—
"Sorry, kid. I'm not just some hired hand you can call on whenever you want. We Wolf Witchers don't take contracts that have anything to do with politics."
Creating a soundless bubble so their conversation wouldn't disturb the one working at the operating table, Gustave remarked to Lambert, "I'll pay you 750 Gulden as a deposit, and another 1,000 once the contract is complete."
"Sold. Tell me, kid—what do I need to do?"
Looking at Lambert—who was now becoming more and more like a Cat Witcher—Eskel couldn't help but sigh and shake his head at how quickly Lambert's tone changed the moment he heard the large sum of money.
And knowing this would happen after being helped by Calanthe to create New Kaer Morhen, and considering the ancient monsters now appearing one after another from their hiding places, he couldn't help but sigh at the peace that was now lost, no longer able to be a simple Witcher anymore.
Especially when it came to Vesemir, whose grumbling became more and more apparent by the day. It was only thanks to Ciri, who liked to spend her time in the fortress and the idea of creating new Witchers without fatality, that Eskel saw Vesemir's mood improve after being shoved into politics.
"What I need you to do is retrieve the blueprints of the Grandmaster Griffin Armor at the designated location that I will tell you later. And not only that, I will give you a Megascope, and you need to activate it every four days during your journey, because I want to teleport to your location from time to time."
"Wait—hold on a sec. You said Grandmaster Griffin Armor? How? How the hell did you even know it's in Toussaint? Coën has been searching for those things for ages since Jerome went missing."
Shaking his head at Lambert's questions, Gustave answered, "Don't ask how I got this information. I have my own sources."
Pausing, he continued, "And do not tell Coën about this yet, because I want to copy the blueprints for my own research. But if you can convince him to let me take a look and copy them, then it is up to you whether you tell Coën about the Grandmaster Griffin Armor."
"Damn it! There's Manticore, and now Griffin too?! Adon should've just stayed in Toussaint a bit longer…"
Seeing that Toussaint might be the place where the Grandmaster blueprints are located, considering Tyen'sail lives there, Lambert shook his head to get rid of these thoughts. Then, turning to the kid once more, he reassured him, "Don't worry. Unless you're planning to hoard the blueprints for yourself, Coën will not have a problem with you taking a look."
Nodding his head, it was now Gustave's turn to be surprised. It seemed that his advice back then to Adon had been taken to heart to the point that it allowed Adon to retrieve another Grandmaster set of armor.
But it also made him frown. If Adon was able to find the Manticore set, that meant he could also find the Bear set—the one Gustave wanted for himself to create his absolute defense armor, one with higher resistance to all kinds of attacks.
Although he wanted to use his [Knowledge] ability to scour the fortress, he knew that doing so would give the wrong impression to the mages here.
And considering that he was still unable to come up with the Zero-Point Energy inventions he had set out to create back when he woke up, he knew that any magic he used would still leave traces if he decided to brute-force it, just like he had back in Cintra.
Even with a more advanced version of his [Knowledge] ability, he never had any reassurance or confidence if the thing he wanted to confront had anything to do with magic. If the bubble protecting against divination spells were made purely of classical mechanics, he would be able to crack it with absolute certainty.
But because he knew that every spell, in one way or another, operates through a quantum mechanical system, no matter how high he could calculate or how extensive his knowledge and infinite evolution set were, he knew that quantum mechanics, at its essence, is probabilistic—the outcome is never fully determined.
So, with this Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in mind, he turned to Lambert. Since the easiest solution was to ask directly at the source, he decided to throw the question to Lambert, "Lambert. Did Adon manage to retrieve another one besides Manticore?"
"Wait, wait—hold on?! So it's true?! All the Grandmaster Armor from every school is in Toussaint?! Blast it, Adon really, really should've just stayed in Toussaint a bit longer!"
Sighing at the shame of a lost opportunity, Lambert decided he would search for the other sets later in Toussaint, especially considering that the Wolf set and Manticore set were not suited to his combat style.
