The limitations of the era made people’s perspectives on certain things seem very... ordinary.
They thought there wouldn’t be any Headless Knights in such a remote place and that Zheng Yichen was bluffing, but there really was one. Considering how tough that thing could be, Zheng Yichen pondered—if it didn’t involve too much supernatural power.
If you encountered a Headless Knight, you were pretty much doomed. They rode horses and were immortal, wielding enchanted swords spewing green fire; who could withstand that?
However, in the modern era, that would essentially be... that’s it?
Could a horse outrun vehicles with four wheels? Even those with two wheels, as long as they were powered by oil, might not necessarily be faster.
So how formidable something is really depends on the development of the era. In this time, where people still traveled by horse-drawn carriages and rode horses, the Headless Knight... was fierce. If this creature ran to Hazy City, it would definitely become prime research material in some institute.
The guest of honor kind.
Zheng Yichen strolled around outside the town and even visited the graveyard to check things out. He didn’t find anything unusual. The Headless Knight seemed to have no intention of seeking him out after appearing once, but he wanted to find that guy.
He needed new equipment!
Nightfall.
"You can attend the banquet," Katrina, dressed in an evening gown, found Zheng Yichen and wanted to re-invite him, "And about what my father said during the day..."
"I don’t mind that. Once I have the evidence, he’ll have nothing to say," Zheng Yichen said casually, as it was understandable, given the limitations of the era, for the other person to think that way.
Of course, he was still annoyed.
"Good thinking, just find the Headless Knight and get everyone to believe," Katrina immediately said. Her father didn’t believe in the Headless Knight, and she couldn’t persuade him. Could she say that Zheng Yichen had a device that recorded related things?
Katrina hadn’t told her father about that device. There was a reason she could quickly get her hands on such a thing, but it was different for others.
"That’s my business. The things I’m going to do later are quite dangerous; don’t get any ideas."
Hearing Zheng Yichen say this, the girl felt somewhat disappointed; she wanted to act together with Zheng Yichen.
"Go back to your banquet; that place has nothing to do with me."
From the attitude shown by Katrina’s father, if Zheng Yichen went, it would really be causing trouble for himself for no reason. He didn’t want to join such gatherings voluntarily. Even if Katrina’s father didn’t say anything, who knows if someone else might cause trouble?
After all, the girl in front of him was like a town beauty, and her charm was amplified by the evening dress.
"I’ve been to that kind of party many times; the town is only so big." Katrina sat down without any intention of going back: "Could you tell me some Hunter-Demon stories?"
"Strictly speaking, I’ve been in the Hunter business for less than two months," Zheng Yichen honestly said. Katrina blinked her eyes in realization and nodded. So he was a very new Hunter-Demon, huh? No wonder Zheng Yichen didn’t fit their expectations (imagination) of a Hunter-Demon.
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"But speaking of stories, I do have a few." Seeing that the girl beside him had no intention of leaving, Zheng Yichen was not a dull person and casually started to share some of his past experiences. Though the world was different, there was no problem talking about his battles with extraordinary creatures.
As long as he didn’t mention the background.
If you ask for his best achievement, it was naturally the one-horned mule he had taken down.
"Is this a unicorn’s horn?" Katrina looked at the horn Zheng Yichen had taken out with surprise. To her, this half-meter-long horn seemed rarer than even the Headless Knight.
A unicorn, now that was even more legendary. At least with beings like the Headless Knight, there were eyewitnesses, but unicorns? They seemed only to exist in records.
Zheng Yichen had actually hunted a unicorn, which the girl found hard to believe.
"It wasn’t a unicorn, just a mule," Zheng Yichen corrected her misconception. "Not everything with a horn is a unicorn; it could be something else. That guy was carnivorous and very fierce, a killer, extremely cunning. I’ve suffered losses because of it."
"...You really should consider being a knight, not a Hunter-Demon," Katrina said with some regret. Honestly, after hearing Zheng Yichen’s story, she felt there was nothing wrong with him claiming he had hunted a unicorn.
The sharp horn in his hand could serve as proof, as a normal creature wouldn’t have such a horn, yet Zheng Yichen straight-up denied it was a unicorn. Humble, honest — weren’t these essential virtues for a knight?
"That’s not freedom." Being a knight, especially from the old era, wasn’t appealing to him. Well, he wouldn’t mind being a new era knight, after all, riding a motorcycle wasn’t such a rare feat; he had a license.
"After that came some rather troublesome beings, some Evil Spirits." Zheng Yichen recalled his encounters with the Evil Spirits. Facing the one-horned mule was dangerous, but dealing with those Evil Spirits was no easy feat either; they flew about, ignoring barriers, and there were many of them.
In some ways, they were even more dangerous than the one-horned mule. If it weren’t for his weapons that could harm Evil Spirits, he might not have been able to escape the southern forest.
"Evil Spirits, those wandering dead, are terrifying." Katrina nodded. Creatures like zombies and Ghouls were manageable — destroying their bodies solved the problem. But Evil Spirits had no physical form, making it a one-sided battle where they could attack people, and people couldn’t fight back. Some of them could possess others, sow distrust among people.
"Do you know a lot about those things?"
"...I learned about them from the books at home," Katrina said, a bit flustered.
"Oh — want to watch a movie?"
The girl nodded, a bit embarrassed, "Mhm."
The movies playing on Zheng Yichen’s smartphone were greatly appealing to her. After having seen movies, the allure of stage dramas diminished substantially. Theatrical performances might be classic, but movies presented the story more completely.
Whether the scenes or interactions between characters, they seemed direct and as if happening in real life.
She really loved watching those movies, but unfortunately, time was limited, and she had only watched a little bit before.
"Do you also think that witches are all evil?" Katrina asked Zheng Yichen, concerned, after watching a fantasy movie.
The movie was about a long-lived witch’s love and hatred entanglement with a mortal. The witch fell in love with a human who did not reciprocate her feelings. In a fit of spurned love, the witch cast a spell on him, cursing the mortal to an undying existence, forcing him to watch all his loved ones age and die while he remained helpless...
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