Ruthless, Cruel, and Unreasonable

Victor: "Leave. I never want to see you again!"

Angoulême: "No! I won't leave! I don't want to leave you!"

Victor: "Get out of here right now, or I'd rather die here!"

Angoulême: "You're actually telling me to leave... You're heartless?! You're cruel?! You're being completely unreasonable!"

Victor: "How am I heartless?! How am I cruel?! How am I being unreasonable?!"

Angoulême: "How are you not heartless?! How are you not cruel?! How are you not being unreasonable?!"

Victor: "No matter how heartless?! How cruel?! How unreasonable?! I might be, I'll never be more heartless?! More cruel?! More unreasonable than you!"

Angoulême: "I'm more heartless?! More cruel?! More unreasonable than you?! You're the most heartless?! Cruel?! Unreasonable person I've ever met!"

Victor: "Hmph! I'm definitely not as heartless?! Not as cruel?! Not as unreasonable as you!"

Angoulême: "Fine! Since you say I'm heartless?! Cruel?! Unreasonable?! Then I'll show you heartless?! I'll show you cruel! I'll show you unreasonable!"

"Fucking idiot!" The enraged domineering CEO could no longer stand it. He hurled the cup in his hand at the screen. "And they dare call this a slight adaptation based on historical fact? Other than the names, everything has been utterly mangled!

"No, even the names have been changed! And the Battle of Bluewater Lake wasn't about people flirting and falling in love at all. Most absurd of all, tell me—what normal person talks like this?

"You should know that adaptation isn't fabrication! Dramatization isn't—"

His cursing gradually faded into silence, because the ordinary woman had slapped the pause button on the television. Her large eyes, still glistening with moved tears, were glaring at the domineering CEO.

Pouting unhappily, she said, "If you don't want to watch, you don't have to force yourself. I never asked you to watch it with me!"

Ah! Damn it, why was this woman's angry expression so sweet?!

Woman, you have piqued my interest!

And so, for love, the domineering CEO ultimately gave in and sat back down to continue watching with her. He convinced himself that, at the very least, the show's aesthetics were normal enough to be comforting—the actress playing the Sage of Kindling was beautiful enough.

Even if they had changed the gender, they could not stray too far from the peerless, ethereal beauty and unmatched grace explicitly recorded in the history books—at the sight of a "sage," one's thoughts turned to spring.

After spending quite a while talking Angoulême into finally leaving, Victor rested by the lake for a moment. He stretched, put the alchemical materials she had brought into his herb pouch, then rose and walked over to Tylles's corpse.

The knight's face, bleeding from all eight orifices, could not be called peaceful no matter what. The extra orifice was the heavenly eye the girl had opened in his forehead. Still, all three eyes had at least closed in the end.

He picked up the faceplate, which had only been slightly deformed by the Honeycomb's impact. Its hardness suggested that it had been specially alloyed with a small amount of black steel. The knight's upper-body armor also bore marks left by gunpowder. The youth packed all those pieces away.

His death had truly caused Victor a huge fucking problem. He really should not have gone downstairs yesterday to ask the commoners which direction had the better scenery. Faced with Tylles's generous payment, there were simply too many people in the temple willing to sell Victor out.

That led to one conclusion: someone had seen the witcher apprentice go to Bluewater Lake today, and someone knew that Tylles had gone there to cause trouble for the witcher apprentice. Angoulême's suggestions of disposing of the corpse or fleeing far away had therefore become meaningless.

After checking to make sure he had left behind no traces that should not be there, Victor filled Tylles's waterskin and washed the blood from his face. As death loosened the once taut and savage features, the face regained its valiant look.

Limping away from the shore of Bluewater Lake, the youth felt a little guilty. This time, he would have to ask Mother Nenneke for help again.

Seven days later, Count Morne, Falwick of the Order of the White Rose, stormed out of the temple's main hall in indignation without looking back, headed straight for the stables, mounted his horse, and left.

That manner seemed to acknowledge Melitele's judgment, but the hatred in the glance he cast at the witcher apprentice before leaving left a deep impression on Victor, who stood at the main hall's entrance.

Trouble. It seemed this was not over yet.

"Believe me, this ain't over. If I were you, I wouldn't even have waited these seven days for him to come knocking. I'd have started running that very day—run far, far away and hide back in Mahakam." Kramer, the dwarven captain of the guards, strolled over to Victor's side as he spoke.

"And let the count issue a warrant for me on the grounds of fleeing out of guilt? So that I would have nowhere left to stay in all of Temeria?"

Victor shook his head.

"Thanks to King Foltest and the protection of fair law, at least now he can't drag an innocent man like me to the gallows over Knight Tylles's bizarre death."

"Pah!" The dwarf spat. "Don't try feeding me that crap. If you, you dog-fucker, believed in the king and the law, you wouldn't be standing here now—you'd already be lying in the morgue.

"Someone saw you go to the lakeshore that day; someone can testify that you came back badly injured; and Tylles died at the lakeshore that very day. Before he died, he spent the whole day sniffing around your ass, getting ready to give you a hard kick.

"What other evidence do you need?"

"Fortunately, the benevolent Goddess Melitele sees all. I—Victor Corleone—have never killed anyone or taken any life.

"Though this rite of verification has not been performed for a long time, it is explicitly recorded in the code. You saw with your own eyes the divine oracle bestowed by the goddess: I am an 'Unblemished One.' Everyone must recognize its validity. It proves that I did not kill Tylles."

"Ah... right... I saw it. But that doesn't mean much. At most, it proves you didn't do it yourself. What if you had accomplices?

"Falwick knows, and I know too: a hawk often flies into your window! Sooner or later, I'll find that hawk!"

"Esteemed Captain, how can you so readily believe the nonsense of those commoners? For a reward of five Orens, if the count needs them to, they could make up stories about griffins or wyverns."

The dwarf's iron-gray eyes did not waver in the slightest.

"Listen, witcher apprentice Victor. Let's skip all that fancy probing and be honest!

"We both know exactly what happened. But since the prince doesn't care about Tylles's death, neither do I. In fact, I'm rather glad that dog-fucker got himself killed.

"Now, I'm a fair dwarf, so first I'm telling you this: get the hell out of Ellander, and the sooner the better. Murderers aren't welcome here!

"Second, because of the fine work you did, I'll give you a warning. Falwick has quite a few mercenaries under him with dirty hands, so run fast! Once they catch you, their methods will make the gallows feel as blissful as heaven."

After hearing the dwarf out, Victor pinched the bridge of his nose and thought for a moment.

Then he gave a slight bow. "Thank you... I will remember your advice, Captain Kramer."