Chapter Summaries

Dick killed the Water Hag and the Drowners attacking the fishermen, then found and destroyed their underwater nest. After recovering by a bonfire, he assured O'Neill and the fishermen that they could fish safely again.

• Dick ambushed the Water Hag, killed her, and used a psychic shock wave and his sword to defeat the returning Drowners.
• Dick drank a Killer Whale potion, dove into the river, and fought his way through more Drowners to find their underwater nest.
• Dick tossed a Samum Bomb into an opening in the nest, destroying it and killing several Drowners inside.
• Dick collected alchemical ingredients from the dead Drowners and rested beside a bonfire while the fishermen grilled him fish.
• Dick told O'Neill and the fishermen that he had destroyed the nest and offered to help if Drowners returned.

After completing his contract for Lady Kardashian, Dick accepted a job to check her Withered Manor and received a Jatu warhorse from Kebi, naming it Spotty. He found Jatu marauders inside the manor, but a heavily armored man wearing a bear pendant arrived at the gate before Dick could attack.

• Dick earned 90 energy points and accepted Lady Kardashian's contract to inspect Withered Manor and drive out any monsters.
• Dick returned to Odinburg's fortress, where Kebi gave him a tall Jatu warhorse, and Dick named it Spotty.
• Dick rode to Withered Manor and used his Witcher Senses to detect living people inside whom he identified as Jatu marauders.
• As Dick prepared to sneak in and attack the Jatu, a huge bald man in black armor carrying a greatsword approached the manor gate, wearing a pendant with a roaring bear's head.

Dick and Tyson fought the Jatu soldiers’ potion-mutated monsters at Withered Manor and rescued Tyson’s father, Saier. After the battle, Saier introduced himself to Dick as a retired Oxenfurt University professor.

• Tyson attacked Withered Manor, where the Jatu soldiers transformed into giant mantises after drinking the Broom Witch’s potion.
• Two mantises flew toward Saier, but Dick shot them with arrows and rushed in to protect him.
• Dick and Tyson fought the mantises and a group of desiccated corpses, with Dick claiming most of the kills and energy points.
• Tyson checked that his father was unharmed, and Saier introduced himself to Dick.

Dick and Tyson rescued the chained maids from the Jatu occupying the estate and helped the survivors recover and care for the dead. The group settled in for the night, while Dick planned to report back to Lady Kardashian the next day.

• Dick greeted Tyson’s father, Professor Seir, then pretended to be his old, lazy self when Tyson questioned how much he had changed.
• Dick sensed that servants were still alive inside the villa, and he and Tyson entered to find five or six chained girls.
• Dick freed the girls, and Jenna thanked him before asking for help burying the servants the Jatu had killed.
• Tyson lamented that the girls called Dick their benefactor instead of him, then fantasized about finding a beautiful sorceress.
• Dick agreed to stay at the estate overnight, and Professor Seir joined everyone in clearing the courtyard and laying the dead servants to rest.

Dick listened as Professor Saier explained why he resented witchers for taking Tyson from his family under the Law of Surprise. Dick agreed the practice was unfair, but Saier’s argument ended when Tyson defended his dead mentor Kusi.

• Professor Saier told Dick he had been a biology professor at Oxenfurt University and said his son’s life had been changed because he became a witcher.
• Saier accused witchers of using the Law of Surprise to take children from their families, and explained that Kusi had claimed Tyson after saving Saier’s life.
• Dick agreed that the Law of Surprise was unfair to ordinary families and said Tyson might otherwise have become a refined scholar.
• Saier admitted that he hated witchers and especially Kusi, but Tyson stopped him from speaking ill of his dead teacher.
• Dick understood that Saier viewed witchers as monsters because of their unusual bodies, long lives, and inability to reproduce.

Tyson agreed to return to the Bacchus Empire with Professor Saier, while Dick remembered the risks and promise of Saier’s research into witcher Secondary Mutation. The next morning, Dick trained in Withered Manor’s courtyard and realized his improved body and swordsmanship let him perform new moves, drawing the maids’ attention.

• Professor Saier asked Dick to help Tyson find and complete another witcher commission so Tyson could return home sooner, and Dick agreed.
• Tyson told Dick he feared Saier’s device would turn him into an ordinary person, but Dick urged him to visit his family before it was too late.
• Tyson decided to go home with Saier, while Dick recalled that the device would cause Tyson to undergo a painful, irreversible Secondary Mutation.
• Dick considered seeking Secondary Mutation for himself once Saier’s research matured, then went to sleep.
• Tyson and Saier left Withered Manor the next morning to look for a commission, while Dick waited for Lady Kardashian.
• Dick practiced swordsmanship in the courtyard, discovered a new airborne spinning attack, and noticed the maids watching him.

Dick discovered that animals seemed naturally comfortable around him while feeding Jenna's carrier pigeon, and a new [Basic Beast Taming] skill appeared on his panel. He considered spending 200 energy points to upgrade it as the chapter ended.

