In This World, Anyone Can Disappear, Can't They?

Necrophage Oil... What could possibly be special about a potion formula created by a witcher...

Though Berendir Roglides had studied some alchemy at Ban Ard, it had only been a little.

Agostino Austin's disdainful expression made Berendir Roglides want to mock him for making excuses for the Golden Griffin's incompetence.

But the name Golden Griffin itself represented a certain pinnacle—a pinnacle in the field of alchemy.

The reasoning was simple.

The Golden Griffin was an extraordinary organization with close ties to the Riedanian royal family. Under the current restrictions of the Brotherhood of Sorcerers and the Novigrad Compact, sorcerers were not permitted to be openly recruited into warfare.

So why would a kingdom's king spend such a great price maintaining ties with the Golden Griffin?

Sorcerers were expensive.

Hiring fees were only a minor part of it. The real expense lay in experiments, knowledge, and development.

The cost of training a high-ranking mage from scratch was enough to build half a proper knightly order.

Did generations of Riedanian kings spend so much merely because the Golden Griffin's origins were closely connected to the Riedanian royal family?

Impossible.

The Riedanian royal family was willing to do this because the Golden Griffin could provide greater value—and because it demanded that the Golden Griffin demonstrate sufficient value.

And when they could not involve themselves in war, only alchemy could provide such value.

Therefore.

The Golden Griffin's alchemical standards were exceptionally high, and most of its members were alchemists. It could almost be called a purely alchemical organization.

Magical perfumes, anti-aging potions, antidotes, and a whole series of highly practical concoctions were all rated extremely highly under the Brotherhood of Sorcerers' evaluation system, and had been sold to the estates of nearly every wealthy noble.

Agostino Austin's assessment of Necrophage Oil made even Berendir