The sky gradually brightened.
Apprentices kept returning to camp, though almost all of them were carried back by Geralt.
Paul, for instance, had blood all over his right leg, and his face was as white as paper, though he had already been very pale.
Lady Viris was treating the injured apprentices. Blyde had long since woken up and was helping attend to them.
The apprentices' painful groans kept ringing out, making Arwen feel somewhat irritable as he played with the campfire before him.
Then Vesemir returned to camp again, with two boys following behind him.
Both were injured, but their faces were full of excitement as they waved their hands about, recounting the battle they had just fought.
"Master Vesemir, you really missed a good show! I beat those drowners so badly they pissed themselves!"
"And Winston-I was the one who found him. Otherwise..."
Vesemir raised a hand to interrupt him. "My good boy, you did well this time. It seems you took what I said last time to heart."
"Now, your priority is to get some proper rest. I'm going to check on Paul and the others."
Both boys fell silent at that.
They heard the wails coming from the camp, all of them familiar voices.
Suddenly, a green cat eye noticed the black-haired boy sitting beside the campfire.
He nudged his companion with his elbow, and the two walked over together.
Hearing footsteps, Arwen looked up. It was Aiken and Winston.
Aiken tugged at the blanket around Arwen and spoke in an extremely exaggerated tone.
"Arwen, you actually didn't last until dawn? Haha..."
He glanced at Winston beside him, intending to get him to join in mocking Arwen. This was a rare opportunity.
But when he looked over, he found that Winston had already sat down and was drooling over the meat soup in the pot.
Aiken's mouth twitched. "You glutton!"
Then he showed Arwen the bloodstained blue string hanging at his waist.
"Arwen, take a look. These are all my trophies."
Arwen raised his eyebrows. The string was made up entirely of drowner ears. A quick count put them at eight or nine.
"Impressive, right? I won this time!"
Aiken puffed out his chest, as though waiting for Arwen to compliment the victor.
Arwen glanced at him, silently took out the head beside him, and set it in front of himself.
Aiken glanced at it. A drowner's head?
The mocking words were on the tip of his tongue when he heard Winston's surprised voice.
"Huh? Why does this drowner's head look different from ours? Why are its fins red?"
"Wait, Aiken, look! This isn't a drowner. It's a Drowned Dead's head!"
"Arwen, you killed a Drowned Dead? Good heavens!"
A Drowned Dead?
Aiken's cat eyes widened as the description from The Book of Monsters came to mind, and he froze on the spot.
Sunset.
The autumn wind sighed, and the sea of trees rippled.
Vesemir brought everyone back to Kaer Morhen, where they hurried through dinner.
The usual roughhousing was absent from the apprentices' room. All six apprentices were already lying in bed. Geralt had given them quilts and was sleeping in the room next door.
Arwen smelled the strong scent of disinfectant in the air. Low moans of pain kept reaching his ears, but he too closed his heavy eyelids.
For the next five days, Vesemir scheduled neither training nor lessons for them. Lady Viris left a sheet of parchment and went on a long journey as well.
Even wrapped in bandages, the injured apprentices refused to lie idle in bed.
At Paul's suggestion, they explored Kaer Morhen's ruined walls, saw the names of seven witchers who had died in battle carved into them, provoked the lizards hiding in the cracks with wooden swords, and then caught them in large glass jars.
Or they egged Arwen and Aiken on to challenge a hornets' nest in a tree, only to be chased all over the place by the hornets. In the end, Vesemir had to intervene, using the Igni Sign to quell the swarm's attack before things finally settled down.
Vesemir surveyed the boys' sting-covered heads with his cat eyes. First, he silently reminisced for a while, then smiled and gave them a brief lecture, leaving it at that.
"Arwen, come on, let's go back to the apprentices' room. The great battle between Pterodactyl and Basilisk starts today."
Paul spoke excitedly.
Pterodactyl and Basilisk were two male lizards they had caught over the past few days. Their showdown would take place that afternoon, and even Vesemir and Geralt had been invited to watch.
Arwen smiled knowingly. He actually wanted to go, but still said, "According to her letter, Lady Viris will return to Kaer Morhen today. I have to see her first."
Paul looked disappointed. "My good brother, if you ask me, just skip it this time. What's so interesting about learning alchemy?"
Arwen shook his head. "Master Vesemir said that when you promise someone something, you have to follow through..."
"Stop, stop, stop!"
"I get it. Damn it, I've already heard Vesemir's lecture today. Have mercy. I don't want to hear it again. Just go."
With that, Paul headed toward Aiken and the others, leaning on a crutch with one hand.
Aiken seemed to notice Arwen's gaze, and his green cat eyes immediately looked away.
The Drowned Dead incident had dealt him a serious blow, and he had been deliberately avoiding Arwen lately.
Arwen shrugged, turned into Kaer Morhen's hall, and went up to the second floor.
Standing outside Lady Viris's room, Arwen first tidied his appearance before knocking on the wooden door.
"Come in."
Arwen pushed the door open and entered. Lady Viris sat in a wooden chair with dust on her shoulders. Clearly, she had only just returned, and even her voice sounded exhausted.
Her gaze swept over him. Seeing that it was Arwen, she paused slightly, seemingly not expecting him to appear at this moment.
"Lady Viris, what happened? Is there anything I can do?"
Viris silently took out a white cloth and dusted off her shoulders. "It's nothing, Arwen. Thank you for your concern. A red-haired brat just caused some trouble and set the house on fire with magic, so I went back to deal with it."
"How have you been these past few days? I heard you've been having a good time with your fellow apprentices?"
Arwen gave her a rough account of the amusing things that had happened over the past few days, and Viris's gaze softened.
The atmosphere between them grew much more relaxed.
"Lady Viris, I followed the [Basic Meditation] you gave me and sensed the elements."
Viris straightened from her relaxed posture, surprise entering her voice.
"What did you say? You sensed them?"
Arwen nodded.
"Come here. Come over beside me."
Having received a definite answer, Viris quickly took a crystal magic orb from a drawer.
"Place your hand on the crystal orb."
Arwen did as instructed, pressing his palm against the crystal orb's surface.
Viris raised her hand, chanting a steady incantation.
Ripples spread across the crystal orb's surface. Arwen felt a prickling in his palm, as though tiny needles were piercing it.
Pale blue points of light began to condense at the center of the transparent crystal. They gathered together, forming an irregular sphere the size of a grain of rice.
Looking at the result, Viris unconsciously murmured.
"This sensitivity of spiritual power... What a pity. You should be a mage's apprentice, not a witcher."