Beautiful Elsa

Hearing Vesemir's words, Ailin froze for a moment.

He stopped in his tracks and glanced at the sword in his hand.

Though it was a training sword for apprentices, with no decorative patterns on its hilt or guard, its blade did not have a single nick, and its body had been polished bright as a mirror.

A fine sword, but not a silver sword.

Ailin thought back for a moment.

When fighting drowners in the game, he had indeed used a silver sword, though it had switched automatically.

So steel swords could not kill drowners?

"Our apprentice is certainly confident. He has only just passed the Trial of Grasses, yet he already dares challenge a drowner with a steel sword."

Vesemir mocked him before speaking in a deep voice.

"Remember this, Apprentice Ailin. If you lose, I will have you polish every sword in Kaer Morhen until it shines!"

Before his mind could react, his ears had already caught the key words.

Ailin instinctively replied.

"What if I win?"

Vesemir was dumbfounded by the question and muttered, "If you win?"

He had not expected this apprentice to be so bold. Not only had Ailin dared to daydream during his lesson.

With a monster right in front of him, he even had the nerve to provoke a Witcher Master.

At that moment, Vesemir even wondered whether Ailin was not deliberately provoking him at all, but whether the grass decoction had poisoned his brain.

"Yeah! What if he wins?"

Witcher Leto at Vesemir's side chimed in gleefully.

"Ha ha ha, exactly! Vesemir, what if our apprentice wins?"

More than a dozen witcher companions watching from the sidelines joined in the heckling.

Vesemir was trapped.

His face flushed red, and he casually drew the "steel sword" from his back before roaring at Ailin.

"If you win, the sword in my hand is yours!"

The instant those words fell, the training ground erupted.

Witcher Leto, standing beside Vesemir, gaped in shock.

"Have you lost your mind?"

"That is your Elsa, a dwarven masterwork worth 17,325 Oren."

"You still have not repaid the 3,000 Oren you borrowed from me for that silver sword."

Vesemir's face darkened as he raised the "steel sword" before his eyes.

Its bright, crystalline blade had clearly received meticulous care from its owner. Its guard bore openwork carvings, while its silvery-white edge looked sharp enough to cut skin with a glance.

Clearly, Vesemir had drawn the wrong sword.

The steel sword worth a little over three hundred Oren was still obediently sheathed on his back.

None of the apprentices knew what 17,325 Oren meant. Ever since they could remember, they had never left Kaer Morhen.

But the surrounding witchers knew.

The moment they heard that number, the training ground exploded with noise.

"17,325 Oren? I worked myself to death taking contracts this year and only saved 500 Oren!"

"That is not bad. I did not earn a single coin this year, and after injuries and equipment repairs, I actually lost 234 Oren..."

"As expected of the youngest Witcher Master in nearly a century..."

Vesemir's heart bled.

If there had only been a few apprentices present, he could naturally have simply claimed that he had taken out the wrong sword.

But now,

Everyone had hoisted him from the tip of Kaer Morhen's castle tower to the clouds floating year-round above the Blue Mountains.

And written upon those pure white clouds in ornate script were the words: "The youngest Witcher Master in a century."

He could not get down.

"That is only if he can win," Vesemir stubbornly said. "He has just undergone the Trial of Grasses, has not learned a single Sign, and is even using a steel sword against a drowner."

"If he can still win under those circumstances, what does it matter if I give him this sword?"

The other witchers did not take Vesemir's promise seriously either.

As the most common type of monster, each of them had killed no fewer than a hundred drowners.

They naturally knew how difficult it was to fight one with only a steel sword.

That apprentice could not possibly win!

In the apprentice training ground, Ailin felt somewhat uneasy after asking that question.

He had only reflexively argued out of habit.

But now that things had come this far,

The iron-green look on the Witcher Master's face made it clear that he would not accept any explanation before Ailin lost the battle.

From Vesemir to the apprentices to the watching witchers, everyone believed he would lose.

But,

Ailin did not think so.

As he focused, his consciousness seemed to invade some sort of aura surrounding the monster.

At the edge of his vision.

The icon for his monster-hunting skill flickered continuously, its color slowly changing from white to red.

