The Witcher: The Alchemist Who Walked the Witcher’s Road

On the night of the third day at sea, moonlight gently kissed the ocean, while bright candlelight filled the Black Pearl's passenger cabin. The walls of the room had been painted black, the same color as soundproofing paint.

After what had happened with Luf overhearing things, the boy had grown very concerned about privacy, so he had specifically asked the captain to let him redecorate the room, claiming that if the cabin was not dark, he could not sleep.

At that moment, Victor and Angoulême were sitting cross-legged on the floor while he explained what the Skellige Isles were like.

Before, he had not planned to bring the girl along, so he had not told her to read up on the place beforehand. But now that she had come with him, and since the customs of the Isles were completely different from those of the Continent, naturally she had to make up for lost time.

"...Skellige lies northwest of the mouth of the Yaruga. Its people mainly live by fishing, hunting, trade, and armed raiding at sea. People often say all Skelligers are pirates. That impression is not entirely correct, but it tells you a lot.

"According to the books I've read, the islanders' fierce, swift longships don't just roam every major sea, they can even sail up rivers deep inland.

"Following the Yaruga, they once raided as far as Sodden. As for the Pontar, Novigrad guards the river mouth, so that route is much safer.

"The six great islands are ruled under a feudal system by seven royal clans. The king rules for life, and whenever one dies, the seven clans choose the most outstanding candidate among themselves to become the next king."

The ship, which had been very quiet at night these past two days, seemed noticeably noisier tonight. As Victor explained, he pointed here and there on the sea chart spread out on the floor to help Angoulême remember it better.

He had paid a hefty sum to buy that chart from Sukrus. It definitely was not the captain's finest one, but at least the directions were correct, and the relative positions of the islands were clear.

They could vaguely hear sailors shouting and calling outside. Angoulême closed her eyes and felt no malice directed toward the Phantom Troupe. Catherine also had no objections and sat steady as a mountain on her perch, so the girl pushed the noise out of her mind and focused on learning.

"If the seven clans elect the king like that, wouldn't that cause problems? They're competing with each other, aren't they?"

"That's their tradition. You can't judge the Isles by continental ideas. First, just remember the three things Skelligers value most: honor, the deeds of their ancestors, and fine weapons. And when they're insulted, their habit is to wash it away with fists or blades.

"The current king is Bran Tuirseach. His family rules An Skellig. Its chief city is Yuriara, though we won't be going there this trip."

"Then where did you arrange with Sukrus to go?"

"To Clan an Craite's territory, Kaer Trolde in northern Ard Skellig... the archipelago's greatest trading port, and its most prosperous city. Once we get there, we'll rest a few days and gather information, then hire a medium-sized ship and continue on to Faroe."

Victor frowned, slightly dissatisfied. "Honestly, this map is terrible. It gives almost no useful information. If we don't want to get lost in the wilderness, we might even need to hire a guide..."

Just as he said that, the ship suddenly lurched violently, then stopped.

Victor and Angoulême looked at each other.

A series of hard knocks sounded at the door.

With a hand on his sword hilt, the boy opened the cabin door, just in time to hear Sukrus roar, "Rinalug!"

And from not far away came another furious shout:

"Kill the pirates!"

Amid the sounds of battle, blades clashing and men shouting, the person standing outside the door was a familiar crewman called Bigfoot, a man who lived up to his name with truly enormous feet. With his slow, simple look, he said, "Victor, the captain's doing business right now. He was worried it might alarm you, so he sent me to say there's no need to worry. Things will settle down very soon."

Doing business, my ass.

So this was how they traded without capital.

No wonder Sukrus had unloaded the mead before departure and never loaded cargo aboard afterward. Turns out he meant to pick up merchandise at sea.

The Dragonborn Bard blinked. Knowing that the sailors who usually spoke to him so politely, and even pooled money to ask him to sing, were pirates was one thing. Watching them actually do pirate work was something else entirely.

"Are you sure you'll win?" the boy asked instinctively.

Bigfoot greeted the girl, who had come over to the doorway. "Hey, Angoulême. Sorry for waking you both up."

Then he answered Victor's question. "Definitely. We've got more men."

Victor followed up at once. "Can we go out and have a look?"

Bigfoot looked troubled. That question was outside anything he had authority to answer. No passenger had ever made a request like that before.

"The captain didn't say whether you could or couldn't..."

"Relax. We'll only watch from the side. We won't interfere. I might even write a poem about it afterward. The captain won't blame you."

