System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 305: The Illusory Wall
Golden sunlight covered all of Novigrad.
In the commercial district, the two formerly empty shops were packed with dwarves, a construction crew recommended out of friendship by Butcher Clive, with a ten percent dwarf discount.
Both shops began work at the same time. The renovation cost totaled two thousand five hundred crowns, with the Cat School Witcher taking a twenty percent share.
Hammers and nails rang in a steady din.
Dust filled the rooms, paint gave off a sharp stink, and the shops’ renovation was in full swing.
Outside, Kantila and little Karl supervised the potion shop, while Dandelion and Priscilla kept watch over the cabaret.
Old Mole and his wife held little Minnole tightly, their wrinkled faces blooming with smiles.
As for the Witchers...
On Temple Isle at the far north of Novigrad, several hundred yards west of the Eternal Fire’s headquarters and the Electors’ Square.
Four strong figures stood atop a lone sea-facing rock and looked down. Surging waves struck the reefs, and damp spray bent the sunlight into seven colors.
“Is Roy’s hunch reliable?” Griffin’s gray-green pupils swept across the red sun through his sunglasses. “There is actually a secret laboratory hidden beneath Temple Isle, and one of the Cat School locked inside?”
“You sure it wasn’t a drunken fancy?”
“Trust me, mate.” Orin folded his arms and stared at the vast sea. “Every Witcher gains something a little different from the mutations. Roy counts as a lucky one ... after the Trial of the Grasses, he happened to gain a strange sort of precognition. Now and then he catches fragments of the past and future.”
“Do you know where the Viper School steel swords and silver swords on our backs came from?” Kael drew his steel sword and lovingly stroked the cold, hard spine of the blade. “Roy received some kind of revelation and pointed out where the diagrams were hidden. Only then did we find the drawings and forge the weapons.”
Elder Blood was too sensitive a matter, so the Viper School Witchers had no choice but to use another explanation.
“The kid’s hunches have never been wrong ... if he says so,” Letho said with absolute conviction, cradling the orange cat Griffin had turned into. “Sooner or later, he will give you a surprise.”
“Precognition, revelation? A rare and powerful gift indeed. I hope it is as accurate as ever this time.” A trace of remembrance flashed in Flavius’s eyes.
Since leaving the ruined Cat School keep and beginning his wandering life, he had not seen a Cat School companion for several years.
Who would that unlucky wretch imprisoned beneath Temple Isle be? Someone he knew?
...
While the four waited.
Roy, wearing only a pair of shorts, Aerondight on his back, his lean muscles and long frame exposed, was swimming swiftly through the cold waters where the sea met Temple Isle, searching for the path into the secret laboratory.
Thanks to the Lady of the Lake’s sword and its Watery Veil ability.
A thin film of Water Elemental power wrapped around his body. Not only could he breathe underwater and walk on the surface, his movements had become as easy and natural as an aquatic creature’s. The resistance of the sea, under some unseen influence, became a force pushing him onward.
His joined feet lashed like a fish’s tail, and his arms stretched in rhythm.
His streamlined body darted back and forth five yards beneath the water, searching for cracks in the seabed and between the rocks.
Seen from the surface.
It was as though a young dolphin were joyfully swimming through the blue sea.
“Whew...”
The gang trouble had been settled, the shops had entered renovation, and naturally the remaining time could not be wasted.
So he turned his sights to one dangerous place already in his plans.
Beneath Temple Isle was a secret laboratory holding a miserable Cat School Witcher, along with several Cat School blueprints.
Five minutes later.
Roy swam from the west side of Temple Isle to the north.
A warning suddenly rose in his heart. His dark-gold pupils swept toward the deep sea below, where two slippery, scaled, webbed, pale-blue humanoids were rapidly closing in.
Twenty yards. Ten yards.
Their forms grew clear, eyes deathly white, noses just two holes, gaping maws showing rows of fine sawlike teeth.
“Drowners?”
The Witcher’s face did not change. He paddled twice with his arms, steadying himself.
His left hand traced an ocher inverted triangle.
Pale yellow light covered his body.
With his right hand, he grasped at empty air, and Gabriel appeared in his palm.
He pulled the trigger.
“Thump, thump.”
Two bolts in succession.
The quarrels broke through the water’s resistance, dragging two trails of white bubbles.
They struck two ugly faces squarely.
Guided Arrow plus Stunning Arrow. The massive impact instantly pierced the skulls.
Blood blossomed, then was washed apart by the seawater.
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