Chapter 3

The next couple of days were consistently busy but at the same time rather more chill than I expected as I did a variety of work for the people of Gramsby. With the cyclops dead there weren't many pressing monster requests so I decided to use my new enhanced biology and skills to assist in other ways. Money was money in the end.

The notice board, when not being used as a annoymous sex chatroom for a village with a little over a hundred people at most, also had a bunch of requests for various odd jobs or just announcements by the people like in games. Speaking of which, congrats for Jo and Margit having their firstborn.

Most odd jobs were physical labor like assisting in fixing a leaky roof, carrying heavy items, and even wrangling a few stubborn animals. Said jobs were easy due to peak human strength and endurance making what would have left me gasping for breath a pretty easy task. Also I used liberal amounts of Axii to calm animals and get them to do what I said while wrangling strays for farmers.

Sidenote, when I went with implanted knowledge to actually use Signs I soon realized I was making hand gestures in ASL! I thought it felt familiar, and I was glad I took that as my language class in college! Well… that and cause I failed at anything that was English, ASL was just hand version of it.

Point was, this warranted further investigation later.

Other jobs had me doing a specific task, in one case gathering herbs for Helga.

"Okay, that is about ten bunches of celandine, blowball and cortinarius."

Picking specific herbs was actually quite easy since Witcher tracking knowledge and my own purchases in alchemical knowledge made finding specific plants rather easy. Not to mention one didn't have to move far from village to find it growing in surrounding forests.

"Thank you, lad. Will get to drying these out on my own. Real hard part is actually gathering them, tough on these old bones and I'm sure one day a wolf or monster will see me as an easy target."

"I'm pretty sure you could beat up anything that tries and will outlive this whole village." I said with a smirk.

"You're not wrong there!" was the laughing reply.

All in all, I was making myself a bit more useful to villagers in everyday life stuff beyond just monster slaying… though there was the baker's request, a dwarf oddly enough, who was convinced there were griggs living underneath this business.

The job was my first encounter with a native nonhuman and sadly did not live up to stereotypes of dwarves that media has pounded into me. His beard didn't even go down to his ankles, only his neck!

Anyhow his "griggs" just turned out to be a family of raccoons living underneath floorboards due to heat of his oven making building nice and toasty. Some applications of Axii kept them calm and I nudged them to relocating into the surrounding forest.

It was a reminder that most jobs involving monsters didn't have them at all, just peasant belief of it with no real investigation. What many thought was a curse of misfortune by local witch just being bad luck or something. Though to be fair if you think there is a rattlesnake in barrel you don't stick your hand in to find out, you call an exterminator.

In the end, after about three days, I had gathered a total of three hundred bizant, two thirds of which was already in coin pouch from Markus, which should hold me over for a bit if I'm frugal.

I had also earned more of the goodwill of the weirdly accepting people of the village. I'm starting to think that was due to the history of Witchers wiping out native griffin population generations ago that made them more welcomed in this country in general.

Markus' journal, while oddly missing about half it's pages and containing mainly notes about more common monsters along with notes on magic, did include a basic map of Kovir and Poviss. Thankfully the Common Tongue was either English or implanted knowledge made it seem that way to me, I wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Speaking of horses, I was casually brushing Griffin while he ate since it was relaxing and I figured it would be a nice bonding experience with my mount. Ideally he would be my main mode of transportation for as long as I was alive after all, might as well try to be friends.

I was giving myself a chance to rest after all the work since while I wasn't tried I still thought it was important to give my brain a chance to-

"Master Witcher! Master Witcher!" the stableboy/innkeeper's son who's name I didn't bother asking, I was antisocial at best and wasn't great with names or faces, came running towards me in a panic.

"Calm down, what's wrong?"

"Monsters in the river!"

Well shit, there goes my relaxation.

"The ealdorman said to meet him on edge of village, near the bridge." he explained.

"I will be right there, hopefully not a sea snake or something." I joked.

Oh dear, maybe I shouldn't do that going off way kid looked like he was about to piss himself.

---

"Ewww, drowners." I noted in distaste at the three creatures that looked the unpleasant mix of bloated corpse and fishman currently digging into the remains of a sheep that had been driven to the river to drink before they attacked it. The rest of the flock and shepherd got away and told the ealdorman who then told me.

While several days and working in dirty jobs helped me get used to my new enhanced senses, I couldn't help but pinch my nose at the horrible smell they gave off even fifty feet away.

"Nasty creatures, we have them on occasion and can usually drive them off. Though it is usually only one and not a group of them." the ealdorman explained while holding a short sword and shield.

Behind him were about two dozen strong looking men holding various tools like hoes, woodcutting axes, and of course pitchforks. They looked determined to drive off the monsters but at the same time looking expectedly at me. Can't say I blame them.

