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

She opened her eyes, saw the firelight through the crack, lifted Svani's leg off her, and climbed up from Angoulême's side. Cerys slipped quietly out of bed, opened the door, and entered the main room.

This was one of the little wooden cabins outside Freya's Garden, once used to lodge visitors. Though no one had stayed here for some time because of the Morkvarg affair, it could still keep out the wind and snow well enough.

As expected, beside the fire sat the master of the Phantom Troupe, Dovahkiin Victor, alone and stirring a great pot.

The Sparrowhawk went over and sat naturally at his side. "Morning, Vic."

"Up this early, my lady?" The boy turned slightly, set an iron griddle over the fire to preheat it, then took baked potatoes from the warming pot and began slicing them. "Breakfast will be ready soon."

The red-haired princess shot him an annoyed look. "Please, don't make me say it again. Just call me by my name, or Sparrowhawk. Maybe we're not at the point Crach talks about yet, but I thought we were at least friends."

From this angle, the four knife scars on his face were plain to see, and the focused look in his eyes as he cooked was as sharp as an eagle's. Though there was still a trace of youthfulness about him overall, this man had already crossed the Korath Desert, passed through the Path of Warriors, and even killed a bear barehanded. The rumors of him fighting a hundred men alone might be exaggerated, but after seeing how he handled the werewolf, it was obvious fighting ten by himself would be no problem. He was even an excellent cook...

Hearing Cerys's complaint and clearly feeling that heated gaze, Victor rubbed his nose. "Without question, we're friends. But anything beyond that whole younger-brother older-sister idea is unlikely." He smiled at the princess. "Psychologically speaking, I think I'd be better suited to being the older one."

The bastard looked pretty good when he smiled...

Thinking that, the Sparrowhawk did not keep arguing over whether she ought to be the older sister or he the older brother, and instead changed the subject.

"Vic, what are you planning to do after this? Don't tell me something like fighting an apocalyptic dragon. Dragons are incredibly rare in this age."

He spread the cut fries over the griddle, left space for two cuts of meat, and added a little lard for frying. "King Bran himself acknowledged me as Dovahkiin. Just like I declared at the Fist of Fury, I came to this land to hone my craft and destroy monsters. As for the legend of some doomsday dragon, honestly, I don't think that's possible either."

She tossed a few logs into the fire. "So that's how you see it. I figured someone as smart as you wouldn't let himself be chained by some vague, distant destiny.

"Then once the Morkvarg business is over, let's spend a few good days over here and then head to Kaer Trolde. Angoulême said you're traveling. I promise I'll give you a proper introduction to the sights of Ard Skellig."

Finally he cracked two eggs onto the griddle. Victor smiled, and the firelight painted his cheeks warm red. "Sure. With the Sparrowhawk in charge, I'm sure it'll be a very happy trip."

Seeing the boy agree, Cerys smiled and reached up to touch her earlobe, hiding the fact that for one brief second, she had thought he looked adorable and wanted to lean over and kiss him on the cheek.

Pan-fried pork cutlets, potato fries, sunny-side-up eggs, and vegetable soup, the two of them enjoyed a breakfast that was warm and easy.

...

Once the day was fully bright, with Svani leading the way, the Phantom Troupe and the two princesses took a walk through Freya's Garden.

The last time they had come was at night and they had not been able to see clearly. Entering the garden by daylight now, it truly did contain many beautiful sights. Though some areas had been badly ruined, plenty remained worth seeing.

"When the sun is out, it doesn't appear often. It's more active on cloudy days or at night. But it only dislikes sunlight, it doesn't actually suffer any harm from it or lose any fighting strength because of it." As she walked, Svani explained the lessons she had learned from her recent struggle of wits against the werewolf.

"If you keep going from here toward the back, then open the water tower door, there's a cave. That's usually where it lurks. We've caught him there quite a few times before, and we've put him down more than once. Then he got smarter, lured me into the underground cavern, and collapsed the entrance. He could jump out through the opening above, I couldn't, and after he'd killed off most of my men, I ended up trapped down there."

Vigi knocked his shield with the hilt of his sword. "Ha! Going by that, if this weren't Freya's Garden, I think you could make a whole werewolf trial ground out of the place. Plenty of warriors would probably be willing to come in groups just to practice fighting one."

Angoulême nodded. "If it's this monster, then yeah, it's really nothing all that special. The curse effect from the wolf-fang necklace doesn't seem all that strong. I remember the one we saw in Vizima, its claw marks were a full size bigger than the ones Morkvarg leaves behind. That kind of brute strength is hard to deal with.

