Vizima, an alchemy laboratory somewhere.
"I'll ask once more. 'The king will be assassinated' is not a prophecy, only your personal judgment?" Keira did not raise her head as she spoke. She was concentrating on titration, analyzing a mixture of pinedrops and cave troll liver pâté.
The combination of these two ingredients was believed to have an effect in treating plague. Although the main event in Vizima this summer had been the Vizima unrest, the Catriona had not been absent either. Thus, under King Foltest's instruction, Keira had joined the ranks researching an antidote.
Victor, assisting beside her, was blocked by her words. Although he found it difficult to say aloud, after hesitating for a moment, he still admitted, "Yes, that's right. 'The king will be assassinated' is not a prophecy, only my personal judgment."
"Smack!" The sorceress set down the work in her hand and straightened, staring at the witcher's Sharingan. Beneath her translucent nightdress, snowy fullness rose and fell with her anger, a touch of pink dazzling to the eye.
"My dear Victor, I hope you understand. Without future sight, without any other corroborating evidence, if I were to take this seriously and report it to my king based solely on a warning about assassins given by a female spy of unknown origin, then I would have endless reports to make every day from morning to night!"
"Not even with my ominous premonition added in?"
"Has your ominous premonition ever come true?
"Listen, Vic. You once told a prophecy, the Burning Omen. The king consulted me about the details because of it, and after the Vizima unrest, I told him the problem had already been resolved!
"And a few months later, you suddenly run over and tell me that the judgment back then was wrong, that the true crisis has only just begun, and that some 'super assassin,' whose existence is unknown, is on the road to Vizima. He will break through defenses no one has ever broken through before and assassinate the lord of Temeria!?
"Damn it, I'm telling you! Without sufficient evidence, asking me to change my statement to the king is absolutely impossible!"
Rubbing his nose, the witcher did not argue. He could understand the sorceress's position. Bureaucratic culture, ancient or modern, East or West, had never changed.
Keira continued, "And the succession crisis will soon be resolved. No matter how sturdy La Valette Castle is, it cannot possibly hold out for three months before Foltest, King of Sieges! Once Boussy and Anaïs are retrieved, legitimized, and placed under court protection, all conspiracies will naturally vanish like smoke!
"Perhaps you think this Cantarella or Sasha is our southern colleagues' secret trump card, and that this sentence, 'Do you believe kings can be assassinated?' would have some other special meaning in a sorceress's ears.
"Then I will tell you my view. Perhaps because their emperor himself does not possess noble blood, the Nilfgaardians have a despicable historical tradition. They like assassinating their own emperors.
"Emhyr's father, Fergus, was once usurped by nobles! Since the spy was originally sent to de Rideaux's side, don't you think it sounds more like their internal strife?"
After being given a scolding by Keira from head to toe, Victor covered his face with his hand and admitted that his original idea had been too wishful. It had been based purely on imagination, causing him to feel that Nilfgaard during this period was invincible wherever it went.
But in fact, from an objective standpoint, the tombstones laid in the ballroom of Emperor Emhyr var Emreis, the White Flame Dancing on the Barrows of His Enemies, mostly belonged to nobles who had resisted his rule. The vast Nilfgaardian Empire had never been a single iron plate!
The air fell quiet for a moment.
Keira turned around and cast a spell. Pale violet magic made the pinedrops and troll liver pâté boil. Then she filled a test tube with the finished product, staring at the turbid, milky-white protein and frowning in deep thought.
"If I had to say, this stuff doesn't look like an antidote for the Catriona plague. It looks more like a high-strength laxative for treating constipation."
The moment the words left his mouth, Victor knew things were bad. Mentioning laxatives in front of her was courting death. Sure enough, in the next instant, Keira sent an electric orb flying over, shocking half his body numb. The fact that he only took this one hit was entirely thanks to his meritorious service in managing water these past few days.
There was absolutely no room to defend himself in this matter. Although the witcher's original intent had been to make a joke and ease the atmosphere, the problem was that he had once made the sorceress drink the mysterious "Vic's Old Recipe"!
Lying on the ground without speaking, with nothing more to say, Victor admitted defeat. He could not persuade Keira Metz. On the contrary, he himself had almost been persuaded by her. Perhaps his long journey from Rivia to Vizima really had been based on inexplicable persecution delusions....
Letting go of his worries, he said to the sorceress, who was focused on her experiment, "My dear, I'm going back to the inn to check on Angoulême. I've been away so many days, I don't know whether she's caused any trouble."
