Leaving Wizima, the next stop was the capital of Cintra, Cintra City.
Between Temeria and Cintra lay only the Brokilon Forest.
That was the habitat of the dryads, and for the moment, Asa did not want to provoke them.
Unless there was some forest druid willing to teach him life and nature magic for free.
Asa and Saskia traveled south, taking in the customs and scenery of this fantasy medieval world.
On the road, they occasionally encountered short-sighted bandits, whom Asa dealt with on the spot, but they never encountered another attack like the one from the Cat School Witcher.
Had they lost track of him, or were they temporarily lying low? Asa did not know.
One day, at an inn in a small town.
For the first time in a while, Asa had a conversation with Tissaia.
In the Megascope, his teacher Tissaia warned him with a solemn expression:
"Be careful. Things in the Northern Kingdoms are different from Thanedd Island; do not trust anyone easily..."
"I know."
Asa felt ashamed. When they reconnected after he left the island, his teacher was nagging him like an old mother worried about her child leaving home.
After thinking about it, Asa decided to give his teacher a surprise.
"You would never guess who I met on the road."
With that, Asa pulled, and Saskia, who had been peeking and staying silent beside him, was dragged into the view of the Megascope.
"Greetings, Madam. I am Asa partner, Saskia Saosi."
Appearing before the Megascope, the dragon girl felt no shyness and greeted Tissaia warmly.
"A woman?"
Tissaia frowned. She knew her student's philandering nature; what was the meaning of bringing out a young girl now?
Was he showing off his impressive stamina?
Seeing his teacher's suspicious expression, Asa knew that she couldn't feel the dragon's aura through the Megascope, so he explained proactively:
"Teacher, Saskia is a dragon. Her father is Villentretenmerth."
"What! Lang, don't tell me you even...?"
The moment Asa explained, Tissaia's response was a gaze that swept back and forth between Asa and Saskia.
Tissaia was aware of her student's peculiar charm toward other races, but she hadn't expected that it hadn't even been a month since he finished with her two students, and he was already seducing a new one?
And it was a dragon?
Tissaia couldn't imagine how the two of them could be together. If things got heated and the girl couldn't help but reveal her true form, what would Asa do?
Get sucked in?
"Teacher, what are you thinking about?"
Asa had black lines on his forehead, feeling his character was being questioned.
Saskia was inexperienced in the world and knew nothing about what would happen between dragons and humans, or even between dragons when they matured. Asa hadn't gone so far as to trick her.
Of course, that didn't count if she threw herself at him.
In the Megascope, Saskia was full of question marks regarding the encrypted conversation between Asa and Tissaia. The magic mentor could see that Saskia didn't understand anything, which confirmed that Asa and Saskia really had a pure partnership—at least for now.
"By the way, Teacher, help me investigate someone."
The misunderstanding cleared, the call ended.
The appearance of the dragon was indeed a pleasant surprise for Tissaia. The magic mentor had heard of Saskia's father, Villentretenmerth; he was a rare golden dragon who maintained a friendly attitude toward humans and elves, and he had once walked the human world under the name Borch.
In the first month of his travels, her student had gained a great deal. Indeed, the fates of many people intersected through him.
However, why were they all women?
Thinking of how all four of her students had fallen, Tissaia felt as if she had been wiped out in one go.
Although she wouldn't force Asa to be faithful to her students, was he not being too promiscuous?
Tissaia had a premonition that it wouldn't just be her students, including Francesca Findabair, but a whole host of women who would get entangled with Asa in the future.
Thinking of her student, Tissaia sighed heavily. Her hard-trained student Margarita, who had a gentle personality and was meant to take over for her, who would have thought she would be snatched away by Asa.
It was hard to swallow.
However, among the new students, Tissaia had discovered another talented newcomer.
A girl with red hair and many freckles on her face.
"Triss."
...
To find out the mastermind behind the scenes, Asa entrusted his mentor Tissaia to look for information on the half-elf Rinis, and surprisingly, there were results.
The half-elf Rinis had indeed studied at the Ban Ard School of magic ten years ago.
However, he was not the expert mage that the Cat School Witcher had described.
In the school's archives, the half-elf's file contained multiple disciplinary records: soliciting prostitutes, drunk and disorderly conduct, fighting, harassing citizens...
In the end, he didn't even successfully graduate; his status was a dropout, and he had barely managed to walk out of the school gates.
Such scum, who knows who he defected to in the last ten years, had actually become a master of magic in the words of the Cat School Witcher.
Asa had a guess in his heart. It was highly likely that Francesca Findabair's actions back then had attracted the attention of others in the Brotherhood of Sorcerers, who thought the Elder Blood had appeared and then set their covetous eyes on Asa.
To obtain such intelligence, it was likely one of the other three elders of the Council of Wizards.
Who could it be?
In addition, Asa also received a piece of news that made him laugh and cry.
The temple in Wizima had been reduced to ruins by an explosion, and shortly after, while the people in the city were in a panic, a golden dragon flew over the sky.
Then, rumors began that the temple had been destroyed by the dragon, and the temple's congregation had been buried in the ruins along with it.
After all, it was an old tradition of the Church of the Eternal Fire to hate all creatures born from the Conjunction of the Spheres on this continent, as well as the bloodlines left by ancient races, and even to expel or kill them.
The Temeria royal family issued a huge bounty, summoning famous Witchers from the Northern Kingdoms to investigate the truth, and even to slay the dragon.
It was said that a white-haired Witcher had gone to apply for the job, calling himself "Geralt of Rivia".
Hearing this news, Asa expression was subtle.
It was normal for Witchers to travel for money and to kill monsters, sometimes acting as detectives, but would the White Wolf really find anything?
As the person involved, Asa considered his methods clean enough; the bishop and the resident knights were left as nothing but charred remains, and then they became fragments in the church's explosion.
Once Geralt started investigating, he would be horrified to find,
What the hell, he had to piece them together himself.