The next day, Witt woke on the wooden boards called a "bed" just as dawn began to break.
The bed, made by pushing two tables together, left Witt's back and waist aching a little, but it was already much better than sleeping out in the open during the Trial of Choice.
"Witch... Master Witt, here is the breakfast you requested." Still bleary-eyed, the tavern keeper shakily brought over a bowl of hot soup.
Witt accepted the soup without correcting the tavern keeper's form of address. Although he was the only apprentice to survive this round of the Trial of the Grasses, he remained a witcher apprentice until he received his School of the Wolf medallion.
The soup was part of the agreement Witt had reached with the tavern keeper the night before: he could forgo a guest room, but the keeper had to provide breakfast the next day.
Terrified that the witcher's "curse" would affect business, the tavern keeper had reluctantly accepted the proposal.
Witt drank the hot soup, which was as clear as plain water, and could not be bothered to quibble over the keeper's skimping.
At least it was hot.
As warmth spread through his body, Witt knew it was time to leave under the tavern keeper's fearful gaze.
He adjusted his leather armor, tightened the straps on his arms, slung the two rather crudely made apprentice swords beside him onto his back, and left the tavern.
The moment Witt left, the tavern keeper slammed the door shut, afraid he might change his mind and turn back.
The two or three villagers who had risen early to work also hurried into their houses and shut their doors tight when they caught sight of the witcher.
Witt put on his cloak and left Buina Village through snowflakes that drifted down like ashes. He planned to follow the banks of the Buina River upstream, exploring his way toward the vineyards.
The Buina River originated deep in the Blue Mountains at the northernmost edge of the Kingdom of Kaedwen. Its waters passed through the Kestrel Mountains and flowed toward the Kingdom of Redania to Kaedwen's west. The ordinary people of northern Kaedwen could be said to live off this river.
Scavengers such as drowners usually nested on mudflats near human settlements, hunting lone travelers or careless fishermen.
The muddy riverbank smelled of fish and the various foul odors left by human and animal activity, but beyond those smells lingered faint traces of rot and blood.
The mingled odors entered Witt's nose, becoming distinct, traceable currents of scent through his heightened witcher senses.
"Most of the fish smell comes from the fish the villagers are drying by the river. The blood and rot are mixed together, coming from the same direction..."
Witt frowned as he looked toward the source of the blood and rot.
"Looks like something died over there. That's what drowners love most. Hopefully there aren't too many bodies, or drowners won't be the only things drawn by the smell..."
"Rustle, rustle..."
As Witt considered this, several rather heavy footsteps on the mudflats abruptly entered the range of his exceptionally keen hearing.
Witt swiftly drew his silver sword from his back and held it forward to one side in his right hand. His left hand opened, gathering chaos magic as he assumed an offensive stance of the School of the Wolf's swordsmanship.
The sound came from the direction of the rotting smell. It might be a wandering drowner.
But as the footsteps drew closer, what appeared twenty or thirty meters away was not some foolish drowner, but a man who also carried two swords on his back.
The man led a brown horse. He was powerfully built, wore School of the Wolf light armor, and had a particularly striking head of white hair.
The man had a weathered yet handsome face. The fearsome scar over his left eye and his pair of amber cat's eyes did not make Witt feel the slightest tension. Instead, he put away his sword and dispelled the Sign he had readied.
The man walked up to Witt and said, "Hey, master witcher. You should use a steel sword against humans."
"Long time no see, Geralt. Stop teasing me. But you-did Lambert manage to fool you into coming too?" Witt said with a relaxed expression.
The man was none other than the protagonist of the Witcher novels and game trilogy, the School of the Wolf's most legendary master witcher: the White Wolf, Gwynbleidd, the Butcher of Blaviken, the sorceress pile driver, Geralt of Rivia.
"Of course not. Master Vesemir has returned to Kaer Morhen. He hadn't expected Lambert to come back during the few days he was away, much less encourage you to go out taking contracts alone... I've never seen his face look that dark..."
A slightly knowing expression appeared on Geralt's face, as though he had recalled something amusing.
Ordinarily, witchers like Witt, who had only undergone the Trial of the Grasses, were not permitted to leave the mountains and take contracts alone.
They either had to receive several more years of instruction from their mentors in their schools' castles or follow their schools' master witchers down from the mountains to gain experience.
With the disintegration of the Order of Witchers, the mages who had cast spells to stabilize the witchers' mutations had also departed one after another.
Since then, even the School of the Wolf, which possessed more complete decoction formulas than the other schools, had a survival rate of only three in ten for the Trial of the Grasses.
Every witcher apprentice who survived the Trial of the Grasses was therefore a precious asset to their school, as well as an heir who would carry on its legacy.
Witt was the only witcher apprentice to survive the Trial of the Grasses in recent years. It had been a long time since Kaer Morhen had produced a new witcher.
