Aelin kept his eyes closed.
Through the mutated sensory glands tucked beside his nose, the world unfolded—not as shapes or sounds, but as vivid currents of scent. Color bloomed in his mind like oil in water.
A ribbon of blue—stream water.
A streak of jade green—that was grass.
And those deep, nearly black blocks of brown, almost heavy enough to touch—that was the scent of damp, rich earth.
He had never understood the meaning of synesthesia—a term shared between the two worlds—so clearly before. Now it wasn't just a word, but an experience, raw and overwhelming.
It felt like dying again. Like being reborn, again.
The looming shadow of the Mountain Trial, that suffocating burden chained to his back, suddenly felt lighter. Not gone, but no longer unbearable.
Aelin let himself linger in the world of scent, drinking it in like wine. Only after a long while did he open his eyes.
Vesemir and Letho were standing on the grass nearby, waiting patiently, smiles tugging at the corners of their weathered faces.
"How does it feel?" Vesemir asked.
"Incredible," Aelin replied without hesitation. "Like I was born anew."
Something about his tone, or perhaps his choice of words, made Letho laugh aloud.
"Hah! You're getting dramatic, boy. Talk like that, and you'll have people thinking you're a sorcerer. Who taught you to speak so flowery?"
"Letho! Do you have a death wish?" Vesemir barked sharply.
"Sorry, sorry—my mouth's faster than my brain," Letho mumbled, instantly remorseful, like a child caught stealing fruit.
Being unable to speak freely clearly pained him more than any wound.
Aelin couldn't hold back a grin. Between Letho's exaggerated misery and the thrill of unlocking a new world within his senses, he couldn't help it—he laughed out loud.
Vesemir blinked in surprise, then let out a warm chuckle of his own.
Only Letho stood apart, arms crossed and face long, watching the two like a bitter wet nurse with no power to scold her unruly children.
Autumn was leaning westward.
The sun's blood-red rays filtered through the bare branches, casting long shadows over the witcher apprentices.
The hunt was done. With the last batch of drowners processed, it was time to return to Kaer Morhen.
Or rather, they would return—Aelin and Vesemir.
Letho, come spring, would be elsewhere. Playing his dangerous game of hide and seek with a certain sorceress.
Schlick.
The dagger gleamed coldly as Aelin severed the last drowner tongue. He dropped it into his materials pouch without ceremony.
Nearby, Vesemir and Letho were finishing up as well, dumping unconscious drowners into burlap sacks.
"Come on, Aelin. Let's go home," Vesemir said, slapping one of the sacks over his shoulder.
Letho turned to gaze at the distant outline of Kaer Morhen. His voice was soft. "Home. Yeah... I'd like that too."
"Then come with us," Aelin said playfully.
The afternoon hunt had forged an easy camaraderie between the two. Vesemir still wore the mask of a teacher, but Letho had discarded all pretense. He'd stopped holding back entirely.
As he had put it earlier: "If I can't speak freely, I'd rather be dead. And Lady Vira may be scary, but I doubt she'll actually kill me."
Careless words, perhaps. But Letho was the kind of man you could trust precisely because he spoke without filters.
Or was it the other way around?
Aelin had pondered this paradox for some time, turning it over like a riddle without answer, then let it slip from his thoughts.
Letho merely rolled his eyes, sighed deeply, and said nothing.
With Vesemir's nod, he hefted two sacks and began trudging down the path.
Aelin slung his own burden onto his back and followed the two witchers.
When he saw they weren't watching, he took the chance to pull out his monster-hunting journal to tally the day's results.
Name: Aelin
Level: 4
Special Skills: Monster Hunter Lv1, Appraisal Lv1, Track (Special) Lv1
Skills: Wolf School Two-Handed Sword Lv2, Quen Lv1, Track Lv1
Inventory: Drowner Heart Essence ×29, Minor XP Bead ×134, Drowner Whistle ×2…
Evaluation: Pathetic!!
As he expected—two different tracking skills.
Aelin focused for a moment, examining them carefully.
Though they shared the same name, they were fundamentally different abilities.
The special Track skill was tethered to the monster-hunting journal itself—a structured framework of encoded knowledge. In essence, a manual for using the journal as a tool of pursuit.
By contrast, the ordinary Track skill stemmed from the heightened senses granted by his mutated physiology—reading scent trails, broken foliage, shifts in wind.
Through this comparison, Aelin gained a deeper understanding of the journal's dual nature: the distinction between special and ordinary.
The difference was vast.
But to Aelin, one truth stood out above all:
Ordinary skills belong to me. Special skills belong to the journal.
Even without the journal, he could swing a sword, cast Quen, or track a beast.
But the skills granted by the journal—Monster Hunter, Appraisal, Special Track—he didn't even understand how they functioned. They weren't his. Not really.
The journal might be his "cheat," his blessing, but the inability to control those powers gave him a faint, persistent sense of unease. Like holding a blade that might turn in his hand.
Still, that didn't matter. Not now.
The Trial loomed ahead. And that mattered more than anything.
He looked down at the pile of Minor XP Beads.
Three drowner packs today. Thirteen kills on his own, excluding the initial group of eight.
Too bad none were bounty targets. And now that his level had gone up, the system's rewards had dropped.
Even the best chest loot had been a pair of drowner whistles.
"To unlock alchemy, I still need... 9,890 XP Beads," Aelin muttered, doing the math in his head. "And today only brought in about a hundred."
Nowhere near enough.
Unless the alchemy lessons in the morning continued to reduce the XP cost by ten a day—which they wouldn't—this was going to be a long grind.
Lost in thought, he nearly missed the fork in the path—the place where they would part ways.
"Vesemir. Aelin. I'm heading off," Letho said, glancing at the looming castle in the distance.
"Maybe it won't be so bad. Lady Vira's temper isn't as terrible as they say…"
Aelin opened his mouth, unwilling to let him go. He'd just made a friend—it felt wrong to say goodbye so soon.
Sure, the sorceress had a reputation among the witchers: vindictive, terrifying. But Aelin had never seen her that way. To him, Vira had always seemed intelligent, poised.
Especially once she started dressing more modestly. Aside from lacking glasses, she looked not unlike the graduate students from his old life.
Only prettier. Much prettier.
"Aelin," Vesemir said quietly, cutting him off. "I believe Lady Vira isn't half as frightening as the rumors suggest. But it doesn't matter. Letho has to go."
"Why? Even if she finds out, I could plead for him…"
"Hah! Didn't expect you to miss me this much, kid!" Letho roared, grabbing Aelin and ruffling his dark hair with both hands.
Aelin fought back, but he was no match for the older witcher's strength. He squirmed like a black-furred kitten, helpless under Letho's rough affection.
"Don't bother," Letho said, finally letting go. "Vesemir's right. If I don't leave, that's when things get dangerous. It has nothing to do with Vira's temper."
He raised a hand to halt Aelin's protests.
Then he turned, walking toward the blood-hued horizon, the last light painting his shoulders in fire.
He didn't get far before stopping again.
Turning back, he met Aelin's eyes with a smile—not mocking, but resolute.
"Aelin," he called.
"I'll see you at the long table in the great hall next year."
It wasn't a question. It was a promise.
But Aelin froze for a beat, as though it had been a question. Then he replied, quietly, solemnly.
"You will, Letho."
"You'll see me again next year."
"I swear it."