Keira did not turn her head. "Go and come back quickly! I permit you to bring Angoulême here to stay as well! I have plenty of empty rooms here, and the servants will not mind serving one more mistress."
Not bothering to fuss over her tone, the witcher shrugged and turned to leave.
...
Vizima Trade Quarter, the New Narakort Inn,
"Vic, Lambert and I are going to play in the cemetery."
After reading the note Angoulême had left in the room, Victor went to the Vizima cemetery. First, not far from the entrance, he found the small cauldron where they had brewed a potion. What remained inside carried the scent of necrophage oil.
Then, following the pungent smell of sword oil, he found Lambert and Angoulême. They were currently carrying out the business of monster cleanup.
Ghouls, old friends he had not seen in a long time, were still just as ugly and stinking. Thanks to the large amount of food provided by the unrest a few months ago, their population had recently grown vigorously and prospered.
Look at them, every one snarling and roaring, all sharp claws and fangs.
Victor drew his silver sword and joined the work. The three of them quickly chopped this menacing group of ghouls into chunks scattered all over the ground.
The two witchers and the apprentice divided the labor, collecting fresh ghoul blood, venom, and livers as alchemical materials.
Next, both reasonably and unreasonably, the three stinking people ran off to the Eager Thighs together to bathe. That was right, Angoulême went with them too.
According to the young woman, there was no reason men could ask women to help them bathe, while she could not. Besides, Madam Carmen was her good sister and would definitely be willing to host her.
The facts afterward proved that Angoulême had not been bragging. Once she entered the Eager Thighs, she waved as if she had come home, swaggering toward her private room. Victor and Lambert, the two men, instead had to follow procedure, open a room, and accept the arrangements.
...
The two witchers chose to share a room. After having their backs scrubbed, they let the serving lady leave first, each soaking in a wooden tub of hot water while chatting idly. It could be called the supreme enjoyment of cold weather.
"I really never expected it, Vic. You overcame the Trial of the Grasses so quickly and became a witcher. When I heard Angoulême talk about it, I found it hard to believe! So did you really fulfill your boast from back then and develop a Grass Draught that is guaranteed to succeed?"
"It isn't guaranteed to succeed. Everyone's constitution is different. I can only tailor it to each individual. If one dose worked universally and could make anyone succeed, then that would instead be a disaster!"
Picking a pear from the fruit plate and biting into it, Lambert narrowed his eyes. "Why would it be a disaster? Wasn't what you wanted at the start a product guaranteed to succeed?"
"You may not believe me when I say this, but there is Alzur's mage tower in the outskirts of Vizima. Inside, I found a manuscript he left behind. It recorded many secrets about the Trial of the Grasses. For instance, the low success rate was actually deliberate, and even the loss of fertility was too. As for many of the vicious rumors about witchers, he was also behind the scenes, fanning the flames!"
Lambert scratched his cock and could not understand. "Why would Alzur do that? He was the one who developed the Grass Draught. If he didn't like it, he could just have stopped the research. Why go to so much trouble?"
Victor laughed coldly. "At first, I also found it baffling, but later, I gradually came to understand. At that time, he needed witchers' armed force, but he could not bear the risk of witchers.
"There is something you may still not know. When the unrest happened a few months ago, the Grass Draught formula was once abused. Back then, there were many fierce, monstrously strong Tyrants nearby, cruel and swift Lickers, and packs of zombie dogs roaming in groups!"
"I heard Angoulême mention that...."
Victor scooped up a handful of water and let it leak through his fingers. "It was also then that I admitted the risks described in the manuscript made sense. Long life and great power obtained too easily are extremely dangerous! If people discovered that there was such a safe formula, how quickly do you think we would be exterminated?"
Lambert's face abruptly darkened. He thought of the massacre of the School of the Wolf that Vesemir had personally experienced centuries ago.
"And that is only the danger directed at us. Applied to the entire world, low-risk long life would cause even more serious problems. With the death rate falling sharply while the birth rate remained the same, the huge resources consumed by an exploding population would be a path toward death at the racial level!
"The famine problem alone would be unsolvable, unless a new variety of potato were discovered that could produce ten thousand pounds per field! And the unrest not long ago proved even more that once the Grass Draught spread, it would quickly be applied to total war and slaughter!
"So... Alzur used a high probability of death, loss of fertility, and demonized social status to curb the expansion of the witchers' ranks.
"Of course, there was also the malice of mages not wanting the witcher group to break free of control. After all, as far as groups possessing extraordinary power go, having them alone is already enough.
"They are very strong, but they also fear us. Because they are born with it. Without aptitude, they have no ability. But we are created afterward. If research continues, sooner or later I will be able to mass-produce witchers.