Without Witt, according to the game, it would still be several years before Vesemir adopted Leo, the School of the Wolf's witcher apprentice, and brought him to Kaer Morhen.
"I'd just arrived at Kaer Morhen and hadn't even had a chance to rest when Master Vesemir told me to bring you back as soon as possible. But... since you've already accepted a contract, let's deal with it first. The School of the Wolf never breaks a contract."
"Thanks, Geralt. Let's go." Witt nodded, his confidence greatly bolstered.
Over the years, Witt had actually only seen Geralt, Lambert, and Eskel in winter. Once winter ended, the trained witchers of the School of the Wolf all had to leave Kaer Morhen and travel to various kingdoms to fulfill their duty as witchers, hunting monsters and earning some pay to sustain themselves and their school.
Had he not needed to train Witt and the others these past few years, Vesemir would not have stayed at Kaer Morhen either. He would instead have gone down from the mountains to take contracts until winter came.
There was, in fact, another witcher of the School of the Wolf: Berengar. Witt had scarcely seen that poor man, tormented by his identity as a witcher, more than a few times during his years as an apprentice of the school.
As they chatted, the two approached the place where the smells of rot and blood gathered.
Geralt's horse, Roach, sensed something amiss before either witcher did.
Geralt named every horse he owned Roach, whether male or female. No one knew why.
As the stench grew stronger, Roach paced restlessly in place, refusing to take another step forward. From time to time, the horse pulled its neck back against the reins in Geralt's hand, trying to take its master away from this terrifying place as well.
The two stopped. Geralt patted the horse's neck and soothed it in a low voice. "Shh... Roach. Easy."
When Roach still refused to advance and grew increasingly agitated, Geralt had no choice but to cast the Axii Sign on the horse.
The chaos magic within Geralt gathered toward his right hand, and an inverted triangular rune with a gap in it appeared out of thin air.
This was how witchers cast magic: Signs.
To ordinary people, this was undoubtedly frightening magic, but to spellcasters such as mages, sorcerers, and druids, Signs were mere tricks that could, at most, be called "cantrips."
Most witchers had no innate magical ability. They could not draw on the chaos magic around them to cast spells as spellcasters did.
Witchers' ability to cast spells came from the organ mutations induced by the Trial of the Grasses.
Only after several years of dietary restriction and physical training known as the "Trial of Choice" did witcher apprentices possess the constitution necessary to drink the grass decoction. Otherwise, a single drop of this alchemical decoction, which brought both curses and strength, would poison them to death.
Three in ten witcher apprentices died on the operating table when taking the grass decoction, unable to endure the immense pain of the mutation process. The mutations of the Trial of the Grasses generally lasted seven days.
Only after those seven days were the apprentices fortunate enough to survive truly transformed into witchers-beings that might or might not still be called human.
Their bodily functions were greatly enhanced: inhuman physical capabilities, extremely high poison resistance, astonishing stamina, healing abilities to rival monsters, and the ability to cast magic.
Their mutated organs could absorb chaos magic from the environment and store it within them. When needed, witchers could draw Signs with one hand at any time, channeling the magic within their bodies to cast quickly enough to meet the demands of their fast-paced combat.
Witchers of the School of the Wolf mastered five Signs in total: Aard, a telekinetic blast; Igni, which controlled fire; Axii, which induced hypnosis; Quen, which protected the caster; and Yrden, a magical trap.
Witchers could not use more complex magic, but the master witchers of the School of the Griffin were said to have developed more powerful Signs. However, because mages had coveted its extensive collections, the School of the Griffin's witchers were now nearly extinct, and its academy, Kaer Seren, seemed to have long since been abandoned.
The previously restless Roach gradually calmed under the Axii Sign, but its effect could not last very long, so Geralt left the horse in the fields by the riverbank behind them.
Geralt and Witt walked a few steps farther. At the confluence of the Buina River and the White Stone River, a nest of haphazardly piled dead branches and unidentified bones appeared in the two witchers' sight.
An ox cart covered in claw marks lay overturned on the mudflats, its cargo of wine and fruit scattered across the ground. The Kaedweni water buffalo that had pulled it lay lifeless nearby, with hunched dark figures feasting on its carcass as though no one else were there. The buffalo's owner had long since been eaten clean, leaving only white bones.
The monsters were completely naked, their blue-purple skin covered in scales. Fishlike fins grew on their forearms, and their feet were webbed for ease of movement through water.
Those with little experience might mistake drowners for humans, but in truth they were entirely different, not the same kind of creature at all.
A complicated expression appeared on Witt's face as he looked at the scene.
"The poor man chose the wrong way home and walked straight into a drowner nesting site." A trace of pity flickered in Geralt's eyes.
Geralt handed Witt a bottle of Swallow potion he had taken from his saddlebag.