The Most Feared Thing is the Sudden Silence

Vizima — Temple District — Outside Kalkstein's Alchemy Workshop

"Kalkstein is an eccentric alchemist who rarely appears in public. His income mainly comes from supplying several nobles with potions of unknown contents over the long term. They say he is extremely difficult to get along with, and almost no one can hold a normal conversation with him..."

Angoulême stopped there.

"Mm... mm-hm... and then?"

"There is no more."

The air suddenly went quiet.

Then Victor raised his voice slightly. "That's it? Are you kidding me? This introduction might as well not exist! I had you come here ten days early, and this is what you got me?"

"It's not my fault, Captain. This is all the information I could gather from the people nearby. You also said not to contact him beforehand, that we couldn't let him form a preconceived opinion of us. What was I supposed to do?" Angoulême replied, looking both wronged and aggrieved.

Just when he had thought his crew members were improving, reality slapped the captain in the face.

With no better option, the youth examined the unremarkable-looking house. Only the name Kalkstein hanging on the door proved that this famed alchemist lived here.

They were already here, so there was no point overthinking it. The captain led his two crew members inside. The first floor had the layout of an ordinary residence and was empty, but the faint sounds of an argument drifted up from the basement.

After considering it for a moment, Victor waved for Angoulême to wait on the first floor and descended the stairs to the basement alone. The medicinal smell grew stronger along the way. Apparently, Kalkstein shared his views on alchemy and had built his facilities underground as well.

As he went down, the voices arguing became clearer. They seemed to be discussing the plague. Rounding a screen, the youth stopped in his tracks. Two men seated across from each other came into view, an extremely contrasting pair...

One was rather short, with a thick, long goatee and long hair combed back to reveal a broad forehead. His facial features showed slight atavistic traits.

The other was lean and tall, with fluffy short curls and a slightly hooked nose. Yet the neatly groomed square mustache beneath it lent him a certain charm.

"Listen, Alexander, the method you have in mind simply won't work..."

"No, no, no! Kalkstein, shut up and at least let me finish. My point is..."

They were so engrossed in their discussion that they failed to notice Victor's arrival.

The youth did not interrupt them, though. He stood quietly where he was and did not take another step forward, because his Wolf School medallion was trembling faintly, warning him of magic.

With a casual glance, Victor spotted several magical traps that had not even been concealed. Clearly, this master alchemist was no novice when it came to magic, and the laboratory's defenses extended far beyond what was visible.

Continuing his inspection, he found that the spacious alchemy workshop had bookshelves along one wall and tools along the other two. Extraction flasks, grinding mortars, mixing beakers, fermentation barrels, distillers, and filtering pots were all present. And, naturally, in the middle of the room stood the boiling cauldron indispensable to alchemy and every witch.

Imagining himself working here, the youth believed he would enjoy its clean, convenient feel. He decided to model his own alchemy workshop after Kalkstein's arrangement.

"...In short, Kal, aside from known contact with patients or corpses and splattered pus or blood, there must be another medium playing a decisive role. Otherwise, Catriona Plague could not have spread so far..."

"Mm... water, air... The most likely possibility is a living carrier. And whether that carrier itself is affected by the plague is difficult to say..."

At that point, the air abruptly fell silent, and both men sank into thought.

Just then, an unfamiliar voice broke the stillness. "It's rats!"

Kalkstein turned toward the source of the voice with some surprise, then calmly refuted him. "We considered rats long ago, but we found no symptoms of illness in them, nor any traces of rat bites on the bodies of the original patients!"

Alexander also looked up in surprise. He saw that the speaker was a young man who could not have been older than twenty. He was dressed like a mercenary but carried an herbalist's satchel on his back, making for a somewhat mismatched appearance.

The young man paid no attention to Kalkstein's rebuttal. With a calm and confident expression, he continued, "No! Rats are exactly right. More precisely, the fleas on rats.

Fleas biting humans are the primary means by which Catriona Plague spreads."

Catriona was the name of the Nilfgaardian ship that had brought this plague.

Most infected people suffered sudden inflammation in the groin, accompanied by redness, swelling, tenderness, and possibly rupturing pustules. A minority developed the symptoms under the armpits or around the neck instead.

At the tavern yesterday, based on the symptoms Shani had described—pus-filled swellings spreading across the body, grayish skin, and blackened limbs—Victor had instinctively thought of an ancient disease he had never personally witnessed: the Black Death, also known as the plague.

But the outstanding intellectuals of this era were not fools either. They had already adopted the correct preventive measures: cleaning homes to reduce contamination, indirectly eliminating rats, isolating infected patients, and burning the corpses of those who died from the disease. They had nearly done everything possible without antibiotics.

After hearing Shani out, Victor had had nothing else to add. They even had masks, though their design was a bit bizarre by modern standards.

In any case, once the answer—fleas biting humans—was spoken—

Kalkstein fell silent.

Alexander fell silent as well.

Then the tall Alexander abruptly leaped from his chair and loudly chanted a spell, opening a portal rippling with milky-white light. He moved so hurriedly that he did not spare Kalkstein another glance or even say goodbye before stepping through the portal and vanishing.

The atavistic-looking Kalkstein raised his head thoughtfully, waved away the glow of several magical traps, and gestured for Victor to come forward and sit.

Placing one hand over his chest, he said, "Alchemist Adalbertus Aloysius Kalkstein. Who are you, stranger? What brings you here?"

Victor placed one hand over his chest and bowed in return. "Victor Corleone, from Bell Town east of Zerrikania. An alchemy apprentice, here in search of the wisdom of alchemy." Then he took a seat.

A smile appeared on Kalkstein's atavistic face. "From where I stand, you have already displayed considerable wisdom. For you to unsettle Alexander so badly, the notion of fleas biting humans must be a valuable one indeed."

"Unfortunately, it is not my own wisdom. My homeland, too, was once threatened by Catriona Plague.

And even now, there is no guaranteed cure. It can only be allowed to subside naturally through public health measures."

The alchemist nodded. "No matter. That is Alexander's field of research. I was merely discussing it with him. Now, let us speak of your request.

Since you call yourself an alchemy apprentice and have come here seeking alchemical wisdom, then we shall converse in the manner of alchemists.

Tell me: what do you believe an alchemist is? Let me warn you first—if your answer does not satisfy me, you may leave."

The question had come completely out of nowhere. But combining Angoulême's unreliable advance investigation before they entered, the discussion he had overheard afterward, and Kalkstein's current manner and way of speaking, the youth had enough to form a rough outline of the alchemist's personality.

A naive, pure, obsessive scientist pursuing his own goals.

So Victor said, "An alchemist is a seeker of truth."