System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 75
Half a day later, there was not a single intact corpse left in the cavern.
Roy looked as if he’d been hauled from a sea of bodies; his linen undershirt, leather jerkin, trousers were all soaked with blood, shredded flesh and soft tissue, his once-clean face no exception, a rancid mix of sweat and rot stung his nose.
He could not help but want to pull out water and wash.
“Kid, don’t waste clean water, we’ll be in Smaerk Mine at least a week, every drop counts,” the Witcher stopped him as he sat on the ground wiping Gwyhyr’s blade.
The man’s own appearance was no better, smeared with Nekker gore, a bald titan steeped in blood and flesh.
He paid it no mind.
“Filth and stench I can endure. But at least let me wash my hands,” Roy said, thinking of a possibility, voice edged with disgust, “I don’t want to eat and accidentally swallow Nekker meat.”
“Heh ... suit yourself.” The Witcher tossed the words and turned back to the sword, “If drinking water runs low ... Nekker blood, though worse than horse piss,’ll quench thirst for a while.”
“All right, you win.” Roy bit his lip and surrendered. Clearly thirst and hunger were not equal; clean water was precious. “No wash, then. I’ll endure it for a week.”
“Truth be told, Kid, you finally have a bit of the right bearing, you look easier on the eye,” Letho said seriously, “If you cannot stand a little filth and stench, how will you become a proper Witcher?”
To comfort the boy he offered an example.
“You ever hear of a Rotfiend?”
“I read about it in the notes, a kind of necrophage, like an ooze,” Roy’s attention snapped, memory surfacing, “feeds on carrion, corpses and waste ... lives in sewers, swamps, and other filthy wet places.”
“Let me give it to you straight,” the Witcher frowned, recalling a bad memory, “Years back, I was twenty, not long out of Visegrad, eager to hunt monsters and make a name. I finally took a contract to clear a Rotfiend from the River Alba. From the corpse traces we tracked to their lair.”
“The place was stacked with rotten, bloated corpses, excrement from every creature, moldy refuse, a stew of bacteria and venom ... a pit of black-green liquid,” Letho’s eyes showed deep distaste, “the stench was indescribable, worse than a cesspit.”
“You jumped in?” Roy felt a pinch of schadenfreude.
Letho closed his eyes and sighed, “I bit my lip and dove in, killed three Rotfiend. But afterward no matter how many baths I took, I couldn’t wash the stench off ... for a year no woman would so much as look at me.”
“A year,” Roy shuddered, “you mean the smell lasted a year?”
“Precisely, Orin and Kael can still smell it to this day.”
“Uh...” The boy went slack, suddenly the sticky, bloody gore on him didn’t seem so offensive.
“This is not unique. I’ve met at least seven Witchers,” Letho’s tone was meaningful, “school elites who had the same grim rite—dive into a Rotfiend nest.”
Roy felt a cold premonition.
“I believe a true Witcher must have one such experience to grow,” Letho’s amber eyes locked on the boy, “If you’re unlucky and never meet a Rotfiend, find a real cesspit and do the trial.”
“Please, Letho!” Roy shouted in panic and cut him off, the thought making him physically ill, “I will not waste so much as a drop of drinking water, don’t suggest a cesspit trial!”
“Right, and there are still a few Nekker hearts to process!”
Letho watched the boy busying himself and smiled, nodding.
Time blurred in the cave; they cycled meditation and watch, and passed the first day in Smaerk Mine.
That night, after what amounted to a week by some counts, Roy took the second pre-potion under Letho’s supervision; the agony was far less than the first time, his abnormal reactions much weaker, he ground his teeth through ten minutes without fainting.
Apart from a cold sweat and some soreness, there were no aftereffects.
He went into meditation to rest and woke with fatigue gone; yesterday’s pain felt like a phantom.
The dried, clotted blood and meat on his hands and face had crusted in the cold mine.
The Witcher flexed limbs, half his stamina returned, Nekker wounds beginning to knit; moving caused little trouble.
He resumed issuing orders.
“Gwyhyr’s yours for now, bring over two—no, three corpses to chop.”
“Chop?” Roy was alarmed at Letho’s scheme, “Letho, you’re not planning some sort of meat trial again?”
“Not so you will eat it, but if you want to try a Nekker stew ... be my guest.”
“Keep it for yourself!”
With Carnage’s bonus, hacking a small humanoid corpse into chunks was trivial; Roy cleaved each body into fist-sized pieces and wrapped them into four bundles with tent cloth.
The Paralysis Poison had turned from matte green to a translucent jelly; they smeared it on steel sword and Gwyhyr, then poured it over those three piles of minced flesh.
As for the last pile, Letho’s muscled hands scooped it and with a flourish dumped the day-fermented stinking mass straight over the boy.
A rain of rank gore soaked Roy through to the bone, even his hair was drenched.
He stood stunned.
Was this necessary?
Those chunks and soft tissues stank worse than any faeces in a latrine; Roy roared in disgust, then a flash of insight cut through his mind.
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