When Allen walked into the castle hall, he saw Vera and Ida Emean staring at each other.
He couldn't quite describe the emotion—neither anger nor confrontation. It was more like mutual pity.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to see more clearly.
These were two of the most powerful sorceresses on the Northern Continent, but as soon as they heard the sound of the door opening, they both turned their gazes away in unison.
"Allen, you're finally here!" It was Vesemir who spoke.
He was standing by the fireplace in the dining hall with Aristo and Danthe, keeping a noticeable distance from the two sorceresses.
"You're all going too?"
Allen looked at the three Witcher masters, surprised to see them fully armed.
He remembered that the task for the secondary mutation involved only a few Drowners, some black panther statue guardians, a few gargoyles, and then hunting a few Pale Widows to collect the required materials—nothing more.
Of course, the statue guardians and gargoyles weren't easy to deal with. But he wasn't breaking in like Geralt—Ida Emean and Vera would certainly "ask" the mechanisms beforehand.
The real threats were just the Drowners and the Pale Widows. He and Vera should be more than enough to handle them.
Could something have changed in the lab?
"We're not going," Vesemir glanced at Vera and Ida Emean and quickly shook his head. "The one accompanying you this time is Lady Ida Emean. We… we…"
"They're just here to worry needlessly," Ida Emean said lazily, her tone direct.
The three Witcher masters of the Wolf School looked at each other. Vesemir and Aristo opened their mouths but ended up saying nothing.
Danthe, already in low spirits, became even gloomier upon hearing this.
"I'll find a way," Allen walked closer and offered a quiet reassurance. Then, recalling Vesemir's words, he turned to Lady Ida Emean. "Vesemir said we're going on this mission together?"
Ida Emean raised her brow: "Your Vera… teacher doesn't trust me to stay alone in Kaer Morhen, so she has to let me accompany you instead."
She deliberately paused at the word teacher.
The three Witchers didn't seem to notice it, but Allen instinctively looked at Vera. Honestly, this was the first time he had seen Vera since that confession.
He had often imagined what it would be like, that first meeting afterward—how he should act, what expression would be considered normal.
He hadn't expected that when they actually met again, it would be so plain, as if that confession had never happened.
No.
It wasn't the same.
The way Vera looked at him now was gentler, warmer. The constant burdened expression she once wore was gone. It felt like…
She had let go of something heavy, like someone who had seen through the world.
"It's just that Sol still needs me." Vera nodded softly to him.
Allen raised a brow, understanding that Ida Emean knew about their relationship.
That meant Vera and Ida Emean shared an unusual bond—almost on the level of Vera's relationship with Arch-Priestess Ianna of the Melitele Temple, her goddaughter.
"Sol… Chief. How is she now?" Allen thought for a moment and asked.
"Not great," Vera shook her head gently. But the gloom on her face was visibly lighter than when Allen had first returned to Kaer Morhen.
"The secondary mutation should help," Allen offered some stiff comfort, then looked to Ida Emean. "Lady Ida Emean, anything else we need to prepare?"
"If not, then let's depart."
Ida Emean glanced at Vera, nodded, and waved her hand.
An orange-red portal opened in the center of the hall.
Her portal was clearly more refined than Vera's—its appearance was nearly silent, completely inaudible to a normal person.
Though Allen wasn't sure if it was enhanced in terms of distance.
"I'm off. Wait for good news."
Allen took a deep breath. His gaze swept across Vesemir, Aristo, and Danthe, then paused for a moment on Vera's face. He turned firmly and followed Ida Emean toward the portal.
"Allen!"
Just as he was about to step through, Vera's cool voice suddenly called out from behind.
He turned and saw the sorceress pressing her slightly pale lips together.
"Allen, Sol said not to carry the burden. In the end, everyone has their own fate."
"If it cannot be done, then… don't force it."
Vera's voice was very soft, clearly trying not to weigh on him. But the struggle in her tone was impossible to hide.
"There's still hope."
