The first time riding a three-masted sailing ship—no, you can drop the "fantasy world" part. The first time riding a three-masted sailing ship, period—felt strangely wonderful, like being thrown into the Age of Sail. Correction: it was more like standing on the threshold right before that age truly began.
With Captain Hook, Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Anne Bonny, Captain Gangplank and the rest drifting through his mind like familiar faces, Victor watched the river slide past and thought his odd little thoughts—the river rolling on, washing away the great names of ages long gone.
Then, without warning, Angoulême gave him a light shove from behind, nearly tipping him into the river. But she grabbed his belt as she pushed, so it was only a scare.
"What're you thinking about?" Before Victor could even start scolding, the girl was already staring up at him with those round eyes.
"You're trying to kill me, you know that? …I wasn't thinking about anything." After learning what she'd been through, Victor had developed a weird, overprotective tenderness toward her, like some exhausted father figure. It was hard to stay truly angry.
Angoulême stepped up to the rail and stared at the water, putting on the expression of a wise, caring older sister. "Actually, you don't have to tell me. I already know what you're thinking. You're upset Zoltan doesn't like you, right?"
No. I turned around and forgot about it instantly. It's not even on my mind.
"Don't be mad. He's just worried about me, and he doesn't know you. He didn't see Ciri's face when she talked about you, so he doesn't believe in you. He just overthinks everything."
That's normal. A kid who's too calculating? I'd be suspicious too.
Angoulême clasped both hands around Victor's arm. "Anyway, Captain, don't take what he said seriously. I trust you. Completely."
If it's a misunderstanding, it's a misunderstanding—hardly the end of the world. "Alright. Thanks for the support, Angoulême."
"…But there's something I want to talk over with you?" She let go, laced her fingers together, and lowered her voice with an awkward little squirm.
Honestly, it was rare to see her like this. Victor was so used to her acting like a brawler that this posture made him uncomfortable. "Let's hear it. Don't feel like reading today? Or do you want pocket money to buy something?"
"No…" She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and said, "It's about the business…"
Victor said nothing—just quietly met her brown eyes.
"I… think the virility potion business makes good money, but… it doesn't feel very respectable…"
On Victor's plain, unremarkable nose bridge, there was a thin white scar. Faint, but clear.
"Uh… I mean… aren't we supposed to be a troupe that helps the helpless and punishes the wicked?"
Under Victor's gaze, she stumbled over her words, but her meaning was simple enough. Thank the gods—she'd realized it on her own. Otherwise Victor would've had no idea how to point out the emperor's new clothes, especially when she'd been proudly waving the troupe's banner every single day.
When she finished, she dropped her head and avoided his eyes. Clearly, she did understand how much coin her shiny new leather armor and razor-sharp steel sword had cost.
As for that—"I agree," Victor replied simply.
"Huh?!" Angoulême jerked her head up, staring straight into his blue-green eyes.
Victor's narrowed gaze held a curved hint of laughter. "I said we're done selling virility potions. From now on, we'll focus on doing real work—helping people, fighting injustice, building a name!"
…
He was a carefree sailor of twenty-eight. He drank deep, ate hearty, healthy as a horse, with no family chains around his neck. He had skilled lovers waiting for him in Flotsam and Vergen. Tonight's trip—one of countless runs downriver—would, unfortunately, become the end of his short and happy life.
It was deep night. The ship was held midstream by a magical anchor. Crouched at the stern, he was freely polluting the river, staring at the pitch-black forest along the bank, thinking about how many Scoia'tael might be lurking in there at any moment, ready to put an arrow through his throat. His skin crawled—and, oddly enough, his "release" became even more enthusiastic.
Then the water exploded with a sudden roar. A heavy, booming impact—something slamming the hull with a tentacle.
His eyes went wide. His mouth fell open. He watched a monster rise—an octopus so huge it looked like a grey-red hill breaking the surface.
Tentacles layered over tentacles, wrapping around the ship. The wooden hull, helpless, began to splinter and groan.
Terror turned his whole body to jelly. In the truest sense, everything went limp at once—and the pollution poured like rain.
Not long after, amid a wild flurry of tentacle strikes, the world went black, and his respectable little life ended with startling efficiency.
…
At the same time—along the forested banks of the Pontar, on some random stretch of sandbar.
"Fuck… who's the bastard that said the Pontar was safe?" Victor spat the curse through clenched teeth as he stumbled onto shore, soaked and miserable.
Then he dropped to one knee, hooked his right hand under Angoulême's belly—she'd swallowed half the river—and braced her over his bent thigh with her head down. One hard press, and she erupted in a spectacular fountain—spray and rainbow arcs like a cruel fireworks show.
