The other Chosen stood dumbstruck, no longer daring to act up, and watched helplessly as the newcomer took Willis away.
The cottage assigned to him had only one bed, so he could only give half of it to Willis. Fortunately, neither of them stood on ceremony.
Sleeping on the floor would actually have been more comfortable, but it could easily make the dwarf feel he was being excessively servile.
Some arrangements were easier to reach in an equal relationship. Giving unconditionally would instead make the other party take it for granted.
The embers of the fire did not die out completely until dawn, and the smoke they produced had practically lowered the air quality throughout White Orchard.
Chen Xu ran to the village's only tavern and bought two pieces of buttered bread, spending every last one of the thirty coppers he had earned yesterday.
"Pro Gram, right? Thanks for this." Willis gnawed on his bread, his resentment unabated.
"To think you were the only one who came to help me. I've served this place for fifty whole years, and this is what I get in return!"
White Orchard had originally been part of Temeria, one of the Northern Kingdoms, but had fallen to the Nilfgaardian invaders.
The villagers whose country had fallen were forced to surrender their remaining food, while Willis, as a blacksmith, was also forced to forge weapons and repair equipment for the Nilfgaardian army.
Yet the village's "patriots" mistakenly believed he was profiting from the villagers' misfortune and encouraged everyone to ostracize him.
During last night's fire, not a single person besides Chen Xu had lent a hand.
Even fifty years of hard work could not allow a dwarf to become part of this community. Thoroughly disheartened, Willis had sided with the Nilfgaardians.
"You suspect someone deliberately set the fire?" Chen Xu asked as he chewed his bread, despite already knowing the answer.
"Of course! I heard someone pissing behind my house, muttering about driving me away!" Unable to contain his anger, Willis jumped up and waved his fists.
"If I catch that dumb fuck, I'll skin him alive!"
After venting, however, he soon slumped back into his seat. The villagers would certainly protect the man, and the Nilfgaardian army would only order him to do this and that, at most offering a pitiful handful of crowns as a bounty for the arsonist.
"Forget it. Didn't you want to learn smithing? I'll teach you to make some farming tools. That'll be enough to make a living."
He looked down at his callused hands and slowly clenched them into fists.
"Looks like my craft... can only serve war!"
"Wait, Master Willis." Chen Xu caught hold of the dwarf as he was about to leave.
"If I'm going to learn, I want to learn the best!"
Making farming tools was nowhere near enough. He at least had to become a formal apprentice and learn to forge swords and armor before he could escape his current compulsory labor in the fields.
Otherwise, he could easily end up tied to this land and miss far too many opportunities.
"Well..." The dwarf looked troubled.
Smithing was the livelihood dwarves had passed down for centuries. Elves and humans had already squeezed them out of much of that trade, and for him to teach another human... would rather go against his ancestors!
"I genuinely admire your craft, Master Willis."
Chen Xu had planned this for a long time. "I'll help you catch this bastard of an arsonist, and you take me as your apprentice. How about it?"
That was tantamount to offending most of the villagers. It meant little to him, but to Willis, it meant something different.
"You're really willing to help me?"
Sure enough, the dwarf was deeply moved. In an instant, he felt that humans still had hearts after all!
Swept up in his emotions, he cast even his ancestors aside.
"All right. Catch that bastard, and you'll be my formal apprentice!"
[You have triggered a normal quest: [Arrest the Arsonist] Base rewards: EXP ×100, points ×20]
The corners of Chen Xu's mouth lifted.
A seasoned detective had to learn to find his own commissions.
At the scene of the fire, Willis's cottage had burned down completely. Soldiers had salvaged some of the smithing tools.
From the look of things, the Nilfgaardians had no intention of letting the dwarf rest.
He circled around behind the house and crouched down to examine the ground carefully. Not only did he find cotton tinder, he also discovered a trail of faint footprints.
Though he lacked a witcher's heightened senses, clues like these were already perfectly obvious to him.
This was not something the panel had imparted to him, but [Tracking] Lv.2, honed through his own career as a detective.
