The Divine Hunter
chapter-579

The representative of the northern Brotherhood of Sorcerers was a man named Gildorf. He was gaunt, short, and had a Van Dyke beard. The sorcerer wore a long blue robe, and his eyes were roving across the children on the training field.

The children were in leather armor, standing under the sun. They swung and thrust their blades at the wooden dummies in sacks. Their movements were unbelievably fast, leaving afterimages wherever they attacked.

"Their strength, constitution, and agility have increased remarkably. They have surpassed human limitations." The representative then shook his head regretfully. "And yet they have not awakened any magical talents. They cannot control magic. These mutants are second-rate products."

"I disagree. Erland is an exception." Alzur looked at the boy with a tattoo on his face. "He can control magic if we give him guidance, and he possesses physical strength most sorcerers do not. He has resistance against diseases and lethal poison. It's a unique ability that came from his mutation."

"He was born a Source. He should've gone to Ban Ard, and yet you put him through an experiment with a one-in-ten survival rate just to gain a bit more physical prowess that's useless for sorcerers? Do you wish for him to abandon his magical talent and swing a sword like a warrior instead?" Gildorf then looked at the most intimidating young man in the training field. He had broad shoulders, and his look was icy. "And the experiment brought with it severe complications. That Arnaghad boy has lost his emotions. He used to be lively, but now he's colder than a block of ice."

"We have found four recipes for the mutation. They're a lot better in terms of quality." Cosimo frowned. "If we keep on doing this, we'll lessen the complications soon enough. It will be possible to awaken the potential for magic within the test subjects."

"For ten years, the brotherhood has invested a mountain of coins in this endeavor. We put all our faith in you two, and yet the results are disappointing. The top brass thinks any further experimentation will yield too little returns." Gildorf shook his head. Imperiously, he said, "They have decided to pull all funding and end the experiment. From now on, Rissberg will no longer house any projects regarding mutants. As for the mutants…" Coolly, Gildorf declared, "They shall be recycled."

"Preposterous. They endured hell and barely passed the Trial. You cannot rob them of their lives." Alzur's eyes went wide with fury, and he stared at Gildorf. "Cosimo and I are their creators. We will be in charge of them."

"These mutants are hazardous. They are walking, living bombs. Do you understand me?"

"Enough, Gildorf." Cosimo shook his head, then he looked at the young men swinging their swords in the field. "Alzur and I shall take them away."

***

"Where are we, sir?" Elgar had a blue knapsack saddled on his back. He was on a mountainside, standing before a castle swirling in mist. The walls were covered in verdant vines, and the turrets were ancient and obsidian. This was a fortress.

The four witchers beside him had conflicted looks in their eyes. They'd only followed Alzur for more than a year, and yet it felt like a lifetime. The countless torture they went through shed them of their naiveté and lively attitude. The young witchers were cautious and alert.

"Kestrel Mountains. It is on the borders between Kaedwen and Kovir. This is Castle Morgraig." Cosimo stroked his robe, reminiscence flaring in his eyes. "It was my home, and now it is yours."

"We shall begin a new venture here." Alzur stared at the magnificent castle before him. He didn't sound dejected despite being kicked out of Rissberg. Instead, he was filled with motivation. Only without the brotherhood's interference could he do what he wanted. "We shall work for the same dream. To rid the world of the monsters hiding in the dark and make it safer."

"You and what army?" Erland looked at Alzur, not bothering to hide his hatred and disdain. "I almost died just to pass the Trial, and I trained my ass off for a whole year. That's more than enough to cover for the coins you gave my mother. I want to leave."

"I will not stop you. You may leave whenever you want, but be warned." Alzur said nonchalantly, "Your speed, strength, personality, and even looks are different from any human. If you leave the mountains without any preparation, all the people will think of you is that you are a monster. They will fear you. They will stay away from you. And you lack experience. If you leave in a haste, you might run into the mountain's cyclops or snake monsters. They will devour you."

The witchers exchanged a look. For quite a long time, they never left Rissberg. They spent their days in the lab, the training field, and the dorm. They knew little more about life beyond those places, and even now, they were only eleven-year-olds. They would have no idea what to do if they were plunged back into society all of a sudden.

"I have a suggestion," Alzur continued. "I can provide systematic training for you. You will learn how to efficiently use your strength and dispense justice. That is how you gain acknowledgement and return to society."

"You were born from countless deaths, turned into powerful warriors from pitiful orphans. Your role as the survivors is to strike down monsters with the weapon in your hands and save humanity from their crisis," Cosimo added. "You are the perfect base to make a great weapon out of, but you need experience to temper your skills. Best if you remain in the castle and train for a few years. Then you may leave and hunt down those monsters. End the suffering they have rained upon this world. Then you may make a choice to either stay or leave."

"From now on, you are to be called… witchers," said Alzur.

