Chapter 65: Cherishing Virtue and Fostering Harmonious Neighborly Bonds

Hearing the faint sound of a key turning in the lock downstairs, Angoulême interrupted her vivid description of nightmares to Catherina, opened the door, and dashed down the stairs, just in time to bump into the young Victor coming in.

“Something wrong?”

“Just checking if you’re okay.”

One asked succinctly, the other replied briskly.

“I’m fine, nothing’s wrong with me.”

“That’s good!” With that, the girl bounded back upstairs, two steps at a time.

Watching Angoulême’s retreating figure, Victor couldn’t help but feel pleased, even if he wasn’t sure what mischief she was up to—coming all the way down in the middle of the night just to ask a pointless question instead of sleeping properly. He’d sounded confident in front of Shani, and that wasn’t a bluff, but seeing for himself that Angoulême was safe at home put his heart at ease.

Though he’d been busy until midnight before finally returning, he still couldn’t crawl into bed just yet. After cleaning up the scene at the Vizima cemetery, he now had a trove of alchemical materials to process and store.

For example, the bottles of ghoul blood he’d packed in his herbal pouch for Kalkstein needed to be treated with anticoagulant and stored at low temperature before he handed them over. Even a mage’s storage space couldn’t halt the passage of time, so to avoid exposing the secrets of his pouch, only the freshest, highest-quality samples—fresh as if just drawn—would be kept for his own use.

…

The Hairy Bear Inn exuded a calm tranquility in the early morning, a stark contrast to its nighttime bustle—though, of course, that word hardly described its proprietor.

The man, whose face resembled a bulldog’s and who always seemed to be chewing something, broke into a wide grin when Victor approached the counter, pouring him a glass of milk and sliding it over.

Victor downed it in one gulp and set the glass down. “Are you this friendly with all your guests? Always a free drink at the door, or is it just because I’m the ‘Iron Fist’?”

“Neither,” the innkeeper replied. “Even if you are the Iron Fist, that only gets you a free drink on the night itself. If every Iron Fist got a week of free drinks, I’d have closed up shop long ago. This milk is for the witcher… apprentice. Don’t worry about your identity—Lansmith told me privately. We understand you want to keep your mercenary cover.”

“Thanks for taking care of those monstrous bramble trees in the swamp. You really did us a service—who knows how many more would have died if you hadn’t taken care of them.”

Victor put on an exaggeratedly surprised face, almost a caricature. “Wow, is there no privacy left in the Temple District? I handed in that job the night before last and just picked up the reward from the bank. You already know about it?”

“We knew the night before last—business dropped off a cliff. The monsters were most active at night, so the loggers always stopped work by sundown to avoid being eaten. Once you got rid of the beasts, the bankers started making them work overtime to make up for the lost days. Be careful—several brawny loggers have been drunkenly shouting about teaching you a lesson.”

“They’ve got the wrong man. Shouldn’t they be going after the bankers?”

“Not at all. If they hit a banker, they’d lose their jobs. But hitting you doesn’t pose that problem.”

“I’m sure they’re just joking. When the manager took me to see the logging district, none of them sounded that way. All I heard was: ‘Labor is happiness! Chopping wood makes me happy!’ and so on.”

“Hahaha! So the polite, trouble-avoiding mercenary was just an act? Is the sharp-tongued, sarcastic side your true face?

Still—be careful. They won’t do anything sober, but you never know what drunks will do.”

The innkeeper poured another glass—the “Vizima Champion”—and set it before Victor.

“Would you like to hit me too, war veteran of Brenna? Because I’ve hurt your business?”

“Don’t talk nonsense. Summer will soon pass, the plague will subside, and once curfew is lifted, Vizima will be Vizima again—the most prosperous city in the North, one that never sleeps.”

Griffin leaned against the bar with his arms folded in his usual way.

“I’m not worried about business. The world will never run out of drunken fools who try to ride their horses home.

