Bear School Astartes

”Now it’s time to take care of that favor I asked you for.”

Lann got up from the bed. Rong Buqiu, looking bright-eyed and energetic, grabbed his cloak with its tiny paws and climbed up onto his shoulder.

The Demon Hunter walked over and patted Dandelion on the shoulder.

”I’m writing, I’m writing.”

”I told you, once this script is done, I’m gonna make it so those Minstrels who sang about the last North–South war have nothing to sing except my lyrics! You can’t rush art.”

The poet was a bit irritable about it. Creators tend to be like this when they’re stuck, so Lann didn’t take it to heart.

”How about you add me in?”

It was actually Priscilla, who had been watching Dandelion write the script from the side, who cheerfully turned to Lann and asked.

”The story of this script is great. It’ll just take time to polish and rhyme it properly. My skill’s no worse than his—add me in and the work will go twice as fast for half the effort.”

”Add you in?! You want to meddle with my script?!”

Lann hadn’t even reacted yet, but Dandelion immediately jumped up from his stool like a kettle lid brought to a boil.

Lann wisely took a step back right away, clearing the battlefield.

Sure enough, the next second, Priscilla—whom he and Geralt had privately nicknamed ”the female Dandelion”—started bickering with the poet.

”Meddle? Didn’t I already meddle as soon as I came in?”

The female poet asked back in mock surprise, as if what Dandelion had just said was ”one plus one equals three.”

”Besides, I said ’the story is great,’ but I just talked it over with Terry and Geralt. In my view, that’s because the original Sodden Mountain battle itself was intense and full of twists—plenty exciting.”

”As a playwright, your actual contribution in terms of embellishing the story, I don’t really see it. You basically just slap a couple sonnets in later on as lyrics.”

”You...!”

It was rare for Dandelion’s face to flush red with anger like this, and he still couldn’t come up with a retort.

But even so, Priscilla showed no sign of stopping.

”Master Dan, your poetry is moving and brilliant. Even before I met you, I thought you were talented. But forgive my bluntness—your breakout work is a lyric poem about the Demon Hunter Geralt.”

Lann guessed that to Dandelion, Priscilla’s voice right now probably felt like an ice-cold knife stabbing straight into his heart and lungs.

”I used to doubt the idea that a poet’s achievements can soar as long as they pick the right subject. But now, Master Dan, I believe it completely.”

Priscilla rested one hand on her slender waist and opened the other palm outward, as if words failed her.

”You think if you provoke me a bit, I’ll just agree to let you interfere with my script?”

Dandelion’s two little mustaches quivered with rage as he spoke.

Priscilla merely smoothed the swan feather on her hat and smiled with utter confidence.

”Unless you can calm down right this second and stop being angry, otherwise, worked up like this, how are you going to write an epic? You know that yourself.”

Dandelion really should rein in his temper right now, or that emotional turbulence would make it impossible to write anything good.

But if he could rein it in, he wouldn’t be Dandelion.

So the poet could only grab his face in frustration.

Priscilla shrugged, as if she was very used to this.

She turned around with confidence and spoke easily to the group that had retreated to a safe distance.

”Leave the script to us. We’ll pull an all-nighter and finish it tonight.”

She carried herself with such authority that it was like she’d instantly become the lead creator in charge of everything.

Lann looked at the scene, at how completely Priscilla had seized control of the mood, and tactfully nodded.

”Then I’ll leave it to you.”

He then took everyone out of the room, letting the two poets work through the night.

”Those two... can they really get anything done tonight?” Dudu sounded a bit worried. ”We’re talking about Dandelion. The guy can go grab a bite and end up dragging the waitress into bed.”

”That’s not something you need to worry about.” Geralt, who’d known Dandelion longer and understood him better, just shrugged indifferently. ”Dandelion’s pride in his poetry is bigger than his lust.”

”Priscilla’s very pretty, but until the two of them either resolve or get used to their artistic differences, Dandelion’s not going to be interested in rolling around with her. Compared to that, I’m more worried about something else...”

Geralt turned to face Terry.

”Where am I sleeping tonight?”

”Me too,” Dudu raised his hand at Half-Elf height. ”My place needs a serious cleaning before I can stay there.”

In the end, Terry booked them another room at the Kingfisher Tavern.

-----------------

Once everything was taken care of, the young Demon Hunter followed the Female Warlock back to her villa in Novigrad.

Rong Buqiu was full of energy, so it climbed up to the roof of the villa on its own to practice martial arts.

Inside the villa, the Female Warlock and the Demon Hunter lay on a fur rug.

During their earlier ”intense exchange,” Terry’s master bedroom bed and the long cashmere sofa in the first-floor living room had both been wrecked.

If it were Margaret, she would probably have used Magic, or just thrown money at it, to get sturdy, comfy new furniture in immediately so she could keep enjoying herself.

But Terry, maybe because she still counted as a ”young girl” among the Female Warlocks, came off a bit more ”wild.”