Victor spoke in a calm tone, and two crowns quietly slid into Bigfoot's hand. He did not believe this sailor could possibly match the disciplined guards of the Passiflora.

The crowns launched an attack on Bigfoot's willpower.

It was a devastating critical hit.

The sailor fell before the power of coin.

...

"There's only so much you can learn from maps and books. If you want to understand something, you have to see it for yourself."

...

Standing by the rail, with only the boarding plank between the two ships, they had a clear view of the fighting on the other vessel under the moonlight. Just as Bigfoot had said, the situation was already under control and would be over soon.

Fewer and fewer men were still resisting. With the outcome already decided, most of them had dropped to their knees and accepted disarmament. In the end, only a handful had the courage to fight to the death. Pirates of this age rarely slaughtered merchants to the last man.

"I demand negotiations!"

From the passenger cabin where the last few guards were making their stand, a finely dressed young nobleman stepped out and called that out.

The melee finally came to an end.

Sukrus swaggered over to the man, and the two began talking.

At this distance, Victor could not hear what they were saying, which left him maddeningly curious, so he casually asked, "Bigfoot, do you know what happens next?"

Unexpectedly, the one who answered was Angoulême, in a tone that suggested the answer was obvious. "What else? They give him treatment fitting his rank, wait for his family to pay the ransom, then let him go home."

The captain looked at the troupe member with open skepticism.

The troupe member looked back at him like he was an idiot, then said disdainfully, "Pirates or a hanse, this is standard procedure. That's just how the rules work."

Bigfoot chuckled from the side. "Angoulême's exactly right. Knowing that much, she must've been in the same line of work before."

Victor turned his face away and ignored the smug look on Angoulême's face. He had forgotten that the Phantom Troupe's chief enforcer came from a hanse. Ask her about politics and she was hopeless. Ask her about underworld customs and unwritten rules, and she knew them cold. She had definitely done plenty of shady things.

The sea wind blew away the smell of blood from the boarding action.

There was nothing interesting left to watch, so Victor dragged Angoulême back to their cabin and resumed the basic education lesson that had been interrupted, while also adding an extra class titled How to Preserve Your Leader's Dignity.

...

The next day, the cabin next to Victor's expensive one received a new neighbor. Officially, he had come aboard the Black Pearl as a guest, and in due time he was expected to thank the captain for his generous hospitality with a lavish reward.

In reality, of course, it was kidnapping for ransom.

The strange thing was that this guest theory was beloved not just by the kidnappers, but insisted on just as strongly by the victims. That was the sort of face-saving logic unique to the age.

At first, Victor had felt a little sorry for him. Just think about it: a perfectly respectable young nobleman taking a trip by sea to clear his head. He might not have been feasting in luxury, but at the very least he had been peacefully chewing lamb and tearing into roast chicken, only for disaster to descend with a bang when pirates attacked his ship.

That certainly qualified as calamity from the heavens.

But the moment Victor met the man in person, all that sympathy vanished.

This was not someone who inspired the slightest pity.

He was tall, handsome, young, and strong, with neatly cut black hair and melancholy deep blue eyes, the sort of natural winner whose looks could crush more than ninety percent of the men of the age.

His name was Aryan La Valette.

Victor vaguely remembered hearing the name of his father, Baron La Valette, back in Vizima. He was a powerful baron with lands in northern Temeria, lord of the militarily crucial La Valette Castle. Across the Pontar lay the Kingdom of Redania.

Just being enfeoffed in such an important location said enough about how favored he was by King Foltest. Add to that the king's habit of visiting his castle in person, and it was obvious he would not lack the money to ransom back his eldest son.

And then the young nobleman's friendliness soon made Victor start reflecting on how uncharitable his own thoughts had been.

After learning Victor was also a passenger aboard the ship, Aryan had first assumed he was the same kind of guest as himself, and immediately offered to pay his expenses too if money was a problem.

Only after Victor explained himself did Aryan realize that the man before him had not been abducted at all, but was the Dragonborn Bard already famous across Temeria.

He seized Victor's hand excitedly, deep blue eyes full of warm feeling. "I never imagined I'd meet you here. It's such a shame you left Temeria. I've always regretted not hearing you perform in person. Other bards sing well enough, but everyone who's heard you says none of them can compare."

All one could say was that some people, like Rose Knight Siegfried, were naturally made to be liked. Aryan undoubtedly had that same quality, that strange sincerity found only in people who were genuinely warm and upright.

They were not fools.

They just had no need for scheming.

