Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 1384 1356. 'Mad Dog'

"It's a pity that Sister Nenneke and Yennefer wouldn't let me carry a sword. They didn't argue about that. They say: any fool can wield a sword, but to be really good, you need a wise mind."

'Geralt, you promised me you would come. Come.'

"——Your Ciri."

'Another question: Come on. You said you could find Lan En to come with you, right? Let's all come together!'

'P.S.: Aunt Nenneke asked me to write at the end, praise the great Melitele, may her blessing and favor be with you forever.'

Unconsciously, Lan En had originally planned to just scan the letter and could indeed remember everything by just scanning it.

He read much slower.

The fingers wearing hard and hideous gauntlets delicately and gently flipped the letter and turned to the next page.

The teasing smile on the corner of his mouth, which seemed to be enjoying a good show, became gentle and peaceful.

"He was careless, lost things, and then tried hard to make up for them in the end."

After reading the letters at the same speed as an ordinary person, Lann put the letters back into the envelope and handed it to Geralt.

He said this with a smile.

"It seems that Ciri is in good health now. Both physically and mentally."

“Of course.” Geralt put away Ciri’s letter and put it in his chest pocket. “I am very grateful to Nenneke and Yennefer. Without their help, we would not be able to teach a girl well.”

"Then I don't understand why you look so sad now." Berengar asked, scratching his chin. "Everything is fine with Ciri."

"But you have been staying here for several days without going out to work. It seems as if you want to stay here."

Lan was also holding a wine glass at this time, looking at Geralt, waiting for him to give an answer.

And Geralt of Rivia, the witcher famous for the poems of the great poet Dandelion, pursed his lips.

"Ciri is doing well, eating well, growing well, and learning new things. That's all good. But..."

Geralt's face, which had become gentle and calm because of Ciri's letter, began to become cold and hard again as he spoke.

"Someone is checking on her."

After Geralt's voice fell, there was a long silence, with only the sound of iron hammering outside the office door as the background sound, monotonous and noisy.

".ah."

After the silence, there was a sound of sudden enlightenment like a whisper in a dream.

"Someone is checking on her."

Lann calmly repeated what Geralt had just said.

There is only one difference.

——Although it was unintentional, it still made the temperature in the entire office seem to drop suddenly.

"Who is investigating her?"

the young witcher asked calmly.

"A character named Rience." Geralt took a sip of his wine and spoke softly, as if he was afraid of disturbing something terrifying.

"A guy who leaves a trail of corpses wherever he goes, and who extorts, bribes, tortures, and then silences people without hesitation or scruples."

"When I sent Ciri away from Kaer Morhen to learn how to integrate into society, I hid Ciri and let her hide in the Temple of Meliteli in Ellander, just like a farm girl studying in the temple."

"Then I hid too. It's easy for a demon hunter with no fixed place to stay to disappear or move."

"I think it might be because I hid both of us, and even hid us very well. That's why someone let this mad dog out. He used the mad dog's method to find people."

"I didn't know this person existed at first, and I didn't know anyone was checking us out."

Geralt said with his eyes downcast.

"It was Dandelion who sent me a secret letter. He was nearly caught by that Rience, and as you can imagine, torture to death followed."

"Fortunately, Yennefer also went there at that time and saved Dandelion."

“Then I realized that things had come to this.”

Lan En's fingers slid gently along the edge of the wine glass in his hand. The fingernails made of dragon bones slid across the curved rim of the glass, and the trembling sound of the glass made people feel cold.

Geralt only recently learned that someone was investigating him and Ciri.

This is already a quick reaction.

If it wasn't Dandelion.

Then, if an intelligence network, or a single investigator like Reans, wants to investigate a person, they only need to follow his life traces.

By the time the investigation, which has been eroding along the large network of interpersonal communication and social relations, has surrounded the target person and the target is as naked as if there are no secrets, most people still don't feel it at all.

There is no need to have any contact with the target person at all.

Enough clues will become 'data', and enough data will be able to piece together most of the 'truth'.

The parties involved were not even important and were unaware of the whole process.

"But you even know that bastard's name!"

Berengar said coldly, and the wine glass he was holding was already placed on the table. "Just go over and kill him! Find him, and then kill him, and be done with it!"

"Don't get carried away, Berengar." Before Geralt could speak, Lan spoke calmly to the old witcher.

"Geralt and Ciri are hiding now. Any action will be a clue. The more they do it, the more obvious it will be. The more clues they will leave behind."

