Watching Geralt hard at "work," Witt, who had recovered his strength, walked over to the owner of the ox cart-the human corpse.
Witt crouched beside the corpse. The drowners' claws had shredded the victim's coarse clothes and hollowed out his body through his abdomen. The traces of blood still clinging to the bones suggested he had probably been killed a few days earlier.
There was not much food beside the overturned ox cart. Though there were many varieties, they were all grains and fruits common in the countryside. The dead man had not been a merchant traveling between villages.
The bread and gingerbread had swollen with water and were no longer edible...
Among a spilled basket of fresh grapes, Witt found a rather fine wine bottle with a ribbon tied around its neck. Deep red wine swirled inside.
"Find anything?" Geralt came over after finishing his work and happened to see the bottle Witt had taken out.
"This should be wine..." Geralt took the bottle, shook it a few times, then pulled out the stopper and sniffed it. The old drunk gave his verdict. "It's from that vineyard upstream. Probably hasn't been aged long, but it would still cost twenty or thirty ducats. I've bought it a few times."
With that, Geralt took a swig and sighed. "Whew... this wine really is the only drink in Kaedwen worth swallowing."
"Let me try." Witt took it and had a mouthful too.
The wine was indeed much more palatable than the Kaedweni beer at the tavern earlier. Although it could not compare with the wine he had drunk in his previous life, in this world of witchers, where sugar and salt were as precious as gold, it could certainly be called sweet.
"Not bad at all."
After tasting the wine, the two gathered the remaining corpses together, preparing to burn them with the Igni Sign.
Whether human, livestock, or monster, all corpses had to be burned. Otherwise, once they rotted, they would attract even more carrion eaters.
"Wait, wait, witchers."
An aged voice came from the direction of Buina Village. Witt and Geralt lowered their left hands, stopping before they cast the Igni Sign, and looked toward the rider galloping over.
"Huff... huff... wait... wait, witchers."
An old man stopped before them. He wore a thick, coarse-cloth coat, but beneath it was a fine lining. His groomed, shoulder-length white hair had become somewhat disheveled from the gallop, and his brown lips were hidden behind an equally white beard.
"Old Graz, it's you." A witcher's memory was as long as his lifespan. Geralt remembered the old mage he had met in Kovir a few years earlier, who was said to have lived for over a hundred years.
"Ah, Geralt. I thought you'd forgotten your old friend." Old Graz smiled, revealing the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.
"Hmm..." A deeply complicated expression appeared on Geralt's face.
Spellcasters generally used magic to make themselves as beautiful as they had been in their youth. Only druids, who revered nature, and a very small number of spellcasters retained the marks the years had left on them.
Geralt greatly respected such people, but Old Graz was an exception.
"Is this a new witcher from your School of the Wolf?" Without waiting for Geralt to answer, Old Graz continued, "Hello, witcher. I'm Old Graz of Kovir, an old friend of Geralt's. A pleasure to meet you. May I ask..."
"Old Graz, don't..."
Geralt tried to stop him, but the blunt old mage had already asked.
"May I dissect you? Of course, it doesn't have to be today."
"No." Geralt covered his face helplessly.
Looking into the old mage's sincere eyes, Witt understood why Geralt rather disliked him.
"The same goes for you, Geralt. I can pay a thousand crowns for either of you." Old Graz was still all smiles.
In the end, after a friendly discussion among the three, Old Graz bought all the drowner corpses for two crowns apiece, along with some drowner brains and the swamp hag's body. As for the swamp hag's brain and tongue, Old Graz had no need for them for now.
Witt burned the drowner nest on the riverbank and the ox's carcass with Igni, but placed the poor farmer's body on the righted cart. Witt wanted to ask in Buina Village whether he was someone's husband. If not, he could always come back and burn it.
As for Old Graz's cherished proposal to dissect them, both witchers ignored it outright.
Counting the forty-six crowns from the sale, Witt felt an inexplicable joy. It was not because he was greedy for money or anything of the sort, but rather a heartfelt sense of reflection.
Of the eighteen years since his rebirth in the world of witchers, Witt only had memories from the age of ten onward. He knew nothing about what sort of person he had been before that.
In his eight years as a witcher apprentice, whether at Kaer Morhen or out in the wilderness during the Trial of Choice, he had mostly depended for survival on Vesemir, who was both teacher and father to him. Sometimes he had relied on Geralt, Lambert, and Eskel as well-family who shared none of his blood.
Today, Witt had gained the ability to survive alone in this world of witchers. Though he could not have completed this contract without Geralt's help, he finally had a chance to repay his family in this world.
"Witt, Witt, what do you think?" Geralt's question roused Witt from his distraction.
"What is it?"