A combat style that now required him to be increasingly agile, since, unlike Eskel, who hunts at sea, he took contracts on land, where the majority of his targets were insect monsters—monsters that were becoming increasingly intelligent in how they hunted their prey in Nazair and the areas of Mil Trachta.
But since this was a monumental time for any Witcher, he turned to the kid and answered, "As for that… no. Besides Manticore, he didn't find a second one. As for ironing out the contract in more detail, we'll talk a bit more after this. A Witcher without fatality is a dream for any of us."
Nodding his head at Lambert, having confirmed that he could employ him, Gustave then turned toward Leo, the one who was about to enter the ranks of Witchers.
Undoing his anechoic room spell, which had prevented any sound from escaping or entering, he finally heard the chilling scream of Leo, forced to undergo the trials simply because of the foolish traditions of the Law of Surprise.
Seeing a child being tortured and taken forcibly from his parents for the sake of experimentation, Gustave remained silent, letting out a sigh at how his morals seemed to erode the longer he lived in this world.
Yet he did nothing about it, knowing that his circumstances were different from the people of this world, many of whom were far more numb when it came to compassion.
And, not wanting to be hypocritical—imposing his morality on others while refusing to accept theirs—he allowed the societies of this world to operate according to their own moral codes. Perhaps in his own Twin Realms he would enforce his morality, because those were his kingdoms.
But for everyone else—like Nazair, which still had slave markets; Skellige, where raiding was normal; Toussaint, which expelled any non-humans from its lands; and many more—he would try to change them where he could.
If it didn't work, he would leave them to their own devices, knowing that he himself did not occupy a high moral ground.
Especially considering that he was not a vegan, enjoying species that would eventually evolve into conscious beings. Although for now he could say they were just animals, it did not change the fact that they were all, in a sense, his brothers and sisters of evolution, slow in their uptake.
And, since living in this world meant that sooner or later he would spill the blood of innocents, Gustave decided to numb his compassion to adapt his morality to this world—watching silently as Leo, tears of blood streaming down his face, continued to squirm on the operating table.
With rib bones protruding from the six-year-old child, followed by rapid regeneration accelerated by healing magic, he saw every stage of forced evolution in the trials—every kind of torment—until finally the famous syringe that made their eyes resemble those of a cat.
As the yellow concoction in the needle was pushed into Leo's eyes, he couldn't help but wince from phantom pain, witnessing the boy undergo the mutations.
A chilling, loud scream erupted from Leo, his body convulsing as if stung by millions of wasps at once, following the evolutionary transformations of millions of years compressed into hours. Gustave couldn't help but shiver at the sight, silently thankful that nature had smoothed the process over time, making it gradual and not painful.
With thoughts of ensuring that his minions would not have to endure the same kinds of torture in the future, following the methods nature had used for other beings, Gustave finally watched the process conclude after five hours of constant screaming, until Leo's voice was reduced to a husk of sickly, dried breaths.
Walking up to the operating table to help in any way he could for the poor boy, Gustave—after everyone had finished examining and completing the experiment—decided to cast soothing spells that he had modified from Axii and Water elemental magic.
As Leo's voice returned to normal, replaced by unending, depressed crying, Gustave sighed and silently apologized to the boy for watching helplessly as he shed immense, stressful tears. Turning away and leaving his Earthly sense of morality behind, he shook his head and let out a long sigh, knowing he had already made his decision.
—
"So, kid. Tell me. How can you be so smart?"
Dining at the kitchen table of New Kaer Morhen, Gustave—before answering Lambert—first looked around at the Witchers present. They were not just the four Wolf Witchers known from the games, but a mix of Wolf Witchers mentioned across different lore universes, as well as Griffin Witchers who liked to spend time with the Wolves.
