Chapter 242

The weather turned fair again. Bright sunlight held for days, and the season at last settled into the rhythm of deep autumn.

The Witchers rode northwest for a week, drawing ever nearer to the Pontar. According to the original plan, they would reach the La Valette Barony east of Velen, then cross the Pontar by boat and enter Oxenfurt on the north bank. At least another week of travel still lay ahead.

After a week of this rough road, the boy Karl had more or less adapted to life in the wild. Each day he followed his Witcher master through wind and weather, filling himself with wild greens and roast meat. Having also survived the bout of illness, his spirits had improved, and the hollows in his thin cheeks had begun to fill with healthy color.

But at seven or eight, a child was made for play. His nature was still unformed, and Karl could not bear overly harsh and concentrated training, so Flavius had taught him only a simple set of physical exercises from the Cat School. Now and then, he also made use of whatever was at hand, explaining the habits and weaknesses of the wild creatures they met in the wilderness.

The Orin brothers had plenty to say about his method of training, but Flavius was stubborn in such matters. He would not allow others to steal the pleasure of training his apprentice, and treated every bit of their advice as wind past the ear.

They even crossed hands with him over it once.

Besides that, over the course of that week Roy had often sought instruction from Flavius in swordsmanship. The swordsmanship of the Cat School leaned harder toward actual combat, fiercer in style, and every time, within a single minute, Flavius would pin down one of Roy’s killing points and leave him defeated in thoroughly maddening fashion.

Yet that kind of high-efficiency fighting made Roy improve all the faster. He could feel that before long, Longsword Specialization would rise to LV2.

...

That night, the Witchers reached the border of Velen and pitched camp among several strangely shaped standing stones.

“Roy, can I play with Griffin?” Karl came running over, eyes fixed pleadingly on the Witcher. Ever since he had accidentally discovered that cute little thing, the boy had been utterly lost to it.

What could one say? At that age, boy or girl, children had little defense against anything adorable.

Roy rubbed his brow helplessly, though he could not help finding it faintly amusing. Griffin was usually the one who clung to him, but recently it had grown so harried by the child’s relentless pestering that it had begun reacting abnormally. It barely even had an appetite for the dried fish it loved most.