11. Ghouls

Riding on the back of the Mustang, Ron followed the Dragonfly's movements ahead. While the couple's horses were trotting, Ron himself paid attention to the environment, while he isn't letting Dragonfly to do all the job.

Dragonfly suddenly stopped her horse and dismounted. Ron watched her from afar, wondering what she was doing. Dragonfly brought her hand to the ground and sniffed, then her gaze slowly turned to one point.

"Looks like we should tie up the horses here, so if the cart overturned as you said, it went astray and overturned here."

"So that's it with the Mustang…" Ron got down and tied the horse around a tree. He tied his manger in front of him, giving him time to linger.

Then the two started walking through the forest. Dragonfly was breathing extremely loudly from time to time, followed by tiny sounds. Although Ron wasn't sure why she was doing this, an involuntary chuckle appeared when he saw it, but Dragonfly noticed it and immediately scowled, although he immediately noticed and stopped. Ron was immediately embarrassed, knowing what he was doing. It was shameful, and showed an embarrassed expression.

The two walked for a while through the forest. "Interesting situation…" Dragonfly muttered to herself. "What's interesting?" Ron succumbed to his curiosity. asked.

"The traces indeed show that the car crashed here. Although it's normal for us to find the car since other people have passed by here recently, I'm picking up three similar odors here apart from that. In fact, look, the footprints over there clearly show two people had fought here. There are also spots of dried blood on the floor. Judging by the footprints, it's probably two men fighting like you said."

Ron stared at Dragonfly for a moment, seeing neither a trace of blood nor a footprint. Then it occurred to him how well-developed nervous and sensory systems the Witchers had, making all this sense in what she was saying. "Well, as you said, you can smell three people here, where is the other one? It was four when they got here."

"That's where things get messy, a rock like what you said is right there at this point. The car should be right next to him, and the woman Griffa should be on top of it, if that's what you said. This explains the female smell in the place where the car is. However; here is a different situation. One of the woman is missing, which means Teressa somehow survived that fight."

The two continued for a while, Dragonfly wandering around the thick trees, searching for a possible clue. Looking up at the sky, Ron noticed that it was getting dark and clasped his hands together as if in prayer, muttering in the ancient language. As he opened his hands, a ball of light slid out of his hands and began hovering directly over the Dragonfly's two legs. He made another one, this time causing a ball of light to hover above himself.

Dragonfly just nodded in agreement without turning his head towards his spell. Then she took out a piece of cloth that caught her eye in the bushes and sniffed it. "There's a smell of blood on the rag, I think it looks like Teressa didn't escape in one piece as she escaped."

Continuing to follow the scent, following the trail, the duo averted their eyes from the sparse forest. What they saw was a vast field of wheat in front of them. "It looks like Teressa got injured and returned to the village to seek help. Now that we have found its approximate location, let's get back to our horses and head back to the village as soon as possible."

Ron shook his head quickly, and the two wasted no time, making their way back to their horses. Returning to their horses at the end of a long two-hour walk, the duo rushed to see what was going on when they heard the neighing sounds of their horses.

Dragonfly frowned as they approached. "I should have guessed since all three people here weren't properly buried and we didn't see where their bodies were. Damn we stumbled upon the ghoul's nest. If we don't get back to our horses as soon as possible, we will soon see the guts of our horses pierced."

Ron sprinted alongside the Mustang as fast as he could. The ghouls turned their attention towards themselves, along with the light emitted by Ron and Dragonfly. The two were quickly ready to fight as a terrible stench of corpses and yet another chilling scream greeted them. "Luckily their numbers are much less than I thought, but that doesn't mean we should underestimate them. If you're careless, they'll rip you apart in one go."

Ron looked at the monsters that looked like this hideous human being. Although he was excited that the ghouls looked almost identical to the description in the books, it calmed his thoughts and began to remember what the creatures' weaknesses were.

"I guess their only weakness seems to be fire. I'll stay behind as long as possible and provide you with protection. Do your best." Ron quickly took a step back, causing a fireball to form in his hands. He reinforced this by adding six and then more firepower to a circle around this fireball thanks to his pyrokinesis.

Dragonfly unsheathed his silver sword and, with years of experience, prepared herself for battle. Se gave protection to her body with the quen sign. She quickly counterattacked the ghoul in front of her. Waiting for it to attack, the ghoul took a step back but; Dragonfly was aware of this and changed its target with a simple foot movement and launched another ghoul attack right next to it.

Ron couldn't help stomach nausea when he saw the blood-like pus coming out of the attacked ghoul's rotten flesh. He forced himself to focus on the fight. He took a small piece of fire from his surroundings and threw it at one of the ghouls who were trying to approach from behind the Dragonfly.

The piece of fire grew larger as it progressed, and the hazelnut-sized fireball had already grown to the size of a melon when it hit the ghoul's body. Frightened and hurt by the fire that came to him, the ghoul quickly backed away and began to struggle on the ground to remove the burns from his skin.

Knowing that this was his opportunity, Ron spoke his spell in the ancient language and pulled out an earthen five-pointed spear-shaped rock just below the rolling ghoul. The ghoul was already dead before he even realized what had happened.

"Three left, Dragonfly, what's your status?"

Fighting with three, Dragonfly used his sword to block an attack from a ghoul. "You better help a little!" yell.

Ron knew very well what the most appropriate spell was for the situation. Directing the fire around him with his hand, Ron made the fire take shape like a spear in a straight line. At least he thought so in his imagination. The result was that the fire looked more like a thick piece of thread than a spear. Of course, Ron wasn't in the mood to care about that right now, he quickly sent this carpet thread towards the ghouls who were still at war.

Since the thread was made of high fire element, it pierced the first ghoul in front of him directly in the chest. The second ghoula struck like an arrow and knocked it off balance. The ghoul, whose entire body was engulfed in flames, panicked just like the first and threw itself to the ground. Just then, Dragonfly plunged her silver sword into the ghoul's chest. Meanwhile, the last ghoul behind her attacked Dragonfly, but the Quen mark Dragonfly used at the beginning of the battle exploded, equalizing the attack.

Dragonfly turned around with a quick foot movement, then finished off the ghoul with an equally elegant move. The ghoul's body, whose head was severed, remained on his feet for a second, but then its entire body collapsed to the floor.

Dragonfly took a deep breath and looked at Ron. Ron returned his gaze with a questioning expression, not understanding the reason for his gaze. "What the hell did you have that bloody fire? For a second I thought you were going to pierce me too!"

When Ron heard this, he remained silent and thought of an appropriate answer, knowing that pyromancy was the only element that was not fully developed. "How much do you know about magic?"