In the great hall of Kaer Morhen, more than twenty witchers sat drinking and sharing stories of their travels.
The candlelight brought warmth and brightness to the otherwise cold and empty hall, and their presence made it feel like a home.
"A lively scene," John murmured as he watched.
He saw the last to arrive—the white-haired witcher—embrace each of the others in turn.
Here, they were like a family.
All of them were outcasts, branded as monsters by the world. Only when they gathered together could they show the emotions that lay beneath the rumors.
Leaning on the 1st-floor railing, John thought back on the days he'd spent here.
"I'll probably end up missing my sixth year," he muttered to himself. Assuming time flowed the same here as in his original world, he was probably considered a missing person by now.
"Yadani," Vesemir said as he came to stand beside John, patting him on the shoulder, "come with me. I'll introduce you to the others."
From the moment John had entered Kaer Morhen, Vesemir had treated him as one of his own.
Following Vesemir down the stairs, John noticed the respect in the witchers' eyes as they looked at their mentor.
But when their gazes shifted to John, curiosity and a trace of wariness replaced it.
Raising his silver goblet, Vesemir looked over the gathered witchers with quiet emotion. "A toast—to your safe return home."
The witchers raised their cups and drank together.
"To surviving another winter," one witcher said, raising his cup.
"To being alive, still able to draw breath."
"To our brothers."
One after another, the witchers voiced their own heartfelt toasts.
When the last of them had spoken, Vesemir lifted his cup in one hand and rested the other on John's shoulder. "Let me introduce someone new to you. He is—"
"Black hair. And that sword." A tall witcher fixed his eyes on John's appearance and said each word slowly and with weight, "The Black Witcher. Yadani."
"It seems my name has reached your ears," John said with a small, easy smile.
The mood in the hall, however, was no longer the warm camaraderie of a family meal. The witchers' gazes on John were wary, assessing.
"You destroyed a city," the tall witcher said, his eyes flashing with a predatory glint.
"Lambert," a dark-skinned witcher beside him murmured, a warning in his tone.
But Lambert only sneered and went on sharply, "That wasn't all he did. The Black Witcher."
Vesemir stayed silent, watching to see how John would handle it.
The white-haired witcher finally spoke. "Calm down, Lambert."
"Calm down? Geralt, would you raze a city the way he did?" Lambert shot back, as quick to ignite as a powder keg.
Geralt covered his face with one hand and let out a weary sigh.
Lambert shot John a cold snort. "He only knows how to scare ordinary people."
"You think so?" John let out a hoarse chuckle. He stepped toward Lambert, stopping right in front of him, and said softly, "If you've got a problem with me, don't yap like an old crone—use your weapon and say it."
"Gladly!" Lambert snapped back.
Sometimes, fists—or blades—settled arguments better than words ever could.
Geralt put a hand on Lambert's shoulder, but Lambert shrugged it off, bristling.
The dark-skinned witcher, Coën, shook his head with a helpless sigh. "You know how it is. That's what they call being young and hot-headed."
Lambert was the second-youngest among them.
"Yadani," Vesemir called out just as John was heading out. "Don't go killing Lambert."
"Relax, Vesemir," John said lightly, almost amused. "I don't kill people without a reason."
Their exchange drew strange looks from the witchers in the hall. Lambert might be young, but his strength was nothing to scoff at.
Aside from a handful of the veterans, few among them would claim they could take Lambert in a straight fight.
John strode out of the hall.
The group made their way to the same training ground where John had sparred with Vesemir before.
Lambert drew his sword and beckoned with a sharp gesture. "Show me what you've got, Black Witcher."
John lazily unsheathed his own blade, his unhurried, almost indifferent manner clearly irritating Lambert.
He had to admit—John had managed to get under his skin.
The moment John's blade cleared its scabbard, Lambert lunged at him.
Every witcher present turned their eyes to the fight. Geralt stepped up beside Vesemir and asked quietly, "You trust him?"
Geralt's gaze stayed on the two men squaring off, and he added, "I can tell he's young. Truly young."
"He's not a bad one," Vesemir replied, arms crossed, his tone casual. "I met him in the Blue Mountains. He was in the middle of a fight with a griffin—and he killed it."
"A griffin?" Geralt's brow furrowed. "I haven't seen one of those in the Blue Mountains for a long time."
"That's not a good sign. The world is changing, White Wolf," Vesemir said gravely. "This boy is part of that change."
Swoosh Clanc!
The clash on the field had already begun.
Before the watching crowd, Lambert closed in on John, his sword slicing through the snowflakes as he struck.