Allen paused for a second, left those words behind, and then turned and walked into the silent portal.
-----------------------------------
The elven sage's portal wasn't much different from Vera's, or even his own.
If there was any distinction, it was perhaps that in the void-like yet resplendent darkness, the passage through it took slightly longer.
Allen studied the starry "bridge" structure beneath his feet, hoping to glean some inspiration for improving the structural design of his own portals.
His learning, of course, couldn't be like that of the Witcher Corps members—who improved themselves through combat, gaining experience to level up.
However, small improvements didn't necessarily require leveling up to apply; there were still techniques he could pick up along the way.
"You're handling this far better than most witchers."
Just as Allen was silently studying the stable structure of the star bridge, Ida Emean's voice suddenly echoed in his mind.
"You mean portal syndrome?"
Allen raised an eyebrow. "In that regard, I do differ from ordinary witchers."
"That's more than just a minor difference..." Ida Emean glanced back at him. "I've never seen any witcher move through a portal as effortlessly as you do—so at ease, as if swimming through water..."
"Not even Erland of Larvik, Arnaghad, or Sol could manage it."
"The fiercer they were in the outside world, the more helpless they became in here."
"You've met Erland and Arnaghad?" Allen perked up with interest.
"Of course. I watched them grow up," Ida Emean replied without turning around. "Those were truly unforgettable days."
Watched them grow up… Allen froze for a moment at her words.
There didn't seem to be any mention of her in the records of the School of the Wolf…
"Wondering why my name isn't in the experiment logs?" Ida Emean chuckled softly, guessing his thoughts.
Allen didn't deny it. He nodded and said, "Vera told me you weren't skilled in genetic mutation studies."
"I'm indeed not," Ida Emean confirmed. "Because I never participated in the modification of human physiology. But in other areas—"
"What areas?"
"Signs and swordsmanship..."
"Signs?" Allen paused mid-step, voicing his surprise.
Swordsmanship was understandable. After all, someone known as an "Enlightened One" or "Elven Sage" would naturally be well-versed in a variety of crafts—blacksmithing, tailoring, divination—so melee techniques, common even among human sorcerers, wouldn't be beyond her reach.
But Cosimo Malaspina and Alzur were both sorcerers. Why would they bring an elf into the study of magic?
Ida Emean smiled. "You still don't fully understand sorcerers."
"After the last 'Mage King,' Raffard the White, died during the sorcerers' civil war, there were few occasions left where sorcerers needed to engage in direct combat."
"At the time, the main hostile forces were humans and elves. Since most sorcerers had roots in our Aen Seidhe, the human secular rulers were wary of involving sorcerers in warfare."
"Eventually, the violence sorcerers commanded came to be seen as too dangerous for the ruling powers."
"Sorcerers were only conscripted in emergencies—especially those who, after the formation of the Brotherhood of Sorcerers, had grown unruly."
"As a result, elemental spells—especially offensive magic—became less and less relevant to academic sorcerers."
"To reach higher echelons of magic, they turned instead to more practical fields like alchemy, or to research areas such as genetic mutation—fields where magic could still be of use."
"That's why Cosimo Malaspina and Alzur—yes, that Alzur of the Witcher Program—were not very advanced in elemental magic."
"The Signs you use now—Quen, Igni, Aard, Yrden, Heliotrop, and Axii—I helped redesign all of them."
"Especially Axii..."
Ida Emean drew an inverted triangle in the air: "Do you know what spell this Sign originally came from?"
"What spell was it?" Allen asked with respectful curiosity.
The sorceress turned back, giving him a look that said, Smart question, and replied, "Ida Emean's Mind-Befuddling Spell."
She didn't explain what exactly the spell did.
But generally, for a spell to be named after a sorcerer, it had to meet several conditions—originality, recognized power, and of course, the consent of the sorcerer themselves.
Just like how Vera's body transformation spell came to be known as the "Leech Transfiguration Curse."