Now let’s get serious. Washed-up Iron Fist, bramble slayer—why are you here at my shabby inn so early? Surely not just to show off the four hundred and fifty orens you just pocketed to old Griffin?”

“Damn it! Am I the only one who thinks people should keep their secrets? Or does the whole world know Victor is flush with orens? No wonder the lady across the street was waving at me just now.”

With a smack, Victor slapped his newly acquired coin pouch on the bar. “Unfortunately, I really came just to chat with you, to keep in touch. The one I actually need to see is Lansmith.”

Griffin chewed his jaw thoughtfully. “Don’t worry about your cash. The woman from ‘Thirsty Thighs’ waves at every man who passes. And you don’t need to come here if you’re looking for Lansmith. I’m not with the Ram Boys—I just made the introduction that day.”

“I know. It’s just that it’s a bit early. It seemed more polite to wait a bit before visiting.”

“If you want to mind your manners and kill some time, you might as well go across the street for a bath. I can smell the faint scent of corpse on you from here.”

…

A cluster of old three-story brick-and-timber houses stood tall; this was a secluded corner on the western edge of the Temple District.

“That’s the one up ahead, the house with the guard at the door. Go on, it’s just there.” The speaker’s voice was deep, his build rugged and his skin dark, but his face revealed he was barely a man.

He’d guided the witcher apprentice here to Lansmith’s base—this member of the Ram Boys went by “Black Dog.” Victor had bumped into him at the door after leaving “Thirsty Thighs,” freshly bathed.

“Thanks for the escort, Black Dog.” With a smile, Victor slipped five orens into the young man’s palm as a tip, and the two parted ways.

Victor could never have known that this would be the last time—he would never see “Black Dog” alive again. For he had another identity as well: nemesis of “Red Dog” of the Salamandra gang. The tangled feud between them could fill volumes, and began, it was said, with the cousin’s neighbor’s friend’s aunt, of a certain blue-haired girl at Thirsty Thighs…

…

When Victor entered the dining room, Lansmith, the chief of the Ram Boys, was midway through lunch. Mouth full, he said nothing, merely waved for his bodyguards to stand back, then gestured for Victor to join him.

Feeling quite hungry himself, Victor didn’t stand on ceremony. He pulled out a chair, tore half a roasted chicken—still mostly intact—onto his plate, and poured wine for them both.

Finally, with a bit of space in his mouth, Lansmith mumbled, “Did you do this on purpose? Visiting at mealtime? Or did my hospitality last time give you the wrong idea?”

Having worked up quite an appetite, Victor shredded the chicken into bite-sized strips and stuffed them into his mouth. “Business. I came to talk business.”

“The other night you took care of the cursed buds, and last night you were busy with the cemetery. Hasn’t all that kept you busy enough? What business do you have with us?”

“If you know I just cleared out those bramble trees, you must also know my purse is full. Certain items—restricted or hard to acquire, like crossbows or Zerrikanian incendiary powder—I thought perhaps the Ram Boys could help, or at least know where I could get them.”

Lansmith paused his meal, eyeing Victor for a moment, then resumed eating. “What do you have to offer us?”

“More orens?” Victor broke off half a baguette, tearing it into small pieces to dip in the thick soup.

“If you want contraband, Foltest’s favor is just the groundwork. You’ll need more than just money to persuade me.”

“I need them to deal with the ghouls at the cemetery.”

“Doing good for the public? Then seek out the Order. They’ll give you not just one crossbow.”

“I plan to. The ghoul numbers warrant a bonus, but the knights can’t meet all my needs.”

Victor, his mouth a little dry, took a long draught of wine before continuing. “Listen, you know the alchemist Kalkstein in the Temple District. I collect alchemical ingredients for him on the side—perhaps the Ram Boys would be interested in some potions.”

It must have been a trick of the light, but as Victor mentioned Kalkstein and his potions, Lansmith’s bald head seemed to shine all the brighter, and the long scar on his face almost smiled.

“…Tell me more.” The leader of the Ram Boys refilled Victor’s wineglass.