Drowners

After spending the day searching the undergrowth for herbs, the two of them and their horse reached the banks of a murky river near dusk. It was thirty feet wide and stretched as far as the eye could see. Letho suddenly stopped, his amber pupils narrowing to slits. Looking at his back, Roy thought of a cat tensing up with its fur standing on end—only much bigger.

"What is it? Is there danger here?"

Letho motioned for him to stay quiet, then tiptoed forward with ghostly steps. He picked a blue scale from between the pebbles on the bank, held it to his nose, sniffed, and quickly retreated.

"Looks like we'll have to camp farther away. There's something nasty in the river."

"You mean..." Roy watched the murky surface, excitement beginning to stir in him.

"There are Drowners hiding in there..." Letho tossed the scale into his palm. "Take a look. Drowner scales are different from ordinary fish scales. They're thicker, with a little nub in the middle. You can even smell the stench of rotting corpses on them."

Perhaps his Perception wasn't high enough, or his sense of smell wasn't sharp enough, but Roy couldn't smell a thing.

He followed Letho away from the river for a while, then suddenly patted the other man's wall-like back and said hesitantly, "Master Letho, could you let me see a Drowner from the stories? If I've chosen this path, I'll have to deal with them sooner or later. This is a good chance to learn about these monsters. If we leave them alone, how many more people will suffer?"

"Do you know what Witchers call Drowners?" Letho said coldly. "Rookie killers. They specialize in killing curious little busybodies like you."

Roy shrank his neck.

Even so, Letho found a place to tie up the horse. He returned to the riverbank to scout, found a few more scales, and thought for a moment before checking his gear: weapons, Alchemical Bombs, and potions.

Roy noticed how prepared Letho was for a major threat and looked a little surprised. "Is all that really necessary? Drowners don't seem all that strong."

He'd slaughtered plenty of these humanoid creatures in the game. He'd killed at least a hundred of them, and their strange, gurgling cries, as if they were humming through their noses, still echoed in his mind...

He'd learned about these Monsters through countless killings. They had about as much strength as an ordinary person and were perhaps a little faster. Aside from being excellent swimmers, there was nothing especially memorable about them.

"Looks like your dreams aren't always right." Letho rubbed pale green Ghoul Oil onto his short sword. "Didn't your dreams ever teach you that 'monsters are pathetic when alone, but they're happy in a crowd'? These things usually show up with the whole family."

"So watch your attitude, kid. No matter how weak a monster looks, you give it your full attention."

"Witchers don't get a second life. If you die because you underestimated your enemy, you don't deserve any sympathy. That's your second lesson."

Letho took a bloody wolf leg from his saddlebag and chopped it into pieces with his short sword.

"Understood. I promise I won't make the same mistake again." Roy lowered his head in shame. The Witcher was right. With his current abilities, what gave him the right to look down on Drowners? An attitude like that would get him buried sooner or later.

Thinking back, he'd picked up this bad habit after his last adventure. It was time to get a grip.

"Master Letho, what should I do? How can I help?" Roy pulled out his crossbow, already loaded with a bolt.

"Just hide and watch the show." Letho paused and looked at him impassively. "If you want to help, do you know the Drowners' weaknesses?"

Roy's lips moved, but he closed his mouth and listened quietly.

Letho nodded with satisfaction. The kid was finally learning the importance of being humble. "Remember, poison and bleeding have no effect on Drowners."

Roy felt a chill of fear. He'd actually planned to use the Butcher's Anesthetic Powder against them. He might have become the first disgrace of a transmigrator to be eaten by Drowners.

"Drowners are stupid, dumber than shoes, so the Axii Sign doesn't work well on them either. But their eyesight is poor. Even in daylight, once they're more than forty feet away from their target, they're practically half-blind. There is one condition, though: you have to be able to outrun them. Also, they're most afraid of fire element and anything related to fire." Letho took a fist-sized transparent glass jar from his alchemy pouch and tossed it to Roy.

Through the glass, Roy could just make out the fantastical colored gas swirling inside.

"Dragon's Dream, a type of Alchemical Bomb. It contains highly flammable, explosive gas," Letho said. "You're good with that crossbow, and your aim should be decent. When the Drowners are lured out, wait for my command and throw the Dragon's Dream where they're gathered. Then I'll ignite it. Understand?"

"Understood."

Letho scattered the bloodied meat, cut into dozens of pieces, across a flat patch of ground about twenty feet from the river. Then he hurried back and hid with Roy at a safe distance, eyes fixed on the water.

