The Divine Hunter

Ponds of Sansretour Marsh, glimmering under the great blue sky. Mountains stood on both sides, surrounding the sanctuary belonging to the wilderness. Beasts basked in the kiss of the gentle breeze. A fawn was drinking from a pond, but all of a sudden, it looked around cautiously, its ears twitching.

A sound. A quiet sound. And yet enough to break the silence of this haven. The fawn crouched and turned around to escape.

Two muscular witchers with two swords on their backs walked across the soft earth, closing onto the river shores.

Twelve shorter silhouettes carefully followed them, never stepping off the trails they left behind. Despite there being fourteen of them, there were only a couple lines of footprints.

The children stared around, anxious and curious. “Are we there yet?”

“Calm down, Lemur.” Felix took his sunglasses off and gave his student a warning look. “Your job is to look after these kids. Keep quiet and don’t let them run off on their own.”

“Yes, sir!”

Felix grinned, a hint of resignation flashing in his eyes. If Carl hadn’t killed all the nekkers around Novigrad, I wouldn’t have to open a portal to Toussaint just to train these kids. And I even had to ask Roy for help just in case.

***

A tiny grey speck appeared in the sky, and it closed the distance at a blistering speed. Eventually, Roy saw a fat laughing kookaburra with a brown head flying toward them. It circled overhead, laughing loudly as if trying to say hi.

Roy’s lips curled, and he turned around. The boys noticed a cryptic smirk tugging at his lips.

“Your quarry is here, and more than one.”

The kookaburra guided them about two hundred yards east. Eventually, they tensed up and quietly moved from the cattails to the willow tree.

A black, rotten log slept in the marsh. Around it were three bizarre, hideous humanoid monsters, walking aimlessly. They wore not an inch of fabric, their greenish-black skin gleaming under the sun. Their limbs were covered in scales, and webs filled the cracks between their fingers and toes.

Sharp nails extended from the end of their fingertips like knives, and their teeth were as sharp as broken glass. Their eyes were bulging and white, not unlike cataracts.

A boy with a bowl cut looked horrified. His teeth were chattering, and his body was quivering. “I-Is that…”

“Quiet. Don’t alert them.” Roy cast a sign on the boy, calming him down. “Carl, preparations.”

“Yes, sir!” The boy nodded. He then whipped out a dose of Thunderbolt, his companions staring at him curiously.

The boy gulped down his decoction, and black veins popped on his face. A reddish hue took over his face, and his breathing turned ragged. His fists were balled, his eyes filled with determination.

Half of the kids were envious, while the other half looked respectful.

***

“Sir, are drowners what dead humans become?” a green-eyed boy asked.

“No. They’re far more terrifying than that. Drowners live near bodies of water and move in groups. They will attack anything that comes remotely near them.” Felix curled his fingers up and put on a fierce expression. There was a growl in his voice when he spoke, sending chills down the children’s spines. “These monsters will drag their prey into the water and drown them before they tear them into tiny, digestible chunks. Then they’ll eat them like snacks.”

The kids gulped. Most people went their whole lives never even seeing a drowner once, and these kids were already experiencing something so nightmare-inducing.

“What if they spot us?”

Felix shot Carl a look, and the boy explained, “All of you have just started training. If you run into a drowner, run.”

Carl spoke in a whisper. “But remember, drowners can move as fast as an adult on land. They have fangs and talons, and they aren’t scared of pain. Immune to most poisons and won’t bleed even when wounded. They have shit for brains, so don’t even try talking to them. They’ll turn you into lunch given half a chance. But they have weak eyesight. If you’re about twelve yards away from a drowner, it’ll still lose sight of you. Even in daylight. And they’re scared of fire. Once you learn Igni…”

The kids nodded.

“Theory without practical work is only half the fight. You’ll see how a drowner fights real soon.” Roy smiled gently. “It’s a newbie killer, so watch out. But first, let’s see how many of these we’re dealing with.”

Roy grabbed a rotten piece of wood and shot it in the drowners’ direction. It fell into the water, and the drowners stared at it for a moment before they pounced on it. At the same time, bubbles appeared on the surface of the marsh. Two more drowners broke out of the water and ran around like headless chickens. But their eyesight was so bad they couldn’t even see the humans standing about twenty yards away from them.