The wild girl couldn't swim… and she still had the nerve to make her Captain fight through hell to save her. Clearly, she was lacking in training.
Sure, in this era most people couldn't swim—but that didn't stop Captain Victor from immediately deciding: new rule. Troupe members must learn to swim.
Under the moonlight, the three-masted ship was already being reduced to scrap by the colossal octopus. Just the width of one tentacle was as thick as Victor's torso. One clean whip of that thing and it would flatten a person—armor and all—into a meat pie. The kind of thing you didn't kill with a witcher's blade; you killed it with cannons… if cannons existed in this age.
Or maybe you fed it a massive bomb?
Victor shook his head, scattering the daydream. Angoulême had finally finished vomiting. She rolled onto her back and lay there gulping air.
Victor stood and watched the ship's final scene. The mountain-sized octopus sank back into the water. A whirlpool swallowed the last wreckage. Then the river smoothed out again beneath the moon, ripples glimmering—ship gone without a trace.
After a while…
"What was that thing?" Angoulême's voice was hoarse, still carrying the edge of fear. She wasn't inexperienced—ghouls, nekkers, even a kikimora wouldn't rattle her. But something that big was just unfair. It made you want to scold it, and yet you didn't have the courage.
"Looked like an octopus. A very big octopus," Victor said with a calm smile, delivering a joke that wasn't funny at all. "Big enough that one tentacle could feed us for days."
Angoulême, unlike Lambert, did not appreciate icy humor. She just shot Victor a look.
Not getting the relaxation he'd hoped for, Victor cleared his throat. "Whatever it was, we're walking to Flotsam now. Luckily, it shouldn't be too far."
Angoulême stood up and checked her gear—then yelped. "Ah! Your magic herb bag! Did it fall in the water? Did you lose it?"
When they'd hit the river, everything had happened too fast, and Victor had been focused on saving her. He hadn't worried about the bag—he'd figured he'd find a quiet moment and retrieve it. He didn't expect Angoulême to notice first.
But that was a side detail. Victor tilted his head at her. The point was: "How do you know it's a magic herb bag?"
"Ciri told me," the wild girl said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Heat crept up Victor's face. So she'd known all along—meaning a lot of his "covering up" probably looked ridiculous to her.
Ciri knowing was only natural. After living together half a year, Victor hadn't exactly hidden it. Back then, he hadn't even imagined he'd ever be leaving home.
"What else did she tell you? Did you tell anyone else?" Victor pressed quickly.
"When we slept together, I asked her about you, so she told me." Angoulême spoke matter-of-factly. "She said her brother has a magic herb bag that can hold a ton of stuff." As she said it, she drew a circle in the air at her chest, about the size of a cubic meter. "You treasure it. You bring it everywhere. The potion that saved me came out of that bag."
"And as for you having a magic bag—of course that's the secret among secrets in our hansa. I'd rather die than tell anyone." Under the moonlight, her wet blond bangs clung to her forehead, and the certainty in her eyes was absolute.
Victor was moved—suddenly and sharply. Even if he would never trust someone like that, never be loyal like that, it didn't stop him from admiring it… and liking her all the more for it.
He relaxed, and he also realized a blind spot in his own thinking.
Magic in this world already included space-folding tricks—expansion spells and the like. So if people assumed his herb bag was magical, that was unusual, sure, but not a catastrophe.
What he truly needed to guard against were mages who actually understood such things—people who might discover his bag wasn't magic at all, but something stranger: an impossible artifact born of rules no one here should know.
So Victor straightened. He raised one hand as if supporting empty air. His voice rang clean and bright, his words tearing across the unseen.
He said, "Come."
A night breeze slid through the forest. Summer cicadas screamed, loud and endless.
He said, "Bag—come to me!"
And just like that—under Angoulême's stunned stare—ripples surged through empty space, blooming like circles on dark water. The herb bag appeared out of nowhere, settling neatly into Victor's hand.
"Huh?!" A short gasp of surprise rang out from the darkness—startling someone nearby, another witness to the impossible.
In an instant, Victor snapped, "Stop her!" With a single hook of his arm, he swung the herb bag onto his back and bolted toward the sound.
Angoulême didn't even wait for his command. She shot forward like an arrow, pure feral instinct—tracking at a speed far beyond Victor's.
Within minutes of Victor entering the trees, she was already far ahead. But as he kept moving in the same direction, he began to hear it: the distant clang of steel on steel.
Good.
Angoulême had caught up.