Witt took the Swallow Potion Geralt handed him. He had always been curious about this potion, which he had drunk countless times in the game in his previous life.
"What does this taste like?"
As he spoke, Witt recalled the witcher herbalism lessons Vesemir had taught him.
The ingredients needed to brew a Swallow Potion were drowner brains and celandine. It further enhanced a witcher's already extraordinary regenerative abilities while slightly numbing the user's pain receptors, making it a buff potion commonly used when facing scavengers such as drowners and water hags.
The taste of drowner brains... Witt could hardly imagine it.
"What does it taste like?" Geralt had not expected Witt to ask that question, but he answered seriously nonetheless. "Given that the ingredients are drowner brains and celandine, it tastes a bit like rotten fish mixed with grass roots still covered in dirt."
"Uh..."
Looking at the sediment at the bottom of the bottle, Witt froze with it in his hand.
The only alchemical potion Witt had drunk before was the Trial of the Grasses Decoction. But given the immense pain of the mutations, the decoction's taste had seemed rather insignificant. Still, it certainly could not be called pleasant.
Seeing Witt hesitate, Geralt smiled. "Don't worry. The base I used to brew it was dwarven spirit I got from a dwarven friend. So however foul it tastes, it's still much better than Kaedweni beer."
"All right."
Witt raised the Swallow Potion and took a large swig.
Just as Geralt had said, a rotten taste filled Witt's mouth, but the burning bite of the potent dwarven spirit soon overwhelmed it.
Only moments after drinking the potion, Witt felt his heartbeat steadily quicken, as though all the blood in his body were pulsing along with it.
The capillaries all over his body gradually stood out. On his face in particular, the bulging blood vessels formed patterns like cracks in broken porcelain.
Witt's body gradually grew feverishly hot, driving away the winter chill.
The world before his eyes became hazy yet lively, like a fleeting illusion. He did not know whether he was drunk or whether this was the potion's effect.
"Well? Tastes good, doesn't it?"
At some point, the Swallow Potion had found its way into Geralt's hand, and he drained the remaining half in one go.
The potion's effects seemed even stronger on Geralt. Veins bulged across his face, and even the whites of his eyes turned pitch-black, making him look like a fiend from hell.
As far as Witt knew, Geralt seemed to have demonstrated a remarkable tolerance for the Trial of the Grasses Decoction compared with the other witchers of the School of the Wolf. Thus, the school's former instructors had made him drink the more powerful Advanced Trial of the Grasses Decoction.
The results were visibly striking.
"Let's go." Even Witt's tongue felt numb as he spoke.
"Mm."
As soon as the words left his mouth, both drew the silver swords from their backs and cast the defensive Sign: Quen.
Where Witt's Quen Sign could only produce faint patterns of golden runes on his body's surface, the one cast by Geralt, a master witcher, formed a resilient magical shield around him.
They crouched slightly and crept forward, using the dead trees and weeds along the riverbank as cover.
Geralt led the way, quietly sharing his experience with Witt.
"Drowners might count among the weakest monsters, but they usually like living alongside other scavengers. Overlook that, and you could pay dearly... Watch your surroundings. One person and one ox won't attract just a handful of drowners."
Witt nodded and tightened his two-handed grip on his silver sword.
"I'll drive them toward you from the river side. You use these..." As he spoke, Geralt handed him two fist-sized Dancing Star Bombs. "You know how to use them, right? Throw them into the drowners, then ignite them with the Igni Sign."
"I do." Witt knew these bombs, made from simple magical materials, released flames that were difficult to extinguish when detonated and dealt tremendous damage to scavengers like drowners.
"One more thing..." Even Geralt felt he was being rather long-winded today, but he continued, "People say drowners are monsters made from drowned people coming back to life, but according to research by mages, their physiology is completely different from that of humans. They're pure monsters. So... don't think you're desecrating the dead."
Witt gave an understanding smile. "Don't worry. I know. It's all in the books."
