System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 290: Peace Before the Dark Storm
After investigating Oxenfurt prison, the Witchers discovered traces of lingering magic, then questioned the prisoner witnesses and the soldiers on duty.
The answers matched Linus Pitt’s description.
Thus, except for Roy, the other Witchers all concluded that a sorcerer had intervened in Vlodimir von Everec’s escape. Spellcasters came and went without trace through portals, so the group temporarily abandoned the idea of catching the fugitive.
The matter of the Menagerie of Rare Beasts came to an unwilling end.
Linus Pitt, worried about revenge from the von Everec brothers, asked the group to remain at Oxenfurt Academy for another two or three weeks, until the Wild Boar Army members had been sentenced.
There was still some time before their appointment in Novigrad, so the group agreed and began a stretch of idle days at Oxenfurt Academy.
...
The Cat School Witcher had originally intended to audit classes at the Faculty of Espionage and Applied Sabotage, but unfortunately, that semi-independent faculty accepted no auditors. Helpless, he could only take his student Karl, and Kantila, to protect Linus Pitt’s safety.
In the mornings, the three usually tended to the rare animals: purchasing enough food, feeding them, cleaning excrement, or playing with them under Linus’s guidance, much like walking dogs, satisfying their lively need for movement.
In the afternoons, they joined the natural history department’s classes and took part in systematic study of the discipline.
They learned the physiological habits, danger levels, weaknesses, natural counters, and rescue methods of various endangered animals. In addition, what Linus mentioned most often was the concept of endangered animal protection.
Flavius was fine. Having lived for decades, he had long since accepted his identity as a monster assassin. He would not be easily brainwashed by an Oxenfurt Academy scholar into changing his thoughts and principles.
But young Karl was clearly affected. A proper Witcher apprentice, under the “inspiration” of an Oxenfurt Academy scholar, had begun playing happily with the animals in the Menagerie of Rare Beasts. From time to time, words like ecological balance and animal protection slipped out of his mouth.
Seeing this, Flavius began seriously considering whether he should feed the apprentice one of the Three Sisters’ acorns, to make him forget certain dreadful ideas.
Kantila, however, absorbed and digested the knowledge Linus Pitt taught like a starving woman. The Zerrikanian woman was determined to hunt powerful monsters and set honor’s “medals” into her skin. This knowledge helped her greatly.
Recently, because the secret of the Menagerie of Rare Beasts had been exposed, many teachers and students from the natural history department became volunteers, helping to share the garden’s many chores. This greatly eased the pressure of Linus Pitt’s solitary management, and the usually quiet Menagerie of Rare Beasts grew lively for a time.
The remaining Witchers each had their own arrangements.
Orin joined the Faculty of Narrative Poetry and Poetics as an auditor. According to him, he planned to master another, more artistic method, using exquisite poetry like a bard ... to seduce women.
He had always wanted a change of taste. Occasionally exchanging feelings with refined noblewomen was not bad either.
Whether what he learned at the Faculty of Poetry would prove useful, no one knew.
Letho chose to enter the alchemy department building. He had studied for two years at the Nilfgaardian Imperial Academy in his youth, so naturally he would not miss the chance to learn and exchange knowledge at Oxenfurt Academy, this pearl of Northern scholarship.
He spent all day mixed in with those research madmen. Many times, when Roy passed the alchemy building and looked through the windows, he saw the man’s bald head shining as he argued with sloppy, stubborn alchemy graduate students until spittle flew.
It was its own kind of pleasure.
Kael entered the Faculty of Technology as an auditor, learning to make certain mechanisms and small devices. On the other hand, he also wished to keep up with the tide of technological innovation, adding some ingenious ideas to the bird traps, fish traps, and even bear traps he took such pride in.
Only then could he better protect that foolish brother of his who lacked a few proper thoughts.
The young Witcher Roy was busier than his companions.
He became Griffin’s keeper. Every day, according to the standards set by Linus Pitt, he took Griffin to exercise, running, gliding, flying, hunting in the wild while gaining some XP along the way, preparing nutritionally balanced “sets” for it with fish, meat, and vegetables, trimming its fur and claws.
Under this Oxenfurt Academy expert’s tailored griffin-rearing method, Griffin grew strong and healthy. Sustained flight was no longer a problem.
Aside from training his mount, Roy spent the rest of his time either on swordsmanship, crossbow shooting, and Signs, or immersed in the departments of medicine and herbalism.
As a world-renowned university, Oxenfurt Academy possessed the most advanced and complete instruments and equipment in its medical department. With Linus Pitt’s recommendation, Roy purchased a batch of new apparatus and replaced the old, backward alchemy kit in his inventory capacity.
Then he constantly reviewed the celandine potion, paralyzing venom, meditation potion, virility potion, and other formulas he had already mastered.
He familiarized himself with newly learned formulas, five “good remedies” for influenza, fever, excess stomach acid, indigestion, and rashes.
These ordinary formulas could all prove useful in the Free City.
But someone had bad luck.
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