I knew it would come to this…
Allen let out a soft sigh in his heart and said, "To be honest, we were also troubled about how to deal with Tomas Moreau. Uh… let me start from the beginning…"
Recollecting the past in his mind, he began with how the Wolf School had been targeted by the king of Kaedwen and the mages of Ban Ard, briefly describing the background leading up to the duel tournament between the Wolf and Cat apprentices.
Then, in detail, he explained how Tomas Moreau and another mage had ambushed them outside Vizima.
Jerome Moreau listened calmly the whole time, his face expressionless, as though there was not the slightest ripple of emotion.
"…At that time, the Wolf School could not yet openly oppose the wrath of Ban Ard. Whether to release him or kill him would have been highly inappropriate, so we brought him back to Kaer Morhen and locked him in the dungeon."
With the short account concluded, the cavern fell into silence.
After a while—
"Ever since fate sent me to Kaer Seren, I have been no one's child, only a witcher, a witcher of the Griffin School."
"So there's no need to explain in such detail."
"I trust the Wolf School far more than I would trust a madman, even if he is my father."
Jerome's voice paused. Clearly, there was still a knot in his heart that had to be voiced.
Before Allen could respond, he frowned and continued: "He always spoke of returning me to a normal human life, but he never once asked for my consent."
"In the end, when those experiments—harsher, crueler, and more painful than any punishment—failed, he still refused to let me go."
"If not for you, I would have died here."
"He's just a paranoid lunatic. Nothing he does would surprise me. Don't worry that I'll resent the Wolf School because of Tomas Moreau's fate."
"To be honest…"
Jerome Moreau paused, his eyes fixed on the motionless golem in the distance. He drew a deep breath and ground his teeth.
"Here, I've imagined killing him countless times."
"Burning his sinful body with fire, hacking him into pieces with blades, even choking the life out of him with my bare hands…"
"But no matter how unwilling I am to admit it, Tomas Moreau is still my father. The Griffin School's code does not permit me to do such a thing."
"I even thought of commissioning you to kill him. But the Wolf School is the true heir of the Witcher Order, not some honorless Cats."
"I will not—and cannot—ask the Wolf School to take a contract for murder. Such a dishonorable thing."
"So don't concern yourself with my feelings, Brother Allen."
"However you decide to deal with Tomas Moreau, so be it. It has nothing to do with me."
When he finished, Jerome exhaled a heavy breath and looked Allen squarely in the eyes.
"As expected of the Griffin School!" Allen couldn't help but exclaim.
Here he had been carefully weaving words to win over the Griffin School, while Jerome had laid himself bare with brutal honesty—even speaking openly of patricide, the darkest, most shameful thought imaginable.
And yet, even then, he considered the Wolf School's honor, unwilling to stain it, even though the whole affair could have been hidden from the world.
"I've brought shame to my School," Jerome Moreau shook his head. "But let's not dwell on that. Just now you said you needed my help. Tell me what I must do."
-----------------------------------
The passage outside the golem's core.
The glowing orb lit the narrow corridor and, at its end, the finely furrowed brows of Ida Emean.
She was carefully examining a black stone the size of a human head, inscribed with ritual runes, muttering under her breath.
"Not here… not here either… nothing… nothing… nothing…"
"How is this possible?" Her tone was filled with disbelief. "Why has the obsidian core, though perfectly intact, lost all trace of elemental fluctuation? How did Allen do it?"
What did this mean?
It was as if a king, seated upon his throne, protected by closed gates, a wide moat, and an endless army outside that could resurrect indefinitely—had suddenly found his throat cut by a knight who was still outside the moat.
That absurd.
It overturned the most basic, fundamental laws by which Ida Emean understood the world.
Unwilling to accept it, the elven sorceress checked again. But the result was the same—
This obsidian core was "dead," despite its unbroken shell.
"Forget it. The child of miracles has his peculiarities."
After all, Ida was no longer young. She had long passed the age of needing to pursue every mystery to its root.
"Lady Ida, can we depart now?" came Allen's voice from outside.
"Coming!" she called back, then glanced once more at the motionless obsidian core. She had no intention of taking it with her.
Without magical vitality, no matter how large it was, it was just another gemstone.
In the mundane world, perhaps it would fetch a fine price. But in terms of magic, it was useless, without research value.
And she hardly lacked for money. Among the few remaining free elves, none of the Aen Seidhe ever lacked wealth, let alone an Aen Saevherne.
A wasted trip… she muttered to herself, taking two steps toward the exit.
"Wait!"
