The boy rubbed his cheeks with both hands, staring blankly at the ceiling while his lower body kept wriggling on its own.
Time really did fly. In the blink of an eye, Fergus's smithy had been open ten days—and because business was so catastrophically bad, the master armorer Yoana had poured all her free time into studying the properties of dimeritium.
From their conversations, Victor learned that the material was usually used as an additive—combined with other metals to increase hardness and flexibility, forged into an alloy for weapons or armor.
But how much you needed before it started interfering with magic, and what ratios would avoid compromising a blade's strength or a cuirass's hardness… all of that had to be confirmed through observation and hands-on testing.
Victor knew of two places where "anti-magic armaments" knowledge definitely already existed.
One was the Order of the Flaming Rose in Vizima. Siegfried had once let something slip by accident: their research into dimeritium had gone deep enough that they could even make "anti-magic metal bombs," the kind of terrifying tool you only built when you meant to change a battlefield.
In Victor's imagination, an "anti-magic metal bomb" was something you threw that would disrupt—maybe even lock down—magic within a sizable area.
The other was Novigrad's Temple Guard of the Eternal Fire. The most prosperous city in the world attracted the most dangerous mages in the world. And if you wanted to deter the best mages in the world… you needed the finest anti-magic weapons in the world.
Novigrad's mountain of gold meant the Temple Guard didn't lack money, and they didn't lack ways to buy what they wanted. Anti-magic metal had to be widely used in their equipment by now.
The problem was that neither faction was easy to provoke. Knowledge at that strategic level would be sealed up tight.
If he wanted the technique in his hands, he'd likely have to infiltrate their organizations—because trying to snatch it by force was basically a "mission impossible."
...
Angoulême returned to the shop and talked with Yoana for a good while. After handing over the women's supplies Yoana had asked her to pick up, she headed for the inner room.
Following the wooden sign's instruction, she knocked twice. When she heard the boy tell her to come in, she opened the door and stepped into the alchemy workshop.
And the sight inside made her go a little stupid.
Victor was brewing at the cauldron… but he was sprawled in a lounge chair, casually stirring with a mixing rod he was nudging around with his feet.
His eyes were empty as he stared at the ceiling, like his mind had wandered off somewhere warm and far away.
"Is this really okay? You're not going to blow something up, are you? We only just finished decorating this place."
He looked so relaxed—so recklessly relaxed—that it was impossible to feel safe.
"Don't worry about it. I've been doing this every day for the last few days. Radovid's face is burned so deep into my brain that even if I stirred with my ass, I could still churn crowns out of this pot."
With nothing else she could do, Angoulême sat down beside him and set the shopping basket on his stomach.
The boy sat up and flipped through the purchases a few times. "Huh!? Cockatrice spinal fluid—no way, you actually found it." He broke into a delighted grin and, without another word, packed it straight into his herbal satchel to keep it fresh.
Angoulême cleared her throat. "Vic, there's something I want to talk to you about."
Hearing the seriousness in her voice, he turned to face her and her stern expression. "What? Something happen while you were out? A special problem? Is it Vivaldi's exchange business? If you keep changing that many ducats every day and he starts getting suspicious, we can switch to orens tomorrow."
"Uh… no. The banker is thrilled, actually. Lately he's needed more crowns, so every time I walk in he treats me like an honored guest. Today he asked about you again, too—said he admires you. He's probably just trying to sell financial products."
Victor answered like it didn't matter. "In the near future, I'm going to ask him to buy me a lot of financial products—when I start seeing signs of war." Then he stretched both arms high over his head. "So… what's the problem? What do you want to talk about?"
Angoulême gathered up the emotion she'd been interrupted in and asked quietly, seriously, "What I want to ask is, Vic—does becoming a witcher really matter that much to you?
The Trial of the Grasses has a seventy percent death rate. If you collected all the ingredients today… would you want to try it immediately?"
His feet paused for a beat—then his lower body started moving again. "No. I think I know what you're worried about. I promise you: unless there's absolutely no other choice, I won't use an unimproved Grass Draught.
Besides, didn't I tell you before? Our main goal right now is to raise our unthinkable alchemy to master level. When we reach that point, we should be able to ignore side effects and just stir up a potion that can't fail.
So don't torment yourself. I'm not going to gamble my life for nothing." Victor made his promise.
"Then I'm relieved…" she said.
Right on cue, the cauldron flared with a shimmer of seven-colored light—another batch of pristine Radovid V crowns, fresh from the stew.
Victor fished dozens of crowns out of the pot and called out to Angoulême as she was about to leave.
"Don't rush off. Since we've got time, let's do some 'enchanting'—I'll show you the new ability your captain just picked up."
"Huh!?" Angoulême looked impressed without understanding. "Enchanting?"
"Exactly. Enchanting. After meditating outside Vizima, my mental strength improved a lot. I still can't cast spells, but with unthinkable alchemy I can transfer magical effects."
"Transfer… as in?"
"It's faster to show you. That charm I gave you earlier—the one 'specifically for fighting the Catriona plague'—where is it?"
Just thinking about it made her face darken. If it was a flea-repelling amulet, it should just be called a flea-repelling amulet—he had to dress it up like it could block a plague.
She rummaged around in her clothes, found the Ban Ard Academy "quality guaranteed" amulet, and tossed it to Victor.
...
Two hours later, when the cauldron flashed with seven-colored light again, Angoulême was sprawled flat in the lounge chair, limbs splayed, soul halfway out of her body.
She yawned deeply and complained in a sing-song, sarcastic tone, "So this 'faster to show you' really is blazing fast, huh."
"Shut it. Getting it done in two hours is already hard enough."
Angoulême popped up from the chair and stared at the glittering cauldron.
Victor's so-called demonstration had been simple: toss Angoulême's sword and the flea-repelling amulet into the cauldron together and stir.
Now, in the crystal-clear water, only the Skellige steel sword remained. The flea-repelling amulet had vanished without a trace.
"Oh." Angoulême sniffed, a bad feeling crawling up her spine. She asked sourly, "So don't tell me you're about to say this sword is the legendary—"
Victor cut her off with a low, unbreakable voice. "—That's right! It is the 'Sword Against the Catriona Plague.'"
Angoulême blinked, forcing down her urge to complain. She drew the "flea-proof Skellige steel sword" and slid it back onto her belt.
"Mm. Thanks. All right, I'm going upstairs. I still haven't finished my reading for today."
Victor grabbed her, looking like a man disappointed by a piece of stubborn iron that refused to take a proper edge. "What kind of attitude is that? Looks like unless I show you what I can really do, you'll never understand the greatness of enchanting. This is transferring magical effects!"
"Sure," Angoulême said. "My flea-repelling amulet is now a flea-repelling steel sword. Amazing."
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