Arwen looked back.
A line of figures was reflected in his pupils.
The man at their head was tall. His hair was not gray-white like Vesemir's, but creamy white, tied back with a hairband.
His sharply defined, slightly youthful face bore a pair of amber, slit-pupiled eyes much like Vesemir's.
He wore a black leather jacket trimmed with silver and carried two swords on his back. The black wolf's-head medallion resting against his chest kept giving off a faint hum.
His silver-studded gauntlet held a length of silver chain, and behind that chain followed a row of blue shadows.
"It's Geralt! Geralt's back!"
"Oh, bloody plague, what are those ugly blue things?"
"They're drowners, you idiot!"
The apprentices clamored as they watched Geralt fasten the chain in his hand to a wooden post.
Arwen's gaze shifted to the drowners, his grip tightening around his sword hilt.
"Hiss..."
The drowners stood hunched, their bodies covered in blue scales, with only a little soft skin exposed on their bellies.
Their arms were long and slender, their hands and feet webbed like a duck's, with five dark, sharp claws protruding from them, gleaming coldly in the sunlight.
Their heads were so gaunt that their cheekbones showed, and a pair of ghastly, bulging dead-fish eyes protruded from each. Beneath their thick fish lips were densely packed, razor-sharp teeth, enough to send chills down anyone's spine.
Arwen's breathing quickened. These were drowners-not a game, but living, breathing drowners.
Adrenaline began to surge, but his heart still beat far more slowly than an ordinary person's.
At most, it beat only forty to forty-five times a minute.
His mutated body was forcibly calming him, suppressing the fear deep inside.
At some point, Vesemir had walked to the front and side of the apprentices, his catlike eyes sweeping over all their faces.
Some were horrified, some excited, and some had even begun to tremble faintly. He took it all in.
"M-Master Vesemir, th-this is..."
Beside Arwen, Paul pressed his lips together, his speech clearly beginning to turn incoherent.
Vesemir folded his arms. "Wolf pups, weren't you all full of fire just now? What, now that you've seen real monsters, you're shrinking back?"
The apprentices fell silent.
For the past six years, everything they had learned had been theory. Even their study of monsters had come from The Book of Monsters. This was probably the first time in their lives they had actually seen monsters with their own eyes.
"No, we're not!"
"Master Vesemir, I want to challenge them!"
Aiken picked up his two-handed training sword, his face set, looking eager to try.
Having someone take the lead undoubtedly gave this little team of six a shot in the arm.
Vesemir sneered. "Young witcher apprentices are eager to prove themselves by slaying drowners with their swords. I understand that. But impulse is useless against monsters, and the knowledge in your heads matters more than the swords in your hands."
Vesemir suddenly raised his voice. "Tell me, what are a drowner's weaknesses?"
At his words, Arwen and the five other apprentices instinctively straightened and answered loudly in unison:
"Weak to silver! Afraid of fire! Poor eyesight!"
Only then did Vesemir nod in satisfaction.
"Aiken, Paul, Blyde, you're one group."
"Horton, Arwen, Winston, you're the other."
Following Vesemir's instructions, the witcher apprentices quickly formed their teams and spread out.
Vesemir shouted, "All of you, grip your training swords tight! Each group takes one drowner. Kill them!"
Hearing this, Arwen raised his training sword.
"Wait, training swords? Aren't we supposed to get silver swords?"
Some of the other apprentices noticed this too, but before any of them could ask, Vesemir's voice rang out behind them.
"Geralt!"
At the call, Geralt lifted his head slightly and undid a chain with his right hand. A drowner broke free, swinging its claws as it lunged to tear at him.
Geralt raised his hand without hesitation.
The five fingers of his silver-studded gauntlet clamped firmly over the drowner's face.
The muscles of his right arm bulged.
He shoved hard.
The drowner was flung away like a torn sack and landed heavily a short distance in front of Arwen.
Arwen sucked in a breath at the sight.
Though slender, this drowner was around a meter and a half tall. To send it nearly ten meters with one effortless shove-with strength like that, was he still human?
As for the other group, Geralt did the same, throwing a drowner over to them.
Arwen had no time to marvel. The drowner before him had already risen, its dead-fish eyes fixed on him. Its long, narrow fish lips parted, exposing rows of densely packed fangs.
"Hah!"
With a shrill screech and an overpowering stench of fish, the drowner lunged straight at him.
Arwen reacted swiftly, pivoting around his right foot to dodge the drowner's lunge.
Guided by muscle memory, he raised the hilt high, drawing power from the ground as he brought his training sword down hard.
"Shhk!"
The dull blade struck the scales along the drowner's back with the clang of metal on metal.
I hit it!
Joy welled up in Arwen.
But the drowner merely pitched forward before quickly getting back to its feet.
That strike had left nothing more than a pale dent in its scales.
Arwen frowned.
As expected, without a silver sword, this blunt training sword can only do so much damage.
"Horton, Winston!"
Arwen glanced at his nearby teammates and found both frozen in place, clearly stunned by the drowner's ferocity.
"Damn it!"
The drowner charged straight at him again.
Geralt shook the drowner slime off his hand and strolled over to Vesemir.
Without looking at him, Vesemir asked, "Geralt, which group do you think can kill their drowner?"
Geralt surveyed them, then considered for a moment before saying, "The first group, probably. Aiken's Apprentice Swordsmanship is good, but he's a little too aggressive. He's likely to get hurt."
Vesemir shook his head.
"No, I don't think either can. Though drowners are among the easier monsters to deal with, and they have no brains, living entirely on instinct, these apprentices are still too green to kill one with their training swords."
Geralt frowned. "Vesemir, that doesn't sound right. I've heard you say that drowners are monsters even a farmer can kill with a pitchfork."
Vesemir said, "That's right, but there are conditions."
"First, it has to be a drowner that's ventured deep inland. Prolonged dehydration leaves them incredibly weak and slow."
"Second, a pitchfork has a longer reach than a drowner. As long as you pin it down, it's easy to hamper its movements."
"But right now, these drowners are all in good condition. They feel no pain and are all but insane."
"Unless you smash their heads, they'll keep swinging their arms and snapping their jaws until they've torn their prey apart."
Vesemir turned to look at the young witcher beside him. "Geralt, do you remember what you were like the first time you faced a monster?"
Geralt paused, recalling his first monster hunt.
It had been a ghoul in the darkness of night. To him now, it would be utterly helpless, but back then, it had nearly frightened him into forgetting to breathe.
Vesemir said, "What people fear most is the unknown. Watch. As soon as one of them goes down injured, fear will overwhelm them and their formation will collapse."
"Respect death. That's also the first lesson we give apprentices who pass the Trial of the Grasses."