The Warmest Ray of Sunshine

After finishing his milk the next morning, Victor stepped out of the house with a tea egg clenched between his teeth and another in his hand, which he was still peeling. He planned to welcome this beautiful morning with a healthy, energetic jog through the city.

During last night's teaching experiment, Angoulême, being a girl who did not give up easily, had continued adding a second, third, and fourth egg after the first one showed no reaction...

Seeing how things were going, the young man rubbed his nose and let her persevere while he went to bed early to make up for the sleep he had missed the night before last.

Obviously, there had been no flash of light in the end. But after adding the salt and other spices the young man had prepared beforehand and left beside her, she had ultimately succeeded in "braising" a pot of tea eggs.

When he got up that morning and witnessed his companion's "success," the captain took two for breakfast and felt full and gratified.

There was nothing to be disappointed about. By the odds, this was a normal result for the second person in the witcher world to attempt Incredible Alchemy. Discovering talent would have been the unexpected outcome.

After all, even in the world of alchemy, Incredible Alchemy was a talent reserved for those chosen by fate.

Letting Angoulême take the test had not been a spur-of-the-moment decision, but one he had considered for a long time. First, she was one of the few people he had grown closest to since coming into this world. Second, if she could use alchemy, her natural disposition might well awaken some kind of voice of materials, allowing her to swiftly surpass him and become an alchemist.

This was the first version of Victor's theory: people with pure, natural hearts might be more likely to hear the voices of alchemical materials. For example, Grandma was an airhead, so she could use Listening to the Voices of All Things. Third Aunt also had a pure heart, so she could hear the voices of minerals.

As for himself... his thoughts were too complicated, so he could hear nothing.

Just think about it! If you could hear the voice of a material and have it personally tell you its functions, medicinal effects, and what it was best suited to become, your progress in alchemy would advance by leaps and bounds. After all, it would be impossible to use the wrong material.

Unfortunately, Angoulême did not possess incredible talent—

With light steps, Victor planned out his next few days as he ran, until the orderly line of poor people passing by the headquarters of the Order of the Flaming Rose caught his eye.

Since ancient times, there had been many kinds of good deeds. Though some might differ due to moral customs, "feeding the hungry" had always been defined as a good deed.

Before him, the Rose Knights were handing out bread under the organization of Knight Jacques. The captain himself had even come down to place bread into the hands of impoverished citizens. This was a charitable act that symbolized compassion.

Judging from the grateful looks in the poor people's eyes and the practiced way they received their portions, it was easy to infer that this was not the first time the event had been held. And after the bread was distributed, the crowd did not scatter at once, but gathered before a raised platform.

By then, Victor had already braced himself. Sure enough, the tall, burly Jacques stepped up onto it:

"Everyone gathered before me... you are starving, fearful, and uneasy... some mothers still clutch their children tightly to their breasts.

People of the Temple District, poverty and plague have driven you into desperate straits! So you turned to the Eternal Fire for aid, and now the Eternal Fire shall answer you through my hands..."

There was no need to listen any further. Victor turned and walked away; he could fully imagine what would come next.

As for the plague, Jacques would speak of specific public-health measures, such as keeping homes clean and burning items touched by the sick... all dressed up in religious language.

And as for poverty, it was all the fault of the nonhumans—those elves and dwarves! They had used conspiracies to steal honest people's jobs, then used lending to take the bread from kind people's mouths.

Though such claims were extreme and unreasonable, they were the answer the people wanted. They could not understand the other reasons, nor could they afford to provoke them.

To any human caught up in the situation, there seemed to be nothing wrong with such words. Even Angoulême thought he was rather decent: compassionate toward the poor, protective of the weak, and reasonable in his speech.

But Victor knew that Jacques was lighting a fire. Perhaps this very spark would ignite a powder keg that had long accumulated resentment.

Though he was uncertain whether Jacques was doing it deliberately or courting death through ignorance, enlightenment from his previous life told Victor that this fire would burn the Northern Kingdoms red. This was a dangerous man, and the young man quickened his pace to get as far away from him as possible.

At the same time, sunlight poured into the house, bathing the room in gold. Angoulême sat beside the window in her second-floor room, resting her cheek on her right hand against the frame as she stared blankly at the bustling morning street below. Her left hand absentmindedly teased Catherine.

I failed, she thought.

Though the captain always treated her like a fool, Angoulême felt that she understood quite a lot by now. Like that little rhyme from yesterday that barely counted as a mnemonic, coaxing her into cooking tea eggs—no matter how foolish she was, she knew ordinary cooking did not make food glow, okay?

Not to mention that during several previous wilderness camps, he had not even tried to hide it from her. He would take out a pot, start cooking something, and say he was doing alchemy. Normal alchemy did not glow either, okay?!

Back in Ellander, when she had gone to steal the formula, she had personally observed how others used all sorts of equipment for alchemy. The captain's method of tossing everything into a big pot and stewing it made absolutely no sense.

So she knew that kind of alchemy was the captain's core secret, just like his herb pouch that could hold so many things.

Which was why she was so disappointed in her failure.

The captain trusted her and wanted to share his core secret with her, but she had let him down.

Catherine chirped softly, her wings fluttering as if to comfort her.

Warmth filled her heart. "At least I still have you!" Angoulême suddenly threw both arms out and hugged the dodging-too-late Catherine to her chest.

Catherine only struggled slightly at first, then stopped moving and instead used her iron beak to tap and peck at the girl's ear until it tickled.

The girl and eagle played around for quite some time. Then Angoulême patted her cheeks and rallied herself, telling herself that despite this small setback, she, Angoulême Corleone, was still the indispensable chief enforcer of the Phantom Troupe.

After releasing Catherine, the girl went downstairs and saw that Victor had indeed already gone out for his jog. She had grown used to his discipline since Vergen. Angoulême picked up a tea egg from the table and peeled it as she ate, reading the note the young man had left behind.

"The braised tea eggs are delicious, but you made far too many.

After my jog, I'll head straight to the tavern to gather information. If you have nothing to do, you can go to the market and buy some things. See whether they have any materials Kalkstein needs. I put the compiled list beneath this note.

Also... come home before noon so we can meet up. I'll cook something tasty to celebrate everything going smoothly.

Captain Vic"

After reading the note, the girl could not help smiling in contentment. Her two Hansa captains had each given her something different: Geralt had given her dignity and a sense of security, while Victor had given her—recognition and a sense of achievement.