Chapter 1384 1356. ‘Mad Dog’
‘It’s a pity that Aunt Nannik and Yennefer didn’t let me carry a sword with me, so they didn’t quarrel on this point. They say: Any fool can swing a sword, but if you really want to be good enough, you have to be smart.'
'Geralt, you promised me you would come, come on. ’
‘——Your Ciri. ’
‘Also: Come on. You said you could still find Lan En to come with you, right? Let’s all come together! ’
'Furthermore: Aunt Nannike asked me to write at the end, praising the great Melitelli, and may her blessings and favors be with you always. ’
Unknowingly, Lan En originally planned to simply scan it, but he was indeed able to remember all the letters clearly with just a simple scan.
His reading slowed down a lot.
The fingers wearing hard and ferocious gauntlets delicately and gently lifted the letter paper and turned to the next page.
The teasing smile at the corner of his mouth, which was originally like watching a good show, became gentle and peaceful.
"He was careless, lost everything, and finally kept trying to make up for it."
After reading the letter paper as fast as an ordinary person, Lan En put the pieces of letter paper back into the envelope and handed it to Geralt.
He said while smiling.
"It seems that Ciri is very healthy now. Both physically and mentally."
"Of course." Geralt put away Ciri's letter and put it in his chest pocket, "I I am very grateful to Nannik and Yennefer. Without their help, we would not be able to teach a girl well.”
"Then I can't understand your sad face now." Berengar asked, scratching his chin. "Everything is fine with Xili."
"But you have been staying here for several days, and you don't go out to work, as if you want to stay here."
< br>Lan was also holding the wine glass at this time, looking at Geralt, waiting for him to give an answer.
And Geralt of Rivia, the witcher who is famous for the poems of the great poet Dandelion, has his lips murmuring.
"Ciri is doing well, eating well, growing well, and learning new things. This is all good. But."
Geralt's face, which had softened and remained calm due to Ciri's letter, began to become cold and hard again in his words.
"Someone is checking her."
After Geralt's voice fell, there was a long silence, with only the sound of blacksmithing outside the office door as the background sound, which was monotonous and noisy.
“.Ah.”
After the silence, there was a sudden realization sound like a whisper in a dream.
"Someone is checking her."
Lan calmly repeated what he just said from Geralt's mouth.
Only one difference.
——Although it was unintentional, it still made the temperature in the entire office feel as if it had dropped suddenly.
“Who is investigating her?”
The young witcher asked calmly.
“A character named Riens.” Geralt took a sip from his wine glass and spoke softly, as if he was afraid of disturbing something scary.
“A guy who leaves a lot of corpses wherever he goes, who blackmails, bribes, tortures, and then silences without hesitation or scruple.”
“While sending Xili away Kaer Morhen, while I was learning to integrate into society, I hid Ciri Let her hide in the Melitelli Temple in Elland, just like a peasant girl studying in the temple."
"Then I also hid as a hunter with no fixed abode. It’s easy for a demon to disappear or move.”
"I think it may be because I hid both of us, even well. That's why someone would let this mad dog out. Use the method of a mad dog to find people."
"I initially We don’t know that this person exists, and we don’t know that someone is checking us.”
Geralt said with lowered eyes.
"It was Dandelion who gave me a sealed letter. He was almost caught by that Riens. It can be expected that he was tortured to death immediately."
"Fortunately at that time, Ye Nefa also looked for him and saved Dandelion.”
"Then I realized that things had reached this point."
Lan En's fingers gently rubbed against the edge of the wine glass in his hand, and the gauntlet made of the bite of the evil dragon's bones traced the arc. The trembling sound caused by the glass mouth makes people feel chilly.
Geralt only recently learned that someone was checking on him and Ciri.
This is already a very quick response.
If it weren't for Dandelion.
If an intelligence network, or a single investigator like Reigns, wants to investigate a person, all he has to do is follow the traces of his life.
When this investigation, eroded along the web of interpersonal communication and social relations, has surrounded the target person, the target has no secrets as if he were naked. Most people don't feel it at all.
There is no need to have any contact with the target person at all.
Enough clues will become ‘data’, and with enough data, most of the ‘truth’ can be pieced together.
The parties involved were not even important and were unaware of the whole process.
"But you even know the name of that bastard!"
Berengar said coldly, and the wine glass he was holding was already placed on the table. "Just go and kill him! Find the person, kill him, and it's all over!"
"Don't be so hot-headed, Berengar." Geralt hadn't spoken yet, but Blue En said to the old demon hunter calmly.
