Chapter 2: The Eyes Behind The Fog

Lannor’s encounter with Bordon had been a matter of accident.

Or perhaps it was the accident of being cast into this magical, medieval world at all. A university student, healthy in body and mind, with parents and a past like any ordinary life, thrown inexplicably across endless voids into a savage, dark realm. No reason, no explanation—just the stark, cruel fact of it.

Here, magic existed, but it was sparse, undeveloped, a trickle rather than a tide, never enough to shape society. In such a backward world, human life was cheap.

In Velen’s forests, venturing even a few dozen paces could bind one to death’s shadow. Starvation, disease, attacks by beasts or monsters, or even a single bite from a strange insect could be fatal. The folk of Velen had grown numb to death.

Lannor had only glimpsed such lives through the pale pages of history books, imagining the hardship of ancient peasants. He knew that, stripped of magic and monsters, life here resembled that of long-dead commoners. Yet knowing was one thing; witnessing the brutality and weight of it firsthand was another. The sheer frequency of death pressed on him, unrelenting.

Fortune—or lack thereof—meant he could not be a simple peasant. He had become Bordon’s “Child of Surprise,” claimed under the Law of Surprise, turned into a witcher like him.

The Law of Surprise was an ancient custom, older than kingdoms, older than kings. It dictated that a man saved by another might owe a recompense unknown at the moment of rescue: the first thing seen upon returning home, or something already possessed but unrecognized—most often a child. That child would become the “Child of Surprise.”

Even in a world where magic existed, it was a scarce resource. For a modern student terrified by the harshness of this place, the chance to wield such power might have been a blessing.

Yet...

“What’s our target this time?”

Lannor’s fair, foreign-looking face carefully guided the old mare around a fallen trunk, moving slightly ahead and to the side of Bordon. The massive man beside him, thick-haired as a brown bear, would not tolerate him wandering out of sight for long.