John moved at the same time, choosing not to use magic.
He wanted to test his swordsmanship against that of the witchers.
Their blades met with a sharp clang, sparks flashing where steel struck steel.
The silver gleam of their blades shone bright against the snow. Each of Lambert's strikes landed with heavy force, scattering the snow around them.
John's sword was no less sharp. After a dozen or so exchanges, he had a solid grasp of Lambert's skill level.
A swordsman at Level 5, nearing Level 6.
If Lambert thought he could defeat John relying on swordsmanship alone, he was only fooling himself.
Having sized him up, John seized the opening as Lambert swung wide. With a precise flick of his blade, he knocked Lambert's sword aside, then closed the distance in two quick strides and leapt forward, driving his knee hard into Lambert's chest.
The taller witcher staggered back several steps before dropping to one knee.
Swoosh!
John spun his sword in a smooth arc, the edge cutting through the cold air before coming to rest lightly against Lambert's neck.
Where Lambert had once looked down on him, he now had to tilt his head up. John, calm and composed, stood over him like a king bestowing judgment. "So?"
Lambert's face flushed from blue to purple, but at last he muttered through clenched teeth, "I lost."
He could have used a Sign to keep fighting—but he didn't.
Because deep down, he knew his Signs couldn't bring down a city wall.
John raised an eyebrow and casually tossed his silver sword into the air before catching it again.
Turning to the gathered witchers, he spread his arms in a relaxed gesture. "Anyone else want to step up and find justice for Balvic?"
The witchers exchanged uneasy glances.
Geralt let out a low sigh. "I believe it now. He really did kill that griffin by himself."
Vesemir chuckled and teased, "You should've seen that griffin's head. It's still kept inside."
The silver sword that had been tossed into the air reached the peak of its arc and began to fall—straight toward where John was standing.
Kohen, sharp-eyed, spotted it first and shouted, "Move!"
The sword plummeted at great speed, its sharp edge more than capable of piercing straight through a body.
John merely shifted his waist slightly, and just before the blade could impale him, the silver gleam slid cleanly into the scabbard on his back.
Geralt's pupils narrowed. That took nerve—along with impeccable control.
Wherever the strong went, their strength earned them the right to speak.
John was soon accepted—Lambert was the first to acknowledge him.
Others followed.
That winter, he received special training from Vesemir.
To Vesemir's surprise, John's knowledge of alchemy was astonishing—enough to leave even an old witcher like him in disbelief.
When not training, John spent most of his time buried in the laboratory—once the very place where witchers had been created.
Among the relics of Kaer Morhen were old notebooks left behind by long-dead mages. Those became John's most frequent reading material.
The ancient script forced him to brush the dust off his long-neglected knowledge of runes, and bit by bit his skill in reading them improved.
Alongside it, so did his grasp of alchemy.
The once-gray symbols on his notes slowly began to gain color.
John absorbed knowledge like a parched sponge soaking up every last drop of water.
Even Vesemir sighed that it wouldn't be long before he had nothing more to teach the boy.
This youngster was unreasonable—his swordsmanship improved with every sparring session.
At first, Vesemir could suppress him within twenty moves. Then it took fifty. Eventually, it took a hundred.
At Kaer Morhen, the two witchers John got along with best were Geralt and Eskel.
Especially Geralt—who had always thought himself the hardest-working of them all—until he met someone even more relentless.
For days on end, Geralt served as John's sparring partner. After eight hours of practice one day, he had barely managed two hours of rest before a bright-eyed, energetic John dragged him back up again.
Before long, John was no longer called the Black Witcher.
He had earned a new name: the Devil, the Devil of the Night—Night Demon.
Almost theatrically, that title began to spread among the witchers.
At night, one could often glimpse that ghostlike figure flitting through the halls and courtyards of the castle.
Thus the winter passed.
One by one, the witchers departed.
John had just about wrung every last drop of knowledge he could from Vesemir.
"I suppose I can't keep you here any longer," Vesemir said, patting John's arm with both hands.
"I can't demand too much of you, but as a witcher, I hope you'll go out there and slay more monsters."
He clasped a silver wolf's-head medallion around John's neck.
John was now formally a witcher.
A white glow seeped from the medallion and merged into his sword.
The sixth rune on the blade lit up, and the seventh began to flicker.
John understood—it was urging him onward to face a new trial.
He took a small ring from his satchel and tossed it to Vesemir.
"As thanks for everything these past weeks."
Vesemir caught the ring, while John mounted his horse and rode away.
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