“Geralt and Ciri are hiding now. If they move their hands, it will be a clue. The more they do it, the more obvious it becomes. The more they do it, the more clues they leave.”
"How did he know that he was being investigated? Who told him? From which line did the information flow? Whose messenger was used?"
Lan En looked at Beilien Gal.
"Just Geralt's reaction of wanting to 'reverse investigation' is enough to reveal a lot of things?"
"And"
One side As he said this, Lan En was deep in thought.
His fingertips tapped lightly on the wine glass in his hand, [Smaug]'s gauntlets, the ends of the knuckles were basically claws.
The collision between the sharp fingers and the glass made a crisp sound.
Lan's mind, which had been relaxed because he returned to the Magical Middle Ages and Arethusa, became tense again under the news from Geralt just now.
And run fast!
“Oh, there are more than one group of people.”
The young demon hunter, who was deep in thought, suddenly let out a cold chuckle, and said words that made both Geralt and Berengar stunned.
"You just said that on a route that you and Ciri came into contact with after coming out of Kaer Morhen, many people were approached by Riens. Right, White Wolf?"
Lan En rubbed his chin and asked without turning his head.
Geralt nodded heavily: "He is a mad dog. Even the toll collector on the ferry wanted to torture and silence him."
"From Kaedwen where Kaer Morhen is. The northeast corner, all the way to Elland in Temeria, at least through Kaedwen, Redania or Aedirn, which way did you finally reach Temeria? "
"Passing through Redania."
With a "pop" sound, Lan put the wine glass on Berengar's table: "That is the national border involving three countries."
< br>“A murderer who was extremely vicious, unscrupulous and unscrupulous, who didn’t even dispose of the tortured corpse, and just followed the traces to investigate the borders of three northern kingdoms?”
"He even killed the ferry toll collector. Do you think the royal government there doesn't know?"
"Wait! You mean." Geralt's eyes flashed with understanding at first, but then he became more and more aware. He fell into a deep and cold voice without finishing his words.
"Redania's intelligence department has a long history and outstanding achievements." Lan En said with a half-smile. "The intelligence chief of Temeria is named Taller. I know him too. He is not a fool."
"Then they didn't know that there was such a mad dog running rampant in their territory. Just bite people?"
The young demon hunter smiled and clapped his hands: "How fresh!"
After clapping, the half-smiling expression on Lan En's face completely calmed down.
"Actually, who doesn't know this? You are just waiting for that mad dog to bite you out before you are ready to take action."
"Or think about it deeper, when we brought Ciri out of Cintra, no one said that she was the princess of Cintra, that is, she was a dirty child. Everyone in the market thought that the Cintra royal family was massacring the city. He died in the war.”
“Of course, your involvement with Ciri [Destiny’s Child] has been written into poetry by Dandelion. Anyone with a discerning eye would probably know who the little girl is at a glance. "But the question is, who is Riens? He is unknown, and now he suddenly pops up, how can he be a discerning person?" '? How can you be sure that the child you are carrying is Xili? "
Lan En's sharp thinking is like a sharp knife that analyzes the problem, cutting the messy and clueless situation into order.
And show it to Geralt and Berengar.
"Those intelligence chiefs must also be curious about this. If Riens is allowed to run rampant, they are probably waiting to dig out the people behind him at the end!"
Berengar frowned.
He is not as quick-thinking as Lan En, and has undergone systematic learning and thinking training, and he does not have so many cases and insights analyzed in history books.
Not even like Geralt.
As a well-known demon hunter, Geralt has been involved in many messy affairs in the palace. Many conspirators in the palace hope to have a sharp 'sword' that they can use when convenient.
And Geralt is always mistaken for being able to play this kind of role.
Berengar has rich experience in blacksmithing and civilian life, but he really has not had much exposure to this kind of thing.
Experience is not a matter of just living a long life. You must have experience or education to accumulate it.
So his reaction was very simple: "That Riens can do magic, can't it be that ordinary people can't stop him?"
Lan En sighed helplessly and looked at him with a look. The eyes of an innocent donkey looked at the old witcher.
"My teacher is a master demon hunter of the Bear School."
Lan said, tapping his chest.
“I was chased dizzy by a team of four soldiers and law enforcement, but later, with my cooperation, I died directly.”
“That is still a man who can wear heavy armor at any time. The master of the Demon Hunter of the Bear School."
"Does Riens have the ability to wear a chainmail armor at all times of the day?"
"A few people armed with crossbows were ambushing the roadside in advance. The Archmage could have been killed without any precautions! His magic is of no use!"
(End of this chapter)