"Well, witchers, have you finished the job I gave you?"
When Lynn and Geralt returned to that deserted stretch of roadside, the captain asked impatiently.
Geralt said nothing, only looked at Lynn.
He clearly wanted to see how Lynn would handle it.
Lynn thought for a moment, then said,
"The bodies have been burned. But something very interesting happened there."
The captain's expression suddenly grew tense. "Something interesting? What was it?"
Lynn watched the changes in the captain's expression. "One of them wasn't dead. And you know what? He wasn't an Aedirnian soldier posing as a merchant. He was a real merchant from Ebbing, down south."
The captain's face instantly flushed red, and he protested.
"That man-you actually let him go? You fools! He was a spy sent by Nilfgaard!"
Lynn spread his hands.
"You only paid us to burn bodies, not living people. Besides, you clearly said they were Aedirnians in disguise. How have they suddenly become Nilfgaardian spies?"
The captain spat on the ground. "I'm not wasting my breath arguing with you. Get lost! Get out of my sight! Filthy mutants!"
Lynn gave a cold chuckle.
"Aren't you forgetting something? We've completed your commission. Now it's your turn."
As though provoked, the captain whipped the longsword from his waist.
"You vagabonds didn't do the job properly, and you still have the nerve to ask me for money? Not leaving, are you? Leave now, or I'll have you hanged as spies!"
At the captain's command, the soldiers around them closed in with ill intent, surrounding the pair.
Lynn tightened his right hand around the hilt of the steel sword on his back, but did not draw it immediately.
Geralt stood behind him, guarding his back.
In his previous life, whenever Lynn read about the unfair treatment witchers suffered in the "stories," he always thought the creators of those "stories" must have exaggerated.
He had never been able to believe that the world could contain fools with so little brain and so much nerve.
Now he believed it.
Living things really did come in all varieties.
"I honestly don't know why people keep picking fights with fully armed witchers. Two of them, at that... Isn't that asking to die? Do we not look fierce enough?"
"Listen, we're not knights-errant from Toussaint, and we have no intention of dispensing justice. We only want the payment we're owed."
"You must have looted plenty of good things from that caravan from Nilfgaard, right? Why make enemies of two witchers over a mere hundred ducats?"
"Just pay us, and we'll leave."
Yet the captain met this perfectly reasonable request with contempt.
"Ha! There are five of us and only two of you. We have the advantage! Enough talk, freaks! You're the ones who should be worried, not us!"
Since a fight was now unavoidable, Lynn dispensed with courtesy.
"You really won't see reason."
He shook his head and sighed.
His left hand quickly formed the gesture for the Igni Sign, then thrust forward.
A raging torrent of flame erupted from his palm, engulfing the captain who had just been shouting so arrogantly, along with another guard.
In the blink of an eye, both their faces were ablaze, and they flailed about, howling.
The numerical advantage the captain had boasted of was halved in an instant.
But it was not over yet.
Lynn whipped out his steel sword and slashed viciously at the guard in front of him.
Shocked by the horrific sight of his companions burning, the guard's mind had gone blank, and he failed to react at all.
In the blink of an eye, his head was severed from his body.
Another guard roared and swung his halberd down at Lynn.
But Lynn blocked it with his steel sword.
Then the steel blade slid forward along the halberd in a shower of sparks, slicing off several of the guard's fingers.
As the man let out an agonized scream, the steel sword cut open his throat.
A warm current flowed along the weapon into his body.
Attribute points: 0 (35%) → 0 (55%)
Meanwhile, Geralt swiftly and cleanly finished off the last guard.
The entire fight was over as swiftly as a falcon swooping on a rabbit. In the mere blink of an eye, the soldiers who had just been shouting about mutant freaks had all become warm corpses.
Although the witchers' code called for hunting monsters and protecting people, even the founder who established it could not have been so foolishly woke as to demand that witchers refrain from fighting back when their lives were threatened.
Besides, witchers themselves were among the "people" in "protecting people."
Thus, without any moral burden or mental strain, the two witchers searched the dead guards.
Then they piled the bodies together and set them alight with the Igni Sign.
That was enough to destroy all the evidence.
Even if someone discovered the pile of charred corpses, they could not possibly know who had done it.
After leaving Kaedwen's border, the two traveled south into Aedirn.
After they left Kaedwen, the Aedirnians they encountered were entirely different from the Kaedweni.
That was not to say that Aedirnians held witchers in any great respect, but most of them showed fear in their eyes upon seeing the fully armed witchers.
Even those who clearly looked like local thugs did not approach them to cause trouble.
That spared the pair a fair amount of trouble.
A few days later, they spotted a notice seeking witchers on a noticeboard outside a town.
"I'm a witcher, Mr. Mayor. I'm not a merchant. I don't sell things. Nor am I a herbalist. I don't know how to treat illnesses."
"I'm not one of the king's courtiers, either. I don't collect taxes for him or recruit peasant levies."
In the noisy tavern, the mayor sitting opposite Lynn-the client-picked up the beer beside him and took a swig.
"Then what can you do?"
Lynn thought for a moment, then answered.
"I can hunt monsters. If someone has been cursed, I can help lift the curse."
"If ghouls crawl into your sacred graveyard, I can kill them all and make sure they don't disturb your ancestors' rest."
"So, Mr. Mayor, do you understand?"
The mayor seemed to understand, yet also seemed not to. In any case, he nodded blankly. "I think I understand."
Lynn tapped the grime-covered table.
"Good. Then let me ask again: is there any work here that I can do?"
The mayor spoke in an exaggerated tone. "There certainly is! We've got lots and lots of monsters here. More than you could count."
Lynn raised an eyebrow.
He turned to glance around the bustling tavern.
He seriously doubted how much truth there was in what the mayor had just said.
Generally speaking, only places untroubled by monsters and war presented such a scene.
But instead of contradicting the mayor, he nodded. "All right. I'm listening."
And so the mayor began a vivid account.