• Jenna told Dick that the Jatu had eaten eight of the villa's ten carrier pigeons, leaving only two.
• Dick fed the remaining pigeon and sensed its joy as it calmly ate from his hand.
• Jenna revealed that she was one-eighth elf and said animals were comfortable around her because of her elven blood.
• Dick stroked the pigeon, which settled on his shoulder and cooed cheerfully.
• Dick saw [Basic Beast Taming] appear on his panel and considered upgrading it with 200 energy points.

Dick welcomed Lady Kardashian back after clearing her courtyard and received extra payment for fighting the Jatu. While keeping her company, he noticed signs that she might be seriously ill and listened as she spoke about the few ways people could gain power and survive.

• Dick decided to save his energy points for improving Swordsmanship and Mind Shockwave, then heard a group approaching the courtyard.
• Lady Kardashian returned with guards and thanked Dick for clearing the courtyard, then reunited with Jenna and the other maids.
• Lady Kardashian gave Dick fifty extra crowns for facing the Jatu, whose soldiers could turn into monsters, and asked about his witcher companion.
• Dick stayed at the villa while waiting to hear from his companion, and Lady Kardashian asked him to keep her company.
• Lady Kardashian coughed blood into her handkerchief, and Dick suspected she was seriously ill.
• Lady Kardashian told Dick that martial strength, magical talent, noble birth, or business acumen offered ways to survive in society.

Lady Kardashian told Dick about her past and her long-lost relationship with Vesemir, then asked him to deliver a message. Afterward, Chief Green arrived and asked Dick to help Tyson investigate a possession in Hot Spring Village.

• Lady Kardashian explained that she and her sisters built lives among the nobility, and that she had once known Vesemir.
• Dick recognized Vesemir as the head of the School of the Coyote and agreed to tell him that Kourtney Kardashian still hated him.
• Lady Kardashian went upstairs to rest while Dick waited for the Grizzly Bear witchers.
• Chief Green arrived at the Kardashian estate and asked Dick to return to Hot Spring Village because Tyson could not handle an evil ghost.
• Green said a mute villager had suddenly grown a tongue and could speak, and that the old village chief had died.

Dick rode with Green to Hot Spring Village, where Tyson was unable to dispel a wraith possessing a bound mute boy. After Dick arrived, the village chief’s son Pu’er recognized him as a [School of the Lynx] witcher.

• Dick tested whether Spotty would obey his commands, then rode with Green toward Hot Spring Village.
• Spotty overtook Green’s donkey and struck it with its tail, prompting Dick to check that Green was unharmed.
• Dick and Green reached the village and found Tyson, Professor Seir, and several villagers gathered around a bound mute boy with an unnaturally long tongue.
• Tyson admitted that he knew only the Protection Sign and could not cast a magic trap to force the wraith out.
• Pu’er insulted Tyson’s abilities, then recognized Dick’s feline pendant and exclaimed that he was a [School of the Lynx] witcher.

Dick tried to expel the entity possessing the little mute, but his upgraded Magic Trap only subdued it without revealing what it was. Suspecting Pu'er had hidden information, Dick threatened him in the courtyard as Tyson prepared to intervene.

• Pu'er explained that the little mute had been found unconscious beside the grave of Pu'er's late father, whose tongue was now in the boy's mouth.
• Dick cast Magic Trap, but the entity inside the little mute resisted and spoke through him, claiming it was not a wraith and warning Dick to leave.
• Dick spent 200 energy points to upgrade Magic Trap to professional level, then cast it again and subdued the entity without making it appear.
• Dick left the room, confronted Pu'er in the courtyard, and threatened to kill him unless he revealed what he was hiding.
• Tyson moved to intervene, but Professor Seir held him back and signaled him to watch Dick.

Dick investigated the former village chief’s death and learned that Jatu raiders had forced a potion on him, causing him to go berserk before they shot him. After the village chief was cremated and Pu’er confessed his betrayal, the mute boy remained unconscious, with black mist still in his eyes.

• Dick took Pu’er and Green to the graveyard and found compound eyes beneath the dead village chief’s eyelids.
• Pu’er explained that Jatu raiders had fed his father a potion after he directed them toward Withered Manor, and they shot the transformed man when he attacked them.
• Green revealed that Pu’er had pushed his father toward the Jatu, telling the villagers that sacrificing the chief would save them.
• Dick ordered the villagers to carry the body back, then had Pu’er kneel by the funeral fire and confess his wrongs.
• After the village chief was cremated and the tongue on the mute boy’s face stopped moving, Dick found that the boy was still unconscious with black mist in his eyes.

Dick and Tyson drove [Feikexai] out of the mute boy, but the demon escaped into the night and possessed a corpse. They caught up with it at a funeral, where it emerged as a cat-faced old woman.

• Dick trapped the deceased and the mute boy while Tyson chanted an incantation to Kaer, forcing the demon out of the boy.
• Dick burned the boy’s severed tongue, and the boy awoke with the mist gone from his eyes.
• [Feikexai] escaped into a black cat, and Dick and Tyson pursued it while Professor Seir freed the mute boy and questioned him.
• The cat ran into a coffin carried by villagers, and Dick realized the demon was still inside it.
• A cat-faced old woman emerged from the coffin, and a middle-aged woman confessed that she had refused to feed her mother.

