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TWL Chapter 109: Encounter with the Master Mirror
🕑 Added 2024-04-14 17:21:04 +0000 UTCLann took out the soft-covered book that Jerome gave to him before leaving Toussaint's secret laboratory.
This book has a simple name in the system: [Gryphon School Contact Note].
At this time, Lann was really thinking about the wording of his first letter to Jerome. What should he write at the beginning?
Lann began to write.
"Dear teacher:
I hope you are well.
I am very sorry that it has taken me so long to contact you, but terrible events have occurred in my kingdom recently, and I may not be able to travel to Kaer Seren to receive systematic Witcher education. My responsibilities here are constant..."
Lann briefly wrote about the destruction of the Cintra, and then prepared to write his own request. At the same time, he tried to find a way to make some promises and see if he could lure the Griffin School to Cintra.
“I know that the Griffin School has never interfered in political affairs...”
Accidents always happen inadvertently. The pen suddenly became unable to write.
Lann tried several times to run the quill pen over the paper, thinking that perhaps it had run out of ink. But he noticed that the ink seemed to have solidified into a gel that sank completely under the light pressure of the quill pen's tip.
At some point, the room, or perhaps all of Brokilon, became eerily quiet. There was no laughter or murmuring, as if a veil of sound insulation had fallen over Lann's room, separating it from the outside world.
Lann realized something. It was not just a problem of sound.
He loosened his grip on the quill pen, and the pen just froze in mid-air, motionless.
Time has stopped.
[Knock! Knock! Knock!]
Suddenly there was a polite knock on the door.
“Please come in.” Lann rubbed his temples with a headache and shouted loudly.
A polite and magnetic voice reached Lann's ears while opening the door. "I didn't want to interrupt you, Lann, I hope I didn't bother you."
Without the pomp of before, without the soul-piercing empty chorus, he entered unassumingly, carrying a chair from across the room to Lann's desk with both hands, sitting down in front of him in a calm manner.
If one ignored the suspended time, he seemed like an ordinary merchant welcomed by the Lord, even a little disadvantaged.
The two backpacks he was carrying were too small, and he did not even replace them with a larger bag that could properly wrap the contents. They looked extremely shabby.
But Lann knew that if anyone really thought this man was ordinary, they were wrong.
He is a dimensional traveler, he is the maker of rules, and he is a mystery that no one knows about.
He is the Master Mirror who is both a god and a demon - Gaunter O'Dimm.
“Long time no see, Lann. I’m glad to see you like the gift I gave you so much.”
Master Mirror looked at Lann's lion eyes and said sincerely: "I also sincerely hope that you can be as happy as me."
This is the first time Lann has faced the real Master Mirror consciously. During the last communication, he could not move during the entire process.
How should a mortal act in the face of such a powerful being? Humbly supplicate? Flatter him?
Geralt's attitude in The Witcher Series was a good example, a mix of humility and sarcasm, and Master Mirror seemed to like that kind of interaction.
In other words, Lann can just treat the Master Mirror with the same attitude he treated the bard Milo Glass.
“I really can’t say I don’t like it, but I can’t say I like it either.” Lann looked at the Master Mirror expressionlessly. “O'Dimm—can I call you that?”
“I’d be happier if you called me Gaunter.”
“So O’Dimm. I want to know, have you put a lot of effort into this gift?”
"First, with just a small coincidence, the dangerous situation will become a desperate situation, and then you will give me a little help to save my life when I am dying."
"This help also comes with a little power. And when I have some power, you place a more powerful enemy on me to fuel my desire for more power, paving the way for our future dealings."
Lann said calmly: "If you were really just thanking me for my wine, you could have appeared sooner, allowing me to recover and save Cintra."
"But you didn't, you chose to make me bear the anger of having lost my kingdom and my home, facing half a continent or even the entire continent, right?"
"There is no such thing as 'wait for me to decide what the appropriate reward is and then appear'. You have prepared a reward for me from the beginning, because I will definitely ask for that reward and I cannot ask for any other reward."
"Everything so that your trade goes as planned, right?"
Master Mirror sat across from Lann. When he exposed or framed him, he was not angry at all. Instead, the smile on his face grew bigger and bigger. Him revealing an amazement similar to finding a treasure and the joy of finding a pair like him.
“No, no, no, Lann, you misunderstood me.” The Master Mirror said sincerely.
"You've only mentioned the trade part, but what about the poem? A witcher's battle to save his loved ones and defend his kingdom, how can it compare to the revenge of an exiled prince?"
"I have been waiting to see more new themes in you, moving stories that I can share even in other worlds."
Master Mirror sincerely corrected the cognitive errors in Lann's language, as if teaching a child how to understand the world.
"Trade? Trade is secondary to stories, you understand?"
Lann's face twitched, as if he didn't expect the Master Mirror to be so honest. He clenched his fists, reminding himself that he was facing a being of incomparable power, this was not the time to start a fight.
"So, let's get back to the main topic: your trade. Take the contract out of your bag, it's about to fall out of your ragged bag. If you need, I can get you a bigger, sturdier one."
"This contract? This is not for you, and we don't need these things between us."
Master Mirror raised a quill pen into the air, fiddling with the tip of the pen, and began to dictate the agreement he had prepared for Lann.
"As you see in me now, I love stories. Before I get stories from you, I must tell you one. About an iron-hearted scoundrel, his evil and shame are incomparable, and he refuses to pay his debts."
"He is a beast disguised as a man, he feeds on other people's pain!" When he said the last sentence, the Master Mirror gritted his teeth.
Lann's face was expressionless. "Although it seems like you are introducing yourself, it seems like you really don't like that person. What has this man done to you?"
The scoundrel and beast in the mouth of the Master Mirror is called Olgierd von Everec.
"Not only do I need a thug, but also someone cunning and fearless enough, someone like you, Lann."
Lann said expressionlessly: "I'm flattered by your praise."
Master Mirror nodded. "I can feel it. Lann, I need an ally, a friend, and I think you are the person I am looking for."
Lann opened his arms, pointing to his current situation. "But O'Dimm, you have also seen that I have a mess to deal with now. In your words, I am writing a story for you, so I don't have time."
Faced with Lann’s rejection, Master Mirror seemed to have expected it. He smiled mysteriously and said: "Have you forgotten, Lann? I told you, 'When the time is right, I will come back for you'? I never lie."
Hearing this, Lann had a confused expression on his face.
The Master Mirror did not intend to explain but continued to talk to himself: "I believe this will be a smooth journey and my errand will be a bright decoration in your story."
"We will be in touch when you arrive in Redania, I hope for good news from you."
After saying this, the Master Mirror smiled mysteriously.
"By the way, Lann. Regarding your witcher mutation, you have received much more than you imagine."
"After all, how could my gift be flawed? There are more surprises waiting for you. When you know the full extent of this transformation, I'm sure you will truly thank me."
'What does that mean?' Lann was about to ask again when he heard knocking on the door.
The sounds caught his attention immediately, how could there be knocks in an area where time stopped?
Then he reacted, and when he looked back, the place where the Master Mirror was sitting was already empty.
The quill fell with a light thud on the desk.
In the place in front of Lann, a small and simple mirror had appeared, with no decoration on the back, only the transparency of its surface, easily purchasable from any traveling merchant.
But this mirror is definitely not ordinary, because it is something left by the Master Mirror.
