Silver and Dimeritium.

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[1250 - Early Night - Magpie Forest, Temeria - 1 Day.]

Looking down again at the creature that was still weakly writhing and struggling to be alive, Zefron took another silver solution and opened up the back of the creature's head, exposing its brain.

Pouring the content deep into its brain, the creature let out a final struggle, but without its hands and feet being bound by the Fate String, it could not get up. With a sizzling sound of brain meat decaying off rather quickly, the solution melted the creature's brain like a hot knife through butter.

Frowning over the two minutes duration in which the creature was still not dead yet, even though the silver solution had already entered its brain, Zefron asked the red-head who was walking closer to him.

"Triss, do you know how to kill these magic monsters faster? Every time I've killed any of them, it takes at least five to ten minutes of constant damage to their vital points before they are dead for good."

Remembering the first Ghoul he encountered that he needed to stab into mincemeat before the twitch of the creature's lump of muscle finally stopped squirming, he grimaced. The same happened with many Drowners he encountered along the way when he made the false track, making everyone think they went up to the river to make camp.

Because it takes a long time for them to die, he needs to kite them one by one before finishing the entire group of that brain-dead mob. He needed almost one hour just to finish off ten Drowners that had the instincts of animals, making sure each one of them was dead before he could go and kite another group of Drowners.

Even though he could have just left the Drowners alone to writhe in pain because their limbs had been cut off or their heads were detached, he still patiently waited for them to stop squirming and die for good.

He did so by reading the Past Fate and knowing whether the creature was still a living being or had already become a thing. It's just a habit of his that developed from years of experience, to make sure his enemy is really returned to truly being a fossil or not.

Unlike these Foglets that he saw many different fighting styles and strategies for in the Future Fate. And that's what concerns him. An enemy that has that kind of endurance and can strategize is something he always avoids or bombs into oblivion if they possess that type of Mutation abilities.

He thought that by using the knowledge of many magical monster weaknesses, such as silver, which he got from Triss when she was asleep, he would be able to kill them with ease. Alas…

"I-i," taking a deep breath to compose herself due to the lingering effect of entering Zefron's mind, Triss then spoke with concise and steady words, "I don't know how to kill it faster without using a spell. We only know so far that many magical monsters are mostly affected by silver, dimeritium, and magic. Silver for cutting the magical flow of the monster, dimeritium for blocking the magical flow of the monster, and magic… Well, magic does all of these things."

Looking at the creature that looked like a corpse but with much of its innards missing, Zefron asked in confusion, "But how? How are they able to keep living? I am cutting this creature's hands off, but they still squirm as if they are still connected."

Producing swirling fire into her hand, Triss burned the Foglets to ashes while answering Zefron, "Everything around us has Chaos and Order, Zefron."

"Living beings are the ones that have succeeded in shaping the Chaos into functioning Orderly flow of energy inside their bodies. Sentient beings are the ones that can weave these functioning Orderly flows into many different forms. Mages, monsters, or any magical beings are the ones that can unweave these Orderly flows back into Chaos."

"This Foglet is one of the magical beings that succeed in unweaving their vital Orderly flow into the shape the creature wants. But because the magical flows they weave are not natural, it is both hard to kill and brittle at the same time."

"That's why Silver, Dimeritium, or any kind of natural resources that are still in the infant state of forming their functioning Orderly flow is the perfect counter to these creatures when you know the same magical flow of these creatures is matching with the Orderly flow of the resources."

"And we mages are the ones who can identify these magical flows to weave and unweave back to Chaos or shape into an Order."

"That is the hypothesis written in Natural Magic, pages 367 - 432, Volume 7, written by Ivo Richert and Geoffrey Monck. But my copy of the book was already destroyed in the Large Inn, so I can only tell you what I remember."

Wanting to know if she read the book in its entirety so that he can just read their past experience when reading the book, Zefron asked, "You already read the book, right?"

Seeing Triss nod her head, Zefron then continues to inquire about these two metals, as he wants to weaponize them.

"Then do you know why Silver and Dimeritium are effective?"

"Silver has the properties of increasing the sensitivity of the magical flow to the Chaos, thus making the creature more brittle and easily damaged. Dimeritium, on the other hand, has the properties of suppressing the connection of the magical flow to the Chaos, thus making the creature unable to perform magical feats."

Frowning, Zefron thought about the implication of Triss's words, then looked at his stolen dagger that was made of dark steel.

'But how? How can I make a dagger out of that? Silver's density is very feeble and easily bent. And from what I read from Triss's past about Dimeritium, it also has the same density as silver, hell even lower than that. Even teenagers can easily crush it with one hand. The only ones that are affected are the ones that have Sources in their veins. They become like chickens on a chopping block when touching or coming in contact with that metal.'

Shaking his head over the helplessness of the situation, Zefron then asked Triss one last time because he started to have second thoughts about continuing the journey. He considered finding the nearest town to hold himself up like a turtle and learn magic as fast as possible before resuming the journey.

"Say, Triss, do you know or have an inkling to at least shorten the time to kill these monsters to a range of seconds? I'm very uncomfortable knowing our journey will be a lot harder just because we can't kill the monsters fast enough."

"Well… Perhaps a Witcher is the one who knows how to do that, as they seem to possess extensive knowledge on how to kill monsters from the legends."

"From the ancient texts that I could get my hands on at the public library about Cosimo Malaspina and Alzur, during the time when the Order of Witchers was about to fall out, it seems that the Witchers at that time wanted to create magical swords that could burn enemies upon contact or freeze them, using Rune Magic, Silver, and Meteorite."

"But I don't know what became of that story. I never came in contact with a Witcher even once, only hearing it from legends and hearsay that I remember from my childhood and from many of my sisters."

Sighing again, realizing that he might really need to speed up his magical studies, Zefron wanted to ask more, but he was cut short by Triss who continued speaking, seeing the dejected look on Zefron's face after a brief pause.

"Perhaps one of my sisters knows something. When I first entered Aretuza and attended The Conclave of Mages almost ten years ago, sorceress Carla Demetia Crest seemed to always brag at the banquet about knowing every Witcher secret."

"And my close friend Yennefer also seems to know many secrets about Witcher signs. I got to learn the Igni sign from her when she was still my apprenticeship mistress, but I think she knows more than just that."

"Now that I think about it, how did she have that much knowledge about Witcher signs and extensive characteristics about their appearance? Hmm... Wait… Geralt? But she says he is only just some knight-errant…"

"Igni? Sign?"

While Triss was contemplating a man named Geralt, he, too, was thinking about what Triss had just said. Since he didn't know or hadn't yet read about the Sign called Igni, he turned around to ensure that Triss didn't see him reading her Past Fate.

Even though he didn't mind doing it, he deduced that such an act would likely make them very uncomfortable, knowing that someone could know about their actions just by looking intently at the silver string.

It was like seeing someone read your own diary in front of you while you couldn't do anything about it. Then, taking out the fate string, he read about what Triss had just mentioned.

"Ahh…"

But before Zefron could continue asking Triss, he heard Keira's voice alongside the hoofbeats of several horses on his side.

"Hey, you two lovebirds! Done flirting with each other? Let's continue. I've already finished burning the Foglets to ashes."

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