And because his observable universe was one composed of many lore versions merged together—not just individual books, Hexer, comics, TTRPGs, or games, each of which could be divided into cinematic and gameplay interpretations—Gustave saw that besides the usual Lambert, Eskel, Vesemir, and Geralt, there were many more Witchers present.
Among the Wolf Witchers who had survived up until now and had not yet died by the point of the book and game timelines were Clovis and Olach of Ban Gleán, both of whom had come here after hearing about the existence of New Kaer Morhen.
Not counting Adon and Leo who were currently upstairs—Leo sleeping from exhaustion, and Adon staying by his side out of guilt, trying to act as a replacement father figure.
Much like Berengar—one of the Witchers who rarely returned, unlike Eskel, Lambert, and Geralt—Clovis and Olach of Ban Gleán had come only because of this special occasion. Both had already drifted so far from their Witcher identity that they resembled the Wolf-school version of Jad Karadin.
Considering that they hated living in Kaedweni lands, especially after Radowitt II, Henselt's uncle, carried out the second pogrom that pitted Cat Witchers against Wolf Witchers, it was understandable why Gustave had never seen them in Old Kaer Morhen back when he had accidentally teleported there.
And because Griffin Witchers liked spending time with the Wolves, not only Wolf Witchers were present, but Griffin Witchers as well—such as Coën, who had just arrived from Sodden after killing an Ogre Warrior and happened to be passing through—along with others like Kristov of White Orchard and Raven.
Raven, the master-blacksmith Witcher who would eventually be able to create Grandmaster-level Raven Armor with the help of Tyen'sail in Mahakam, as in the Witcher 1 timeline.
And considering that the Mahakaman Ale Festival was just around the corner, he realized their meeting was likely happening around this time of year, prompting him to make a mental note.
So, turning to Lambert—while everyone present, from Witchers to the mages nearby, perked up their ears—Gustave answered, "How can I be so smart? Nothing much. Just reading books and listening to what adults are talking about makes me aware of many things. That's what I did when I was just a child."
"Mhuahahahaha!"
Seeing as the eavesdropping ears turned into amused head shakes, Gustave replied in mock annoyance, "It's true! I just read a book with my Eyes of Knowledge and listen to what people have to say with my Ear of Knowledge, and voilà, I can be so smart."
"Kid, you are the kid!"
"Huh? What do you mean by that?"
"Haaaah… nothing, nothing. You're still not graduated to man world."
Seeing that Prince Gustave—despite his intelligence and awareness of the real world—still carried a bit of naïveté, Coën decided to remind him not to show his maturity openly.
Setting down his spoon, he turned to Gustave and said, "Prince, don't show your maturity in front of common folk. The soldiers, your family, and your entourage may understand you, but people who don't know about your Eyes and Ears of Knowledge might think you're devil-spawn."
He paused, lifted his spoon again, and added, "Your guards can protect you, but trust me, Prince Gustave. An arrow from far away, fired by someone crazy enough, can come at any moment."
"What did you say, you freak?! Did you accuse us of not being able to protect Prince Gustave?! I will cut—"
"Stand down, Tobias. I didn't allow you to speak for me."
"Y-yes, my Lord."
Deactivating the suggestive magic on his guard captain, Tobias—who, despite being good at his job and unquestionably loyal, still carried the racist upbringing common among citizens of the Twin Realms—Gustave turned back to Coën to address his suggestion.
"Hmm… thank you for the advice, Mister Coën. I will keep that in mind."
Raising his eyebrows at the advanced version of Axii, at a level similar to his mentor Keldar's, Coën didn't take the racist outburst to heart. He was already numb to that sort of thing, and simply replied, "You're welcome, Prince."
Suddenly remembering their earlier conversation—about the Griffin Grandmaster blueprints rumored to be in Toussaint—Coën asked again for confirmation, "If I may ask again, Prince Gustave, is it true that our Griffin Grandmaster armor is in Toussaint?"
"Yep. I am sure they are there."
—