As soon as Gehrman realized the truth of this situation, he realized he did know this man. Despite him being estranged from Gehrman's Workshop and the Healing Church, he was a person who stood out to both Gehrman and later Johann.
The one called "The Beast Eater" was a popular folkloric figure in Yharnam, but he was no myth.
His name was Valtr. And he would go on to found the organization known as "The League".
The details regarding this man came back to him. He was indeed someone drowned in madness, and the reason for this was the event that was laid out before him. Valtr was a foreign constable whose troop was assigned to hunt a Beast that had torn through his city before fleeing back to Yharnam.
The Beast had killed each of the constables off one by one until only one remained.
Valtr.
In an act of twisted justice, he ate the entirety of the Beast whole in revenge, consuming the broken-down corpses of his fellow constables in the process.
It was truly a horrific tale of a broken man–or rather, a man turned monster.
Gehrman looked at him and the filth he was in, and he considered leaving the man…or maybe just killing him.
He swiftly shot down that idea, though. He did end up killing hundreds, if not thousands, of Beasts during his time as the Master of the League.
Besides, consuming a Beast…it was something Gehrman (the current one) had done before. Many, many times, he had consumed the flesh of his slaughtered prey. It would be the highest hypocrisy to kill the man for committing an atrocity he actively committed.
"What's your name, young man?" Gehrman asked. He said this because at this point, Valtr was indeed still young. Perhaps in his early twenties. He was young for a constable and inexperienced as well. And yet he killed a Beast with a mere baton. Even bullets would not break the average Beast's fur and skin. Even so, Valtr was the last one standing.
He may not have been on the level of Gehrman himself, but there were fewer than five Hunters who could match him in pure talent.
Throughout all of this spiraling, he did his best to keep his features neutral. He didn't want to upset the man even more than he already was.
"V-Valtr," the constable gave his name. "I have to…I have to eat. I have to kill them all. All of the filth." He spoke with such vitriol and hatred that it seemed to make the woods shudder. It was such a pure display of emotion and rage that it caught Gehrman off guard.
Valtr reached up to touch his face in the spot where his left eye should have been. A viscous wound that crossed his face, blood trickled down, leaving a trail of red tears on his cheeks. In the spot where his eye had been, there was only an abyss. His breathing was ragged and brutal.
"I will take you to the city, Valtr. Come, let us be off." Gehrman urged the man because he hoped to avoid a certain event. For if it did occur, it would likely complicate things.
Unfortunately, as soon as the constable stood, he grabbed his skull and screamed. His singular eye was bloodshot, and it seemed to strain out of his head.
"Filth, filth, filth, filth everywhere! It's everywhere!" Valtr's voice broke against his screams, faltering and losing volume.
Gehrman frowned.
He was unsure what exactly Valtr saw, but he did know what was happening. It was the result of committing a truly unholy act. The consumption of not just a Beast, but also the scattered corpses of fellow humans that still clung to the abomination's intestines.
Now the forest seemed to cry out.
On a separate plane of existence that no human eye could comprehend, a distortion occurred.
It was the result of his vow to eradicate the dirty and monstrous. It was a vow so deep that the fabric of reality was affected, and an Oath Rune was born.
Valtr moaned in a mix of pain, sorrow, and rage.
"Oh," he cried softly. "It's everywhere. Everywhere. Filth, vileness, disgusting vermin."
Gehrman kept his eyes on the man. He weighed his options. In the past, Johann had not sworn the Oath Rune of the league, and Gehrman was generally unfamiliar with the intricacies of the organization.
He did not know what would occur if he swore this Oath Rune.
But it could always be overwritten.
Without Gehrman realizing it, the strings of Fate pushed him forward. This time, they were guided ever so slightly by the trapped Paleblood.
The Moon Presence struck the strings of Fate, making them shiver. And so words came from Gehrman's mouth.
"What is it you see?"
Valtr turned his gaze and locked his singular eye on Gehrman. He seemed to see the Hunter for the first time. His demeanor shifted. It was as if he had been drunk and then had abruptly sobered up.
"Impurity," he said. "I see Impurity."
Gehrman said nothing for a moment. His eyes did not move, nor did his face contort. Then he walked forward and crouched in front of the young man.
"Show me."
…
Runes Memorized
Oath Rune: [Impurity]
Rune 1: [Anti-Clockwise Metamorphosis]
Rune 2: [Clockwise Metamorphosis]
Rune 3: [Eye]
The runes under his [Unnatural Rune Witness] Attribute had been filled within a singular day.
I am quite efficient if I say so myself, Gehrman congratulated himself.
His strength had grown considerably, but he had also gained something he had not expected.
