Lynn used his hunting knife to harvest infused shards, a monster heart, a cyclops eye, and other materials from Old Speartip as he muttered to himself.
"Sure, the Trial of the Medallion is the final stage of the witcher trials, and it's no joke, but throwing in a newbie killer like Hogger right at the start-isn't that a little too harsh on the apprentices? Cruel, even?"
He wondered whether all witchers had a habit of talking to themselves.
Ever since coming to this world and becoming a witcher, Lynn had noticed that he sometimes unconsciously talked to himself, too.
Still, it wasn't exactly a fatal flaw.
Once he finished harvesting the materials, he jumped down from Old Speartip's corpse and walked toward Lambert.
"Are you all right, Lambert?"
"Yeah. Not dying."
Lambert took out a bottle of Swallow Potion and drank it.
After a little while, his complexion looked considerably better.
Witchers healed faster than ordinary people. With the effects of a Swallow Potion added in, they could usually be saved, as long as the injury wasn't fatal enough to kill them on the spot.
Lynn asked, "What was that back there? What the hell got into you?"
Lambert sighed. "Kid, I'll never call you kid again, and you stop asking about this. How's that? Fair trade?"
Lynn stared into Lambert's catlike eyes without speaking.
But even if Lambert said nothing, he already knew.
It had been for Waldher.
The boy Lambert had mentioned before, who had died at Old Speartip's hands.
People said witchers had no emotions.
People said they only did things for money.
People said these mutants were all heartless monsters without blood or tears.
People were wrong.
Lynn didn't press him any further. He simply laid a hand on Lambert's shoulder and patted it gently.
"Come on. Let's get out of here."
A little over ten minutes later, they finally emerged from the foul-smelling cave.
"Finally out."
Lambert planted both hands on his hips and looked up at the sky with a sigh.
Lynn agreed.
Humans really were creatures that couldn't live without fresh air and sunshine.
They had spent less than an hour inside, at most.
Yet it had felt as long as a century.
"Next, we just need to cross the trolls' territory to reach our final destination, the Circle of Elements."
The corners of Lambert's mouth lifted. "They're the ones who need to worry, not us."
Perhaps because he had successfully avenged Waldher, Lambert was in a very good mood.
Lynn made no comment.
He actually didn't have a bad impression of trolls.
True, there had been cases of trolls preying on humans in the past.
But such incidents were becoming increasingly rare in modern times.
Some trolls liked building bridges and living beneath them so they could charge travelers a toll.
As for Novigrad, known as the Pearl of the North, it was far ahead in this respect.
For instance, a new trend had suddenly caught on among Novigrad's respectable citizens: hiring a troll to guard their treasure.
Of course, on closer thought, it wasn't all that hard to accept.
That line of work required not only loyalty, but also an enormous physique, boundless endurance, and the strength to smash people to pieces.
As for intelligence, people didn't think it mattered much. They even considered excessive intelligence a drawback.
To put it more plainly, the best guard, by common consensus, ought to be someone too stupid for the thought of betraying their master to even cross their mind.
When the two reached the trolls' territory, they had expected to come under attack from boulders.
Instead, they witnessed an unexpected sight:
"Get lost!"
Two rock trolls picked up stones from the ground and hurled them into the air.
Several harpies circled overhead.
They were fast, easily dodging the stones long before they struck.
Then the harpies swooped down together with piercing screeches.
The rock trolls bent down, lay flat on the ground, and curled up.
Those sharp claws, capable of disemboweling a human, accomplished nothing against the rock trolls' stony backs, scraping out only trails of sparks.
"What's going on?"
Lambert was dumbfounded, too.
The last time he had come here, there had been no harpies, only rock trolls.
They had needed to dodge the stones the rock trolls threw at them to reach the Circle of Elements.
He had thought they would face the same situation this time.
He hadn't expected the monsters to be fighting other monsters instead.
"They're fighting over food. Look over there, Lambert."
Lynn raised a hand and pointed into the distance.
A heap of meat from wild animals lay piled haphazardly on the ground in the distance, with a noticeably smaller young troll standing guard in front of it.
"These lunkheads actually know to stockpile food for winter before they run out of things to eat. Let's see who dares call trolls stupid now."
Lambert paused, then continued.
"Still, this is a good opportunity for us."
Before Lynn could answer, something else happened.
The situation on the battlefield changed again.
Deliberately lured away by the other harpies, the two adult trolls moved farther and farther from the young troll.
Seizing their chance, several harpies swooped down with shrieks.
Small as the young troll looked, it was fairly clever.
Like its companions, the young troll bent over and lay flat on the ground, protecting its soft belly and presenting its rocky back to the enemy.
But this time, the harpies didn't simply skim past.
Instead, they flew down and seized the protrusions on the young troll's rocky back.
They lifted the young troll unsteadily off the ground.
From the look of it, they clearly intended to drop the young troll to its death.
The young troll realized this, too.
It struggled desperately.
But it was no use.
Its arms and legs were too short, and rock trolls were built differently from humans. Their backs were like turtle shells.
As a result, it could do next to nothing to the harpies gripping the protrusions on its back.
But just then, a streak of silver suddenly shot toward them from afar, striking one harpy square in the chest.
It let out a wretched scream and fell toward the ground below.
Then the bloodthirsty expression on another harpy's face suddenly froze. As though it had gone mad, it snarled at its companion and lashed out viciously with its claws.
Slash!
Blood gushed from the attacked harpy's neck, leaving several horrifying wounds.
It, too, plummeted toward the ground like a kite with its string cut.
With wounds that severe, even a monster had no chance of survival.
The other harpies froze for a moment.
Although they didn't understand why their companion had attacked one of their own, they quickly reacted, dropping the young troll and lunging together at the harpy that had attacked its companion.
On the ground below, Lynn pulled his silver sword from the fallen harpy.
Meanwhile, Lambert cast another Axii Sign at the harpies in the air.
The harpy he targeted likewise suddenly went mad and began attacking its companions, just like the first harpy that had gone berserk.
That was the effect of the Axii Sign.
It could influence, charm, and control other creatures.
Even creatures without intelligence were affected by the Axii Sign.