"Fuck whatever you just said," Erland retorted arrogantly. "You hypocrites put all the poor children through that experiment and killed them. You killed my Jagda, and you're pinning their deaths on us? How low can you even go?"

Alzur scanned the young witchers, and he earnestly said, "That was a Trial. Through the Trial, you have gained enough strength to control your fate. Let me reiterate. Should you wish to leave, I will not stop you."

The boys clenched their fists, power flowing through their veins. "I didn't ask for any power. I just want Jagda."

"And there are a lot of Jagdas out there suffering under the tyranny of monsters. They are waiting for you to save them."

Erland had no comeback for that. He set aside his plan to leave. I'll stay for a while, then.

Arnaghad fiddled with his sword. Calmly and almost monotonously, he said, "I don't care about saving the people. As long as I don't need to starve and have a roof over my head, I'm fine with anything." His face was sculpted, but his lines were cold as an icy blade.

"Of course." Cosimo nodded. A hint of guilt flickered in his eyes. Out of the five witchers, Arnaghad's Trial left him with the worst complication. "You may return to your family for visits anytime."

"There's no need for that." Arnaghad shook his head. The passion for his family was gone from his eyes. The family he used to think the world of had lost meaning to him.

"You want us to hunt monsters? I'm not interested." Ivar's eyes were green, and they kept morphing like little kaleidoscopes. It was terrifying. Ever since he passed his Trial, he kept seeing weird hallucinations. He saw phantom knights on skeletal horses flying through the skies, sowing chaos all over the world, and their actions gave birth to hordes of orphans like him. "I will kill all those who trade in human trafficking."

"Then you must be fast enough. Strong enough. You are far from that." Alzur looked at Ivar sharply.

"Then I shall stay and train."

Elgar looked at his brethren, then he turned to his mentors, and he sighed. "There were 38 of us, but only 5 are left. We must band together. Not split up."

"Our numbers will grow. Soon there will be teachers from all fields coming to this castle just to tutor you," Cosimo promised.

Madoc was in the back of the line. He said nothing, and his face was hidden in his hood. Only his eyes were revealed. They glinted green like a beast's in the night.

Mist rolled over the walls of Morgraig, obscuring the vision of the invisible observers.

***

Time was sped up once more, and the scenes before Roy flew past. With the arrival of the first witchers and their creators, the deserted castle found a breath of fresh air injected into its walls. As promised, the sorcerers spent a handsome amount of coins to hire experts from all fields. Healers, hunters, blacksmith, traveling knights, and more. All just to teach the first witchers. The young witchers were like sponges, sucking up all the knowledge taught to them, and they grew.

Ivar, Arnaghad, and Elgar showed great talent in swordplay. At the same time, Cosimo spent a lot of his time creating something a lot simpler than spells for the witchers. This simpler system of magic was called Signs. Erland, the only Source among the witchers, expressed great interest. He would often practice the Signs until late at night. When he had time, he would talk to the wandering knight called Llywelyn, or as everyone else called him, Griffin.

Alzur would talk to him as well, teaching him about Virtue's Guide without tire. Erland was in his teenage years. After losing his first love and getting lectured all the time by a knight and someone who used to aspire to be one, Erland found himself falling for the valor of knights.

Elgar learned the art of blacksmithing from a master blacksmith. He showed great talent for the art of smithing, and eventually, he was in charge of making all the weapons and armor for his brethren.

The witchers' training went on without pause every day. Alzur would leave the castle from time to time to travel around the world. He took in orphans and kids from families too poor to raise them, and he led them back to the castle, where he went on with the experiment of the Trial.

With the birth of a successful first batch, the survival rate for the succeeding batches was rising quickly. With the sorcerers' teamwork, batches of witchers found themselves born within this castle, and more people showed up in the training field.

When the number of witchers hit twenty, Alzur dubbed the team as the Order of Witchers. Their creed was to save humanity and rid the world of all monsters hiding in the darkness. Everyone in the order lived together, trained together, and built a deep bond over time.

In the fifth year of their moving to Morgraig, fifty witchers were born. Fifty passed the Trial. Thinking that the children had gone through enough training, Alzur and Cosimo allowed the five from the first batch of test subjects to leave the mountains and carry out the order's creed. They were to slay monsters, protect the Continent's people, and gain their acknowledgement.

***

The witchers from the future were hiding beyond the walls, watching their predecessors’ early lives, and a magical feeling welled in their hearts. They were reminded of their first time leaving the mountains. They’d been filled with trepidation back then.

***

The mist rolled in once more, and time flew by. On a winter day, ten years later, a bonfire roared in the great hall of the castle's first floor. A hundred members of the order were huddled around the bonfire.

Vesemir, who was still in the mist, saw his younger self among the crowd. He looked so young, and yet so handsome.