As Gehrman and Valtr stepped off the wooden lift that brought them up toward the village, Gehrman could already see the outline of the people there.
This was because he could now see them.
Vermin.
"Vile. Disgusting. Retched," Valtr mumbled deliriously.
Gehrman himself had a tough time keeping calm. This world that Valtr and The League saw was indeed horrific.
The Vermin writhed about not only the people, but this entire forest as well. It was a sickening sight, or rather, a sickening feeling. Indeed, even with his eyes closed and his senses blocked, he could still feel them.
It was difficult to describe what these things were, but they were something wholly unfamiliar. Neither Beast nor Kin of the cosmos. Whatever they were, though, they invoked a deeply unsettling feeling.
Seeing them in the people was worse. Valtr himself had quite the infestation. Dozens of them were buried throughout his being. They did not seem to exist on the physical plane, but the image of them curling around his blood vessels, muscles, and bones was nauseating.
The village people had an even greater quantity. It seemed entire colonies of these things lived in them. Hundreds of them lived within each human here.
Gehrman frowned at the sight of them.
Initially, he had associated Vermin with sin, malice, and impurity (as the Oath Rune indicated). But there was something wrong with this hypothesis. It made sense when considering Valtr, as he had just committed a terrible act, but there was no way that each of the villagers had done worse.
Plus, Gehrman himself had none whatsoever. This could be because he had just entered this reality, but he had already consumed the Blood of Beasts, a similarly unholy act. If Vermin were truly a result of Impurity, surely some would have nested in Gehrman.
But this was not the case.
It was also worth noting that the Vermin did not reside only in humans. They were scattered about the forest, but were perhaps most prevalent in bodies of water such as streams and lakes.
Since these things could not sin, there was likely something else at play.
For now, though, Gehrman simply wanted to focus on returning to Yharnam and getting to his bed.
He needed less sleep now, but he had still been awake for over 24 hours.
So even amidst the countless Vermin surrounding him, Gehrman kept pressing on.
Valtr, too, made no move to attack any of the villagers. Though Gehrman could feel some murderous intent radiating off the young man, it was muted, and nobody seemed to react.
The villagers paid them no heed at all. This was just as well. Gehrman was bloody and stank of death, and though Valtr's crime was not immediately apparent based on his looks, the smell of the man was horrendous enough that some might grow suspicious.
Gehrman continued to pull the man up the cliffs. The trees started to grow scarcer, but the light of the stars refused to come out from behind the veil of clouds.
The dirt turned to stone, turned to cobbled stone.
They arrived at the staircase that would bring them up to Yharnam. They passed through the damp, candlelit rooms that were filled with vases and boxes of miscellaneous things.
Gehrman stumbled upon the gatekeeper, who gave him an aghast look when he saw the state Valtr was in.
Without a word, he opened the door for them. Gehrman gave him a nod before pulling the constable completely onto his back and climbing up the steeper stairs.
When they reached the surface, light had returned. This time from the houses and street lamps of Yharnam's Cathedral Ward area.
The scent of the city was very different from the Forbidden Woods. It was subtle in its stink. The air was dry and thinner than the lands below. Quiet sounds of feet and hooves on the stone roads still cracked throughout the night.
Once again, they were fortunate that only a few people saw them. However, they all seemed too drunk to care.
Gehrman narrowed his eyes. Given the location, they probably weren't drunk on alcohol. The Blood of the Healing Church was not allowed for recreational use…unless special circumstances allowed it. Perhaps a donor who had helped the church was suffering from an unidentified illness or constant fatigue.
There were many ways to get the Blood for leisure, especially since it was so common at this time.
Some of the Nuns had completed the process to become saints and could now deliver Blood of a quality that was only marginally inferior (at least in terms of intoxication) to the real thing.
Gehrman thought of it then. The source of the Blood. Perhaps he could gaze upon it in this Nightmare. It would be interesting to see the creature…the god…in this Nightmare. Since she was stranded here, she was decidedly not at the level of the average Great Ones that The Spell had blocked. Perhaps a recreation of it was possible.
If it was, could its blood also provide Blood Fragments? How much would a Great One's Blood be worth?
His musings were interrupted then.
They had arrived at Cathedral Ward proper, and a sleuth of nurses and nuns came to take Valtr off his hands.
The young constable looked at Gehrman for a moment longer than he had expected. But eventually he turned away.
Did I change things by how I acted towards him? Will Valtr be different now that someone bears his burden with him as soon as he acquired the Oath Rune? This…this is too many questions. I need to sleep.
Gehrman left through a door on the side and started going up a lift that was far fancier than the one in the Forbidden Woods.
After he reached the top, some light finally reached him for the first time that night.
A ray of moonlight parted the clouds and shone upon him.
Gehrman was home.