Leshen or Sorcerer?

"Huus?!"

Vesemir and Ailin exclaimed in disbelief almost simultaneously.

"That should be the name, right?" The plump priestess was a little uncertain, made by the two witchers' incredulous tone. "What's wrong, Sir Ailin, Master Vesemir? Don't you School of the Wolf have such a person?"

"Yes, yes, thank you," Vesemir said, snapping out of his daze.

"It's alright," the plump priestess waved her hand understandingly. "His injuries are quite severe, but Priestess Nannick has already sent someone to invite High Priest Ianna, so you don't need to worry too much. He'll definitely be fine."

"Thank you, thank you..."

The portly priest departed amidst the thanks of Vesemir and Ailin.

They walked straight toward the operating room.

"Vesemir, if I remember correctly, Huus, Bont, and Fred should have been with the same travel mentor, right?" Ailin asked with a grim expression.

"Hmm," Vesemir frowned as well, "After the Apprentice Combat Tournament between the School of the Wolf and the School of the Cat, there are no ordinary witchers left in Kaer Morhen. The only one who has the time and hasn't left is Master Dante."

"Huus, Bont, and Fred all traveled and underwent trials with Master Dante."

So here's the question...

Huus was seriously injured but was rescued by Lyra. What about Bont, Fred, and Master Dante?

"This shouldn't be happening, this shouldn't be happening," Vesemir muttered to himself, frowning. "Whether it's an ordinary witcher or Witcher Master, they rarely take on dangerous missions when they're traveling through trials and training apprentices..."

"We absolutely will not accept any requests involving large monsters."

"In the first year, we would even choose some main roads to take on simple tasks such as cleaning sewers in the city and eliminating water ghosts in the village."

"Dante has guided many witchers who have just passed the Trial of the Mountains. He is also an experienced Witcher Master. He should know the unspoken rules of the trials."

"How did it get like this?"

Vesemir couldn't understand what Dante had done to cause such a terrifying incident by bringing three witchers down the mountain.

Huus, Bont, and Fred are just ordinary witchers!

Could it be that they might also run into Greater Griffin, the Wild Hunt, and Evil God along the way?

Ailin was also frowning in thought.

He knew Master Dante.

Before the Trial of the Mountains, because his strength was already significantly inferior to that of Huus, Bont, and Fred, Vesemir allowed him a few days of free time before the Trial of the Mountains.

When Ailin wanted to leave Kaer Morhen to hunt monsters in the wild to improve his strength, Vesemir, who was unable to leave, asked Dante to accompany him.

He vividly remembered Dante's conservatism.

Not only did they find traces of small demons like the Foglet and the Fiend, preventing him from going deeper, Dante even kept him from going too far from the Ancient Sea Fortress.

In those five days— Ailin remembers it very clearly—he killed a total of twelve water ghosts, averaging two a day.

Let's just say it like this...

If Dante had replaced Vesemir as Ailin's travel guide, he would never have allowed Ailin to hunt and capture the Greater Griffin, much less allow him to ride a horse towards the Wraiths on May Festival.

He might even be in Ernie. After Klar and the others were turned into jade statues by the Shapeshifting Sealing Charm and abducted, they wouldn't listen to Ailin and go to ambush Vilgefortz.

therefore.

Ailin and Vesemir share the same doubts.

If it were any other Witcher Master, such as the hot-tempered Master Aristo, the vice-commander of the Witcher Company, there was a possibility that he might encounter injustice and lend a helping hand, only to have his temper flare up and offend some big boss.

But how could Dante, a Witcher Master is even more conservative than Vesemir and adheres to the School of the Wolf standard of "the battle is always over before the battle begins," have caused such serious consequences and whose fate is still unknown?

"Hiss~"

A strong smell of rust, mixed with formaldehyde, ether, and alcohol, wafted over from the mountain winds that surrounded the temple.

Ailin sniffed and gradually slowed her pace.

We've arrived at the operating room at the Temple of Melitele.

Nannick and a group of priests had just arrived at the operating room.

From behind the wooden door covered by a white sheet, commands and shouts to prepare for surgery could be heard.

"My God... he's just a child..." Ailin heard a woman's voice exclaim in surprise, probably because the gauze on Huus's face had been removed.

"The Witcher of the School of the Wolf, supposedly passed the trials in the same batch as Sir Ailin... Hand me the scissors... Shila..."