"She's right. At this threat level, it's well suited as a group combat opponent. Beat it and walk away without dragging the fight out, honestly, that makes for pretty good training," Victor agreed with the opinions of his two companions.

Svani clicked her tongue twice. "You can say things like that in front of me, but make sure Sister Josta never hears it, and definitely don't let my grandfather hear. They wouldn't really do anything to you, they'd just keep lecturing you gently until you repented and admitted you'd blasphemed."

Cerys spat lightly in her friend's direction. "That trick only works on you. I'd just say my goodbyes and leave. I'm not a battle priestess, and I'm not Lord Donar's granddaughter. Crach isn't going to make a fuss over a tiny verbal offense against Freya."

The group chatted lightly and happily, laughing as if they were on a spring outing, and then suddenly Catherine screeched from overhead, and Angoulême's two caterpillar brows drew together.

Leaves rustled at the treetops, and a black blur shot past. The moment he saw that speed, Victor was badly startled. Last time he'd had second-generation Blizzard in his system, so his reactions had been able to keep up with the werewolf, and he had not felt the difference so directly. This time, without potions, the gap was immediately obvious.

Still, aside from observing and testing for himself, the others had all taken potions, so there was nothing to worry about. On this monster hunt, he was basically just along for the ride.

In this situation, the heavy flail in the hands of Clan Heymaey's pride, Princess an Hindar, was practically the main cannon of a battleship.

Victor's eyes barely managed to track the black blur as it darted here, then there, and then lunged at him in an instant. At that very moment, the flail roared through the air with an explosive whoomp and smashed the blur straight to the ground, and before the monster could counterattack, the second blow came down squarely on its leg.

Victor could see with his own eyes that the struck section had been completely pulverized. Even without cursed-creature oil interfering, it would take a good while to recover.

A flail was naturally made to break armor and smash shields. Against a medium-sized monster like a werewolf that fancied its hide tough, it was even more brutally effective, wherever it landed, it shattered. But against larger monsters, things like fiends, chorts, or even frost giants, the power of a flail would shrink noticeably, because to hurt their insides, you needed the piercing force of a sharp blade or a spear.

In the few seconds Victor's thoughts wandered, Morkvarg had already been beaten until all four limbs were ruined, and lay sprawled on the ground, panting heavily. But because he had no open wound to bleed from, and because no Cursed Oil had been used to restrict his healing, he looked badly injured while actually recovering little by little.

"Huff... huff...! You can't kill me. You have to help me, help me lift this curse, otherwise I'll come back. Again and again I'll come back, and one day I'll kill all of you."

Yesterday's Morkvarg had died almost fully cooked, leaving little useful material, and his face had been burned beyond recognition, so Victor had found it hard to distinguish the werewolf's features. Now he finally had a chance to crouch down and study him carefully.

Staring at that face that looked half wolf and half man, Victor took out his custom skinning knife. "You seem to be in a lot of pain. I thought you liked being a werewolf. You get to tear into people and slaughter them as much as you want. Isn't that exactly what you've always loved doing?"

With a hard strike of the knife's hilt, Victor knocked out several wolf teeth and held them in his hand, trying to sense the Voice of Death in them. Unfortunately, none of the teeth responded at all, but he still put them into his herbal satchel. A few formulas could make use of them.

The werewolf sounded utterly unconcerned as he rasped, "It's useless. They'll grow back. They always grow back."

"That really is remarkable." Smiling, the boy began chopping at one wolf claw after another. It took several hard swings and some extra force to sever one, and he held it up in his hand to examine it carefully.

The moment the claw was cut off, the werewolf howled in pain. "Urghhh! You bastard, do you think torturing me will do any good?

"That bitch Svani set a trap for me last time and chained me up. You know how I got free? I bit off my own leg. Every bite hurt so much I screamed, and I kept vomiting blood..."

Insulted, Svani instinctively raised her flail to smash the werewolf's head, but Cerys stopped her and pointed at Victor's back.

"Yeah, biting off your own limbs must have hurt. Who would've thought you'd do something like that?" Stuffing a wad of cloth against the werewolf to stanch the blood, the boy agreed casually while continuing to chop off the other claw.

"Hssgh...! You don't understand, it wasn't just pain. My mouth burned like I'd swallowed fire. It felt like my guts were being ripped apart. It felt like I was dying, but I got through it, and then I tore everyone except that filthy bitch to pieces. I hacked them up into minced meat!"

