And again!

Well... Originally the writing of this chapter was completed for two weeks, I just had to translate it, but my computer has kindly decided this Seppuku during a game of Hearts Of Iron IV and I did not have the backups of chapters on my computer faculty.

I found myself in a horrible galley to seek to recover the backups before finally remembering that NoY my reviewer, had several of my chapters ahead.

I only lost about ten thousand words at most.

The last few weeks have been very complicated in terms of writing, not knowing if I could save anything.

Here it is...

So, to answer in a general way to EvilDeku's question about the previous chapter:

I'm a little confused though, is Ashton not the playable character? Because he said he never did see the blood moon, and also I understand that he was killed by Gehrman and freed from the dream, but the requirement for ending it is the killing of a great one? Then again that last part doesn't have to be true, but I guess I'm just confused if this is the playable character or not

Answer: To be released from the dream, it seems to me that it is enough to fulfil one's part of the contract (find the pale blood), that the lunar presence considers a hunter as having no more role to play or that a night ends. A hunt in the dream lasts only one night according to the lore, so roughly twenty-four to forty-eight hours (in the game, the Good Hunter wakes up when the sun rises) but that seems to be an eternity with death, successive resurrections and time that seems to be altered around Yharnam.
This is the case of several hunters in the game as Evelynn who suggests that she has been released from the dream. So, I followed this principle with Ashton being released from the dream after becoming useless to it.
So no, he's not the Good Hunter that appears as a character later. He is just a hunter who participated in the hunt as a simple hunter for several years before being integrated into the dream by a contract.
I specify, this is my interpretation of the Lore that is questioned and is far from being fixed from one forum to another and tends to vary between each person.

Well, otherwise, happy reading to you!

Chapter 15 : Comprehension and travel

The training between Aiz and Ashton had just ended. The hunter was wheezing slightly, showing the effort he had to make to keep up with her.

"You're improving fast," the young man simply complimented as he sat down.

"But I still can't block you," retorted the blonde, her breathing clearly more exhausted.

The hunter had a light sniff amused.

"No surprise there, I'm literally the one who teaches you. But in two weeks, you've improved tremendously. Much more than many other people in a similar situation."

As he took a sip of water from his canteen, he remembered what he wanted to tell her at the beginning of the session.

"That's right." he resumed. "I won't be here for the next week, the guild has given me an assignment outside of Orario."

"Hmm?" asked Aiz in surprise. "What kind of mission?"

"Investigation, some adventurers disappeared in a monster-infested cave."

"Surprising, usually they give this type of mission to full teams."

"Maybe, but it seems that no one wanted to bother with it... So I took it rather than have it imposed on someone else."

"Will you be gone all week?" she re-embraced the subject.

"Yes, I'm leaving tomorrow, early in the day."

"Painful..." she muttered. "I was starting to feel the first effects of the training."

Aiz quickly thought of a solution.

"Could I go with you?"

The hunter was surprised for half a second before answering.

"I don't see a problem with that, but won't your Familia be worried? I mean... we've only known each other for a short time.

"I'll ask Loki when I get home, there shouldn't be anything special, no expeditions were planned. Then, I don't think you're being mean, you're training me... "

"Um... Okay... It's not really something that's supposed to be difficult, so there's little chance of anything dangerous happening."

"Maybe, but you can always show me, and watching you fight is going to help me understand it better." the blonde replied expressionlessly.

Ashton shrugged, understanding that it was useless to argue here.

"If you say so, I trust you in this."

Not that he really had a choice, but it seemed, the most socially normal thing to say.

"By Kon..." thought Ashton. "I'm trying to be social..."

Ashton was getting more and more eager to get away from Orario. No particular worries, no questioning too much, just the thrill of a hunt and the unknown.

He had already asked Ryuu to watch the young supporter for him, Karl should be fine, and anyway, he would not get out of bed for a while considering his condition, his descent in the dungeon could well be delayed for a few days and there did not seem to be any particular problem with any god, besides Apollo who would not do anything at the inn.