"... Scissors, Ms. Gisela ..."

"... Ah... the wounds have turned white from being soaked in water... I went through it with Sir Ailin... no wonder... the Witcher's Trial is really... we're all still children..."

"Silence! Don't talk nonsense!"

Nannick snapped.

After that, all that could be heard was the "snip, snip" of scissors cutting through the fabric and the sound of sharp objects slicing through skin.

Ailin and Vesemir exchanged a grave look.

"The priests are chatting, which at least means they are not in any immediate danger..." Vesemir comforted them.

Ailin nodded, took a deep breath, and quietly walked to the operating room door, pulling back the white curtain.

"Knock knock!"

There was a gentle knock on the wooden door.

"May Ailin and Vesemir of the School of the Wolf come in?"

There was a few seconds of silence in the operating room.

"Please come in!" Nannick said.

Ailin glanced at Vesemir and pushed open the door.

In an instant, the smells of formaldehyde, ether, and alcohol completely overpowered the strong stench of blood, wafting over the air.

Ailin hesitated for a moment while holding the doorknob, then pushed the door open.

Upon entering.

Nannick nodded slightly, and Lyra walked over, looking at him with concern.

On the cold hospital bed, Huus, whom I hadn't seen for months, was as pale as a dead man.

A gruesome wound opened on his forehead, and the pale skull was visible through the exposed flesh.

The wounds on his body were even more horrific, with claw marks everywhere, bite wounds from wild animals, and dark, indistinct acid corrosive wounds...

Surprisingly, the least serious injury was the one that exposed bone at the corner of his forehead.

"Clatter clatter~"

Ailin's hands were clenched tightly, her knuckles rubbing together.

"Ailin ..." Lyra walked over and stretched out her hands. "Huus is fine. He looks scary, but he's not in any danger."

Feeling the warmth of her hands being enveloped, Ailin looked down at Lyra, took a deep breath, and asked softly:

"Lyra, Xiu... Huus, where did you find him?"

Vesemir also turned his gaze away from Huus's horrific injuries and stared at Lyra.

The molten gold beast eyes flickered uneasily.

Seeing that Ailin didn't immediately shake off her hand, Lyra felt inexplicably relieved and said seriously, "It's a small village between La Valedi, Vizima, and Arland, by the Pontar River."

"High Priest Ianna arranged for me to go to Vizima... to do some things, and on my way back I passed through La Valedi and rested for the night."

"This morning, just as I was about to return, the fishermen in the village suddenly shouted that they had caught a person. When they carried him back to the village, they found that it was Huus."

"As for the others..."

Lyra frowned slightly and shook her head. "The villagers only brought Huus. I saw that he was badly injured, so I bandaged him up and used Divine Art to stop the bleeding before rushing back."

"Should there be anyone else here?"

"Yes, there should be three more people, three Witchers from the School of the Wolf ..." Ailin exchanged a solemn glance with Vesemir.

Upon hearing this, Lyra pursed her lips. "I'm sorry, Huus was seriously injured at the time, and I was in a hurry to get back, so I didn't go to the river..."

"It's not your fault," Ailin shook her head, interrupting her self-blame. "Huus survived thanks to you."

He just looked at it.

Given Huus' current injuries, if he hadn't encountered Lyra and spent a little time in La Valedi, he would have surely died a violent death.

Lyra breathed a sigh of relief, her lips curving upwards for a fleeting moment before quickly settling into a smile.

"Lyra, do you know Huus?" Vesemir suddenly asked, puzzled.

"A few months ago, I sent..." Lyra glanced at the priests, young and old, around her who were holding their breath and pricking up their ears, and paused awkwardly, "I met Lady Vesemir a few times before she sent me to the temple, so I know her."

So it wasn't Huus who revealed his identity... Vesemir immediately felt a bit awkward.

He thought it was Huus who revealed his identity after being rescued and awakened.

This might reveal the whereabouts of other people.

But now...

"Duh~duh~"

The priest, or rather the temple physician, used a sharp scalpel to remove the white, pus-filled, rotting flesh and the skin corroded by acid, and then used needles and thread to stitch up the wound.

The steel needle pierced the skin, making a strange sound as it passed through the tough cowhide.

Huus ' eyebrows twitched uneasily, and his lips twitched, as if he felt pain, but he did not wake up.

