Chereads / Madison and Mason: The Witch Hunters / Chapter 22 - Act 22: The Aftermath

Chapter 22 - Act 22: The Aftermath

"It's been two years since Mason's death, my brother's death. I failed both as a witch hunter and as a sister, I failed because I am too weak to protect my family. I am not like my brother, who is always ready to risk his own life for the sake of protecting others, I thought that I have grown enough, but it seems that I was still lacking in every way... I wish that I was a bit stronger..."

Remembering those moments made Madison frustrated as she drunk herself with alcohol as she threw the bottle outside the window and yells in pain and agony of losing her brother, blaming herself for being a weakling she was until she passed out.

The next day – Jena and Cassie visits Madison and found out the she was still asleep and reeks of alcohol as they tried to wake her up, but Madison just rubs it off until Jena picks up a bucket full of cold water and splashed it to Madison, completely waking her up and making her sober.

Madison got startled and asked, "What the hell are you doing!?"

Jena answered, "The king summons you and we are here to pick you up, so get yourself dressed. Casanova and I will wait outside."

Two years ago – After the death of Mason, Madison – who's fueled by rage and vengeance despite Jena her not to go, she tries to hunt down Marie Antoniette and also hunts down other witches who helps Antoniette escape along the way and this was continued for seven months until Marie Antoniette herself suddenly disappeared without a trace. Due to her actions, the news spreads like a wildfire, the Last Witch Hunter who hunts witches everywhere she goes until it reached the Royal Palace in the Capital City of Staron in the Southeast.

The king orders a royal decree and that is to track down Madison and bring her alive in the Royal Palace, but Madison being good in hiding her tracks, made it hard the king's search party to track her down easily, the king then tries to contact the Elven Village of Siberius to post a search quest in order to cover more ground, but it did not yielded any results.

He then contacts the new lord of Bélen, Jenica to post a search quest for Madison since the king also knew the history between Madison and Village of Bélen, yet despite this, it also didn't yielded any results.

The king grew tired of this and decided to put on a bounty on Madison's head in order to get more people. He put an initial bounty of 200,000 Gold Coins with a description of "Alive only". This piqued many mercenaries and adventurers alike to go and search for Madison everywhere in the country that which makes it hard for Madison, herself, to hide.

For the past three months ever since the king puts a bounty on Madison, the mercenaries and adventurers made Madison tired of running and hiding, so she decided to hunt down the ones who caught a track of her.

The issue just keeps spreading throughout the country and more mercenaries and adventurers joined the fray of searching. Madison has no choice but to head south, to the forest where the Witches of the South once lived; The Forest of Dreams.

One of the adventurers, spotted Madison and cautiously proceeds to contact the others, the renowned party: The Supernovas.

The Supernovas are known for their fighting, hunting and information gathering skills. They are a group of versatile people that which makes them a flexible party. Their achievements made them well-known to the point that they were recognized by the king for their talents and now, they will put their name on the test against Madison.

Back at the Royal Palace, one of the adventurers of the Supernovas was sent back to report to the king.

Based on the report, they predicted that Madison will be heading south, to the Forest of Dreams because of the route that Madison took. They need to catch Madison, at all costs.

The king called his greatest strategist and the brains of the castle, Marcel De Luna.

The king assembled a unit of five teams with Marcel as the strategist in order to capture Madison with ease.

As Marcel explains, the unit that the king dispatched consists of five teams, the phase of the plan is that they will dispatch the special team that will act as a merchant and his lackeys coincidentally passing by the forest near the outskirts of Bélen where they will arrive at the rendezvous point with the Scouting Team where they pinpointed Madison's location. The special team will act as the merchant that will look for a mercenary or adventurers to be their bodyguard and their destination is south and the plan will commence in two days in order to make time for preparations as they knew who they were up against.

Two days later – The Special Team and a band of mercenaries and adventurers along with The Supernovas, embarks to their destination: The forest near the outskirts of Belen. Their objective is to arrive at the rendezvous point with the Scouting Team to capture Madison. As they made their way to the entrance of the forest, they made camp and began to change their clothes as per the plan.

As the morning rises – they entered the forest with caution to their surroundings, knowing that recently there has been news about injured adventurers who have been on the hunt for Madison. The king was expecting some good results on the plan, so the teams cannot afford to let this one chance go because for the Special Team and the Scouting Team, it will make them famous across the royal capital while the mercenaries and adventurers, the reward is so good that they will make a living for their entire life. As for The Supernovas, this is a privilege for them to test their skills and their strength against the famous Witch Hunter.

After a few hours of walking, they finally reached the rendezvous point that has been set by the Scouting Team, only to find a pile of dead bodies scattered around their camp. This is some gruesome scene, some suddenly throw up the moment they see scattered body parts such as severed limbs and a severed heads, some suddenly wondered if they can pull this off while some are unfazed by this scene and some investigating the bodies in order to determine the cause of this gruesome scene. One of them asked, "What in the hell are we dealing with?"

While investigating the scene, they suddenly heard a scream, the Special Team's leader, Daiko immediately sends The Supernovas to pinpoint where the scream came from.

While The Supernovas went ahead, Daiko calls in some expert physician to investigate the bodies. They noticed that the marks, the wounds were something like they were ripped apart by something that they haven't discovered. Daiko wondered and said, "It can't be a bear or wolves since they don't have the capacity to rip something like this. This body was ripped apart by one animal or is it an animal that did this?"

They can't deduct what kind of fate these men have met, until they heard an explosion from afar and as the smoke rises, Daiko suddenly remembered, "That's where The Supernovas went! Men, move out! Double time! Seems like they have found something!" They quickly rushed to the forest, to the place where The Supernovas went.

To be continued...