"So, how's the world like outside, Elgar?"

The witchers' beastly eyes lit up the night. They turned their eyes to the most popular witcher among them all, though his looks weren't outstanding.

More than twenty young witchers were seated behind him.

"It took me a lot of time, but Alzur was right. He did not exaggerate at all," Elgar told the young witchers. "Anyone who goes into the mountains only has a one-in-four chance of getting out alive. Everyone else would be killed off by leshens and basilisks. If they try to sail across the seas, ekhidnas will make sure they never return. No one would dare enter the woods or approach the coasts. Even so, wraiths, ghouls, spriggans, and kikimores will still attack any hamlets that stand near their lair, turning them into abandoned sites. These are dark times."

"And the time for us witchers to prove ourselves!" a deep voice boomed through the night. The witchers looked at the man. He had an icy look and dark, dark eyes. Ten witchers stood behind Arnaghad. Those were witchers who went through the same Trial he did, and their emotions were stunted. Ivar, however, stood among the group as well. "They need someone to save them from the monster problem, but they do not have enough coins to hire sorcerers. They're expensive. Mercenaries are not professional enough either, so we're their best choice. We just have to go to a village, and they'll know we're witchers once they see our eyes. They're going to beg for us to help them deal with the monsters. They'll offer us anything. Handsome payment too. Coins are nothing compared to survival."

The people behind nodded. A young man with amber eyes asked, "What if they can't fork out the coins?"

"Then we take a different request."

"Have you forgotten Alzur and Sir Llewelyn's lessons?" Erland took a swig of liquor and shot Arnaghad a look of displeasure. He hated how Arnaghad kept talking about coins and profits and saw human lives as nothing but worthless toys. "We do not slay monsters and take requests from the people just for coins. Even if they do not have enough coins to pay us, we should lend our hand as well." Erland stood up and looked around him. He told the young witchers, "Witchers live for one reason: to help the Continent's people fight the evil that's beyond them and gain their recognition."

"Shut it. Do not take the moral high ground." Arnaghad shook his head in scorn. "How are we supposed to survive if we don't have money? Even if we're obligated to help them with their monster problems, they would never show us any gratitude. Madoc left us because of your attitude. You won’t stop talking about virtue and valor."

A long silence followed. Everyone was reminded of the witcher who left without a word of goodbye after he took three requests. His departure left a deep scar on the order. Alzur and Cosimo would bring him up a lot of times.

"Arnaghad has a point." Ivar massaged his temples. "Since our return to society ten years ago, everything about witchers has been negative. All kings think we're untrustworthy assassins. And aside from Alzur, Cosimo, and the experts in genetic modification, all the sorcerers despise us. We're nothing but second-rate products in their eyes, but we took over their job and dealt with the monster problem. No longer can they enjoy the reverence from the people."

Ivar's eyes glinted coldly. "And the churches are worse. The priests think we're unnatural creatures born from mutations. We are not any god's creation, so they think we're heretics. Melitele, Freya, and Lebioda, the gods they claim to be loving and accepting, treat us like we're less than refuse. Their believers despise us because of them. I say if humans treat us harshly, then we do business like professionals." Ivar raised his voice. "They give us the coins; we give them our services. I say that's our first creed."

"Ivar, Arnaghad, enough." Erland's eyes twinkled coldly. "Stop teaching the order the wrong ideas."

"You're the one giving them false ideas, Erland. We're witchers, not knights. Don't talk to us about self-sacrifice."

"Enough!" Elgar looked at the arguing witchers and shook his head in resignation. He stood between them. "I don't care what you choose, just don't influence anyone. Let them make their own choice."

***

This argument was just a little episode among the order. Countless arguments of the same kind broke out in the decades following that. The witchers still thrived despite everything, and they followed an unwritten rule. Every spring, they would travel across the world and accept requests to slay monsters and gain the people's recognition. Every winter, the witchers would bring their haul, liquor, and monster components back to Morgraig. They would share liquor and tell stories of their adventures. If there were witchers who perished, they would mourn for them.

The sorcerers would use the components the witchers brought back to further their research. The talented Alzur managed to create a new spell from the remains of these monsters. It was a powerful summoning spell dubbed Alzur's Double Cross. He would go on to take in a student named Idarran and gather a group of sorcerers interested in mutations and genetic modifications. Then they would conduct experiments in hidden castles across the world.

To garner more loyalty from the witchers, Cosimo taught them about the Law of Surprise. Throughout their adventures, the witchers took in new blood with the Law and put them through the Trial. The number of witchers grew all over the world. At the same time, the differences in opinion between Erland, Arnaghad, and their supporters were getting bigger.

Before the conflict's escalation, however, the noblemen of Ellander and Maribor's war for Vizima's throne ended. Alzur, one of the order's leaders, returned to Maribor.

Roy entered another misty space.

***

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