So for this spell to be called "Ida Emean's Mind-Befuddling Spell," it had to at least be a signature spell acknowledged by Ida Emean herself.
Considering the effect of the Axii sign, it was likely that Ida Emean had used this very spell to extract the laboratory location from Tomas Moreau's mind.
Yeah, that spell was powerful.
Allen felt a bit envious.
But such unique spells were rarely passed on to outsiders. Ida Emean wasn't Vera, after all. So Allen only indulged in a bit of envy before changing the subject: "Then why is there no record of you in the Wolf School's archives?"
Ida Emean fell silent for a few seconds, then asked, "How do you think the Witcher Orders fell apart?"
Allen blinked, taken aback. "Wasn't it because there were fewer and fewer monsters, while the Witcher Orders kept producing more witchers?"
Ida Emean snorted with disdain. "Do you really think that a mere hundred or so witchers could have exterminated every monster on the entire Northern Continent? Even someone like Arnaghad had to fight others for hunting rights?"
"Isn't that how it happened?" Allen was genuinely stunned this time.
He'd grown up hearing that version of history—he'd even read about it in his past life.
Every version said the same thing: the number of monsters dwindled due to intense witcher hunts, leaving fewer contracts for the Witcher Orders.
Eventually, a witcher slaying the beast meant for Arnaghad's contract caused a deadly conflict, which became the spark that ignited the Order's collapse.
Each school may have told its own version of the fallout, but the origin was always the same.
"No," Ida Emean shook her head. "Or at least, that's only a small part of it."
"Granted, Arnaghad was a scumbag—that much is true."
"And yes, the Witcher Orders did start receiving fewer contracts. But not because all the monsters were dead."
"Then what was the reason?" Allen already had a suspicion.
Ida Emean gave him a sideways glance, eyes full of scorn. "Because the human nobles conspired to limit the contracts."
"The Witcher Orders didn't die out because of their monster-hunting duty. They died because humanity slowly tightened the noose around their necks."
"Familiar, isn't it?"
She turned, looking Allen straight in the eyes.
"Familiar how?" Allen swallowed nervously.
"Like what the Wolf School is going through now," Ida Emean gazed into the deep, unknowable darkness beside the starbridge, as if seeing the future of the Wolf School in it. "Used at first, then gradually replaced. Without you—Miracle Child—it would have ended the same way: dissolution."
"Allen," she looked back at him, their eyes meeting, "a sword, once dirtied, can be cleaned; once dulled, can be sharpened; once broken, can be reforged. If cherished, it can be passed down for generations. But if left neglected, it might be shattered the day it's forged, rusted away in weeds and ravines…"
"Witchers are the sharpest blades in humanity's hands. And the only thing that can make such a blade useless—has always been humanity itself."
"What are you really trying to say?" Allen couldn't help but ask.
Ida Emean didn't answer directly. She turned and kept walking, continuing from before: "The reason contracts for the Witcher Orders were limited was because most of their members had noble hearts and chose to help the Aen Seidhe—who had been driven to the edges of the world by humans."
"At the start of the Witcher program, humans and Aen Seidhe were on relatively peaceful terms, so it wasn't a problem."
"But as time passed, the greed of the short-lived species became uncontrollable. They wanted more. They wanted the Aen Seidhe extinct."
"That's when the Witchers' actions began to anger certain nobles. They realized the Witcher Orders were no longer a reliable weapon, so they started planning their destruction…"
"I'm a short-lived human too," Allen interrupted.
"Oh really?" Ida Emean didn't turn around. "Do you all really still count as human?"
"Are there humans who can live three or four centuries, with vertical pupils and spellcasting powers?"
"Sorcerers—"
"Sorcerers count as human?" Ida Emean shot back. "Rather than calling sorcerers and witchers humans, you'd do better to call them Aen Seidhe. Just look at how similar we are compared to how different you are from ordinary humans. Besides…"
She paused in her steps.
"Do humans themselves even recognize you—sorcerers and witchers—as their kind?"
.....
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