"Magic! It's magic! They're monsters!" the villagers lying on the ground shouted.
"Get them together! Drive them out!"
The villager from earlier was still fanning the flames, but those who had witnessed the witcher's anger had regained their senses. They all shut their mouths, afraid these "monsters" would set their sights on them.
"You..."
Witt was about to speak, but Geralt abruptly cut him off.
The master witcher, who had spent decades traveling through various kingdoms, already understood that the villagers only needed someone to vent their anger on. The truth meant nothing to them.
"Let's go. This is the witcher's path." Geralt picked up the severed reins and led Roach away.
Witt lost interest in talking, too. He brushed the grime off himself and followed close behind Geralt, keeping Old Graz protected.
The three left calmly. The villagers stood speechless, as though they had lost their voices. Only after the three were far away did they climb to their feet and spit in the direction the witchers had gone.
As the witchers left, the anger in Hayden's eyes was once again swallowed by endless sorrow. He had lost so much today. A griffin feather fell from inside his clothes to the ground. Hayden stomped it into the dirt, lit a torch, and threw it into Lowell's herb field.
"What did we do?" Witt asked, seeing the flames soar into the sky.
"We killed the griffin and exposed Lowell as the scoundrel behind it all. We did nothing else," Geralt replied.
"Yeah."
The three headed toward Ban Ard without another word, not even stopping briefly during the night.
With the help of Old Graz's magic, they traveled day and night and reached Ban Ard the following evening.
Because Old Graz was a lecturer at Ban Ard Academy, the soldiers guarding the gates late at night opened them for the three.
These soldiers seemed long accustomed to the magical phenomena that frequently occurred in the city's academy district. They did not stop the two witchers with their distinctive features, merely giving them a few curious looks while their stereotypes of witchers deepened.
Like other cities in the Kingdom of Kaedwen, Ban Ard had once enforced a curfew. However, in the eyes of the male mages who considered themselves superior, that rule was only meant to restrain ordinary people.
Over time, Ban Ard's curfew became a joke, and so did the lord of Ban Ard. From then on, Ban Ard seemed to have become a city governed by male mages.
Yes, male mages only.
Because the Kingdom of Kaedwen's consistently vile treatment of women was no better than its treatment of nonhuman races, Ban Ard Academy only admitted male mage apprentices. These apprentices had not disappointed their teachers' expectations either: lax and undisciplined, they had never once won a magical competition against Aretuza's academy of sorceresses.
Upon entering Ban Ard, what first struck Witt was neither the brilliantly lit, bustling streets nor the intricately crafted magical buildings, but the streets overflowing with rubbish and sewage, and the stench permeating the air.
It made sense, really. Let old mages obsessed with magic govern a city? Give him a break. It was fortunate enough that they hadn't blown Ban Ard sky-high during their magical experiments.
But if power were handed over to the "mature" young apprentices, Ban Ard Academy of Magic would probably need a couple more words added to its name: Ban Ard Academy of Whores and Magic.
Looking at the uneven road with unidentified liquid flowing over it, Witt said, "How can anyone bear to set foot in this? It's hardly any better than Old Speartip's cave."
"Make do."
Old Graz had studied here in his youth, so he was long accustomed to it. As for Geralt, a hard case who could even fall asleep in a bruxa's tomb, he paid no attention to such minor details.
Only Witt reacted strongly to the eye-watering stench.
Fortunately, this did not last long. They passed taverns and brothels stretching across several streets, along with shops selling all kinds of items to spice up sex, including even magical items.
At last, they reached the heart of Ban Ard: the academy district.
Fortunately, the old mages were not so deranged that they would sacrifice their own living conditions to cut costs and focus on research. The academy district was considerably better than the commoners' district.
At least the ground was no longer uneven, and there was no longer excrement everywhere or prostitutes soliciting customers, though the male mage apprentices strongly objected to that last point.
"Phew." Witt could finally breathe air that did not carry much of a stench. He straightened his tunic again, which had been tugged askew along the way amid clouds of heavy perfume.
They nearly pulled the seams out of my School of the Wolf light armor!
"Can't take it already?" Geralt laughed. "If I'd known, I'd have suggested Vesemir throw you into Ard Carraigh's sewers for some training during your Trial of Choice. Trust me, once you've been into Ard Carraigh's sewers, every stink in this world will smell as fragrant as flowers to you."
With that, Geralt gave him a cheeky thumbs-up.
At Old Graz's warm invitation, the two settled into the private courtyard residence the academy had assigned him. Of course, even without the old mage's warm invitation, Witt would have shamelessly insisted on staying.
"Witt, this is your room." A black-haired mage apprentice led Witt into an empty room in the courtyard.
"Thank you, Hector." Witt treated the mage apprentice warmly, perhaps because he was Old Graz's apprentice, or perhaps because they were about the same age.
"You're welcome. You're Master Graz's guests. As his apprentice, it's my duty to show you the way." After saying that, Hector excused himself, saying he had things to attend to at the academy, and hurried away.
Geralt had long since dragged Old Graz off to a tavern. In his words, the exhaustion of going days and nights without rest or sleep needed to be relieved by drinking all night.
Old Graz had wanted to question Witt about the magical talent he had displayed earlier, but Geralt had "forcibly" dragged him away on the grounds that he feared the old mage would dodge his debt.
Expecting nothing from this city or Kaedwen's drinks, Witt had declined Geralt's invitation.
After Hector left, Witt did not let down his guard. He made a circuit of the small courtyard and confirmed that no one else was there.
Witt returned to his room and took out the magical crystals engraved with flame runes from inside his clothes.
Under the influence of the runes on Witt's arm, the crystals glimmered faintly, but each of the five shone with a different brightness. Witt leaned closer to examine them and discovered that the difference was caused by the number of flame runes inscribed inside each crystal.
"So that's it. The more runes there are, the more fire elemental power they can store."
Having established this, Witt took the crystal with the fewest flame runes and placed it in his left palm. Closing his eyes, he controlled the Chaos magic in the air, separated out the fire elemental power he knew best, and channeled it into the crystal.
Soon, under Witt's deliberate manipulation, fire elemental power surged into the crystal, filling it in the blink of an eye and making it shine with dazzling light.
Feeling the restless surge of elemental power inside the crystal, Witt understood the function of these homemade "magical items." They were essentially another form of Dancing Star Bomb.
They lacked the killing power of fragments, replacing it with stronger fire damage.
After confirming this, Witt filled all five crystals with fire elemental power, then drew roughly a third back out, leaving them in a state where an accidental impact would not cause an explosion, but he could quickly inject magic to detonate them when needed.
He put them all into an airtight bag, pulled its opening tight, and tucked it inside his clothes. After finishing his makeshift magical bombs, Witt felt that he had become more sensitive to the fire elemental power in the air.
Still, possessing no knowledge whatsoever of this world's magical theory, he thought this probably counted as a good thing.