"Haha, right." Geralt smiled, remembering how Vesemir had praised Witt's "eagerness to learn" when he returned to Kaer Morhen last year.
Thinking of it that way, it was hardly surprising that Vesemir cared so much about this child.
As they chatted, faint sounds of chewing and the drowners' distinctive croaks reached their ears, and the smell of blood grew stronger.
Realizing they were close to the drowners, both slowed their movements. Geralt looked back at Witt, signaling him to follow their earlier plan.
Witt nodded, focused his mind, and cast aside his stray thoughts. He slowed his steps further, striving not to make a sound.
As he drew closer, the sight of the drowners feeding on the ox's corpse became clearer-and more revolting.
Several drowners had torn open the water buffalo's chest and abdomen. Its intestines lay strewn across the riverbank, giving off an intensely foul, bloody stench, and blood flowed out into the Buina River.
All that remained of the poor man's corpse were mangled limbs and white bones still streaked with blood. The monsters had also bitten his skull apart, and red and white matter seeped into the mudflats.
One or two drowners near the edge seemed to notice something and raised their heads to look around. Witt hurriedly stopped and hid behind some dead branches nearby, waiting for Geralt's signal.
Compared with Witt's caution, Geralt was far more at ease. Moving nimbly, he slipped beside the overturned ox cart and raised his left hand toward the drowners still gnawing on the corpses.
Witt watched the gesture Geralt formed with his left hand. Chaos magic gathered in his palm, and a triangular rune with a horizontal bar through its center appeared. It was the Aard Sign!
"Wah!" The faint fluctuation of magic alerted the drowners to the enemy right beside them. Roaring, they lunged at Geralt with claws outstretched.
But they were too late. The Aard Sign had already formed, and an invisible psychic blast instantly hurled the four charging drowners away.
"Witt!" Geralt shouted.
Without a word, Witt hurled a Dancing Star Bomb into the air with his left hand, then formed the gesture for the Igni Sign.
Igni Sign!
Flames converted from chaos magic spurted from the mysterious ancient magical rune.
A jet of flame overtook the Dancing Star Bomb and struck it, lighting its fuse.
Boom!
With a deafening blast, the Dancing Star Bomb erupted in a destructive white flash, blowing the drowners apart in midair.
Flesh and blood sprayed everywhere, but the fight was not over.
"Hiss!"
A roar came from the drowners' nest, and a huge figure shot out, lunging straight at Witt.
A water hag!
The ox-sized monster reeked of mud and dead fish. Its entire body was hunched, with bone spurs jutting from its back and shoulders. Even a werewolf would have balked at the claws on its hands. Disgusting sores covered its pale green skin, and its shriveled, wrinkled hide hung almost to the ground.
The water hag moved swiftly, reaching Witt in a few bounds. One sharp claw swept toward him with a foul stench, and Witt only had time to raise his silver sword to block.
The tremendous force nearly overwhelmed Witt's guard, driving him half a step back.
But the water hag attacked in relentless waves. Before Witt could steady himself, it swept a claw at his unprotected waist.
"Witt! Watch out!"
Geralt beheaded the two drowners before him with a single stroke and hurried toward Witt. But the earlier explosion had drawn many drowners lurking on the riverbed, and they roared as they charged at Geralt.
Though these drowners fell effortlessly before Geralt, the monsters emerging one after another still held him up.
Facing the incoming attack, Witt felt no panic whatsoever. Rather than trying to dodge or block, he planted his feet firmly and raised his sword in both hands, executing the School of the Wolf Swordsmanship that had already become muscle memory.
Witt twisted his waist to add force, his arm muscles tightening. The apprentice silver sword slashed horizontally toward the water hag with an unstoppable rush of air, bent on taking its head.
Yet the water hag's attack arrived in an instant as well. Just as it was about to tear through the witcher's leather-clad waist-
Golden magical light blossomed at Witt's waist. It was the Quen Sign.