”All we need is to spread a rug on the floor, nothing else. The feel of the wooden boards makes me think we’re out in the wild...”

Back then, the Female Warlock was pressed up against Lann’s shoulder, her tone winding and turning, and she even blew a teasing breath of hot air lightly against his ear.

Afterwards, the Female Warlock was happily panting for breath.

She lay sprawled on Lann’s chest, and like a child playing with a toy, a small flame floated above her raised hand.

This wasn’t any special Magic, just a rather basic Magic Flames, and building on this further would be the Fireball Technique.

Lann’s gaze, however, turned deep as he watched the flame in Triss’s hand.

Her other hand was idly twining in the hair scattered over the fur rug beneath the two of them.

”You can gain something just by looking at flames?”

Triss’s voice now carried a lazy note of satisfaction.

”If learning Magic could always be this easy, that’d be nice.”

A sheen of oily sweat glimmered over her body, reflecting the warm hues of the flames, tinting her already tempting body a shade of olive and making her curves look even more wild.

”No, this isn’t easy at all, Triss.”

With a light ”poof,” a tongue of flame rose in Lann’s left hand, after a faint, snapping burst of combustion.

[Curse Fire].

This Curse Master’s spellcasting catalyst came from that strange world where flames were the fundamental order.

Lann suspected that hidden within the mystery of this flame was a power related to ”shaping life.”

The Great Swamp Sorcerer Conicus, who had shared the flame with Lann, had once offered this disciple—who was about to ”set out on a long journey”—a piece of advice—

So-called Curse Arts are worship of flame. Seeking out more mysterious flames is of great benefit to one’s Curse cultivation.

Since it was ”mysterious flame,” the first thing Lann naturally thought of was the Mages’ flame Magic.

Mages relied on Chaos Magic Power drawn and transformed from the world’s four elemental interfaces to cast spells.

Flame Magic naturally contained the power of the Fire Element Interface.

A single Magic spark was tiny and fragile to Lann, but the nature of the power drawn from the Fire Element Interface was unchanged.

With Lann’s current level of [Spiritual Vision], he could in fact directly glimpse the deeper structure of the world in everyday life.

He could see the Fire Element Interface.

If he got lucky, he might even see the interface spirits of the Fire Element Interface, the [Fire Giants], roaring and tearing at each other within it.

But the moment he tried, in that state, to transmit what he saw of the world’s Fire Element Interface to the Curse Fire—hoping that this Curse Master’s spellcasting catalyst might thereby gain boons and growth—

He would abruptly feel a scorching sense of danger.

The hormone secretions of the [Genetic Seed] and [Holy Chant Gland] would suddenly go haywire, making his heart race, his temper fray, and his mind restless.

It was as if these two super-organs were warning him.

The first time he encountered this, Lann suddenly recalled the casual warning Conicus had tossed out when sharing a spark of [Curse Fire] with him.

—Don’t get yourself burned to nothing by the flames.

[Curse Fire] was not a completely controllable, safe power; it was born in a brutal world.

Ever since the First Flame appeared in the Flame World and laid down the root of its rules, that world had carried a brutal, sacrificial undertone.

This quality had seeped into everything, including every kind of power. Magic, for example, was basically firing your own soul out as an attack.

In Izalis, the birthplace of Curse Arts, the ancient Divine Beings all vanished because their own flames went out of control.

So ever since he had tasted that scorching crisis once, Lann gave up on directly using [Spiritual Vision] to observe the Fire Element Interface.

The power of the Fire Element Interface was very strong, practically inexhaustible.

If a Mage imprisoned a single [Fire Giant], it could be considered that they now possessed limitless Magic Power, capable, in a very real sense, of moving mountains and filling seas.

And [Fire Giants] were merely interface spirits that had naturally formed within the Fire Element Interface.

If Lann wanted to ”behold” this kind of power, ”understand” this kind of power, and then convert that understanding into changes in the Curse Fire, it would still be a bit too far beyond his depth.

So, simply, he decided to only use [Spiritual Vision] to observe the Magic Flames the Mages kneaded into shape.

If he didn’t want his own flames to burn him clean, he had to raise their power with extreme caution.

This power, while mighty and full of potential, could easily burn its wielder if mishandled.

And the Curse Fire’s growth validated Lann’s thinking.

As he observed and understood the Magic Flames in Triss’s hand, that understanding pushed the Curse Fire to undergo change.

Originally, before he released any Magic, the Curse Fire didn’t emit heat at all.

It was just a flame-shaped flicker of light and shadow.

But now Lann could freely control whether, even outside of Magic being released, the Curse Fire itself carried heat.

”Waoo~”

Triss’s sweat-damp fingertips trailed lightly across Lann’s skin.

There was a note of wonder in her tone, and...greed.

”I feel like you’ve gotten hotter, darling.”

”It’s only the power of the Otherworld.”

”No matter what it is...let me see if you’re this hot all over.”