The sky gradually grew brighter.
Apprentices kept returning to the camp, though most of them were carried back by Geralt.
Paul, for instance, had his entire right leg soaked in blood, his face as white as paper, though he had always been pale to begin with.
Lady Vries was treating the injured Apprentices, and Brad had long since woken up and was helping nearby.
The Apprentices’ pained groans kept sounding through the camp, leaving Alvin a little restless as he idly stirred the campfire in front of him.
Only when Vesemir returned to the camp again, followed by two boys, did Alvin look up.
Both of them were wounded, yet their faces were full of excitement.
Their hands kept waving as they described the battle they had just fought.
“Master Vesemir, you really missed a good show.
I had those Drowners running for their lives!”
“And Winston.
I was the one who found him.
Otherwise…”
Vesemir raised a hand and cut him off.
“My good boy, you did well this time.
It seems you remembered what I told you last time.”
“Now, the first thing you need to do is rest properly.
I’m going to check on Paul and the others.”
At that, both of them fell silent.
They had heard the cries from the camp, and those voices were all familiar to them.
Suddenly, a pair of green cat-like eyes noticed the black-haired boy sitting beside the campfire.
He nudged the person beside him with his elbow, and the two walked over together.
Alvin heard the footsteps and looked up.
It was Aiken and Winston.
Aiken tugged at the blanket around Alvin and said in an extremely exaggerated tone, “Alvin, you actually didn’t make it until dawn?
Haha…”
He glanced at Winston beside him, intending to drag him into mocking Alvin.
It was such a rare chance.
But when he looked over, Winston had already sat down and was drooling over the meat broth in the pot.
Aiken’s mouth twitched.
“You glutton!”
Then he showed Alvin the blue, bloodstained string hanging at his waist.
“Alvin, take a look.
These are all my trophies.”
Alvin raised an eyebrow.
The string was made entirely of Drowner ears.
With a quick count, there were eight or nine of them.
“Impressive, right?
I won this time!”
Aiken puffed out his chest, as though waiting for Alvin to praise the victor.
Alvin glanced at him, then silently took the head beside him and placed it in front of him.
Aiken swept his eyes over it.
A Drowner head?
The mocking words had just reached his mouth when Winston’s surprised voice rang out.
“Huh?
Why does this Drowner head look different from ours?
Why are its fins red?”
“Wait, Aiken, look.
This isn’t a Drowner.
This is the head of a Drowned Dead!”
“Alvin, you killed a Drowned Dead?
Gods above!”
A Drowned Dead?
Aiken’s cat-like eyes widened.
The description from the Bestiary flashed through his mind, and he froze on the spot.
…
Sunset.
The autumn wind blew bleakly, and the sea of trees swayed.
Vesemir brought everyone back to Kaer Morhen, where they ate dinner in a hurry.
Inside the Apprentices’ room, the usual noise and roughhousing were gone.
The six Apprentices were already lying in bed.
Geralt had changed their quilts for them and slept in the room next door.
Alvin smelled the heavy scent of disinfectant in the air.
Low groans of pain kept reaching his ears, but he still closed his heavy eyelids.
For the next five days, Vesemir arranged no training or lessons for them.
Lady Vries left behind a parchment note and went on a long journey as well.
Even wrapped head to toe in bandages, the injured Apprentices were unwilling to lie in bed doing nothing.
At Paul’s suggestion, they wandered all over Kaer Morhen’s ruined walls, saw the names of seven Witchers who had died in battle carved into the ramparts, used wooden swords to provoke lizards hiding in the cracks, then caught them in large glass jars.
They also egged Alvin and Aiken into challenging a hornet’s nest in a tree.
In the end, the hornets chased them all over the place, and it was only when Vesemir stepped in and used the Igni Sign to scatter the swarm that the chaos finally ended.
Vesemir looked over the boys with his cat-like eyes, seeing their heads covered in swollen stings.
He fell silent for a moment, as if recalling something, then smiled and gave them a brief lecture before letting the matter go.
“Alvin, come on.
Let’s go back to the Apprentices’ room.
The battle between ‘Wyvern’ and ‘Basilisk’ starts today.”
Paul spoke excitedly.
“Wyvern” and “Basilisk” were two male lizards they had caught over the past few days.
Their decisive battle was set for that afternoon, and even Vesemir and Geralt had been invited to watch.
Alvin smiled knowingly.
He did want to go, but he still said, “According to the letter, Lady Vries will return to Kaer Morhen today.
I need to go see her first.”
Paul looked utterly disappointed.
“My good brother, I say you should skip it this time.
What’s so interesting about Alchemy?”
Alvin shook his head.
“Master Vesemir said that when you promise someone something, you must do it…”
“Stop, stop, stop!”
“I know, damn it.
I already heard Vesemir lecture me today.
Have mercy.
I don’t want to hear it again.
Go on, then.”
With that, Paul leaned on his crutch and walked toward Aiken and the others.
Aiken seemed to notice Alvin’s gaze, and his green cat-like eyes immediately turned away.
The matter of the Drowned Dead had hit him hard.
Recently, he had been deliberately avoiding Alvin.
Alvin shrugged, turned, and entered the Kaer Morhen hall, then went up to the second floor.
Standing outside Lady Vries’s room, Alvin first tidied his appearance before knocking on the wooden door.
“Come in.”
Alvin pushed the door open.
Lady Vries was sitting on a wooden chair, dust still on her shoulders.
Clearly, she had only just returned, and even her voice was full of fatigue.
Her gaze swept over.
When she saw that it was Alvin, she paused slightly, as though she had not expected him to appear at this time.
“Lady Vries, what happened?
Is there anything I can do to help?”
Vries silently took out a white cloth and dusted off her shoulders.
“It’s nothing, Alvin.
Thank you for asking.
A little red-haired brat caused some trouble and set the house on fire with Chaos, so I had to go back and deal with it.”
“How have you been these past few days?
I heard you’ve been getting along well with the Apprentices.”
Alvin briefly told her about the interesting things that had happened over the past few days, and Vries’s gaze softened.
The atmosphere between them eased considerably.
“Lady Vries, following the [Basic Meditation] you gave me, I sensed the elements.”
Vries straightened from her relaxed posture, surprise in her voice.
“What did you say?
You sensed them?”
Alvin nodded.
“Come here.
Stand beside me.”
After receiving a definite answer, Vries quickly took a Crystal Magic Sphere from a drawer.
“Place your hand on the Crystal Ball.”
Alvin did as he was told and pressed his palm against the surface of the Crystal Ball.
Vries raised her hand, and a calm incantation flowed from her lips.
Ripples spread across the surface of the Crystal Ball.
Alvin felt a prickling sensation in his palm, as if it were being pierced by tiny needles.
At the center of the transparent crystal, pale blue specks of light began to gather.
They clustered together, forming an irregular sphere the size of a grain of rice.
Vries looked at the result and instinctively murmured.
“With this level of mental perception, what a pity.
You should have been a Magic Apprentice, not a Witcher.”