Chapter 303 Dad’s Favorite Child

The Chief was silent for a moment and glanced at the map.

Arryn noticed his gaze pause at the southern border of Temeria.

But it was only a blink of an eye before the chief looked away and shook his head:
"It's not time yet. Right now, the only place suitable for the Wolf School to develop is Kaer Morhen."

Then, without waiting for Ailin to continue asking, he ended the topic and said:

"That's all about the school's relocation. Elland, I will write a letter to explain, and I will also arrange for demon hunters to go there and eliminate the monsters."

“Although we cannot move our school there, we can still maintain cooperation. Keeping a certain distance is more beneficial to the relationship between the two parties.”

Ailin nodded when he heard this.

He felt that the Chief's arrangement might be what Duke Mason really wanted.

Otherwise, if they really wanted to sincerely invite a force like the Wolf School to join, they would not have sent out the invitation in such an informal way as a demon hunter passing the message.

Just a pity.

If they moved, with Elland standing in front, the Wolf School would have at least a few more years to develop before Duke Mason's death.

During these few years of peace, the various skills extracted from the Demon Hunting Notes were popularized in the Demon Hunting Corps, and they then went around looking for monster essences or purified spirits to improve the attributes of the members.

Perhaps it won’t be long before the Wolf School no longer has to survive in the cracks and act according to other people’s wishes.

But think about it, although the Chief's analysis is a bit extreme for some reason, it is not wrong.

Considering the lifespan of a demon hunter, human promises are indeed unreliable.

After all, Duke Mason is old, and it is still unknown how long he can live.

If he died too early - before the school had time to take root - all these preferential treatments would likely be in vain.

Moreover, after moving there, even with the support of Duke Mason, it would probably be difficult to avoid political infighting and friction.

In addition, the school is too close to densely populated areas, and it is difficult to hide the rapid increase in the strength of the Demon Hunting Corps.

I can only say that there are pros and cons.

of course.

The main reason why Ailin compromised was because of one thing...

Soi is the chief of the Wolf School.

Ailin has no say on how the school will develop in the future.

Being able to tell him the reasons for my rejection one by one like now is already very good, and even a little flattering.

Think so.

A voice lingered in the demon hunter's mind for a long time: "Do you want to be the chief?"

"Are you still planning to go down the mountain this year?" The chief gently interrupted Ailin's inexplicable reverie.

"No!" Looking at the Chief's slightly tired face, he said hastily with a guilty conscience, "In the next six months, I plan to devote myself to improving the strength of the Demon Hunting Corps..."

"That's good," the chief nodded. "The establishment of the Demon Hunting Corps has indeed been very effective in improving the strength of the school. It's worth spending more time on it."

Seeing that everything that needed to be discussed was finished, Ailin said a few more words to the school and prepared to say goodbye and leave.

But before leaving, he suddenly remembered something.

"By the way, Chief, the two wizards that Ms. Vera brought back two months ago..."

"Macao is very cooperative and will answer whatever you ask," the chief shook his head, "but Thomas Moreau is always very stubborn and hard-nosed. It's not easy to get what you want out of him."

really……

Or should we just kill Thomas Moreau?

Since the witcher's memory will be refreshed after the witcher is killed, the wizard's memory should also be refreshed.

I just don't know if I can find out the location of the laboratory where he completed the second mutation...

The witcher pondered in his mind and asked:
"Where are they?"

The chief was silent for a while, as if hesitating for some reason.

After several seconds, he looked at Ailin's face and advised:

"Don't interfere in matters like interrogation."

"Vera is very experienced in this area, and she has already contacted a master of interrogation. There should be results soon."

The chief seemed to not want him to interfere in the interrogation.

But since Vera had already made arrangements, Aelin didn't insist.

Before leaving, out of curiosity he took another look at the old map on the long table.

On the map, at the southern border of Temeria, there is a place called Dodurak, which has a unique note...

Written in a barely discernible cursive hand.

After leaving the chief's residence, the demon hunter recognized the meaning of the note in his mind -

The Cave of Ten Thousand Demons!
……

"Bang~"

The wooden door closes.