"Makes sense, your river seems pretty clean and these things love living in filth or near locations with lots of death. They're basically ghouls that live in water. Must be hungry if they attacked directly since these things are mostly cowardly scavengers. I'm guessing you want me to kill them?"

"Indeed, Master Witcher."

"Welp, looks like you and everyone here gets honor of seeing a Witcher at work. Please remain a good distance away from the edge of the river and would fifty bizants be a good amount for my service?" I asked politely.

Hey, I'm all for helping people but as a Witcher I needed to sell my services and avoid overt charity when possible.

"Indeed, good luck Master Witcher." he nodded.

"These are drowners, I don't need luck. I just need not to be stupid." I stated as I put down my sword pack and drew out my silver sword before slowly walking forward.

I said that with confidence, but inside I was low-key freaking out since this was going to be my first fight with actual monsters. Sure, drowners were easy to handle if you knew your stuff like avoid being ganged upon and not swim in water with them, but still.

I could do this though, I had implanted Witcher combat skills and smarts on my side against creatures that, while they looked human, weren't much smarter than fish.

About twenty feet away the smell was even worse and the sounds of them digging into the sheep made me want to gag. They didn't even look up at me.

Not that I minded being ignored, that let me do next part better.

I bent down and drew into the dirt three Yrden Signs in a triangle formation, once I did that I saw a large glowing circle appear around me. Thanks to my purchases I had level 3 Yrden and some experimentation showed that I could make them overlap with each other for stronger effects. Now to get the drowners attention.

I picked up a palm sized stone, gave it a soft underhand toss, and then used a quick Aard while it was still in air to project it towards the drowners. The meaty 'thawck' that resounded through the air as the rock flew forward at the speed of at least a professional baseball pitch or not faster when it hit it's target was weirdly satisfying.

A drowner made a sound of what might have been pain as the projected rock knocked it over and I think its arm was broken in the process.

It and it's fellows then quickly turned to me and gave off angry growling sounds before they stood up and rushed directly at me… and right into my empowered Yrden.

I watched as the second they entered the glowing circle they seemed to be moving in slow motion. The effect should last for about a minute considering I used three of them together, but I shouldn't delay the next bit.

Using what basic swordsmanship knowledge I had from Markus I aimed and swung hard into the neck of the leading drowner. Silver sword plus Witcher strength let me decapitate the thing in one swing with barely any effort.

Hang on? Was that burnt flesh around the cut? Did my silver sword have a fire rune on it or something? I think it was mentioned on CYOA that the Griffin school liked doing that for their swords and I did noticing weird writing along both blades.

Something added to 'look into it later' list.

Before I let myself get too distracted I stepped into the end of swing and then repeated the action on the last two drowners, their heads flying off in slow motion. I then stepped back, pulled out a cloth to wipe off the monster blood, and let the Yrden finish itself off. When it did the drowner bodies and heads crumpled to the ground.

After a few moments I could hear the men behind me let out cheers from my seemingly effortless execution of the drowners, in reality it took some slight effort only thanks to planning beforehand. Granted plenty of things could have gone wrong had they not been so dumb as to run into the obvious magical trap, but I had access to other Signs and I didn't want to waste potions, oils, or bombs on these things. Those were for real combat, not clean up.

"Please keep back, I want to check to make sure there are no more drowners we can't see in the river!" I yelled over to them and walked over to the riverside by the dead sheep.

I made sure to apply a Quen around me just in case a drowner decided to jump out to attack me, the protective yellow shield settling just above my skin. I then ran my sword through the water to see if I couldn't attract some attention that way, even throwing in a mauled piece of sheep into the water for any reaction. Nothing.

It was safe as it was gonna be.

"I believe that is it!" at my announcement the crow let out a larger cheer of joy and started walking over while I went over to drowner corpses.

"Fine work, Master Witcher! I must say the stories of your guild certainly live up to the tales." the ealdorman gave me an enthusiastic handshake and handed me my sword pack.

"Honestly wasn't too hard given my skills, I'm sure you could have driven them off or killed them yourselves. Though whether or not there would have been serious injury for some of you I could not be sure. I notice you carry your sword and shield with experience, were you a soldier?" I asked curiously.

"When I was a younger man, yes. I don't fight as much anymore but it doesn't hurt to keep some arms close."

"No argument there. On another note I can collect me pay a little later, I have some work to do with the corpses." I gestured to the dead drowners whom a few of the villagers were poking with the handles of their tools and grimacing in disgust.

Drowners did not smell any better when dead.

"You plan to dispose of them yourself?"

"Yes, but I also want to harvest the bodies for brains, tongues, hearts, bone, and quite honestly as much useful parts as possible. Lots of it can be used for alchemy and such after all."