This is an unenlightened era

It was obvious that Lambert's flavorful, dazzling entrance last night had not gone over well with the owner, who was neither limping nor named Kate. So the next day, the witcher and the boy promptly left the Limping Kate Tavern. After having their armor lightly repaired at the blacksmith's, they left the city and continued their journey to Ban Ard.

Ard Carraigh and Ban Ard were both among Kaedwen's foremost metropolises, so the road connecting them was naturally in excellent condition. Even Faithful ran with light, brisk steps, proudly lifting his head into the wind like a pedigreed steed.

At night... as usual, they camped by the roadside. After finishing their daily sparring practice, the two sat around the campfire. Dinner was rabbit stew with wild vegetables, a limited special personally prepared by Victor.

"Have I ever told you how much I admire your new hairstyle?" Lambert smacked his lips, still wanting more after draining the last drop of broth from his bowl.

Victor had finished eating long ago and was crushing plants gathered along the way to make a simple ointment. Hearing that, he replied irritably, "If you're planning to make fun of me, I suggest you think again. An M-shaped bald spot has no right to laugh at anyone else's hairstyle."

"Bullshit. Vic, you can't be prickly like a hedgehog, assuming the worst whenever someone says something. Your old mushroom cut wasn't bad either, but your new hairstyle is clearly better.

"It's a side part too, but yours looks far better than Eskel's. This style really suits you. I mean it, sincerely!" Lambert sounded indignant, wearing the expression of a man who had suffered the greatest injustice in the world.

Victor shot him a suspicious glance, then shook his head. "Fine, I apologize. You haven't started making fun of me yet, after all. I was engaging in preventive self-defense. And as for being 'prickly,' right back at you!"

Having received the apology, Lambert said with satisfaction, "Yeah, shame your face is too ordinary to deserve such an excellent hairstyle."

Victor's calm face plainly said that this was exactly what he had expected. "One day, that mouth of yours is going to get you hanged."

The witcher merely shrugged unconcernedly.

"By the way, what's that ointment you're making for?"

"Secret."

"What's this ointment for?" Victor asked curiously, reaching out to take the small box being handed to him.

"For lubrication. Apply it to the insides of your thighs. It works very well," Vesemir said kindly.

This conversation had taken place in the stables the day before they left Kaer Morhen.

The experienced old man had not only given him the ointment, but also the recipe. It mostly called for common roadside herbs, while the fat used had no particular restrictions. Victor, who was about to undertake a long journey on horseback for the first time, had been deeply grateful.

The boy could fully imagine that if chafing broke his skin and Lambert found out, he would grin as brilliantly as Yao Ming. He was the sort of awkward person who liked to express concern through rudeness, like an elementary school boy bullying a little girl.

After wiping his steel sword with a soft dry cloth and applying a thin layer of sword oil, the witcher lay on his back with his head resting on his pack. Stars glittered overhead, and Winter's Maiden hung high in the sky.

"Hey, Vic, tell old Lambert—why do you want to become a mage?"

"What? After saying something weird, is it time for a heart-to-heart between men now?" Victor had long since lain down after finishing the ointment, wrapped tightly in his warming cloak.

"I'm just curious. It's fine if you don't want to say."

"Isn't it natural for men to want power?... Mages are the strongest."

"..."

"What about you? Why don't you like mages?"

The witcher fell silent for several seconds.

"...Because mages are evil, I suppose," he said.

"Evil!?"

"Many people say witchers lose human emotions because of their mutations, but some mages are the ones who truly have no emotions. For example... do you know about the Curse of the Black Sun?"

"I read about it in a book. The prophecy of Etibald, the mad mage. The blood of sixty girls born during eclipses will awaken the witch Lilith, and her arrival will destroy the world."

Victor said it casually. He found it difficult to take such nonsensical prophecies seriously. Aside from Ithlinne's Prophecy, which was basically the game's main plot synopsis...