"...an irregular cut on the forehead...an oval bruise on the upper right arm..." Vesemir approached, his dark golden Cat Eyes scanning Huus's wounds, then he sniffed them lightly. "After falling into the water, he was swept by the strong current and hit sharp rocks..."

"There was the smell of a water ghost... In order to avoid the water ghost, I accidentally bumped into a sharp rock at the bottom of the river... That must have been when I was knocked unconscious..."

"... the bruises faded... it happened around dawn this morning..."

Vesemir stepped back to the side, avoiding the doctor who had unconsciously taken a step back.

He glanced at Ailin, who had followed, then swept his gaze over the priests who had not objected to their actions, before continuing his analysis:

"... canine bite marks on the arm... a laceration from bottom to top... the depth and size... should be from an ordinary wolf..."

"... the corrosion marks on the back... are too faded to be discernible by the water flow..."

"... A penetrating wound in the shoulder... but the wound is off-center... the attack was probably aimed at the heart, but the Quen Shield shattered and deflected the attack..."

"... It must have been the one who launched this attack who held off Dante... no... it should be said that Dante held it off..."

"... leg entanglement and abrasions..."

Ailin listened attentively to Vesemir's analysis.

He has almost reached the pinnacle of the Witcher profession.

He was proficient in both swordsmanship and magic signs. While his swordsmanship might be somewhat lacking, his magic signs were already at the average level of Witcher Master, even for the School of the Wolf, which did not specialize in this area.

Only in the Monster Economics, especially in identifying the attacker's identity from the marks on wounds—a kind of professional knowledge that requires a lot of practice and cannot be recognized, recorded, or upgraded in the Witcher's Handbook —is he far inferior to experienced old witchers like Vesemir.

After Vesemir finished his analysis, Ailin glanced at the priest and physician in the operating room out of the corner of his eye and asked in a voice only the two witchers could hear:

"Vesemir, what do you think they encountered? Could it be a male witch?"

Vesemir's analysis just now didn't mention any injuries related to warlock spells, but it was really strange that a team led by a cautious Witcher Master was so badly injured.

It's probably correct to steer the suspect toward the male witch.

"I'm not so sure," Vesemir said hesitantly, looking away. "It doesn't look like an injury caused by a warlock, but I can't be sure..."

After all, wounds can be faked.

Huus wasn't particularly strong. It wouldn't be difficult for a male sorcerer, a master of the School of the Wolf Witcher Master, to deliberately inflict some wounds on Huus.

Who knows, Huus was deliberately released by the male wizard, but no one could have imagined that he would happen to run into Lyra.

"However, the pack of wolves and the piercing wound that pierced Quen seemed more like the Leshen spirit who could use innate magic to control the animals and plants within its territory. It summoned wolves to attack Huus and then used sharp branches that had been unearthed from the ground to pierce his leg, but..."

Vesemir paused for a moment.

"But what?" Ailin asked.

"But this corrosion is strange," Vesemir said, pointing to the wound on Huus's body where the hideous black scar had been removed, "It shouldn't be something Leshen could control, whether it's an animal, a plant, or rather a monster, that could cause such deep corrosion..."

"Could it be another monster that Huus encountered while escaping?" Ailin didn't insist on the warlock's theory. After all, warlocks have many methods, and there's no point in discussing it if we keep focusing on this point.

Moreover, upon closer reflection, although the warlock is still very suspicious, it is not in line with the usual style of the arrogant warlock who has always looked down on demon hunters to deliberately hide his tracks like this.

To put it another way...

The experienced Dante, along with three apprentices who had just come down from the mountain, stumbled into the territory of the Leshen, which was even stranger.

In the Witcher universe, Leshen, who are similar to demigods, typically have territories in remote, uninhabited wilderness.

How could Master Dante have led Huus and the others so deep?

"Possibly," Vesemir nodded, not denying it. "We'll have to wait for Huus to find out exactly what attacked them, but..."

His brows furrowed in worry as he leaned close to Ailin's ear and whispered, "Huus ' surgery will probably take quite a while. Perhaps we should fly to La Valedy first and look for Bont, Fred, and Dante?"

Fly to La Valedi...

Ailin gazed at the battered and bruised Huus, pondered for a moment, and then shook his head.

"Wait, Mother Ianna, she should have a way to wake Huus up earlier..."

"Tap tap tap~"

The sound of hurried footsteps grew louder as they approached.

The conversation between the two Witcher Master was interrupted, and they both looked toward the doorway.

Ianna has arrived.