"How did he know he was being investigated? Who told him? Through which line did the information flow? Whose messenger did he use?"

Lan looked at Berengar.

"How much information has been revealed just by Geralt's reaction of wanting to 'reverse investigate'?"

"and"

As Lan En spoke, he was deep in thought.

His fingertips lightly tapped the wine glass in his hand. Smaug's gauntlets had claws at the ends of their knuckles.

The collision of sharp fingers against glass made a crisp sound.

Lann's mind, which had originally relaxed because he had returned to the magical Middle Ages and to Aretuza, became tense again after hearing the news just now from Geralt.

And it runs fast!
“Oh, there are more than one group of people.”

The young witcher, who was originally deep in thought, suddenly chuckled coldly and said something out of nowhere that stunned Geralt and Berengar.

“You just said that many people on the route you and Ciri came across after leaving Kaer Morhen were found by that Rience. Right, White Wolf?”

Lan En rubbed his chin and asked without turning his head.

Geralt nodded heavily. "He is a mad dog. He even tortured the toll collector at the ferry to silence him."

"From the northeastern corner of Kaedwen where Kaer Morhen is, all the way to Elland in Temeria. At the very least, you have to pass through Kaedwen, Redania or Aedirn, and finally reach Temeria. Which route did you take?"

"By way of Redania."

With a "pop", Lan En placed the wine glass on Berengar's table: "That involves the borders of three countries."

"A murderer who is extremely vicious, unscrupulous and has no scruples, who didn't even clean up the bodies after being tortured, and openly followed the traces to investigate the borders of the three northern kingdoms?"

"He even killed the toll collector at the ferry. Do you think the royal government there doesn't know?"

"Wait! You mean..." Geralt's eyes flashed with understanding, but then they became deeper and colder, and he didn't finish his words.

"Redania's intelligence department has a long history and a great record," Lan said with a half-smile. "The head of Temeria's intelligence department is called Tal, I know him, he's not a good-for-nothing idiot."

"And they don't know that there is such a mad dog running rampant in their territory, biting everyone it sees?"

The young witcher smiled and clapped his hands: "How fresh!"

After the clapping, the half-smile on Lan En's face completely calmed down.

"Who really doesn't know? You're just waiting for that mad dog to bite you out before you take action."

"Or think about it more deeply. When we brought Ciri out of Cintra, no one told anyone that she was the Princess of Cintra. She was just a dirty kid. People in the market thought that the royal family of Cintra had died out in the massacre and war."

"Of course, your involvement with Ciri [Child of Destiny] was even turned into poetry by Dandelion. As for the fact that you brought a little gray-haired girl with you, basically anyone with a discerning eye would know who the little girl was at a glance."

"But the question is, who does Reans belong to? He is unknown, and now he suddenly jumps out. How can he be a 'discerning person'? How can he be sure that the child you are carrying is Ciri?"

Lan En's sharp mind is like a sharp knife for analyzing problems, and he can clearly sort out a tangled and confusing situation.

And showed it to Geralt and Berengar.

"Those intelligence chiefs must be very curious about this. If they let Reigns run rampant, they will probably be waiting to dig out the people behind him in the end!"

Berengar frowned.

He was not as quick-witted as Lan, and had not undergone systematic study and thinking training, nor did he have as many cases and insights analyzed in history books.

Not even like Geralt.

As a famous demon hunter, Geralt was involved in many messy things in the court. Many conspirators in the court hoped to have a sharp "sword" to use when convenient.

And Geralt is always mistakenly believed to be capable of playing this role.

Berengar had extensive experience with blacksmiths and civilian life, but he had little experience with this kind of thing.

As for experience, it is not enough to just live long. It needs experience or education to accumulate.

So his reaction was simple: "That Reans knows magic, so it can't be that ordinary people can't stop him?"

Lan sighed helplessly and looked at the old witcher as if he was looking at an innocent donkey.

"My teacher, a master demon hunter of the Bear School."

Lan En pointed at his chest and said.

"At first, he was chased by a four-man soldier law enforcement team and became dizzy. Later, with my cooperation, he died directly."

"He's a master demon hunter of the Bear School who can wear heavy armor at any time."

"Is a Rience capable of wearing a mail shirt at all times of the day?"

"Several people armed with crossbows ambushed on the roadside. The great wizard was caught off guard and was killed! What good is his magic?"

(End of this chapter)