I'm not a Witcher anymore.

After leaving Kaer Mohen, Zieg headed south without stopping.

Cordwin is in chaos right now, and Sieg didn't want to cause any trouble on the road, so he kept his head down and kept going.

First, cross through Cordwin, head south to the Pontal River, then find a barge to go downstream directly to Novigrad.

Zieg had done just that, and everything was going according to plan.

However, one afternoon after traveling for several days, as he passed through a grove of trees and was about to bypass the village ahead, he encountered several villagers at the crossroads.

They were three middle-aged men, dressed in coarse cloth, each carrying farm tools they had grabbed along the way—hoes, pitchforks, and sticks.

They were nailing a sign to the crooked tree by the roadside when they saw someone come out of the woods. They stopped immediately and all three pairs of eyes turned to look.

Zieg glanced at the crumpled parchment.

The writing on it was crooked and messy, and only words like "Needs help from a witcher urgently" and "Reward of one hundred ducats" could be barely made out.

He stopped a few steps away.

"Has something happened in your village?"

The three villagers exchanged glances.

The man with the thick beard gripped the wooden stick tightly, his tone still polite, but his eyes remained sharp.

"There's been a bit of trouble."

He looked Zieg up and down.

He was wearing leather armor and had a sword at his waist; he didn't look like a refugee or a wandering idler.

The bearded man's eyes suddenly became clearer.

"You... know how to deal with monsters?"

"If you know a little, explain things clearly first."

As soon as these words were spoken, the three exchanged glances, and their tense expressions relaxed somewhat.

The bearded man opened his mouth as if he wanted to ask something more, but in the end he swallowed his words and sighed heavily.

"It's in our village's cemetery, and there's been a lot of noise lately. At first, it was just strange noises—like something digging in the soil or gnawing at something. The villagers are all scared, but no one dares to go and check."

"Later, the village chief couldn't take it anymore and said that things couldn't go on like this, so he organized seven people to go to the cemetery with torches and farm tools to check," another villager said, his face pale. "But... but that night only two people ran back, and they were both scared out of their wits."

Zieg looked at him: "What did they see?"

The bearded man's voice trembled slightly: "Nobody knows what they saw. Those two are locked up in their own home and keep talking nonsense."

"Our village has received help from witchers before, and we know that witchers can deal with such strange things, so we put up a notice at the crossroads to try our luck."

Zieg had a general idea in mind.

The monsters that go to the graveyard, if they are not ghouls, are grave witches.

Ghouls are the most common carrion-eating monsters, gathering in groups in cemeteries, battlefields, and mass graves to feed on corpses.

Although they are ferocious, they are not very intelligent and are not much harder to deal with than water ghosts.

The tomb witch is a little more troublesome.

However, the Tomb Witches mostly act alone and are not as strong as the Old Spearhead.

Of course, there is another possibility: it could be a demon.

However, regardless of the type, it is all within Zieg's ability to handle.

"How much are you willing to pay?"

The three villagers exchanged glances again, and the bearded man said cautiously, "We... our village isn't wealthy. We were originally planning to give the witcher one hundred ducats. If it were you, sir, who were to intervene..."

One hundred Ducatiers.

The Dukat was the currency circulating in Sintra, Codwin, and the Skellige Islands. Its purchasing power was roughly equivalent to that of the Oren of Temeria, but lower than that of the Krona of Novigrad.

However, this price is indeed a bit low for clearing monsters from the graveyard.

However, the Kingdom of Kordwin's economy was not as advanced as that of Temuria, and its people were far less well-off than the citizens of Novigrad.

This remote little village probably can't afford to come up with any more money.

"I can go take a look," Zieg nodded, "but we'll have to see how to handle it first."

The three villagers immediately showed expressions of relief, and the bearded man even had tears in his eyes from excitement: "Thank you so much, sir! We will always remember your kindness."

Zieg hesitated for a moment before speaking.

"Take me to the village first; I need to know more details. It would be best if I could see the two survivors and ask them what happened that night."

"Yes, yes!" The bearded man nodded repeatedly, his attitude much more respectful than before. "Our village isn't far from here, about a half-hour walk. This way, sir!"

The group walked along the dirt road toward the village. No one spoke on the way; they were only focused on getting on their way.

Following the villagers back to the village, Zig met the village elders.

The elder was an old man in his sixties, with a face full of wrinkles and a somewhat hunched back.

He wore a patched, coarse cloth robe and leaned on a wooden cane, looking older than his actual age.

When the bearded man led Sieg into the elder's house, the old man was sitting by the fireplace, his cloudy eyes filled with worry.

"This is the gentleman who's willing to help us look into that strange thing at the cemetery," the bearded man introduced respectfully.

The elder raised his head, carefully examined Zig, then struggled to stand up from his chair and bowed slightly.

"Thank you for your generosity, sir. Our village has been farming for generations, and we've never encountered anything like this before..."

His voice was hoarse and weary: "Five people are dead, two have gone mad, and now the village is in a state of panic. If this continues, everyone will have no choice but to leave their homes and the land where they have lived for generations."

"I need to know more," Zieg said bluntly. "Could I meet with the two who came back alive?"

The elder nodded, then turned and instructed the bearded man to fetch the person.

A short while later, two villagers were helped in.

These two people are indeed in a very bad state.

A young man in his early twenties, pale as a sheet, with vacant eyes, kept muttering something, but it was unclear and impossible to understand what he was saying.

Another middle-aged man also had a blank stare, was trembling all over, and shrank back in fear when he saw a stranger.

Zig asked a few more questions, but unfortunately, both of them were already delirious and could only spout a few incoherent words.

The young man kept repeating, "...the grayish-black thing...everyone...was eaten..."

The middle-aged man kept shaking his head, mumbling incoherently in his throat; he was terrified.

"They came back from the cemetery like this," the elder sighed. "We invited the most experienced old woman in the village to try and exorcise them, but instead they went crazy as if they had seen a ghost."

Zieg already knew what was going on.

Since it ate people, it couldn't be a demon; it was most likely a ghoul or a tomb witch.

Zieg stood up: "I'll go to the cemetery tomorrow at noon to check. Tonight..."

"You'll stay here with me," the elder quickly called over the bearded man. "You'll stay here tonight. Do whatever the master orders."