Soi's eyes stayed on the pattern on the door for a long time, and it was unknown what he was thinking.

"Da da da~"

Amid lazy footsteps, a woman in a fiery red robe walked out from the inner room.

"Your child is very ambitious, just like you were back then." Soi didn't look back. He patted the large, heavy black oak high-back chair beside him. "The burning desire in his pupils is about to overflow, and he can't hide it..."

"He wants my current position..."

"That's your child too." The woman rolled her eyes and sat on the rattan chair where Ailin had sat. "Besides, with his ability, he is more than capable of sitting on your broken chair."

After hearing this, Soi paused for a moment and turned his head helplessly to look at the woman:
"You're still so ruthless."

"But there's still a little more to go," Soi paused, staring at the old high-back chair in a trance, "He still needs help..."

"Clean the seat, add armrests, stabilize the legs, and embroider some patterns and carve some textures to show glory and majesty..."

"In this way, he can sit firmly and for a long time."

"Then help him." The woman said softly, "Our miracle child needs this chair."

"I will." The man nodded.

After a long silence, the woman looked at the wrinkles on the man's face after not seeing him for a month and wanted to say something, but she didn't know what to say.

The child he had watched grow up betrayed him and wanted to destroy everything he had, and then died in front of him while he stood by and watched.

Unrecognizable.

She didn't even dare to put herself in Ianna's shoes and imagine how painful it would be for her if she treated her like that.

Fortunately, Ianna didn't.

But Ianna… was dying too.

At this time.

"call--"

"Wei, I'm a little tired." The man sighed and looked out the window covered by thick dark clouds. "Once our children are seated, let's go back to Toussaint together."

“Henrietta left me a vineyard in the Ceresto Valley, very close to our old home.”

"It's the place where grapes are grown to make wines of quality like Everose, Fiorano, Pomino, and your favorite, East of East."

"We can plant grape vines in the spring, prune and remove side shoots in the summer, harvest in the fall, and in the winter we can drink our own wine in front of the crackling fireplace with wood burning..." "Soi..." the woman couldn't help but exclaimed.

But the man seemed not to hear, or was still immersed in some memories and fantasies, and continued talking:

"I still remember the little tricks my father taught me. Don't water too much. Water according to the weather..."

"Your father, Viscount Ivan, often boasted that as long as he could manage a vineyard, he could govern a country..."

"Soy..." The woman's voice became a little louder.

"By the way, you can also do magic. We can definitely brew a more fragrant and mellow wine than our father. We may be able to win a prize in the Toussaint Winemaking Competition in the spring..."

"Soy!" The woman walked up to the man and raised her voice again.

The man suddenly stopped talking.

He was stunned for a moment, and then his gray eyes focused on the woman's face.

"Sorry!" he said. "I was distracted."

"Do you regret taking this path?" the woman asked.

The man is silent.

He looked blankly at everything in the room, thinking back to the places he had fought, the monsters he had killed, and the people he had saved from the beginning to now...

The right hand that was supporting the back of the chair was tightly gripping the dark chair body, and the blue veins on the back of the hand were visible.

"I don't know... Vera... I don't know..."

"The road to glory that I longed to embark on seemed to have never existed."

"Hundreds of years ago, humans were killed by monsters. Hundreds of years later, humans were killed by their own kind..."

“Everything seems to have changed, yet it seems to have stayed the same.”

"Whether there are demon hunters or not, humans will always die. Dying at the hands of demons may be considered glorious, but what about dying at the hands of one's own kind?"

"The number of people who were saved from the sharp claws and fangs of monsters ended up killing far more of their own kind than any large monster. Even the powerful dragons were far...far inferior to them..."

"Then what's the point of the existence of demon hunters?"

The man looked at the woman eagerly, as if trying to find an answer from her.

He wanted to know that everything he had done, abandoning his family and living in the open air, was meaningful.

But the woman couldn't give him an answer, nor was she willing to give him a perfunctory answer.

Or rather, she knew that the man already had the answer in his heart.