Monster Hunt Progress 9%

The webbed sharp claw tore through the air and slashed straight at Ailin's face.

A rotten, muddy stench rushed toward him, nauseating him.

Ailin stared fixedly at the drowner's body. He stepped back with his right foot and bent low to evade its lunging right claw, then followed the memory in his body, spun, and savagely slashed at the drowner's back.

Seeing Ailin's fluid attack, Vesemir's displeasure lessened somewhat. He commented to the apprentices beside him.

"That is right. Rotation is the essence of School of the Wolf swordsmanship. Imagine yourself as a long whip. Rotation brings speed and power."

"Ailin's movements are extremely precise. It is just a pity..."

The apprentice who had just woken up did not hear what came next. Rubbing his eyes, he asked.

"A pity about what?"

Vesemir glanced sideways at the apprentice and ignored him.

However, the apprentices no longer needed Vesemir's answer.

The sharp steel sword carried the force of the rotation. The moment it struck the drowner's back, it was like chopping into hard leather slicked with oil. After leaving only a shallow mark, it slid up the monster's smooth back and into the sky.

This strike feels strange, Ailin thought.

He felt that the blade had indeed cut through something. It was not the monster's skin, but something invisible to the naked eye, something that felt like gel when struck.

"It is Chaos Magic."

As though he knew what Ailin was thinking, Vesemir's voice came from behind him.

"Chaos Magic protects every creature favored by It. Only silver, which represents order, can ignore this protection."

Then,

Vesemir's tone softened somewhat as he continued.

"Seeing as you have practiced your swordsmanship well enough, you may switch to a silver sword and continue."

"What about the wager?" Witcher Leto asked.

"Nonsense. Of course it is off."

The Witcher Master rolled his eyes and glared irritably at Witcher Leto.

"I want to try again," Ailin replied.

Vesemir said nothing.

The watching witchers also fell silent, their noisy discussions coming to a halt.

After a while, a few people even left the training ground in disappointment.

Ailin did not see any of that.

He was staring at the drowner's blue body as it slowly crawled back to its feet.

Still, Ailin could imagine what the onlookers were thinking: greed, overestimating himself...

Indeed, under normal circumstances, he should have given up.

His attacks could not break through its defenses. If he relied purely on strength to wear it down, it was hard to say whether the monster would tire to death first or Ailin would.

But the key was that Ailin's situation was not normal.

On the surface, that strike had not only done little damage, but had nearly made Ailin lose his balance after putting all his strength into it.

But in reality,

Monster Hunt Progress 63%

"Go, Ailin!"

The sleepyhead who had been sleeping behind Ailin earlier shouted at him.

His name was Huus. He was two years younger than Ailin and the only friend the original owner of this body had in Kaer Morhen.

Ailin merely nodded without speaking.

Because the drowner had lunged at him again.

Rather than retreating, Ailin charged forward. He stepped in and swiftly slashed again, still failing to break through its defenses.

But then.

"Ding!"

Monster Hunt Progress 100%

Time instantly froze at that moment, and everything around him became a motionless painting.

In the painting, the whites of the drowner's eyes were densely threaded with blood vessels, and yellow saliva stretched in strands from its bared fangs.

A red line suddenly appeared in the center.

A powerful intuition guided Ailin to cut along that line.

So,

Like a child's paintbrush, the sharp edge traced the red line and lightly drew a straight stroke across the painting.

The drowner's neck happened to appear at the end of that red line.

It was as though it knew the painting lacked a certain color to be complete, and so willingly offered itself up.

"Pshht!"

The painting moved. Black, filthy blood sprayed from between the drowner's body and severed head.

"Thud!"

Ailin's exhausted body collapsed onto the headless corpse.

A mechanical voice sounded in his ears at the same time.

"Ding."

Monster "Drowner" subjugated!

Reward calculation:...

"Ailin!" Huus shouted anxiously.

"Vesemir! Hurry!"

Before Witcher Leto could finish his warning, Vesemir had already rushed forward.

Then, about half a meter away from Ailin, he stopped.

Watching Ailin slowly climb to his feet, then glancing at the drowner whose head and body lay apart, Vesemir could scarcely believe it.

"My apprentice... actually won."

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