Chapter 318: A Father Searching for Atonement

Todd, like most ordinary folk, was born into an ordinary family in Novigrad.

His mother was a gentle, strong woman, while his father, Frank, was a sailor who had worked under One-Eyed Jack for decades, spending half his life adrift on the seas of Skellige.

Todd rarely saw his father. His strong mother raised him alone.

But he inherited Frank’s temperament, restless, unwilling to accept the life before him, hungry for glory and achievement.

Even when he turned twenty and had a wife and daughter of his own, Todd stubbornly chose to leave Novigrad, chasing a life of danger and adventure.

That departure lasted fifteen years.

He wandered through the Northern Kingdoms. Wherever war broke out, his shadow followed. He had helped Sigeval of Cidaris suppress the rebellion in Ellander, and in Horoton, in Velen, he had joined a band of peasants fighting against bandit oppression. After their victory, he was granted the title of honorary townsman of Horoton.

In fifteen years, Todd survived more than a hundred battles of varying scale and became an elite mercenary.

But he grew even harder-hearted than his father, Frank. For more than ten years, he never returned home once.

Not once did he visit his parents, his wife, or his daughter.

Until the year he turned thirty-five. After accepting employment from Queen Calanthe of Cintra and spending a year scouting in the Amell Mountains, Todd felt weariness, loneliness, and longing for the first time in his life.

He had spent fifteen years chasing a daydream. Apart from a sum of money, he had earned nothing.

Glory and achievement were even more laughable.

The longing in his heart urged him on. He knew it was time to go home.

So he cast aside every concern and returned to that homeland he both loved and hated, Novigrad, the city he had left more than a decade ago.

“I thought there would be a warm home waiting for me, a table full of wine and food.” Todd stared at the Magic Lamp beneath the ceiling, eyes unfocused, voice low.

After hearing the story, Roy’s expression turned complicated. In a sense, Todd’s life resembled a Witcher’s, wandering, loneliness, death, years of battle.

But why had he learned from his unreliable father Frank, of all people? Why be so foolish and cruel?

He had a wife and child, yet never knew how to treasure them.

He left behind his aging mother, his young wife, his little daughter, ignored them all for fifteen years.