After about five minutes, the calm river suddenly turned turbulent, like a pot coming to a boil. Bubbles rose nonstop, and huge ripples spread across the surface—

One, two, three... Five ugly humanoid creatures emerged from beneath the water, making guttural cries as they charged for the bank.

They looked like corpses dredged up from the bottom of a pond. Their skin was blue or green, and slime and mud oozed from every pore. Their limbs were covered in dark, slick scales. Between their fingers and toes were the webbed membranes of aquatic animals, and fan-shaped gills and catfish whiskers grew along the sides of their faces.

But their chests, bellies, and gaunt, skull-like cheeks were deathly pale. They bared rows of crooked white teeth and nervously scanned their surroundings with bulging, bloodless eyes.

Their short, thick noses twitched. The whole family let out excited cries and rushed toward the scraps of meat, running in a strange posture with their hands held behind their backs, like a flock of ostriches.

Roy glanced at Letho, but there was no signal. He turned his attention to the most mutated-looking monster, his gaze growing intent.

Drowner

Gender: None

Age: 12

Identity: None

Health: 70

Strength: 5

Agility: 6

Constitution: 7

Perception: 3

Willpower: 2

Charisma: 0

Spirit: 0

Skills:

Mutated Body LV10: Some believe they are dead people who transformed underwater, but their body structure is completely different from that of humans. They may be magical creations, or foreign species brought by the Conjunction of Spheres. Immune to poison and bleeding.

Charisma 0, Spirit 0. Were these not just a few corpses? Roy grumbled inwardly. No wonder the Axii Sign was ineffective.

He turned and saw Letho's signal. Taking a deep breath, he threw the Dragon's Dream with all his might. It traced a perfect arc through the air and landed right among the five Drowners.

"Crack!" The glass shattered with a crisp sound, and a cloud of fantastically colored smoke spread out in an instant, covering the five Drowners as they gorged themselves.

Almost at the same moment, the Witcher darted forward like a gust of wind, raised his hand, and cast an Igni Sign at the alchemical gas—then sprang back.

A cone of flame ignited the cloud like a wad of cotton. In a flash, it spread everywhere.

Roy stood frozen with his crossbow raised, watching the grand "fireworks display" in the distance. Orange flames flickered amid the multicolored alchemical gas. As explosions boomed, the light of a rainbow colored half the sky.

"Urgh, urgh..." Five battered figures, their bodies smoking, stubbornly burst out of the blast. Three fled toward the river, and the Witcher chased after them, swinging his short sword in a flash. The other two charged at Roy. He calmly fired a bolt, piercing one Drowner through the eye socket. As he reached for another bolt and drew the string, the other burning Drowner had already crossed the short distance and closed in on him.

Not a hair grew on its pale, ugly face. Orange flames danced wildly across its features, and the reek of burning flesh and the foul stench from its fangs and jaws flooded Roy's nostrils.

Roy's breathing caught.

Death waved hello to him, then turned and strolled away. The charging Drowner suddenly froze, as if caught by a binding spell, though its huge momentum still carried its blazing body within reach.

The situation was bizarre, but there was no time to think. Roy summoned his short knife and viciously brought it down on the Drowner's forehead, knocking it onto its back. He then drove a crossbow bolt into its eye socket.

The Drowner shuddered all over and stopped struggling.

Killed Drowner, gained 20 experience

Killed Drowner, gained 20 experience

Experience LV2 (143/1000)

Roy let out a long breath of relief. His head spun, and cold sweat drenched him beneath his clothes.

That was close. He'd almost been done in by an unexpected danger. If "Intimidation" hadn't triggered at the last moment, he couldn't imagine what would have happened. Would he have been embraced by a smoking-hot Drowner? Even if he survived, he'd probably have lost half his life.

"Kid, do you understand now why they call these things rookie killers?" The tall Witcher appeared beside him. Behind Letho lay the three Drowners that had fled, all of them decapitated. "Still think you can underestimate them?"

Roy fell silent. He hadn't expected this cold-faced bald man to be so fond of lecturing.

"What do we do with these half-cooked corpses? Throw them back in the river, or burn them again?"

"First, cut out their brains. I'll teach you how. Drowner brains are a key ingredient in the potion Swallow, and some spellcasters will buy them too." Beside the river in the setting sun, two figures, one large and one small, dragged the five half-cooked Drowner corpses into a line. "We'd better find a Red Mutagen. Otherwise, after the cost of the Dragon's Dream, we'll be losing money."