Finally everything was ready for a well deserved hunt.

Ashton slapped his boots on the ground, while letting out a breath in his hands. Winter and the cold seemed to be arriving little by little on the labyrinth city and this was problematic. The sun was just rising over Orario and the first merchants were beginning to enter under the watchful eye of the guards.

The hunter checked his equipment one last time. The straps of his pack were securely fastened to his back, while his cleaver hung lightly at his hip, sharp as his sword.

"Ashton," a neutral voice called out to him.

The hunter looked up and saw Aiz, accompanied by Riviera and Loki.

"I'm here." said the blonde with a neutral voice before her redheaded goddess caught her.

"Aiz, you have to be careful; I know it's an outdoor mission and there shouldn't be anything dangerous, but at the slightest problem, you come back!" said Loki frantically.

A conference began on the dangers and the attitudes to adopt. Riviera, who was standing nearby, approached Ashton who was waiting peacefully against the wall.

"She seems a bit excessive," the hunter remarked.

"I wouldn't say otherwise, but she is his favorite, so it's understandable."

Ashton gave a slight, wry, acidic laugh.

"Almost like a toy, though I couldn't expect more from the gods."

The elf turned to him, surprised by the open attack.

"We are not toys for the gods," the woman pointed out. "They simply give us the Falna and let us go down into the dungeon. We are free and they don't control us."

"I wouldn't say otherwise, and I wouldn't try to convince anyone of my arguments. I am simply pointing out that to consider someone as one's 'favorite' indicates a status of possession, and when one's power can be withdrawn on the goodwill of another then... yes, there is a power to be exercised and a power relationship." The hunter continued, changing the subject. "She shouldn't worry so much, Aiz is capable of keeping herself out of danger. She's better than many people I've met.

"If you say so." the elf understood and turned back to the less polemical. "It's surprising how much she agreed to take a guild quest rather than go down to the dungeon."

"Obviously, she considers the training I give her to be more effective than the dungeon."

"It must be said that not many members of the Familia can keep up with her... Even Finn has trouble sometimes and Bete is not the type to fight with a sword." she replied.

"Speaking of him, Bete, how is he?" the hunter questioned.

"A bit worrying that you ask after the state you put him in..."

"No..." cut in Ashton. "I got mad at him in a way, it seems to me, that was reason, the way he treated me and insulted me. Maybe I'm extreme by your standards, but not mine and the one at home, and that doesn't mean I don't have any bad blood against him, so I'm worried about the damage I might have done to him..."

"He's doing better, no after-effects or particular damage. Slightly carried away. If your standards of violence are based on that, I have little desire to see the place you call Yharnam in this case."

"You have no idea." the hunter replied bitterly. "I also wish I had never had to know about this town, but sometimes some things have to be done for its over-life. A city of fools, inhabited and ruled by equally mentally deranged bloodthirsty people, where the good gods have long since fallen and where seeing them requires an enlightened mind."

"I don't understand your hatred for the gods, I haven't experienced it, but in Orario, everything is different."

Ashton fell silent and lowered his eyes to the grounds. Riviera had a slight sigh, as much as he could not let it look good, but the boy was literally only seventeen years old and that look down meant that he knew she was partly right but did not want to admit it.

After a few minutes, a merchant approached and called out to the hunter.

"Mr. Warden, Miss Wallenstein! We'll be leaving soon! Take your seats!"

His transport had arrived, the young man grabbed his bag and climbed into the back of the cart, already well loaded. The guild certainly had plenty of contacts with the world, plenty enough to provide such a basic service.

"Aiz!" repeated Loki. "YOU BE CAREFUL!"

"Yes goddess." dropped for the ninth time the sword princess.

The redhead turned to Ashton.

"If anything happens to her!" she threatened.

"I know." the hunter replied instantly, already knowing what to do next. "My life will go to hell? Will you hunt me down? It's not supposed to be dangerous... And the choice is literally hers... So I'm not guilty of anything, but the warning has been received."

The goddess muttered with annoyance before turning away. Riviera waved her hand at the two with a slight smile towards the blonde.