Dick and Tyson fought the cat-faced demon, but it possessed Tyson and turned him against Dick. Tyson expelled the demon, which fled deeper into the woods.

• Dick and Tyson attacked the cat-faced old woman, weakening the black mist that protected her.
• The old woman escaped into the woods, where Dick spotted her in a tree above Tyson.
• The demon leaped onto Tyson and forced black mist into his mouth and nose, then possessed him.
• Possessed Tyson attacked Dick, who held him back and urged him to fight the demon’s control.
• Tyson regained control, expelled the demon as a giant tadpole of black mist, and watched it flee into the woods.

Dick followed the demon Feikexai to a ruined village, where the remnant souls of its victims helped him break through the demon’s defenses in a dry well. He descended into a strange cavern, killed Feikexai before the statue of King Lioke, and received rewards for the kill and the villagers’ commission.

• Dick pursued Feikexai into a deserted village, where a seven-colored rainbow formed from the villagers’ spirits guided him to a dry well.
• The spirits repeatedly struck the black mist shielding the well, breaking through it and sending their remaining soul into Dick’s forehead with a vision of Feikexai causing the villagers to kill one another.
• Dick promised to avenge the villagers, coated his sword with Relicts Oil, and leaped into the well, falling through a star-filled space to its bottom.
• Dick found Feikexai cowering before a towering bone statue of King Lioke, then attacked the demon when the oppressive force around him lifted.
• Dick repeatedly slashed Feikexai until it vanished, earning 80 energy points for the kill and 200 more for completing the villagers’ commission.

Dick encountered King Lioke, a powerful demon who promised to appear again when Dick was strong enough to challenge him. After returning to Hot Spring Village, Dick shared his payment with Tyson, and the two witchers relaxed in the village’s hot spring with Professor Seir.

• King Lioke revealed himself as a powerful demon, praised Dick for defeating Feikexai, and sent him back to the snowy forest.
• Dick reunited with Tyson, then returned with him to the abandoned courtyard, where Feikexai’s well had disappeared.
• Dick and Tyson went back to Hot Spring Village, where Dick collected fifty crowns from Pu'er and gave them to Tyson as Lady Kardashian’s share.
• Green invited Dick, Tyson, and Professor Seir to eat and soak in the village’s hot spring.
• Tyson splashed around the spring while Dick relaxed beside the pool.

Tyson taught Dick the basics of Fighting before they parted ways, and Dick rode to the Inn at the Crossroads. There, he cared for Spotty and squeezed into a crowd to find out what was happening.

• Tyson offered to teach Dick Fighting, and Dick accepted after they finished soaking.
• Tyson coached Dick in punches, strikes, and kicks until Dick’s panel registered Fighting at Novice level.
• Tyson advised Dick to seek real combat to improve, then he and his son rode away with Green after the group left Hot Spring Village.
• Dick arrived at the Inn at the Crossroads, where a waiter prepared special feed for Spotty and offered to tend to the horse.
• Dick pushed through the crowd in the courtyard, and a burly man apologized when he recognized Dick as a witcher.

Dick entered a bare-knuckle fighting competition to gain combat experience and faced the undefeated Hungry Wolf. The match began with Hungry Wolf throwing the first punch at him.

• Dick arrived at a crowded fighting ring and watched Hungry Wolf defeat a shorter opponent.
• The competition organizer offered Dick twenty crowns to challenge Hungry Wolf, and Dick accepted while asking to bet on himself.
• Dick registered as a newcomer, removed his clothes and armor, and handed his belongings to the recordkeeper for safekeeping.
• The recordkeeper bet on Dick, while spectators placed wagers on either him or Hungry Wolf.
• Dick jumped into the ring, and the organizer started the match as Hungry Wolf swung a wide hook at him.

Dick defeated Hungry Wolf, advanced his Fighting skill to Proficient, and won a second match against two mercenaries. Confident, he challenged six men at once, and the fight began before the top-hatted man could announce the round.

• Dick used his agility and a feint to knock out Hungry Wolf, prompting cheers and complaints from the crowd.
• Dick saw that his Fighting skill had reached Proficient and accepted the top-hatted man's offer to compete for double prize money.
• Dick defeated Dengbai and Pulangte of the Black Cat Mercenary Company despite taking punches to the face.
• Dick challenged six men from the crowd, and they entered the ring as the top-hatted man tried to start the next round.
• The six men attacked Dick before the top-hatted man finished announcing the match.

After winning a brutal arena fight against six men, Dick sought a monster-hunting commission at the inn. The proprietor told him that farmers had recently been found dead with their blood drained, leaving Dick uncertain whether the creature was a werewolf or a vampire.

• Dick defeated six men in the arena, claimed his winnings, and went to the inn to eat.
• After eating, Dick asked the young waiter about nearby monster-hunting commissions.
• The innkeeper told Dick that a monster had attacked farmers returning home at night over the past week.
• The innkeeper said the victims had intact bodies but had been bitten on the neck and drained of blood.
• Dick questioned whether the attacks involved a werewolf, a vampire, or more than one kind of monster.