The cold exterior caused by his mutations served as a disguise, and neither of the other two noticed the emotions surging within him.
Geralt repeated what he had just discussed with the old mage. "Old Graz wants to hire us to go to White Mist Peak in the Blue Mountains and find the griffin ravaging the villages below. What do you think?"
"How far is White Mist Peak from here?"
"Only two or three days' journey from here, on horseback," Old Graz answered first.
Hearing this, Witt exchanged a glance with Geralt and saw what the other was thinking. He said, "Mr. Graz, we've already taken other contracts. Once we've turned this one in, we'll be heading straight elsewhere."
Of course, Witt had accepted no other contracts. He only said this to avoid revealing that Kaer Morhen was nearby, about half a day's journey away.
Approval flashed in Geralt's eyes, and he nodded in agreement. "That's right, Old Graz. We have other contracts."
Old Graz hurriedly waved his hands. "There's no rush, Geralt. The situation in the south has been rather tense these past few years. I'll be staying at Ban Ard Academy to conduct research. This contract will remain open."
Geralt did not want to miss out on this contract, so he said, "Once this winter is over, Witt and I will come find you in Ban Ard."
"Then after winter, come find me in the village below White Mist Peak. A former student of mine works there as an herbalist."
"All right." Geralt nodded.
"Are you sure you won't reconsider my proposal?" Old Graz did not want to let any opportunity to persuade the witchers slip by.
"Goodbye."
Witt and Geralt decisively turned and headed toward Buina Village.
Before leaving, Witt looked back. He wanted to know how Old Graz would take away more than a dozen drowner corpses.
The old mage took a palm-sized square box from inside his coat. After he recited an incantation, a magical glow flashed, and the small mound of monster corpses was instantly drawn into the box. Old Graz tucked it away, mounted his horse, and left. The whole process was both effortless and swift.
"Stop staring. That's real magic. Compared to what they do, our Signs are nothing but little tricks."
As Geralt spoke, a hint of longing appeared on his face, but then he immediately frowned. "I hate magic."
Witt understood that Geralt must have been missing his destined partner, the sorceress Yennefer.
Their fates had been bound tightly together by a djinn with a will of its own, but the sorceress's domineering manner and Geralt's awkward disposition had kept them drifting together and apart over the years since they had met.
Chatting and laughing, Witt and Geralt returned to Buina Village. Led by Jeff, quite a few villagers were waiting for something in the yard of the tavern at the village entrance.
Naturally, they had heard the explosions during the earlier battle too. Not knowing the cause, the villagers had thought Aedirn's army was attacking, until they saw Jeff, the village chief who had been anxiously watching the entrance, walk toward the arrivals.
"Master Witt, who is this...?" Jeff spoke first. Of course, he had recognized Geralt as a witcher.
"This is my fellow witcher, Geralt. We happened to meet nearby."
"Then the contract...?" Jeff asked the question that concerned him most. Because of the drowners in the river, the village's fishermen had gone without a catch for a long time.
"Completed, of course."
Seeing the lingering doubt in Jeff's eyes, Witt took the "fresh" swamp hag trophies straight out of his saddlebag and showed everyone.
"That's right, that's right! That's the monster's tongue! I saw it that day. It was so disgusting I couldn't eat for days!"
"That monster's called a swamp hag. If it hadn't been for her, last time I would've... hmph."
Only after hearing the villagers talking behind him did Jeff relax. He reached inside his coat, took out seventy ducats, and handed them to Witt.
"Thank you, Master Witt, Master Geralt."
"Wonderful! We finally won't have to live in fear anymore." Undisguised joy filled the villagers' faces.
After speaking, Jeff saw that the two witchers had not yet left, so he asked, "Is there anything else, master witchers?"
Witt took a moment to put his words together, then said, "Has anyone in your village been missing for several days? A man."
At this, Jeff froze for a moment, then looked toward an old woman in the crowd.
The old woman's face was filled with worry. When everyone turned to look at her, that worry became helpless panic.
"Bob hasn't come back for a few days, has he?" Jeff broke the silence.
"Y-yes, but he said... he was going to the vineyard to buy wine. He said... he wanted to drink Kaedweni wine once before our daughter married into the next village... The vineyard is up... upstream." As she spoke, she pointed toward the vineyard, only to discover in despair that it was the very direction behind the witchers.
The light gradually faded from the old woman's eyes. She murmured, "Master, where is Bob?"
"At the confluence of the Buina River and the White Stone River. There's an ox cart there. Bob... is lying on it."
"Thank you, master." The old woman hurried toward the place Witt had described.
"Wait." Witt stopped the old woman, counted thirty ducats out of his seventy-ducat reward, and handed them to her.
"...This is?"
"Just payment for the wine."