"Of course, if this matter becomes known, I will immediately be branded the incarnation of evil, and the mage community will take action to carry out humane destruction!"
The amount of information contained in this entire argument was enormous. Lambert stared at the ceiling in silent stillness. More than fifty years of witcher life had made him never hesitate to judge humans with the greatest malice, and his vigilance toward mages was just as deep-rooted. He knew that what Victor said was very likely true.
"Then do you still plan to help Angoulême mutate?"
"Setting aside social discrimination, from this new perspective, being able to mutate successfully is actually a blessing rather than a curse.
"As my grasp over potion adjustment improves, in five years at the fastest, I can make a witcher's cat eyes no longer look like cat eyes. Of course, they won't be Sharingan like mine either, but pupils no different from a human's.
"At that time, as long as the issue of an aged mentality is resolved, witchers will be able to easily blend into human society like higher vampires, just as the bloodlines of the Northern kings are noble and stand above everyone else!"
The further Victor spoke, the more outrageous he became. The implication in his words made Lambert's hair stand on end. Even the temperature of the bathwater seemed to drop a little. That was subversive thinking toward medieval kingship!
The young man himself, however, seemed completely unaware and said leisurely, "An aged mentality cannot be avoided. I don't want to be responsible for someone else's centuries-long life, so in the future I will only help those close to me prepare the Grass Draught. This is my decision, and this is what I plan to say even when facing Vesemir."
After carefully considering Victor's words, Lambert nodded with certainty a while later. "Don't worry. The old man will understand. If even I can understand it, there is no way he won't. I support your decision."
Combing his damp hair back with his left hand, Victor reached into his herbal satchel with his right and threw a bottle of red wine toward the other side. The bald witcher caught it easily.
"Thanks. Now let's throw aside the serious topic and try the Lafite! Toussaint's best red wine this year. Master wine taster Beno said every mouthful is worth more than its weight in gold!"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, gold by the mouthful!? Angoulême told me this is Corion Estate's flagship product. Who could have imagined that in the School of the Wolf, aside from Vesemir, you would be the second to own real estate.
"Even if you have many special points, the gap between you and us is still too big. Everyone else is still drifting without a fixed home, while you have already started managing an estate. Eskel really called it right. It's not that you learned bad habits from Geralt, but that you went even further than him!
"But Geralt is also magical now. He actually became the king's guard!? It's truly hard to imagine. Back then, that was not how he educated me!"
"You have to be understanding of someone who lost his memory. The one closest to him is Triss. It's normal for him not to want to be separated from her."
The witcher drank from the bottle with heavy gulps.
"I hear Leo has also fallen in love. How long do you think this love story that began with a hero saving a beauty can last?"
"I have no opinion on that point. If true love can make Miss Sasha consider mutating so they can stay together, then it's not impossible for me to prepare a Grass Draught for her too. It's still the same sentence, I only help those close to me! So you understand. Keep it secret for me." Victor raised an index finger to his lips.
"Don't worry. I don't really have anyone to tell. The people close to me are almost all dead."
"As long as you have the will, you can start searching for the next spring at any time!"
"Like you and that Keira Metz? Forget it! Though I've never seen the way the two of you interact, sorceresses' arrogance is deep-rooted. I can't stand their temper!"
At Lambert's words, Victor suddenly felt somewhat guilty, because if his memories of his previous life were not wrong, then Keira had originally had a chance to become Lambert's partner in a legendary romance, living happily ever after. Probably?
But now it was obviously impossible. After experiencing the strengths of a super-good man, Keira had completely been reshaped in his image! The bald witcher had no competitiveness at all.
Of course, feeling guilty for one second was enough. There was no such thing as giving way in the world of love. At most, he would treat Lambert and let him receive double, or even triple, happiness!
Water splashed. Victor stepped out of the wooden tub, dried his body, and put on his shirt. "Hey, old fellow, I've been seriously depleted these past few days, so I won't accompany you for the next activity. My treat. Do you want to take on three at once, or five?"
"Hohohoho, my dear little Victor, I knew you were good to old Lambert! Actually, there's no need for this. I would sincerely support every decision you make anyway! But since you're willing to treat me, leave that bag of crowns behind. Old Lambert guarantees he'll take good care of himself."
Victor chuckled. "Fine. You bastard really are a model witcher!"
"Do you even need to say that? Have you ever heard of 'light flashes, cutting through darkness'?"
"Of course. 'Radiance breaks the gloomy night,' right?"
Putting a full bag of crowns on the table, Victor waved and left freely.
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