In fact, he remembered exactly where the arsonist Napp was hiding. He simply preferred to play his part all the way through, habitually leaving no loose ends.
What right did a detective have to charge his client without gathering conclusive evidence?
Following the footprints to Woesong Bridge at the entrance to White Orchard, Chen Xu indeed found a boot sunk into the riverbank beneath the bridge, along with a broken trail of blood.
After setting the fire, Napp had tried to jump into the river to conceal his tracks, but monsters in the river had suddenly leaped out and attacked him.
In his panicked flight, he had even lost a shoe.
All he needed to do was take the boot back and compare it to the footprints behind Willis's house, and the quest would be foolproof.
With the key evidence secured, Chen Xu was just about to confront the arsonist when the mud on the riverbank suddenly began to bubble.
The two drowners that had attacked Napp last night sprang out!
He had never seen creatures so ugly or so foul-smelling. They looked just like blue, rotting human corpses with finlike organs.
They raised their heads, let out piercing shrieks, and lunged. Chen Xu scrambled and rolled toward the bank;
A chill swept across his back, followed immediately by excruciating pain. The monsters' sharp claws had scraped away three strips of flesh!
Drowners were creatures whose primary scaling was strength, with astonishing speed and explosive power. Judging by this, players in the original game had been experiencing the world through a witcher's reflexes.
The sound of claws tearing through the air came straight at him, and he instinctively rolled aside.
[You have acquired the beginner proficiency [Dodge]. Dodge efficiency +25%]
Having his cheat kick in at a time like this was downright lethal!
Chen Xu endured the hot, swollen sensation in his brain and rolled repeatedly to avoid the drowners' attacks.
Countless new experiences and theories about dodging flooded his mind and were immediately put into practice, understood and absorbed at astonishing speed.
He immediately realized he had no need to make such exaggerated dodging movements. The drowners' attack patterns were converted into data, broken down, and countered in his mind. Some attacks could be avoided by a hair's breadth with just a turn of his body.
Yet the gap in their physical abilities was simply too great. Most of their lunges still required him to roll repeatedly with all his strength, rapidly draining his stamina.
Chen Xu was about to lure them toward the Nilfgaardian soldiers when he heard blades being drawn behind him!
Two old swordsmen with white hair and beards, yet exceptionally agile bodies, formed Signs with their hands. Blazing magical flames spurted from their fingertips, drying the slippery slime on the drowners.
Even Chen Xu, a short distance away, felt the waves of heat. The hair over his forehead was singed into a slight curl.
Scorched by the intense heat, the two drowners screamed and beat at the flames on their bodies. Silver-glinting blades flashed through the opening, sending severed limbs flying!
Now, that was what you called professional.
Chen Xu bowed at once. "Father-in-law! Please accept your son-in-law's bow!"
The original protagonist had arrived, and the plot had officially begun.
Fortunately, the Chosen assigned the witcher identity was not Geralt, which eased much of the pressure weighing on him.
As a major story character, Geralt's attributes were practically public knowledge:
-------- Character: Geralt of Rivia, White Wolf, Butcher of Blaviken Race: God-Chosen Battlefield · mutant Homo sapiens (drug-induced mutation) Primary class: Master Witcher Lv.1 Secondary classes: Witcher Apprentice Lv.5 (max), Monster Hunter Lv.5 (max) Attributes: constitution 14, strength 7, reflexes 17, soul quality 3, spirit 2, willpower 5 Dark energy: 47 Talents: [Source Bloodline] Keen elemental perception and a robust physique (spirit +30%, constitution +10%, reflexes +10%) [Trial of the Grasses] Slows aging, grants immunity to disease and ordinary toxins, enhances physical abilities, senses, and recovery, destroys spiritual and reproductive activity (constitution +2, strength +1, reflexes +2, spirit -80%) Proficiencies: Unbroken Lineage, Swordsmanship Mastery, Beginner Dodge Skills: Whirl, Burst, Signs, Tracking Lv.2, Alchemy Lv.3 (max), Riding Lv.2 Tier: qi sense lower stage A sorcerer's son who went down the wrong path. --------
He was certainly strong. His constitution and reflexes had already surpassed ordinary human limits, and that level of combat power could nearly match a squad of Nilfgaardian soldiers.