"So are you saying this because you want my sympathy?" With a crack and a wrench, the other claw came off as well.

With both hands severed at the wrists, hatred filled the beast's pupils. "No. I want you to understand that you can't kill me, and you won't be able to stop me. No one can restrain me forever. As long as that curse remains, I'll come back for you again."

Victor tucked both claws into his herbal satchel. Then the skinning knife sank into the wolf's belly with a wet sound, and he drew it open in a long cut. Pulling on gloves, the boy reached inside and groped around. "Personally, I welcome that. Seriously, you're this weak, and you can keep producing alchemical materials. I'm delighted, even if the uses aren't all that wide-ranging..."

His tone was light and casual, but Svani was startled to realize that as Victor continued his muttering, fear had begun to appear in the werewolf's savage eyes.

The monster's tone turned mild. "N... no, don't do this. We can talk. I can only speak clearly right now. This curse makes me bite and claw and tear at everything... huff, huff, until I die.

"There's still time. Before I bleed to death, listen closely, huff, huff, lift this curse for me. Do that, and I'll give you my treasure, wealth beyond anything you can even imagine... aghhh!!!"

This scream came because the boy's gloved hand had pulled a lump of strange matter from the creature's chest. Angoulême knew it was most likely the so-called werewolf mutagen inducer.

"So being a werewolf isn't much fun after all?"

"...It's agony. The worst part isn't being trapped in the garden, it's the hunger that never goes away. No matter what I eat, it all turns to ash. I can't eat or drink, but I still have to hunt for food everywhere. It's torture. The hunger is so terrifying that I even tried biting off my own flesh, but even with just one mouthful, my throat still burned like boiling tar."

"A lifetime of hunger, that really is a classic curse. No wonder you never touched these corpses, and instead drew in a whole swarm of ghouls.

"But don't worry, we came here to lift your curse. See this thing?"

"Y... you're really willing to help me? What is that? A fang? That's the one thing I have no shortage of."

After putting away the material, Victor took out the wolf-fang pendant. Ignoring whatever Morkvarg was saying, he simply placed Toradar's Fang onto the werewolf's chest.

The instant it touched him, dazzling magical light burst forth. Everyone watched as the protruding muzzle shrank back, the long fur receded, and at last he turned into a thickset, heavy man with triangular eyes, a hooked nose, gold bands on both arms, and tattoos everywhere.

"I... I'm free. I'm finally free!" Looking down at his own body, he shouted with mad delight. "Where's the nearest tavern!? I'm hungry enough to eat a whole roast pig, no, I could eat half a cow, then drink down a whole barrel of ale, and after that I'm heading back to sea. They've probably nearly forgotten me by now, but I'll damn well make them remember. People of Skellige, I'm back!"

Taking back the wolf-fang pendant, Victor looked at the overjoyed, babbling Morkvarg and smiled. "I'm glad to see you're happy too. But unfortunately, it seems someone doesn't agree with your plan."

The pirate's body stiffened. He turned around and found himself facing the fire-eyed battle priestess. "Filthy Morkvarg, believe me, you are going nowhere. In the name of Clan Heymaey, I pass judgment. You will be bound alive upon the reef rocks, lashed by the waves and pecked apart by gulls. Your soul will never rise to heaven. It will sink into hell and suffer there until the day of the end."

...

At the entrance to Freya's Garden, the five of them temporarily parted ways.

Svani was taking Morkvarg back to Larvik under guard, while Vigi had no interest in sightseeing. Drinking and boasting in a tavern sounded far more enjoyable, so he simply went along with the priestess.

As for Victor, Angoulême, and Cerys, the three of them were going south to stay in Lofoten for a few days, then farther south to Lurthen, and finally north again to Larvik, completing a sightseeing tour around the island.

Reluctant to part, Svani hugged the three who would only be leaving for a short time. "Lofoten is a prosperous village full of warmth. With my seal, they'll definitely welcome you with the greatest enthusiasm. The village also has restorative hot springs and cold springs you can enjoy. You're going at exactly the right time, soaking is very good for the body."

At the mention of hot springs, both Victor and Angoulême's eyes lit up.

The last time the girl had soaked in hot springs was all the way back in Toussaint, while for the boy it had been even earlier, back in the alchemical world. In any case, both memories were years old.

While the two of them were openly delighted, Svani leaned in close to Cerys with a teasing smile. "Don't hesitate. When it's time to make your move, make it. I support you. If I weren't a priestess devoted to Freya, then maybe..."

Cerys glanced at her friend and only shrugged.

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