The Witcher World: The Path to Domination Begins in Velen

Tawa Egbraj stood in the shadows of the military supply depot, with a row of empty storage shelves in front of him.

These shelves once held enough equipment to arm half a company: chainmail, breastplates, helmets, longswords, crossbows—each item labeled "scrap" and meticulously recorded.

Every single item should have been in the hands of Velen's slave-hunting team, making him money. Now they've vanished along with the rendezvous ships and the scout squads he sent out.

Seven scouts, lightly equipped, will go and return quickly. Their mission is simply to confirm camp intelligence; they will observe but not make contact.

For three days, not a single person returned, and all of them disappeared at the same time. This meant that the other side not only discovered his scouts, but also had the ability to ensure that none of the seven men could escape. This level of control was not something that bandits could achieve; no bandit group could keep so many elite soldiers at the same time.

He hesitated whether to send his own men. He had spent three years nurturing that heavy infantry company, and he had personally promoted the company commander. Equipment and supplies were always his top priority. Each of the more than one hundred men was a reliable force that he could mobilize privately.

But the risk of mobilizing an entire squadron by bypassing the commander isn't in the approval process; in a place like Wellen, he has a hundred ways to make the order look legitimate. The risk lies in the people involved.

Once the operation is launched, everyone involved will know where the target is. There is evidence of his involvement in the slave trade and records of the allocation of military supplies in that camp. The former is not a big problem, but the supplies must not be leaked. He cannot guarantee that everyone in the squadron is on his side. The more people who know what is hidden in that camp, the greater the risk for him.

The most important thing he learned during his many years in the military was: if something can be accomplished by using someone else, never get your own hands dirty.

He pulled a new sheet of paper from the drawer, dipped his quill pen in ink, carefully considered the wording, folded the paper, sealed it with sealing wax, and stamped it with his seal.

"Send it to the Crow's Nest and give it to the Baron." Someone took the letter outside the tent flap, and the footsteps faded away.

In the hall of Crow's Den, the Baron slammed the letter on the table.

The oak table in front of him had lily patterns carved on its surface, almost worn smooth.

"Ha ha, the rebels!" The baron couldn't help but laugh, his voice booming from his chest, making ripples in the wine glasses on the table. "In Velen."

He stood up, the chair legs scraping against the stone floor with a sharp screeching sound, while the adjutant remained standing still.

"I've spent so many years in this rotten mud that even dogs wouldn't linger in," he tapped his fingers on the letter, "and now a Nilfgaardian quartermaster tells me that a rebel army has emerged from the southeast, seized his entire ship of equipment, and killed his scout squad—a well-organized armed force on my territory that I've never even heard of."

The baron slowly sat back in his chair, holding his wine glass, twirling it in his hand twice, but didn't drink.

"A well-organized armed gang," he put his glass back on the table, "is he keeping his own heavy infantry to breed? He thinks of coming to me for this kind of nonsense?"

"The quartermaster cannot move troops without the commander's permission," the adjutant said. "The commander won't issue a mobilization order for a civilian trade route, and..."

"And what?"

"The scouts were part of the quartermaster department's own organization. Seven of them died, and he didn't report it to the commander, which means the whereabouts of this batch of equipment cannot be investigated."

The baron's lips twitched to one side, an instinctive reaction to the familiar scent.

Having served in the Temurian army for so many years, he knew the shady dealings of the quartermaster better than anyone. Scrap materials, civilian recyclers—these words pieced together a complete picture in his mind.

"This old man's smuggling line was taken away, and he's heartbroken about the equipment. He wants me to be his henchman."

"So how should we reply to him?"

The baron pushed his chair back and braced his hands on the edge of the table.

"Go back, of course we have to go back. If something happens on our turf, not going back is dereliction of duty, dereliction of duty is considered disloyalty, and disloyalty will get us 'on watchful eyes'."

"But how I respond is up to me."

His fingers tapped twice on the smoothed lily pattern on the table.

"Sweep them out? Go, but we don't have enough troops. We can only send out small teams to scout. The teams are small and don't know the way, so they move slowly."

In addition, the weather has been bad lately, with constant fog, so I went the wrong way and couldn't find that rebel camp, so I had to come back empty-handed.

The adjutant nodded, and as he was about to turn around, the baron raised his hand.

"etc"

He walked to the window, where the setting sun shone from that direction, stretching the wrinkles on his face into deep furrows.

"That batch of equipment, the kind that made him willing to use so much equipment to feed the line, it wasn't a small business. Now the line and the equipment are gone, and his men are gone too. The person who could pull off something like this in Velen..."

He didn't finish speaking. The adjutant waited a moment, then tentatively asked, "Do you believe that armed group really exists?"

"I'm not sure," the baron said, closing the window and turning around.

"But if someone can devour a whole ship of equipment and an entire scouting squad on my turf without me knowing anything, then the next time that person tries something, I'll still be clueless."

He walked to the long table, took a quill pen from the pen holder, and wrote a few lines on a blank sheet of paper. His handwriting was messy but forceful. After finishing, he folded the paper and handed it to his adjutant.

"Send that squad out, circle south once, and come back."

Then have your informant in the southeast keep watch for any unusual movements, strangers, new faces, or anything that shouldn't be there but is. If you find anything, deliver this letter.

The adjutant took the letter, but instead of unfolding it, he simply put it into his pocket.

"The reconnaissance report was sent to the Nilfgaardian military camp, with the wording being extremely appropriate. After investigation, no large-scale rebel forces were found within Velen."

The attack is suspected to be the work of bandits. The garrison at Crow's Nest will continue to track down leads and make every effort to apprehend any suspicious targets. We request resupply of supplies lost during the operation.

The baron picked up the glass of ale on the table, tilted his head back and took a swig, then slammed the glass down on the table.

"What the quartermaster thinks after seeing this report is his business."

The manor, evening.

Ron sat down at the table in the courtyard, and Erwin came down the steps, clutching a letter in his hand.

He walked faster than usual, walked up to Ron, and placed the letter on the table.

"Ron, you'd never guess who sent this letter," Erwin said mysteriously.

The letter was unfolded; it contained only a few sentences.

"Something's happened in the southeast. I'm a bit curious. As for the entrance to Crow's Nest, are you planning to come in through the main gate, or are you going to climb the wall?"

Erwin rested one hand on the edge of the table, pointing at the letter with the other.

"Raven's Nest, the largest armed force in Velen, occupies Raven's Nest Castle and controls most of the area from central Velen to the north."

The leader is known as the "Bloody Baron," and the exact number of his men is unknown, but intelligence indicates that he has at least a core force composed of Temerian veterans. The quartermaster's messenger went to Raven's Nest two days ago, and this letter has arrived in our hands today.

Ron looked up. "The quartermaster is looking for him."

"Then he came to find us," Erwin pushed up his glasses.

"The quartermaster can't go out to fight himself. We just killed seven of his scouts. He needs a knife, and the Baron's knife is the one Velen is most comfortable with. But judging from this letter, he doesn't want anyone else to hold it."

Erwin nodded and sat down opposite Ron, his hands crossed on his knees and his body leaning slightly forward.

"Regarding this baron, I did some preparatory work before coming to Velen. He was an officer of the Temurians in the early stages of the Third Civil War. After the Temurians were defeated, he took over Raven's Nest with his troops."

Nilfgaard's ground forces were unable to deploy in the swamps and did not want to expend effort in a poor place like Velen, so they acquiesced to the baron's rule.

He paused for a moment. "Regarding his personality, we can only speculate based on rumors; we'll have to get to the Crow's Den to make a judgment."

"What else do you know?"