did everything possible to avoid them, preferring to appear only before kindhearted people.

One particularly noteworthy fact was that a unicorn's horn served as a universal antidote and could also detect poison.

Unfortunately, the unicorn Victor was currently riding in the Land of a Thousand Fables possessed none of those miraculous abilities. It was nothing more than a horse with a horn growing from its forehead.

Still, that appearance alone was enough for Victor to fulfill yet another childhood dream.

...

An impossibly perfect rainbow arced across the clear blue sky, combing the heavens with seven brilliant colors.

As they rode toward the foot of the mountain, they heard a frightened, panicked voice shouting words that made absolutely no sense.

"Stay away! There aren't any wolves here! Not a single one!"

"It's fine! I... I'm fine! I'm not in any danger!"

The two urged their mounts faster and crested a small hill.

There, they saw a red-haired little boy standing atop a wooden post, desperately waving his arms and shouting.

Five vicious wolves surrounded him, drooling as they growled.

"Damn it!" Syanna blurted out. "That brat is Joss, the shepherd boy! Those wolves are going to tear him apart!"

"No, they won't!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Victor squeezed his unicorn's flanks and charged forward, drawing his steel sword.

Back when he was still an apprentice at Kaer Morhen, a pack of wolves had already been nothing worth fearing.

Now that he was a full-fledged witcher, beasts like these were child's play.

Victor raced into range and leapt from his mount.

His right hand formed the Igni Sign, unleashing a burst of flame that immediately set two wolves ablaze. Then, with one wolf cut down by his steel blade, the ferocity of his attack instantly frightened the final two into fleeing with their tails tucked between their legs.

The entire fight lasted less than a minute.

Seeing that Joss was still trembling violently atop the wooden post, the witcher sheathed his sword and tried to reassure him.

"Relax, kid. It's over. You're safe now."

"No, I'm not! There's another wolf! One's right behind you!" the red-haired brat shouted, eyes wide.

Victor paused and turned around.

There was nothing behind him except Syanna and her pink unicorn.

Then he remembered exactly who this boy was.

Joss was the protagonist of the fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf. He constantly shouted that wolves were attacking just to fool people into dropping whatever they were doing and rushing over to save him.

Eventually, no one trusted him anymore.

So one day, when wolves really did appear, nobody believed his cries for help, and many of his sheep were killed.

It was the classic lesson about raising false alarms so often that no one listens when the danger finally becomes real.

"Ignore him. He lies all the time."

The black-clad princess dismounted and walked over to the boy.

"Listen, brat. Jack says you know where his three magic beans were hidden."

"I don't know anything. Nothing at all. Watch out! There's a wolf behind you!"

Once they learned to interpret everything he said as the opposite of the truth, it immediately became obvious that Joss knew everything.

Syanna smiled and winked at Victor, signaling for him to begin the questioning.

Victor folded his arms and smiled pleasantly at the red-haired brat.

"Dear Joss, would you mind telling me where the red magic bean definitely isn't?"

The freckled boy scratched his red hair.

"I'm absolutely certain it isn't in someone's stomach. Definitely not in a stomach!"

"And who didn't swallow the red bean?" the princess immediately followed up, having caught the clue.

Joss patted his chest.

"A human! The most humany human in all the land!"

After saying that, the red-haired, freckled boy once again raised both arms and faithfully played his part.

"Everyone! Wolf! Wolf! Run for your lives!"

And so, after a short session of clever questioning that was repeatedly interrupted by cries of "Wolf!", Victor and Syanna managed to extract the following information from Joss:

The red bean "hadn't been swallowed," and whoever had not swallowed it was "the most humany human in all the land."

The blue bean was "not somewhere out in the open," and it was "not guarded by three individuals."

The yellow bean was hidden "deep underground" and guarded by "a bald farmhand who wasn't waiting for anyone."

Armed with this information, the two walked aside to discuss it.

"Syanna, what stories are there in this fairy-tale realm? If we reverse the clues, we should be able to narrow things down."

"Hmm, there actually aren't that many stories here. Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, as well as Longlocks and the Little Flint Girl."

Victor pressed a hand to his forehead, recalling the stories and comparing them against the clues.

He spoke quietly.

"The yellow bean should be inside Longlocks' tower. She's high above the ground, has extremely long hair, and she's waiting for a prince to come for her.

"As for the blue bean and its three guardians, I'm not sure whether that means Goldilocks and the Three Bears or The Three Little Pigs.

"And as for the red bean, 'the most humany human in all the land' is something we'll have to ask about while we're traveling. Either way, it sounds like we'll eventually have to cut open the stomach of some nonhuman creature."

"Excellent deduction. Just like how easily you saw through my murder plot. I think you should have become a detective instead of a witcher."

"There's hardly any difference. Witchers make the best detectives... Now let's continue our wondrous journey. Even though there's no time pressure while we're in here, the sooner we finish this, the better."

With their plan settled, the two mounted their unicorns again.

Their first destination was Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Unfortunately, with nobody maintaining the story, it had completely gone off the rails, and their very first stop rewarded them with a horrifying sight guaranteed to ruin anyone's childhood memories.

Originally, the adorable protagonist had stolen some porridge, broken a chair, and slept in someone else's bed, only to be frightened away by the bears' roaring at the end of the story.

Goldilocks had not been so fortunate here.

She had been bitten and mauled beyond recognition, her mutilated corpse lying beside the dining table.

The three bears, presumably the culprits, were meanwhile fast asleep in their respective beds.

The witcher crouched beside the corpse to examine it.

"Only the golden curls are still recognizable. The rest of her body's been mangled beyond identification."

His nostrils twitched.

Then he pointed toward the three bowls on the table, large, medium, and small, each filled with porridge and chunks of meat.

"This is probably where the rest of her ended up."

"The lesson of this story is clearly that you shouldn't break into other people's homes and steal their belongings," the princess remarked dryly.

Victor clicked his tongue.

"That's one hell of a bloody lesson. The punishment hardly fits the crime. Mind if I clear the place out first?"

Syanna spread her hands, indicating that she had no objection.

After Victor fired three consecutive Igni Signs and turned the three brown bears into blackened bears, the princess and the witcher thoroughly ransacked the house.

Unfortunately, they found no trace whatsoever of their objective, the blue bean.

"Let's go. At least now we know it must be with the Three Little Pigs."

Syanna tossed aside a picture frame and dusted off her hands.

The knight rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Come to think of it, we broke into their house, killed the owners, and then started rummaging through all their belongings. What exactly is the moral of our version of the story supposed to be?"

Syanna ignored him.

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