"Good training Aiz."

It was quiet in the cart as it slowly made its way to its destination. Sitting in the back on one of the many transport crates, Ashton was checking his equipment for the umpteenth time, under the stoic gaze of Aiz.

"So." the young woman finally asked. "Where are we going?"

The hunter looked up from his sword.

"A village, we should get there by the end of the day. Although there's a good chance we'll run into monsters by then. I advise you to rest, we will not take a break when we reach the destination." he informed.

"Quick rescue?" she asked.

"Yes and no." muttered the hunter. "Until we have little opportunity to take a break when everything is launched.

The blonde nodded and lay down on one of the crates, placing her travel bag under her head. Calmly, the hunter looked up, five o'clock in the morning, two or three more hours of sleep before reaching the mountains. He let his vision fall to his feet and closed his eyes.

"Let's hope this trip goes well..."

Aiz waited patiently, her golden eyes wandering from right to left on the road calmly examining the surroundings.

She couldn't sleep, or at least she couldn't sleep anymore. The feeling of excitement that ran through her mind was new to her. The idea that she could truly and fully learn on the front lines from the hunter gave her hope. Her progress had been faster since she had started to listen to his advice, she felt that little by little she was getting over the wall of her limitations.

Ashton, who had just woken up, was holding a huge book in his hands that Aiz had never seen before.

"What is it?" she asked with interest as she tried to read the cover.

As much as she was not a great reader, she was convinced that the writing did not come from Orario. The formation, the words, everything seemed different. From the little she could translate, it would be: The Death Of Sleep.

A strange and unknown title that made her wonder. The hunter looked up from his reading and carefully closed the book with a leather bookmark.

"Nothing special, a book from my home tracing the history of some of the other hunters who came before me."

"Other hunters?" she asked. "You're not the only one?"

Ashton had a moment of confusion before letting out a slight amused laugh. That was what he found soothing about the Sword woman, she was just like him and didn't hesitate to ask questions, even ones that might seem silly.

"Certainly not. I'm just one of the many fools who have walked the streets of Yharnam. Although we are only a handful now, years ago there were enough of us to fight. Despite our dwindling numbers, we continue our role and perform the duties of our faction."

"Your role? Faction?"

Ashton paused for a moment; he had said slightly too much... Not too worrisome but embarrassing that he couldn't explain some parts further.

"To put it simply, I'm a hunter of hunters, as my name suggests, I hunt our own who have gotten lost."

"Bandits?" she asked naively.

For some reason it bothered him to hide things Aiz, the blonde had trusted him enough to train, and Ashton was not the lying type.

"In a way, my role is that, while hunting the beasts that roam the streets of the city. A classic hunter's role for the latter, and my hunter's role for the former."

"What other factions are there?" she questioned with more interest.

Aiz was not stupid, she knew that there was little chance that she could ever meet others, but what she was certain of was that they had to be powerful.

"You know... This might not be very interesting for you."

"No." she answered calmly. "But I would like to understand where you come from."

"Are you sure?" he asked again with a hint of surprise.

She nodded her head forward. Ashton scratched his chin for several minutes thinking about what he could say.

"There was the Church of," he began. "The Healing Church is a religious organization founded in Yharnam, originally it was just one group, but it quickly expanded when they began to heal people for free with their methods of blood administration. They were the main rulers of the city in a way, they ran everything, manipulated everything. Their hunters were special, in the sense of their way of doing things, separating into two distinct groups, the white one's healing and the black ones hunting..."

"Don't you have good experiences with them?" she asked, noting the bitter edge in his voice.

"As always... I can't answer definitively. I was a believer in their church for a time."

Aiz was surprised.

"I didn't think you were religious."

"Ho..." sighed the hunter. "I was, though it was a long time ago. I was desperate, impressionable, and hadn't taken my coat yet."

He sighed and lowered his eyes to Aiz. The blonde saw that exhausted, defeated, broken but still willing look again.

"A lesson, and this is an important one. Orario and the dungeon, in all that they represent its an Eden compared to Yharnam."

