"I'm going back to the castle. Who's coming with me? Let's go cut down villains and purge evil!" Andrei was fully possessed by the witcher vibe now—every word came out with a dramatic cadence, his gaze colder than ice. There wasn't a trace left of the timid slaughterhouse worker he'd been.
The Polish author stared at Andrei's new look with pure obsession. "It's so close. The only difference is… my witcher only carries one sword."
Skyl explained, "A big part of the longing in that drink came from me. In my impression, witchers use two swords—steel for humans, silver for monsters."
"Can I contribute longing too?" the author asked.
"You can," Skyl said, "but for you it's far too dangerous. You really shouldn't."
Eldred's eyes lit up. "What kind of magic is this?"
"The magic of belief," Skyl said, not stingy with knowledge at all. "Do you believe it? Longing is the strongest magic there is."
Andrei was looking for help. The witcher instincts in his bones told him that even if he was strong right now, he still couldn't take on a whole pack of vampires alone.
Eldred refused—he didn't want to make enemies of vampires.
Sanguini didn't want to fight his own relatives either.
That was when the Polish man at the bar suddenly said, "I'll go with you."
"You serious?" Andrei didn't reject the offer. "Looks like it's just us, then. Let's move. May sweet God bless us."
The witcher set off with the author's ghost. When they reached the door, someone called, "Wait."
Andrei turned back. Eldred was holding a glass of brandy, and Sanguini had a Bloody Mary.
The wizard smiled. "I can't help you directly, but I'll drink this for you. May you win and return in triumph, my friend."
Sanguini muttered reluctantly, "Wishing you… good health."
The dwarven drinkers' songs never seemed to end. When a warrior marched to war, they sang a war ballad.
On Romania's cold, bloody Christmas night, snow blanketing the mountains seemed to call for a hero to arrive.
Andrei stepped into the storm, trudging forward through wind and snow, his body glowing faintly in the dark.
"Have you really made up your mind, young man?" Andrzej drifted behind him, light as smoke.
"No," Andrei admitted. "I'm scared out of my mind. But I want to keep my job."
"Tell me about yourself," the author said. "Why did you get into this line of work?"
"You mean being a witcher?"
"Yes."
"I'm not a witcher," Andrei said. "I'm a slaughterhouse worker. I run the machines that cut meat."
"Then why switch careers?"
"The Human Union Department offered me a job—ten thousand dollars a week. I didn't even think. I said yes."
"Can I ask you for one thing?" the author said. "If I don't make it back alive, finish my manuscript for me. The Witcher is a great story."
"…I can't write."
"Ordinary people write by making things up," the author said. "But you'd only be recording your life. Experience beats talent. Put pen to paper—be brave."
"We'll talk later," Andrei said, squinting into the distance. "They're coming. Go hide."
The bat swarm circling above the castle swept closer. The vampires dropped from the sky, mocking the human who didn't know his place.
Andrei stood on the slope, drew his silver sword, and faced them in a warrior's stance. Their attacks were fast and savage—and they could use magic. In no time he was covered in wounds. The only reason he wasn't dead was because they were still having fun with him.
He slashed one vampire who came too close. The clean, sacred sheen of silver made black smoke curl from the wound. This weapon could hurt them. It could kill them.
"Watch his weapon!" "Kill him, now!"
A giant bat slammed Andrei to the ground. Then something raked across his neck—his windpipe was torn open.
"Heh. He's dead." The vampires sneered.
Behind a rock, the Polish author's ghost could only sigh.
Just as the dark creatures were about to leave, a figure wobbled upright in the snow.
"Huh? You're alive again?" The Carpathian vampires stared, unable to believe it.
The glow around Andrei had dimmed, but his wounds were sealing shut at frightening speed.
"Come suck my hemorrhoids, you pieces of shit!" Andrei roared.
While they were still stunned, he lunged and drove his sword into the nearest vampire's heart.
"Y-you… why are you still alive?" the vampire choked, disbelief spilling out with the last of his strength.
Andrei spat a mouthful of bloody saliva.
"Because I really, really need this job!"
The Polish author burst out laughing.
The siege continued. Andrei forgot pain altogether. He only followed the witcher instinct to fight. His footwork grew lighter, his sword faster. More and more vampires fell. His body became a ragged ruin—yet some mysterious force kept knitting him back together. And every time he healed, the glow on his skin dulled a little more.
