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TWL Chapter 480: Between Monsters and Men
🕑 Added 2025-07-07 23:26:49 +0000 UTCKeira had been summoned by Foltest and was now giving Lann a succinct report. “After some time, we realized that sending regular troops into
Keira had been summoned by Foltest and was now giving Lann a succinct report.
“After some time, we realized that sending regular troops into Velen wasn’t worth the cost. So the Blue Stripes have taken over the mission.”
Lann rubbed his temples, visibly troubled.
“You haven’t grasped the real nature of the problem...”
“Those Relict-class creatures, after centuries of cultivating their domain, can unleash power far beyond expectation. Only a full-scale military operation can suppress them. The Blue Stripes, while elite jungle operatives, are still not enough.”
“Keira, as a magical advisor, surely you understand that, don’t you?”
Keira Metz, with her back to Foltest, shot Lann a quick grimace.
Foltest’s expression grew even stiffer.
He turned his head and gave a cold snort.
He said nothing—and yet, somehow, said everything.
“All those filthy nonhuman monsters should be handled by your witchers. My soldiers weren’t trained to fight things like that.”
Foltest let out another cold snort.
“Geralt is working under your command now, isn’t he? You could issue them a contract to clear out the beasts in Temeria. I’ll even pay them a fair price.”
Lann shook his head helplessly.
“They’re all busy at the moment... No matter. I’ll go myself. I’ll need you to grant me a token, though—something that gives me authority over the Blue Stripes while I’m there.”
Foltest frowned at that.
“I meant for your witchers to handle it. There’s no need for someone of your status to deal with this personally.”
“It’s fine. I’m more than willing to do it.”
Lann smiled, though his eyes briefly turned cold, almost imperceptibly.
“Besides, strictly speaking... I’ve got a bit of a personal score to settle with those three old witches.”
King Foltest stared at Lann for a long moment, then shook his head.
Since Lann was clearly determined, there was no point trying to persuade him otherwise.
He promptly issued the order: Keira would act as a guide, accompany Lann to Velen for the handover, and assist him in any subsequent operations.
Lann, naturally, had no objections.
The journey from Vizima to Velen spanned nearly half the kingdom. Even with Keira’s abilities, they would need to use a high-tier teleportation array to make the jump.
Lann followed her through the halls of the Vizima royal palace, silently reviewing the intelligence he had on Velen—contemplating the potential problems the Blue Stripes might be facing, and what solutions he could realistically bring to the table.
Suddenly, Keira came to an abrupt stop.
Lann, caught off guard, nearly collided with her, and his nose was instantly filled with the scent of cinnamon and cardamom.
“What is it?” Lann frowned.
Keira didn’t answer. She just shrugged and gestured ahead.
At the end of the marble corridor stood a woman with fiery red hair.
Her belly was round and prominent—she was clearly far along in her pregnancy, and her movements looked cumbersome. Yet even so, the heat radiating from her presence felt like it could ignite the air around her.
“Ha! Lann Lannister!”
Princess Adda brushed aside the maid who had nervously tried to help her.
“Caught you at last!”
...
A portal of blazing red flame burst open mid-air, and Keira Metz stepped through, head held high.
The portal’s sudden flare immediately alerted the nearby guards. The commander of the Blue Stripes, Vernon Roche, arrived in haste.
“Metz?” His tone was far from warm. “What are you doing here? Has His Majesty issued new orders?”
The relationship between the sorceress and the special forces commander clearly wasn’t a friendly one. Keira didn’t even bother to offer a polite expression.
The next second, a brilliant emerald-green shimmer flared beside her.
Roche instinctively squinted from the light—then his eyes flew open.
“Duke Lannister? What brings you here?”
His face visibly lit up with excitement.
Lann didn’t respond immediately. His mind stalled for two seconds, as if caught up in something he was still processing.
Then he adjusted his expression and gave a faint smile, holding up the token from Foltest.
“This operation in Velen was something King Foltest and I personally proposed. I heard things weren’t going smoothly, so I came to take a look.”
“This sort of matter shouldn’t trouble someone of your rank…”
“Since I’m already here, let’s not waste time debating that.” Lann waved a hand casually.
“And don’t worry about whether your king might be displeased with your performance. I just couldn’t wait.”
“Go ahead and brief me on the situation.”
…
After the army ran into trouble in Velen, Roche had been dispatched immediately on royal orders.
Following the setbacks suffered by the advance units, Roche quickly realized that completing the mission would require a local guide—someone who knew how to navigate Velen’s unique terrain.