The words barely entered the mind of the young woman, the most important was that slight flame she read in the depths of his eyes, that small hope that all was not entirely lost.

She hadn't seen it in training, but for the first time, she was reading it.

"Why? Your town, Yhadam...No...Yharnam?" she corrected herself. "It can't be that bad."

Ashton rubbed his coat-covered arm frantically and gasped painfully, as if trying to remove insects swarming on the fabric.

"I hunted for a few years with no room to manoeuvre as a simple hunter, and it only took me one night, a few dozen hours to suffer several hundred deaths, to suffer everything humanly possible. One night in the hunter's dream to understand what hunting was really like. Just a long nightmare in a place where time has no meaning, a carnival awakening of blood and pain. No hope of survival, no gods to pray to, only the screams and roars of the beasts, all covered by the mocking gaze of the moon."

She shuddered at the hunter's morbid finality. What could he have been through to be so... empty?

Even she didn't feel that way. So why?

His hand frantically rubbing his arm began to stop. In his eyes were distant memories of a night he wished he'd never experienced. The words of the Minister of Blood came back into his mind, the words of what was considered, even in Yharnam as a legend, a myth for the hunters, hoping for a second chance at hunting. Simple words that had condemned him to far worse than he could imagine.

"Everything is signed and sealed, it seemed to me that I had chosen a talented young hunter and already ready for the next step! Let's start the transfusion. Oh, don't worry, this weakness is normal, you didn't think I was just going to let you suffer. For a story like yours, maybe the chance I'm giving you will be all the better."

He felt in his skin the pain of the syringe shoved into his arm and throat, the liquid running through his veins. The burning so similar to the blood injected by the church, but also so different. The old man had resumed.

"In a few moments you will be as good as new... As if everything was just a bad dream and everything before was nothing. Yes, yes, you, see? The Great Ones have plans that we cannot fathom, and I am only an executor."

Beastly shapes had taken shape all around him. He tried to struggle and grab his cleaver, but to no avail. His limbs no longer obeyed him, he smelled blood, and the pieces of wolves' flesh fell from the ground.

Their jaws came closer to his face, and he smelled their putrid breath, as if they had eaten thousands of corpses. The pain spread through his skin. He saw advancing not far away, humans flaying, their faces open showing the flesh and organs behind, the macabre spectacle, similar to a crazy carnival. Then he heard a voice in the distance, that of the minister of blood raising a knife above his chest. In a last effort, Ashton tried to move, but he could only gasp as the blade met his heart.

He only heard the old man's last words as his consciousness faded and he felt his mind being pulled by the soothing light of the lantern hanging from his wheelchair.

"Oh, but now I have nothing more to say. I'm only showing the way and the way has been shown. Now it's in your hand, just remember it's only a night between dimensions where time has only an abstract meaning."

At the end of the memory, he regained full consciousness realizing that he was still in the cart. About ten seconds had passed.

"Forget... I think you can understand," said the hunter. "Nothing can erase what has been experienced, all that is possible is to do what must be done."

The sword woman felt herself connect to his words, remembering the black form of a dragon. A duty was a duty, no matter how terrible it might be.

"I understand." she replied. "Let's just continue."

Ashton nodded before picking up his book again, feeling slightly more soothed.

Talk... That feeling of releasing the weight of his memories, even without saying them. It was that which made him feel even slightly alive.

In another place, a hunter was suffering an eternal fall. His entire body was being pulled relentlessly downward as he smelled a hellish odor of stone and dampness.

"Cainhurst was more pleasant," the nobleman grunted as he continued to fall.

He felt the acid rising from his stomach.

Nothing moved around him, the void seemed endless, but he did nothing to stop himself. Since he had felt his connection with his queen cut off, Finneas felt nothing, no more intoxicating sensation, no more will or purpose, he felt empty.

For the first time in decades of unbroken service and unwavering loyalty, he felt weak and useless. Old wounds were coming back to haunt him now that he was alone to think.

An amused snort escaped him followed by a coughing fit.