Yet he was not as strong as Chen Xu had imagined.
An ordinary Blue Star man had roughly two points of strength, and lifting a fifty-kilogram weight overhead was already quite an achievement. Yet the human record for the clean and jerk was 265 kilograms.
That was a fivefold difference, and without naturally strong bones and internal organs, an ordinary person's hopes of reaching that limit were nothing but a fool's dream.
Geralt's strength attribute was only seven. Without potions, perhaps a few elite heavy cavalrymen armed with blunt weapons could threaten his life.
It was a shame the Trial of the Grasses had ruined his talent for sorcery. Another famous sorcerer's son was called Vilgefortz, a ruthless man who beat a swordmaster with an iron staff and burned a vampire.
"What did you call me?" Geralt wore a rare expression that was almost a smile.
Witchers rarely showed emotion, supposedly one of the side effects of mutation, though it was mild enough that the panel did not even include it.
"Master Geralt, I was just praying to Melitele that whoever saved me, I would repay them for the rest of my life."
With a devout expression, Chen Xu naturally activated [Deception]. "You saved my life, so I've decided to marry your daughter. Whether she's poor or rich, healthy or sick, I'll join her in honoring you."
Ciri, the main quest's target, was Geralt's adopted daughter. This golden thigh was not especially thick, but it was still worth clinging to.
"Boy, are you sure you're not repaying kindness with enmity?" The old man beside Geralt, who was wiping his silver sword, wore an odd expression.
Vesemir, Geralt's adoptive father and mentor, was a master witcher who had lived for over two hundred years.
Deep wrinkles and a bulbous red nose made him look no different from an ordinary old man. His white hair truly came from age, while Geralt, judging by his face alone, was merely a handsome man between thirty and forty.
"You know quite a bit." Surprised that the other man had recognized him at a glance, Geralt instinctively grew wary.
He flicked the foul blood off his silver sword, sheathed it, then turned and mounted his beloved horse, Roach.
"But if you knew enough about us, you'd know witchers have no children."
"Then please allow me to treat you both to as much Vizima Champion as you like, as a small token of thanks." Knowing when to stop, Chen Xu pointed to the village's only tavern and offered a sincere invitation.
"Let's go, then!" Vesemir sprang into the saddle. Witchers would not refuse their due reward.
Their host asked the two men to go ahead. Chen Xu currently had no money to treat them, but he would not be stupid enough to offend his father-in-law... the protagonist right at the start.
Picking up the boot, he followed the blood trail into the abandoned wooden house opposite the tavern and found the hungover arsonist, Napp.
The mud-covered boot slammed into the man's face. "Get up, idiot! I know you burned down Willis's house."
"Don't, don't tell anyone..." Before Napp had fully sobered up, overwhelming fear seized him. Seeing that his visitor was not a Nilfgaardian soldier, he worked up the courage to argue.
"What proof do you have?"
Seeing that the man still refused to give up, Chen Xu kicked the boot on the ground in front of him.
"This is the shoe you left under the bridge, and you still have the marks from the drowners scratching you last night.
"You can't deny it."
The drunk sobered up completely and began to sob as though strapped into an interrogation chair, pleading:
"Please don't tell anyone. That dwarf isn't even one of us Temerians, and now he's working for the invaders. He's a traitor to Temeria. He deserved it!
"Listen, we can settle this privately.
"My mother passed away a while ago. I sold her things for money. I spent some of it... you can have all the rest!"
At the mention of money, Napp seemed to seize upon hope.
"All right... hand it over." Chen Xu reached out and took a jingling purse. A glance revealed twenty crowns and thirty-seven coppers.
His first earnings on his debut as an otherworld detective! He nodded in satisfaction and warned:
"No more setting fires."
Napp agreed repeatedly and collapsed onto the floor with lingering fear on his face. Only then did he realize his back was soaked in cold sweat.
Thud!
The faithless man returned and knocked Napp unconscious from behind with a piece of rotten wood.
