Complete Annihilation

After a while.

He Shenyan picked up the mirror from beside the puddle of mush that Leland Gaunt had been reduced to. He took a look; the witcher's condition was not exactly good, but it wasn't terrible either. Leland Gaunt had merely wanted to torment him. In the mirror, Geralt was still swinging his sword; given a witcher's stamina, he hadn't reached his limit yet, but he was close. He had been fighting invisible monsters in that room for a long time.

He crushed the mirror, and his magic gently dispelled the enchantments upon it. With a flash of white light, the silver-sword-wielding witcher leaped out. Geralt looked at He Shenyan, then at the puddle of mush on the ground, still holding his sword up. "What is the meaning of this?"

"It's hard to explain to you."

The black-robed mage pointed at the mush and introduced him: "Gaunter O'Dimm, the Master of Mirrors, the Man of Glass—the one who had you fighting against thin air in that room."

"Air? Oh. Damn it."

The witcher glanced at him and sheathed his silver sword. He adjusted his shoulder straps and said, "Never heard of him."

"It's normal that you don't know him, Geralt."

The mage walked over to the puddle and cast a ball of flame. A foul-smelling, greenish smoke filled the dark room. The witcher frowned in discomfort, but the mage's expression remained unchanged. He said, "This fellow is a demon."

"That, I can understand."

The witcher caught on immediately.

He had read about demonology—people usually called a Leshen or a Fiend a demon. But true demons were recorded in the books of mages and witchers as beings from other planes or worlds. They could exist in their own forms or possess animals or sentient creatures. There was a type of magic for summoning them known as "Demon Summoning" or "Demonology," a practice 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 class of creatures with common characteristics, as each individual was vastly different from the next.

Only a very few demon incursions had been recorded in history, but without exception, they had all resulted in horrific consequences.

He Shenyan snapped his fingers, and the scenery shifted once more. In an instant, they were back in the room. The black-robed mage looked quite relaxed, sitting directly on the merchant's plush sofa.

Geralt had lived a long time, so he could tell the mage had something on his mind. The witcher leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, resting on his right leg, standing leisurely as he waited for the black-robed mage to speak.

"I have met him before."

He Shenyan said.

"It was not long after I began studying magic." The mage kept his head down, and Geralt could not see his expression.

"That bastard appeared in a town disguised as a merchant. The town was quiet, and the people were kind. He opened a shop for 'essential goods' there. Just listen to that name—who would even think of such a thing?"

"In any case, the townspeople bought what they needed from him—they bought what they wanted most. Yet the price was their souls, though they were unaware of it. I, however, knew. He had meticulously orchestrated a disaster. When he decided the transaction should end, the townspeople began to slaughter one another, and he would collect their souls amidst the blood and severed limbs."

"I was the only one there at the time. Although my teacher forbade me from acting on my own, I could not sit by and watch innocent people die. So, I did everything in my power to stop him. Other things happened in the process."

The mage looked up. The sunlight from the window only illuminated the lower half of his face, his black eyes hidden in the shadows. The witcher saw a pair of gems shimmering in the dark and heard the mage's whisper: "He read my memories, trying to tempt me. And he almost succeeded, Geralt. By the narrowest of margins, I nearly traded my soul and the souls of an entire town for a hollow, illusory possibility."

The witcher nodded with a sense of empathy. Thinking of something else, he said, "Yeah, I hate having my mind read, too."

The black-robed mage glanced at him and stood up. He walked past the witcher: "It seems your contract might be a failure, Geralt."

The witcher followed him, preparing to leave the house. He looked back once; the twisted arm had already 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 haunting them had been eradicated. He even went through the motions of telling the man to place two pots of flowers in front of his door upon returning home, claiming it was the final step of the exorcism. He didn't ask for the remaining half of the money. The merchant's wife bid them farewell with lingering reluctance; it was hard to say exactly what she was reluctant about.

Afterward, he took another contract—a simple one: clearing out Drowners. But it was also difficult.

A lone Drowner was not dangerous; three or five could be tricky, and more than ten required extreme caution. These annoying monsters had bounties on them all over the world. They were usually cheap, yet every day, people were killed and eaten by them.

Geralt killed a full twenty Drowners in the vast sewers of Novigrad, his brand-new leather armor becoming filthy from all the rolling and dodging. He knew the pay for this job wouldn't be much, not even enough to cover the repairs for his armor. When faced with the mage's question, the witcher just shrugged and said, "That's how the world is, He. There aren't that many dangerous monsters waiting in the city for you to kill. Most of the time, I'm just killing Drowners and Ghouls."

The two walked out of the sewers, the witcher carrying a foul-smelling sack filled with Drowner heads. He was ready to collect his reward. He gave the black-robed mage, who was floating the entire way, a complex look: "At least you're no different from most mages when it comes to being a clean freak."

"Ah, don't be so mean, Geralt. I believe that if you had the choice, you wouldn't want to run into the sewers either. Look at yourself; you stink to high heaven."

The witcher said expressionlessly, "Yes, I know."

They walked through the low-slung shantytown and dumped the sack of Drowner heads onto the tax collector's desk. The tax collector was a man with round glasses who looked very serious. Faced with the horrific stench from the sack, he actually dumped the heads out and began counting them one by one. After finishing, he took out one hundred Crowns, handed them to Geralt, and nodded: "They are all here, witcher. Twenty Drowners, five Crowns each, one hundred Crowns in total."

The witcher opened the small pouch he was handed, took a look, and tucked it into his pocket. In truth, he didn't really need to take on contracts anymore; the gold bar the mage had given him was enough for him to spend the winter comfortably in Novigrad—but if he wanted to do something else, that money wouldn't be enough.

You know what I'm referring to.