A sudden thought struck her. She stopped, turned back.
"Perhaps it isn't entirely without research value." Thinking of Allen's inexplicable feats, Ida Emean raised a hand, summoning a void that swallowed the obsidian core.
In the next instant—
Both the void and the obsidian core vanished.
"Huh~"
The sorceress let out a surprised sound. Bending down, she picked up from the spot where the core had vanished a silver medallion etched with the figure of an elven maiden—wearing a hyacinth wreath crown, with a rainbow sash at her waist.
"Hyacinth, rainbow, lark… This is Gwendolyn, Maiden of Spring!"
"Allen!" The elven sorceress clutched the medallion—or rather, the amulet—and instantly remembered what Allen had said not long before.
[For certain reasons, I saw the Maiden of Spring, Gwendolyn, and… it seems She still has a chance of resurrection…]
Without needing to think too hard, Ida Emean immediately realized that Allen must have learned about the Maiden of Spring, Gwendolyn, during the battle with the golem. Perhaps, just as the rumors said, he had even received the summons of Melitele, and like one who had journeyed through the divine realm, caught a glimpse of the holy form of the Maiden of Spring.
"What a little liar—you already know how to charm women at such a young age." Ida Emean arched her brow.
She rubbed the Maiden of Spring's amulet, wiping away suspicious dark red stains that clung to its surface.
"Tomas Moreau, a mere human sorcerer, how could he possibly have the Maiden of Spring's bless—" Ida's eyes suddenly lit up. "Ah, of course. That Griffin School witcher… he's a half-elf, and he knew of my priestly identity, so that must be it…"
"Ida, my lady?" Allen called again, breaking into her thoughts.
Recalling how Allen had suddenly interrupted Jerome Moreau's words right before she opened the portal, Ida Emean responded with a soft sound, her eyes betraying a trace of tenderness.
"Still a kind and thoughtful little liar."
She shook her head gently. Before leaving, she glanced once more at the stained amulet, then at the place where the obsidian core had once been.
"Unfortunate… meeting the wrong man…"
Clutching the amulet tightly, Ida Emean let out a quiet, regretful sigh and walked off toward the source of the voice.
-----------------------------------
Supporting himself against the wall, Allen walked out of the golem alongside Jerome Moreau, who had been waiting by the creature's feet, chatting idly.
In just a short while, Jerome Moreau had already recovered quite a bit. Though his face was still pale and his body thin—like someone suffering from long-term malnutrition—his stance was now upright, almost like that of a proper witcher. What surprised Ida Emean even more was that she could actually sense danger coming from him.
Was this… the secondary mutation?
Her fine brows furrowed slightly. If Allen could truly spread the secondary mutation, then even if something were to happen to Sol, the Wolf School would not necessarily fall into decline.
"The Northern Continent is going to change again," Ida Emean whispered. "Fortunately, the Free Elves and the Child of Miracles are allies now. The ones who should be worried are those male sorcerers of Ban Ard."
She drifted lightly down from the air, landing at Allen's side.
"Where to?" Ida Emean asked after giving Jerome Moreau a brief glance.
"Laboratory," Allen replied.
"Laboratory?" Ida Emean looked at Jerome Moreau again in surprise.
"Yes." Allen nodded. "Not only the laboratory. Next, Master Jerome will follow us back to Kaer Morhen. He has agreed to assist us in studying the secondary mutation."
"Hm?" Ida Emean's mouth parted in shock.
What had Allen done in that short time to convince Jerome Moreau—a man who had endured years of cruel experiments—to willingly agree to help with the research?
"A life saved should be repaid with one's own life. And besides, Allen did not hesitate to tell me the dangerous state the Wolf School is currently in," Jerome Moreau said, as if noticing the elf sorceress's surprise. He spoke with solemn weight: "When others treat me with sincerity, I return sincerity in kind."
The Wolf School's dangerous situation… Ida Emean blinked thoughtfully.
"Yes, I told Master Jerome about Sol's injuries," Allen confirmed with a nod. "A Griffin School witcher is worthy of trust."
Ida Emean only gave a noncommittal nod.
After all, this was witchers' internal business—more like family affairs than anything else. If the son himself wasn't afraid, what did an outsider like her have to worry about?
Clang—
An orange-red portal opened beside the golem's right foot.
Ida Emean was just about to step through when Allen's voice sounded from behind.
"What is it, Master Jerome?" he asked, watching Jerome Moreau, who was staring absentmindedly at the golem.