Slowly, the glow disappeared completely. His injuries piled up. At last, Andrei dropped to one knee, his damaged sword braced against the ground to keep him from collapsing.
"He's done." The vampires paused their assault, wary of being mauled by a cornered beast.
The Polish author couldn't help himself—he climbed onto the rock and shouted, "Get up, Andrei!"
Andrei only shook his head.
Andrzej rushed to him and kept shoving the exhausted witcher. "Andrei, you have to believe you're not just a witcher. You're a dragon! That's right—a golden dragon who took human form. Come on! Believe it!"
"Old man…" Andrei's eyes were unfocused now. "Sorry. I can't even collect your body for you."
Andrzej froze. "Collect my body?"
"You're already dead," Andrei whispered. "These vampires killed you."
The author looked down at himself, lost. Under the starlight, his body was turning pearly white, bit by bit—the unmistakable sign of becoming a true ghost. Understanding hit him like a hammer.
"Right… I'm dead," he murmured. "No wonder that guy told me there was no need for three drinks."
Andrei felt life leaking out of him and asked bitterly, "Andrzej… did I do something stupid? Is it better to be a hero for a moment, or a nobody for a lifetime?"
"When I was ten, I would've told you to choose hero," the author said. "When I was twenty, I would've told you to choose ordinary. But I'm forty now—and I choose hero."
He leaned closer. "Andrei. Live. Carry my longing."
The ghost's outer shell began to burn away. Inside, the strings of thought turned into flame—and that flame lunged into Andrei.
Holy light blazed across the witcher's skin again. His wounds closed at once.
The remaining thirteen vampires shot upward, flapping hard to put distance between themselves and this newly dangerous bastard.
"Muggle. You've made Carpathia bleed. We admit you're formidable. Leave this place, or you'll be hunted by blood clans across the world."
They hovered in the sky where his sword couldn't reach.
What rose from Andrei's throat wasn't a human lament—it was a dragon's roar.
"You filthy beasts. Your souls will burn in hell!"
His head began to warp and swell, bone and flesh twisting into a stern, ancient dragon's visage. The sentence of death rang through the mountains.
The bat swarm fled in chaos.
The next second, dragonfire painted the heavens. Far away, on the streets of Brașov, people celebrating Christmas saw the southern Carpathians bloom with a dazzling gold-red radiance. It lasted for dozens of seconds before fading—like a brilliant golden firework.
"Merry Christmas!" they told one another, laughing.
Andrei lay in melted snowwater. All the light was gone. The witcher gear had vanished too—proof that the drink's power had finally run out.
He rested for a while.
Then Eldred and Sanguini found him.
"Where's Andrzej?" Eldred asked.
Andrei shook his head.
"You took care of them all?" Eldred pressed.
"A few got away."
Sanguini sniffed the air around Andrei. "You've been branded with a blood mark. From now on, vampires across the world will hunt you."
"As long as you don't kill me, I'm good," Andrei said.
Eldred let out a long sigh. "What will you do now?"
"First, I'm going to collect Andrzej's body."
Inside the castle, Andrei found Andrzej's manuscript. He planned to continue writing The Witcher for him.
When he returned to the civilized world, Andrei got a promotion and a raise. The Human Union Department's minister came personally to ask for every detail of what happened that day.
Andrei told the story of the tavern's three drinks exactly as it happened.
"You're saying you saw Gandalf in that tavern?" The supervisor stared at him like he was a lunatic.
"Yeah," Andrei said. "The Lord of the Rings is real too."
"You've lost it."
Andrei only smiled faintly and didn't explain.
He attended the fallen soldiers' funeral. Back in the employee dorm, he caught sight of himself in the mirror—blood was leaking from his eyes. The blood mark was acting up. Tonight, vampires would come for him.
After a long silence, he picked up the longsword by his bed and gave it a few light practice swings—smooth, practiced, effortless, like a true witcher.
Andrei's gaze hardened.
"Darkness squatting in the human world… get ready to die under my blade."
Longing lasts only an instant—yet it leaves scars that remain for the rest of a life.
The Witcher author's name is sometimes rendered two ways: an older rendering, Andrei Sparkovsky, and the newer, Andrzej Sapkowski. They're the same person—only here, they've been split into two separate roles.
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