What they hadn’t anticipated was the ferocity of the local population.
Velen was the poorest province in all of Temeria. Outside of Gors Velen and Thanedd Island, the rest of the region barely had anything resembling a proper town. It was mostly a sprawl of dilapidated villages.
With barely any taxes collected and governance all but absent, many of Velen’s more remote villages had grown deeply distrustful of any official military presence.
“In their minds,” Roche said grimly, “these so-called ‘Ladies of the Wood’ outranks even His Majesty the King.”
“In some of the more isolated villages, you can see altars and sigils to these false gods practically everywhere. Even when they can’t feed themselves, they never fail to offer tribute.”
“And in places where they can’t feed themselves and still can’t spare offerings—Duke Lannister, you’ll think I’m making this up—some villagers have even cut off their own ears as sacrifices to these demons!”
Even Keira couldn’t help but frown at that.
But Lann simply nodded.
“I can believe it.”
“Of course—you must have heard about it long ago. That’s why you passed the intel to His Majesty.”
Roche took a deep breath.
“Thank you for letting us know about this cult’s presence.”
“When I first saw it myself, I was genuinely shocked. Not even followers of the Great Mother Melitele or the Cult of the Eternal Fire show such fanaticism.”
As he spoke, Roche led Lann and Keira into his command tent.
A large map was spread across the table inside. Roche circled several marked areas.
“These are the villages where worship of the dark gods is most rampant.”
Keira gave him an incredulous look.
“If you already know the locations, then why haven’t you interrogated anyone for the whereabouts of the Ladies of the Wood?”
Special forces and witchers had very different operating methods.
Witchers, when tracking monsters, often had to gather clues from scratch—coaxing information from clients and witnesses, sometimes even resorting to the Axii sign to induce confessions.
But soldiers like Roche, dispatched from the capital, operated under legal authority. If villagers were suspected of withholding information, they could arrest them on the spot.
No evidence required.
The Blue Stripes were not to be underestimated. Their past enemies included the Scoia’tael, who bore a deep racial hatred toward humanity—what they’d faced was war on an existential level.
Yet upon hearing Keira’s question, Roche’s face twisted with tightly restrained fury.
“This shouldn’t have dragged on this long.”
“But the local lord—Baron Vserad—he got in our way!”
“He claimed the villagers were his subjects, his personal property, and sternly forbade us from ‘mistreating’ them!”
…
Lann remembered Baron Vserad.
He was the embodiment of everything people despised about parasitic nobility.
In times of peace, Baron Vserad controlled most of Velen and governed it into utter ruin, with no intention of ever improving anything.
When Nilfgaard invaded, he was one of the first to flee. Abandoning the lands he was sworn to protect, he loaded his boat with jewels and gold, escaped with his family to a tower on a nearby island, and continued to indulge in luxury—completely indifferent to the suffering of the people.
He even funded a sorcerer’s plague research, using Velen’s own peasants as human test subjects. That sorcerer poisoned starving farmers who came begging for food, resulting in the deaths of countless civilians.
When the truth came to light, the enraged villagers tore the baron apart. His noble corpse became a feast for rats.
So for Roche to be obstructed by that same Baron Vserad here in Velen—unexpected, perhaps, but not entirely surprising.
As a hereditary baron, Vserad couldn’t be punished outright—not unless he committed a crime as severe as treason or insulting the royal family.
And even then, hard evidence would be required to silence the powerful voices of other hereditary nobles in court.
Otherwise, the resulting political unrest would be more than even Foltest could bear.
Which meant that Roche—despite being a trusted aide—was still just a soldier without a title.
He had no legal authority to touch Baron Vserad.
…
“Ha! He turns a blind eye to his people, fails to collect taxes, and lets them worship dark gods as they please,” Keira sneered. “But now that you’ve come under royal orders to rid Velen of those very cults, he’s the one standing in your way?”
Roche’s face twisted with even greater frustration after hearing that.
Lann stood with arms crossed, tapping slowly on his upper arm with one finger.
He’d more or less understood the situation by now.
And yes—this was indeed a difficult problem... for Roche.
But what if it were Duke Lannister handling it?
Before they could continue the discussion, a greasy, obnoxious voice rang out from outside: “Vernon Roche! Get your men the hell off my land!”
“I heard you even brought a sorceress with you? Freaks who dabble in magic should swing from the gallows with the rest of the filthy monsters!”
A commotion erupted outside—the unmistakable sound of the Blue Stripes clashing with the local guards.