In the distance, he saw a light appear and dazzle the world. Slowly, he felt his fall slow down before he didn't fall at all. A floor had formed under his feet and he found himself standing without knowing how.

What should he do? His mind was fogged by a whiteout. He took a few steps in the direction of this magnificent incandescent glow, lost in the middle of the night hell formed by his awakening.

A shudder went through his body. The nobleman of Cainhurst raised his fist, and hit his face violently forcing his thoughts to return.

Then he saw them, small shapes dancing behind the veil of light. But above all, tentacles and a huge jaw, like a black hole. Some kind of vines came out and tried to take his legs.

"No." he muttered as he backed away from them.

He turned around and saw a dark shape moving forward in the darkness and staring at him, like a Sphinx judging him.

This light was unbearable and vicious. It was better to avoid it, it smelled of blood and pestilence, an infernal odor. That light... NO... That thing... She couldn't move until he gave her the power to do so. She tried to grab it but couldn't do anything, just like the creature of darkness couldn't intervene without a hunter calling.

His mind blocked it out and he thought back to his queen. Her loyalty was unwavering, he had no doubt of the rightness of her cause, so he turned and walked into the shadows, listening to the low growl of the thing waiting behind the light and the sneer of victory from the dark creature.

He didn't care about the duel between the two entities, the Great Old Ones had games too complex for him. The only thing he was certain of was that both were guardians of this place and he had to avoid them as much as the old blood.

"I'll drop you off here!" the merchant said with a smile as they entered the village. The two adventurers nodded as they got off the cart. "A friend of mine will be coming by in three days to pick you up in the village square, so don't miss it!"

Ashton gave a simple wave before heading to the village square.

"When do we start?" asked Aiz.

"As soon as we know where to go. Information is the key to success," the hunter noted.

The blonde nodded as she followed him. The village was classic in the style of this world. Wooden houses surrounding a village square where the few merchants gathered, a rather high stone house, probably the one of the village chief, and the fields stretching over the cleared part to the north.

It reminded Ashton of the villages of his native England, the same style typical of the Queen's era, far from the omnipresent novelty of the capital. If he wasn't on a mission, he would almost stop to relax.

The locals were giving them surprised looks, with a hint of hope and doubt.

"We're going to see the mayor," Aiz concluded as she saw where they was headed.

"Yes, he'll be the best one to inform us."

What was surprising, but not for the two adventurers, was the patience needed to recover the information for their mission. Not that it is impossible, the villagers were more than ready to answer their questions, but it was the difficulty that the two young people showed to speak.

Usually, both of them didn't need this, in the case of Aiz, she let the members of her Familia take care of it, while on the other hand, Ashton finally had little interest in asking questions and in the opposite case, he could ask them to other hunters.

So, in front of the babbling mayor, it was not illogical that they frowned, making the already tense situation, even more than before.

"How so?" asked Ashton, looking at the old man. "I thought we were told we were just a group of adventurers.

"Y-Yes! But we took a mercenary group after that! When the adventurers didn't come back."

The white-haired man answered in a matter-of-fact manner, trying not to further anger the two adventurers in front of him.

"Are you sure they didn't escape with the money?" the blonde swordsman asked.

"No! They did go down into the cave! I-I don't know anything more!"

There was a kind of panic in her voice. Ashton didn't know if it was because of their inexpressive faces or because of their general attitudes and the nonchalance they emanated.

"We won't disturb you any longer," the hunter said as he headed for the door.

As they passed through it, he heard a long breath of relief that made him feel a twinge of sadness. No matter what the world was like, he would always be so appreciated, it seemed.

Aiz seemed to notice the background of pain emanating from the hunter and tried to change the subject.

"The cave is to the south," she said. "Shall we go there now?"

"Yes, the sooner we get rid of this, the better... Unless you'd rather go after?"

"Humpf... No." the blonde replied. "I don't really like this village..."

Finished chapter, I don't dwell too much on this one, it's more of a transition chapter between arcs and describes its role pretty well on its own.