After a while.
He Shenyan picked up the mirror beside the pulp that had once been Leland Gaunt. He examined it. The Witcher was not in good shape, but not in bad shape either. Leland Gaunt had only wanted to torment him. Geralt was still swinging his sword inside the mirror. By a Witcher's standards, he had not yet reached his limit, but he was close. He had been fighting invisible Monsters in that room for a long time.
He crushed the mirror, and Magic Power gently dispelled the spell upon it. A flash of white light passed, and the Witcher leaped out holding a silver sword. He looked at He Shenyan, then at the pulp on the floor, still keeping his sword raised. "What exactly is going on?"
"It's hard to explain."
The Black-Robed Mage pointed at the pulp and introduced it to him. "Gaunter O'Dimm, Master of Mirrors, the Man of Glass. He's also the one who made you fight thin air in that room."
"Thin air? Oh. Damn it."
The Witcher shot him a glance and sheathed his silver sword behind his back. He adjusted the strap over his shoulder and said, "Never heard of him."
"It's normal that you don't know him, Geralt."
The Mage walked over to the pulp and tossed out a ball of flame. Foul blue smoke filled the black room. The Witcher frowned in discomfort, but the Mage's expression remained unchanged. "That bastard is a demon."
"Then I understand."
The Witcher immediately got it.
He had read about Demons—people usually called Leshens and Fiends Demons. But true Demons had been recorded in the books of Mages and Witchers. Demons referred to beings from other spacetime planes or worlds. They could exist in their own forms, or possess animals and intelligent creatures. One spell for summoning Demons was known as Demon Summoning, or Demonology. It was strictly forbidden by both Priests and the Brotherhood of Sorcerers. Demons did not seem to be a single species or race, but rather a general term for a category of creatures sharing certain traits, because every individual among them was vastly different.
Only a very small number of demon invasions had been recorded in history, but without exception, they had all brought dreadful consequences.
He Shenyan snapped his fingers, and the scenery around them changed once more. In an instant, they returned to that room. The Black-Robed Mage looked very relaxed as he sat directly on the merchant's soft sofa.
Geralt had lived a long time, so he could tell that the Mage had something he wanted to say. The Witcher leaned against the wall with his arms folded, his right foot bearing his weight as he stood there casually, waiting for the Black-Robed Mage to speak.
"I've seen him before."
He Shenyan said.
"That was not long after I first began studying magic." The Mage lowered his head, and Geralt could not see his expression.
"That bastard appeared in a town as a merchant. The town was quiet, and everyone there was kind. He opened a Needful Things shop there. Just listen to that name. What kind of person comes up with a name like that?"
"In any case, the townspeople all bought what they needed from him—what they wanted most. But the price was their souls, though they did not know it. I did. He carefully arranged a disaster. Once he decided the deals should end, the townspeople began slaughtering one another, and he collected their souls amid the blood and severed limbs."
"I was the only one there at the time. Though my teacher forbade me from acting alone, I couldn't stand by and watch innocent people die. So I did everything I could to stop him. Some other things happened along the way."
The Mage raised his head. The sunlight outside the window only illuminated the lower half of his face. Those black eyes remained hidden in darkness. The Witcher saw a pair of Gems gleaming within the shadows and heard the Mage whisper, "He read my memories and tried to tempt me. And he nearly succeeded, Geralt. I was that close to trading my soul and the souls of an entire town for an illusory possibility."
The Witcher nodded with some understanding. Thinking of something else, he said, "Yeah. I hate having my mind read too."
The Black-Robed Mage glanced at him and stood. He walked past the Witcher. "Looks like your contract may have fallen through, Geralt."
The Witcher followed behind him, preparing to leave the house. He looked back and saw that the twisted arm had vanished.
"Doesn't matter. At least I got half the money."
Over the next two days, Geralt first went to explain to the couple that the evil spirit troubling them had been destroyed. He even made a show of telling the man to place two pots of flowers before his door after returning home, claiming it was the final part of the exorcism ritual. But he did not ask for the remaining half of the payment. The merchant's wife reluctantly bid them farewell; it was hard to say what exactly she was reluctant to part with.
After that, he took another contract. It was simple: clearing out Drowners. But it was difficult too.
A lone Drowner was not dangerous. Three to five could be troublesome, and more than ten required extreme caution. Bounties for these annoying Monsters existed all over the world. They were usually not worth much, yet people were killed and eaten by them every day.
Geralt killed more than twenty Drowners in Novigrad's vast sewers. His brand-new leather armor became filthy after all the rolling and dodging. He knew this job would not earn much, perhaps not even enough to cover the armor's repairs. When the Mage questioned him, the Witcher merely shrugged. "That's how the world is, He. There aren't that many dangerous Monsters waiting beneath cities for you to kill. Most of the time, I just kill Drowners and Ghouls."
The two emerged from the sewers, the Witcher carrying a stinking sack full of Drowner heads. He was going to collect the reward. He gave the Black-Robed Mage, who had floated along the entire way, a complicated look. "At least you're no different from most Mages when it comes to being a clean freak."
"Ah, don't be so harsh, Geralt. I'm sure that if you had a choice, you wouldn't want to go running into sewers either. Look at yourself. You stink."
The Witcher said expressionlessly, "Yes, I know."
They passed through the low shantytown and dumped the Drowner heads onto a tax officer's desk. The tax officer wore round-rimmed glasses and looked extremely stern. Faced with the horrifying stench from the sack, he actually poured out all the heads and began counting them one by one. After finishing, he took out one hundred Crowns and handed them to Geralt, nodding at him. "They're all here, Witcher. Twenty Drowners at five Crowns each. One hundred Crowns in total."
The Witcher opened the little pouch he had been handed for a look, then tucked it into his pocket. In truth, he no longer needed to take contracts. The gold bar the Mage had given him was enough to let him spend the winter comfortably in Novigrad—but if he wanted to do other things, that money would not be enough.
You know what I mean.
Before you continue