The woman could only hold him in her arms with strong self-blame, trying to warm her boy, her man, the father of her child with her body temperature, and then whispered softly, like a mother humming a lullaby:
"It's okay, you still have us."

"When everything is over, we will go back to Toussaint together, grow grapes, make wine, and participate in competitions..."

"us……"

"Let's go home together!"

……

Castle hall.

"What? Haxo was raised by the Chief?" Ailin opened his mouth in surprise, and bread crumbs fell all over the table.

After leaving the chief's residence, Ailin felt more and more puzzled.

Although Soi only asked him at the beginning whether he wanted to be the chief, he never mentioned it again afterwards.

But throughout the conversation, both his appearance and the mental state in his words were so decadent that he seemed like a different person.

Also considering that Vesemir's mental state was not quite right this morning.

Feeling that there must be a connection between the two, Aelin went downstairs and saw the witcher master eating breakfast in the castle hall. He immediately went over, but he didn't expect to get such a surprising answer.

"Shh~" Vesemir shouted quickly, "Keep your voice down!"

Ailin looked around. They were the only two people in the entire castle hall, so there was no need to speak in a low voice.

But after all, he came here to listen to gossip, so he didn't say anything in rebuttal.

“You can’t say they raised him.” Vesemir seemed to feel that something was wrong and changed his words. “To be precise, the Chief saved Hackso and his mother, and then helped them consolidate their position as kings…”

As Ailin listened to Vesemir blabbering about the bond between the Chief and Hackso, he felt a sense of empathy.

No wonder the Chief is in such a bad mood.

Recalling the original novel and the game, Ciri and Geralt had a relationship that was both teacher and father.

I think that Chief Soi, who had no children at the time, was helping to hunt monsters in the country and looking for people to assist him. He might have raised Haxo as his own child.

Convert it.

It's almost as if Ciri betrayed Geralt and wanted to kill not only Geralt himself, but also Vesemir, Eskar, and Lambert, who were close to him...

But in the end, Geralt watched Ciri die in front of him again, and did nothing to save her...

Damn!

How can that fat pig Hackso be compared to Ciri?
bah bah bah!
After mentally getting rid of the inappropriate metaphor and the possible dirt it might bring, Ailin cursed out loud again:

"What a beast Hackso is!"

Vesemir also spat on the ground and agreed:
"Yeah! They're even more of a jerk than those scumbags from the Cat School!"

Yes.

More despicable than the School of Cats, this is indeed the dirtiest thing Vesemir could say.

In the Demon Hunter world, there is actually a saying that death is the greatest virtue, but an ungrateful trash obviously does not deserve this saying.

So Arryn and Vesemir cursed each other in the castle hall for the entire morning, and only stopped when lunch was almost over because they were thirsty.

Vesemir cursed until his face turned red and he was very happy.

Obviously.

The reason why Vesemir was in a low mood in the morning was because he saw the Chief's decadent appearance.

And judging from Vesemir's sincere reaction to Chief Soi's flattery just now.

Maybe for him.

Compared to his biological parents, Chief Soi, the demon hunter who taught him swordsmanship, magic signs, and hunting skills without reservation and set an example with his noble qualities and personality, inspiring him to embark on the road of glory, is the father he truly recognizes in his heart.

This made Ailin envy Vesemir and Hackso.

Who wouldn't want a "father" who is like a saint in Vesemir's words, with great power, noble character, skilled skills, high social status, good temper and great patience?
Unfortunately.

He has been abandoned in his past and present lives.

And although Vesemir was also very good, Arryn was already thirty years old when he traveled through time.

Although he also respected Vesemir's character, he treated him more like a righteous elder brother of the same generation rather than an elder.

after all.

Although he was somewhat envious, he didn't necessarily want to have a father because he was already past that age.

But then again.

Why did Chief Soi ignore and not train this "godson" who adored him so much, but had to ask him if he wanted to be the chief?

Thinking of this, Ailin looked with some pity at Vesemir, who was beaming with joy and still using all kinds of words to curse Hacksoe and praise the chief, and thought to himself:

"It seems that you are not Dad's favorite child..."

(End of this chapter)