“Five, maybe more.” Roy and Felix exchanged a look. With them around to protect the kids, their safety should be no problem.

“Carl, you deal with the ones on the left.”

“Leave them to me.” The boy held his sword.

“Monti, Acamuthorm, Claude, Charname, you guys deal with the ones in the center. Use what you’ve learned in your training. You passed your pre-Trial—pissed your pants doing so, but that’s not the point—so this should be no problem for you.”

The reserve apprentice took a deep breath and nodded. They too held their swords.

The water hag turned into mud and tried to escape, but Roy teleported to it right away. Crimson tentacles appeared from behind him and charged right at the water hag. They pulled it up into the air, and Roy swung his blade through the air.

It sliced the water hag’s neck like it was butter, and only a headless corpse remained. The water hag’s head rolled over to his feet.

‘Water hag killed. EXP +180. Level 10 Witcher (580/8500).’

***

The last drowner was surrounded by the seven new recruits. Its jaw dropped, and it turned its head around, trying to decide which kid to attack first.

The children were observing it as well. There was fear and anxiety in their eyes, but they tried to unsheathe their blades nonetheless. Oddly enough, unsheathing their blades was a simple thing to do before the battle, but now they couldn’t do it no matter what. It felt like their blades were stuck in their sheaths, and all of them were shivering like it was negative twenty degrees.

Even a grown man would lose his mind when he was met with a drowner, let alone children. They were petrified, and their fingers were trembling.

“Save me!”

The first boy to attack the drowner broke down the fastest, and he ran. His friends backed off slowly, using their practice blades as mere crutches.

The drowner’s eyes shone, and it leapt on the boy who ran away first, easily catching up to him. Children were a lot slower than drowners, after all. Then it pounced on the child like he was a chick, and the boy fell face first to the ground.

“Mommy!”

An air current slammed into the drowner. It tumbled back and was stunned for a few moments.

“Stop shivering and attack!” Felix stood by the boy. He gave the child the sternest stare he could muster and slit his neck with his hand.

Takuma thought the witcher was even more terrifying, so he mustered his courage and approached the drowner.

He tried to attack, but all he managed was a weak hit, and then he became the next victim. The drowner pounced at him, but Felix sent it flying with another blast of Aard.

This became a cycle. Two minutes later, all the kids had been attacked by the drowner, and all were bruised and covered in soil. Their fear slowly faded after the drowner attacked them. Now they had made up their mind to attack the monster instead.

They gnashed their teeth and growled like wolves. Then one of the children hollered, and all of them went in for the kill. They hugged the drowners like koalas hugging an eucalyptus tree, and their sheer weight was enough to make the drowner fall.

It fell backward, but still it tried to break free. The drowner kicked the soil and breathed heavily, but that was the last thing it did. Felix’s barrage of Aards had destroyed its innards, and finally, the boy who ran away first became the one who ended its life.

Felix shot him a warning look, and the boy—with trembling hands—buried his blade in the drowner’s eyes.

The moment it died, the drowner actually smiled a little.

And the children let it go. They plopped down on the ground, retching away. They were covered in sweat and mud, their tears streaming down their cheeks, but they were excited. And they were also shuddering.

Eventually, the realization of what they did dawned on them.

“We did it! We killed that bastard!”

“Congratulations on your first blood, chickens.” Felix smiled. “A bit of a rocky start, but you did it. Barely. Now do you get it? The moment you buckle, you die. But if you work together, you can still bring this thing down.”

“W-We get it…”

“Can we go home now? I need to shower. My clothes are dirty.”

“I’m starving.”

The kids rubbed their bruises and pleaded with Felix.

“No.” Felix turned his attention to the other side of the battlefield. There was a pile of monster corpses beside him, and he was teaching the apprentices how to loot them for spoils. “This is far from over. We have a few more things to teach. Now come with me. We’re playing a game.” He whipped his short sword out and swung it around as he cut open the drowner’s belly.

And then the children were exposed to the insides of a dead drowner. The steaming hot, disgusting, rancid insides.

They puked.

“The more you puke now, the more you can eat later.”

***

The next few days would become a bizarre adventure for the children.

***

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