[You have acquired the skill [Sneak Attack] Lv.1]
Experience and memories poured into his brain, finally producing his first offensive skill.
Chen Xu checked the panel. The effect was simple and direct:
[On successful stealth and backstab attacks, critical hit chance +25%, critical damage +10%]
If he had not agreed to let Napp go just now, the man might very well have fought back like a cornered dog. Judging by the original game, his combat ability was not low.
This made things much easier.
Chen Xu brought Willis and a squad of Nilfgaardian soldiers to the abandoned house and had the arsonist arrested.
The dwarf was deeply hurt. "Napp, when your mother was still alive, I never charged her a penny for helping her!"
The soldiers' captain ordered his men to take the prisoner away to be hanged and promised to help Willis rebuild his workshop once the materials they had ordered arrived.
Willis kept his word and submitted a report to the Nilfgaardians stating that he needed an apprentice, specifically naming Pro;
From then on, Chen Xu no longer had to worry about work in the wheat fields, but in exchange, the smithy's output had to increase by at least fifty percent.
[Quest [Harvest] has been terminated] [You have completed the quest [Arrest the Arsonist]. Time taken: 17 minutes (gold), conclusive evidence (gold), client satisfaction (gold) Overall rating: perfect! You have received EXP ×250 (each gold medal grants a 50% increase), points ×20, Advancement Card ×1]
[Advancement Card]?
Chen Xu examined the new entry at the bottom of his panel. Its golden glow pointed toward [Saber Arts] and [Dodge] among his proficiencies.
For now, there seemed to be no need to upgrade them, so he put it into storage for future needs.
Twenty points could not currently buy any useful shop items, but they could be exchanged one-to-one for crowns or certain luxuries that improved his quality of life.
The Nilfgaardians also had a bounty on the arsonist, and Chen Xu received a second bag of gold coins.
In less than half an hour, he had gained over forty crowns.
These were real gold coins. The original game's currency system had been severely broken. Sometimes a bottle of water cost six crowns, yet in Novigrad, where crowns were minted, a work of art sold at auction for only a few hundred crowns.
A few tens of thousands of crowns were enough to buy a house in Novigrad, the most prosperous city in the original game, equivalent to buying a villa in present-day Chihuang's Xiangjiang.
Of course, owing to differences in economic development, when used for everyday expenses, one crown had purchasing power equivalent to roughly seventy to ninety Jiang dollars.
In the world completed by the gods, forty gold crowns were equivalent to over three thousand dollars.
Entering the tavern, he saw Vesemir buying something at the bar. Chen Xu stepped forward and tossed down several crowns. The sound of gold coins striking solid wood was so pleasing to the ear.
"Elsa, these two masters' food and drinks are on me."
Elsa was the tavern's proprietress, a wrinkled woman in her forties or fifties, her white hair arranged in a dangerous hairstyle.
That meant tying her long hair to one side and letting it fall over the front of her chest;
It looked gentle and demure, but in the vast majority of anime, women with this hairstyle ultimately met a tragic, gruesome end.
"These two masters saved my nephew. They eat and drink here for free."
The landlady pushed the crowns back, though her gaze seemed to linger for a moment.
The two witchers had saved a merchant from a griffin on their way to White Orchard, and he happened to be her relative.
"All right, lad, maybe next time!" Vesemir patted Chen Xu on the shoulder.
Today really was an odd one. It was rare for so many people to welcome witchers.
"That won't do. Bring out your best food and wine." Chen Xu added another five crowns and winked at the landlady:
"These two masters saved my life. Elsa, please give me a chance to express my thanks."
Unable to turn him down, the old witcher sat at the same table as the lad. Free fare was no match for what money could buy, after all; the food and drink were carefully prepared, with nothing watered down.
Tilting his head back and downing a glass of Vizima Champion, golden in color with a dense head of foam, Chen Xu glanced around for Geralt, then abruptly broke out in a cold sweat.
He had spotted a bald man covered in scabby sores who looked like a vagrant.
Gaunter O'Dimm!
A literal devil, who had spent years topping the Witcher world's power rankings on all the major forums on Blue Star.