As fellow lovers of poetry, and with Sukrus sending over several bottles of newly acquired Metinna Rosé, the two of them got along surprisingly well as they drank and talked.

After they had both drunk enough for their ears to warm, Victor even promised to find time to perform The Return of the Dragonborn for him.

...

That night, Captain Sukrus invited the three guests onto the deck for a grand feast. His reason for treating them was astonishingly simple: the resupply operation had gone smoothly, not many people had died, and the haul had been plentiful.

In the end, only the food and water necessary for Aryan's men to sail home had been left aboard their own ship. Everything else of value had been carried over to Sukrus' vessel. The delicacies they ate at the feast and the fine red wine they drank had all belonged to the young nobleman until yesterday. Now they counted as the captain's generous hospitality.

It was robber logic, certainly, but that did not stop the three of them from enjoying the food and drink.

"To be honest, I'm a little impressed by you. You're eating and drinking with real enthusiasm, considering all this belonged to you yesterday." After a few rounds at the feast, Victor said that to Aryan. He knew a joke of that level would not offend the young nobleman.

"Skill lost to skill," Aryan replied. "And besides, these are only worldly things. Preserving the lives of my men was what a proper lord ought to do. As for enjoying myself, if anger is useless, then there is no point in being angry."

"You're remarkably open-minded about that. So why were you in such poor spirits that you came out here with only a handful of men to clear your head?"

At Victor's question, a shadow abruptly fell over Aryan's face. "My friend, every household has its burdens."

Victor nodded and tactfully did not press further.

On the deck, Angoulême, master of drinking banquets, was downing cup after cup and defeating one opponent after another. Apparently, not even Skelligers could resist the girl's strange charm. She mixed in among them without the slightest hint of awkwardness.

"You have a very charming companion," Aryan said kindly, raising his glass.

Victor glanced at Angoulême, who looked on the verge of starting a drunken rampage, then lifted his own cup in agreement. "She's the most charming, because at the moment she's the only one."

...

When they returned to the cabin that night, Angoulême's eyes were bright and her lips were slightly parted. She was clearly in the ready-to-go-crazy stage of being drunk.

Victor deliberately avoided looking into her eyes and silently unbuckled his sword, preparing to sleep, because if he met her gaze she would definitely start saying lunatic things.

Sadly, not long after he lay down, her voice still came from behind him.

"Hehe... Aryan's a good guy. We should recruit him into the Phantom Troupe!

"Then I could be his senior, hehe... slurp... slurp... hehe."

All right, then.

So now she could start saying mad things without even making eye contact.

A whole new frontier.

"Don't overthink it. He's the heir to a baron. Why would he give up a life of comfort and come join our hanse? Do you really think that's possible?"

"Not even a tiny chance?"

"None."

After that, there was no response from behind him. Before long, steady snoring filled the room.

Lucky day.

Tonight's drunken madness had not lasted long.

With Catherine standing watch, Victor slept soundly.

...

The next two days passed without incident.

Then, when the Black Pearl had come close enough that the harbor could be seen in the distance, and they were about to reach their destination, the three guests stood on deck chatting.

"This is strange... From what I read in books, this port doesn't look like Kaer Trolde." Victor sounded puzzled.

Angoulême reached up and scratched her hair. "It doesn't? Then what's it supposed to look like?"

Aryan smiled slightly and answered in his usual refined, gentle tone. "Kaer Trolde is the strongest fortress on Ard Skellig. They say it was carved out of an entire mountain, the sort of place that leaves a lasting impression on anyone who sees it."

Angoulême narrowed her eyes at the distant harbor. "That place doesn't even qualify as a fortress..."

"Your agreement with Sukrus was that he'd take you to Kaer Trolde?" Aryan's tone was unmistakably amused.

"Damn right it was," Victor replied sourly.

The bright grin that spread across the young nobleman's face made Victor feel the man deserved a punch. Aryan slapped the railing and laughed. "My friend, my earlier offer still stands. If you're having financial troubles, I'd be delighted to help you. Truly!"

As they spoke, the ship drew closer and closer to shore. Victor turned and saw Captain Sukrus approaching, flanked by a dozen or so fully armed men.

Angoulême gave the faintest shake of her head.

Victor knew what that meant.

It meant that even now, none of them had any intention of harming the girl. In other words, they were dressed like that because they had come to negotiate.

Sukrus wore the same warm smile he had that day at the Golden Sturgeon. He placed a hand over his chest and gave a slight bow.

"Mister Victor Corion, welcome to Skellige!"

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