"Right. Of course Victor from Bell Town doesn't believe in such things, but plenty of people are willing to. To prevent the Curse of the Black Sun from coming true, some mages preached that every girl born during an eclipse should be killed immediately.

"Some mages went around capturing girls born during eclipses, killing and dissecting them. Some were even subjected to vivisection. All to study the unproven mutations in their bodies." By the end, there was a faint killing intent in Lambert's voice.

"You... saw these things yourself?"

The witcher said, "The preaching in the first part was once very popular throughout the Northern Kingdoms. Many people believed it and acted on it, and even now, traces of that poison remain in the countryside.

"As for the dissections in the second part, Geralt told me about them. More than ten years ago, a mage in Blaviken was being hunted by his enemies and wanted Geralt's help. While trying to persuade him, the mage mentioned that he had once visited a dissection."

"...Every group has its rotten apples..." the boy sighed softly.

Lambert said coldly, "They stand above everyone else, as though they are always right. Yet no one has to take responsibility for the tragedies their irresponsible prophecies bring into this world.

"You know, witchers... often receive all kinds of strange contracts. Some people even think we're assassins. They say the two swords on a witcher's back—the silver sword is for monsters, and the steel sword is for people."

"Uh... isn't that how it works!?" Even now, the boy still hummed that Velen swamp tune—Steel for humans.

"Of course it fucking isn't! Some monsters can only be brought down by silver swords, while steel swords are the bane of other monsters.

"...Anyway... a few times, ignorant peasants and even nobles who believed in the Curse of the Black Sun asked me to deal with so-called 'sources of the curse.' Some of those poor girls were imprisoned in towers, while others were beaten and persecuted until they barely looked human, all because they were born at the wrong time!" The witcher's voice grew lower and lower as he spoke.

Victor said, "And what did you do with those contracts?"

The air fell silent for a while.

"I left...

"I couldn't do anything...

"It wasn't my job.

Neither killing them nor saving them."

Victor looked up at the sky. Pegasus stood to the left of Winter's Maiden. No matter the world, horses were humanity's close companions, and so people had been willing to leave them a place in the heavens through their imagination.

Victor said softly, "There are always some good mages."

"Yeah... like Yenne—no. Even if she's gone, I'm not going to say anything nice about her.

Take Merigold, for instance! At least she sincerely helped us look after Ciri. She treated Geralt well, and she was willing to get along with us properly. When she talked, she knew enough to look people in the eye.

But more mages are like Yennefer—so stuck-up they look down on everyone through their nostrils, with that ridiculous sense of superiority. As if the whole world were full of fools and only she was smart, so everyone had to listen to her.

Only an idiot like Geralt would let her wrap him around her finger!"

"Triss really is a good woman," Victor agreed, sounding as though he knew her well.

That left Lambert somewhat puzzled. "You know Merigold?"

"Triss Merigold—the Fourteenth of the Hill. You mentioned that she was there when Geralt died, so afterward I specifically asked Vesemir about her." The boy really had asked. Asking questions whose answers he already knew was a good habit.

"Yeah, she's good in most respects, but her obsession with politics is annoying. Nothing but schemes, conspiracies, and filthy politics. Still, mages are all like that. They always think the world would stop turning without them."

"All right. I'll never become that kind of arrogant mage, if I can become a mage at all."

"If you dare turn out like that, old Lambert will kick your ass!"

"Don't worry! The chances are slim anyway. Just like the medallion detected, I don't have a trace of magic in me."

"Try again?" Lambert tore off the witcher medallion shaped like a wolf's head and tossed it at Victor.

—It remained as steady as ever, showing no intention of trembling in the slightest.

The boy chuckled twice and tossed the medallion back to him.

"All right, I really need to sleep now."

Lambert rubbed his nose. "Don't despair. People need to have dreams. Maybe your talent is actually so powerful that it can't be sensed—lots of stories are written that way."