"It's nothing." Jerome shook his head, but after taking a step forward, he suddenly hesitated. "Back there, when you deliberately interrupted me and brought me here… was there some reason?"
Allen was silent for a moment before shaking his head in denial. "No. It's just that Lady Ida wanted to gather materials from the golem, so we came here to save some time. Why?"
"Nothing."
Jerome looked at the motionless golem, let out a small laugh, and made a joke: "After spending so much time together, I actually feel a bit reluctant to part with the jailer that Tomas Moreau sent to guard me."
"How strange."
With that, he shook his head, passed Ida Emean, and stepped first into the portal.
"Tomas Moreau is in Kaer Morhen. He will learn of it sooner or later," Ida Emean said, watching Jerome's back vanish.
Allen paused in his step, shook his head—whether in denial or resignation, it was hard to tell—and then followed into the portal.
Ida Emean sighed lightly and went after him.
In just a moment, the vast cavern was left empty, with only the silent golem leaning against the rock wall.
The candlelight flickered, casting shifting shadows.
-----------------------------------
Several days later.
Kaer Morhen, Witcher Research Laboratory.
The Witcher research laboratory was located in the underground level of Kaer Morhen's keep — in truth, just an alchemy chamber.
But compared to Vera's alchemy room on the second floor of the eastern tower, the Witcher laboratory was far larger — at least ten times in size.
Since it was originally the place where the School of the Wolf's mages had improved upon the Trial of the Grasses, all sorts of alchemical apparatus for witcher mutations were fully equipped here.
Bronze furnaces the size of a golem, distillation cauldrons connected with glass tubes and rubber hoses, and rows of jars whose inner walls had dried into a murky yellow, hiding whatever divine liquids they once contained…
It was a paradise for anyone researching witchers, genetics, or biological experimentation.
Of course, what stood out most were not only the second-mutation devices recently hauled in from Tomas Moreau's laboratory, but also the rows of iron beds locked inside steel cages along the walls.
Each bed's four corners were fixed with chains and shackles, making the entire witcher laboratory feel more like a torture dungeon than a research chamber.
Most witchers of the Wolf School, even if they couldn't brew potions, were deeply familiar with this place.
Yes.
The Witcher Research Laboratory was also the place where apprentices underwent the Trial of the Grasses — the deadliest, most agonizing ordeal of all.
Creak—
The heavy iron door groaned as it was pushed open.
Two witchers entered, both carrying twin swords on their backs. One, with piercing blue cat eyes, muttered as he walked.
"Every time I step into this place, my skin crawls. Even in the middle of summer, it chills me to the bone."
"Today's the last lesson, Allen. Endure a little longer," the other replied with a warm smile. This one's heterochromatic eyes shimmered in three colors. "Once you're proficient with the mutation crucibles, you'll be able to handle all of Tomas Moreau's equipment."
"Until Lady Ida extracts everything from Moreau's mind, you won't have to come back here."
"Then I'd rather Lady Ida didn't give me a break at all — and got results today," Allen sighed softly, moving toward the silver, gourd-shaped container beside the "Iron Maiden," and began operating it with practiced hands.
Hearing this, Jerome Moreau opened his mouth, but remembering how Chief Sol had nearly bled out last night and almost lost his life, he simply patted Allen's shoulder with a pale expression.
"It'll get better."
Allen only nodded and turned back to practicing with the second-mutation apparatus, trying to grasp its principles under Jerome Moreau's instruction.
Truth be told, ever since Jerome Moreau had temporarily joined Kaer Morhen, his greatest contribution wasn't running mutation experiments, but passing on his hard-earned experience with the instruments — and studying their workings together with Allen.
Allen had never expected this. In the game, Geralt's second mutation had been completed with just a single pass through the Iron Maiden. But here, the very operation of the devices had tripped him up at first.
Of course, Geralt had only needed to use them, while Allen had to fully understand every device's function and principle, so he could even make modifications within certain limits.
Naturally, that was far more difficult.
"…Considering the Chief's condition, perhaps the pressure of the steel clamps needs to be adjusted…"
"Mm, these needles should also be reinforced by Vera and Lady Ida…"
-----------------------------------
Time passed quickly amidst the discussion between the two witcher masters from different schools.
"On this part here—"
CREEEEAK—!
The laboratory doors slammed open with violent force, shrieking louder than before, cutting off Allen and Jerome Moreau's conversation.
Both witchers looked toward the sound.
Vesemir and Aristo stood there, panting heavily, excitement shining on their faces.
"We got it, Allen!"
"Lady Ida has uncovered the precise method for the second mutation experiment!"
.........
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