The Quen Sign's triggered blast knocked the water hag's claws away, while Witt's waist appeared completely unharmed.
The blast threw the monster off balance, but Witt's horizontal slash did not stop. The apprentice silver sword sliced cleanly through the bone spurs on the water hag's shoulder and through its dry, revolting skin, only to be stopped by its sturdy jawbone.
Crack.
Witt heard the silver sword in his hand groan. It was lodged in the water hag's left cheek.
The horizontal slash had left the water hag wide open.
Without pausing, Witt released the hilt with his left hand and thrust it toward the water hag's unguarded chest.
Witt had not lost his reason in pursuit of victory and attacked the monster with his nearly unprotected left hand. His mind was perfectly calm.
Although water hags were stronger and fiercer monsters than drowners, as scavengers, they shared the same weakness!
"Igni Sign!"
With his furious shout, the last of the chaos magic in Witt's body transformed into flames through the ancient magical rune in his left palm and surged out.
In an instant, it burned through the water hag's chest and consumed the utterly revolting rotten flesh on its body.
"Raaagh!!!" The monster roared in pain.
It struggled constantly, but Witt still held tight to the silver sword lodged in its left cheek, leaving it unable to escape. It could only continue enduring the flames.
At last, it died, its limbs dangling limply.
Witt exhaled a stale breath, released the silver sword, and sat on the ground to rest.
"Witt, are you all right?" Having dealt with the drowners holding him up, Geralt hurried over.
"I'm fine. Hiss..." Witt had meant to tough it out, but as the Swallow Potion's effects faded, his sense of pain returned.
Only then did Witt feel the pain in his waist. Rubbing it, he stood up. "My internal organs should be fine, but I'm probably going to have some bruises."
"As long as your organs aren't hurt. Defeating a water hag on your own, Witt-you're already a thoroughly competent witcher." Geralt sheathed his silver sword and drew the dagger at his waist. "Now for the second practical lesson: cleaning up the battlefield and collecting the loot."
With that, he walked back to the field and brought over the saddlebags from Roach's back.
"Good thing you didn't chop this monster's brain to pieces. That would've been a shame. A water hag's brain and tongue are both excellent alchemical ingredients. Drowners' too." Geralt pulled out the silver sword lodged in its face. "But this sword probably isn't usable anymore."
Witt looked behind him. Roughly a dozen drowners had all been beheaded by Geralt. So that was why.
This was how a master witcher made money.
As Geralt cut open the water hag's skull, a rotten stench burst out.
"Urgh..." Witt instantly jumped up, muttering between dry heaves, "That smell-it's like digging out horse manure that's been stored in a cellar for ten years. It's awful!"
His witcher's sense of smell was gradually engraving the odor into Witt's mind, so he hurriedly retreated another few steps.
"Hahaha..."
Only after Geralt had removed the water hag's fist-sized brain and long tongue, placed them in a glass jar, and sealed it did the disgusting stench gradually fade.
"Witt, you've still got a lot to learn, lad. These two things might look disgusting, but back at Kaer Morhen, you can use them as ingredients with mutagens to make special decoctions. Or sell them to an alchemist in Novigrad for fifty crowns."
Hearing this, Witt felt that the two greasy green lumps seemed... a little less...
All right, they were still rather disgusting.
"Catch." Geralt tossed the glass jar to Witt.
Witt hurriedly caught it, terrified that this bottled biological bomb might hit the ground.
"Geralt, without you, I wouldn't have..."
Geralt waved a hand and said casually, "You hunted this water hag on your own, and it's your first trophy, too. Of course it's yours to do with as you please. You can even keep it as a memento if you want."
Looking at the "greasy green stuff," which still seemed to be moving a little, Witt dismissed the idea and turned to Geralt, who was harvesting drowner brains. "What happened to your first trophy? What was it?"
Squatting on the riverbank, Geralt scratched his head. "I've forgotten what it was. But I think I traded it to some sorcerer for a bottle or two of Est Est. Tsk, now that was delicious."