In Danmachi as a Witcher

Waking up with a headache ringing through his brain, Cassian groaned and opened his eyes. What greeted his sight was a vibrant and green forest with sunrays shining through the trees. Suddenly he was assaulted with sounds and scents from all around. Hundreds of birds chirping, insects, animals, the trees swaying and groaning, and millions of leaves swishing in the wind, accompanied by thousands of different smells entering his nose, caused him a sensory overload, which worsened his headache.

Letting out a louder groan, he took a couple of minutes to adjust to his new and enhanced senses, before he could finally look around without his head feeling like there was an elephant stampede in there.

Cass was confused about his situation until it the memories from his meeting with Jump-chan came rushing back into his head.

"Holy shit, it wasn't a dream!" The exclamation brought another bout of confusion as he couldn't recognize his voice until it cleared up once more when he remembered that he was supposed to be inserted in his created character. Cassian looked down and saw a different body from what he was used to, he was leaner but also more muscular, and his old Mediterranean olive skin had shifted into a paler complexion.

Looking around he saw a passed-out individual. He could already guess who he was. The boy had long blue hair going down to his shoulder blades, accompanied by a pair of long elven ears on both sides of the head. His skin was not as pale as Cassian's and was a lot closer to what they had in their previous bodies. He was definitely handsome and Cassian was already dreading the overinflated ego that would follow that revelation. But he swore to thoroughly trample that ego, as was his duty as the older sibling.

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Looking around more he saw a small lake where he could get a proper look at his appearance. 'How convenient' was his thought as he headed over there. When he got a look at his reflection in the still water, there was only one thought running through his head.

'Damn…'. He looked otherworldly beautiful, even if it might sound conceited. His face was perfectly angular and symmetrical, framed by silvery white hair he got from his body undergoing additional mutations during the Trial of the Grasses. Long elf ears poking out of his silky hair. 'It was the right choice to choose Aen Elle as our race, in addition to longer lifespan and magical affinity, elven beauty is nothing to scoff at'.

However, it was his eyes that fascinated him the most. Looking back at him were fiery yellow eyes with slitted cat-like pupils as was common for witchers. The fantasy eyes were incredible to look at and filled him with excitement for what was to come.

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Cassian was pulled away from his musings when he heard a groan coming from the previously unconscious boy. It seems that Nikolaos was waking up.

Cassian approached the boy who was slowly coming to and spoke to him. "Take it slow, let yourself adjust to your new body."

"Wha- Who? What's going on?" Nikolaos was very confused, one moment he was nagging his brother to hurry up and the next he was waking up in a forest, being greeted by an elf cosplayer who could honestly pass for an angel.

"Remember the meeting with Jump-chan in that cosmic plane and us getting shafted here?"

"Wha-" Just as he was about to question the nonsense the cosplayer was spewing, everything came rushing back into his head. The Cosmos. The ethereal Goddess. The offer. "Cass?! Is that you?!"

At the cospla- his brother's amused look and affirmative answer, shock rang through Nikolaos before being overtaken by jubilation. "Holy crap, you look awesome! So everything was real?! Wait, that means I'm also an elf! Oh my god, these are elf ears! Magic! Can I do magic?! I can definitely do Magic now, I-" His excited tirade was brought to a halt when he felt a mighty thwack on his head courtesy of his brother.

"Calm down idiot, yes everything was real and yes you can most likely do magic now, but right now we need to get our bearings right and adjust to our new bodies before figuring out where we are." Cassian the ever pragmatist listed off and Nikolaos nodded in half understanding and half annoyance.

The brothers started examining their new bodies and condition. Nikolaos went to check out his new appearance, while Cassian was testing out his new witcher physical prowess.

'My senses are ludicrous, I can see the smallest of objects with perfect clarity hundreds of meters away, hear things within miles, and distinguish scents as if I were a bloodhound. This will take time to get used to, especially once I find myself around stinky things. Wouldn't wanna vomit because some pile of crap hit me with the intensity of a sledgehammer because of my enhanced nose.' He thought as he started testing out his capabilities.

To start with he tried jumping as hard as he could and was surprised when he leapt a good 6 meters (20 feet) in a vertical line. 'That was more than three times higher than the world record and I'm still only 16'.

Next, he tried running and boy was he surprised. He ran fast enough to outrun a horse, while also feeling that he could maintain his top speed for at least an hour. Then came the strength test. He opted to punch a tree as hard as he could, trusting that his accelerated regeneration rate would heal up the minor injuries he may sustain. But, when he punched, not only was he completely unharmed, but the tree in question had the impact area burst into splinters and topple over.

Dodging the falling tree, Cassian watched in fascination at what he was capable of. Superpowers. He often daydreamed about having them as did everyone with an ounce of imagination, but he never thought he would actually have them one day. But now? Now he not only had them but he also could further improve them until he became well and truly powerful even by this world's standards once he got a falna.

"Now, I'm kinda jealous I didn't pick to be a Witcher. Being able to topple a tree with a punch is beyond awesome!" Nikolaos came over after finishing up and watched the tree with excitement.

"You'll be able to do this as well after we start gathering Excelia. Besides, now comes the fun part." Cassian was done with his physical testing and looked at Nikolaos with a grin. "Magic testing."

He didn't even need to look to know just how excited Nikolaos was at this. He had always been in love with the concept of magic and now that he was faced with the prospect of actually being capable of doing magic, it was all he could do to not start jumping and shouting in joy and excitement.

"Okay, how do we start? Do we just say some magical stuff and cast spells or what do we do?" Nikolaos was confused, he didn't exactly know what he was supposed to do or how he was supposed to start.

"Hmm, I guess we should first try feeling Mana around us and inside of ourselves before we try manipulating it. From all the fictional works we've consumed and considering this is an anime-based world, meditation seems like a good place to start." Cassian concluded, that meditation was the best thing he could think of to get started and Nikolaos followed his lead.

(In Witcher the energy that is used to perform magic is called 'Power' or 'Force'. Since those are kinda awkward and confusing to use when referring to some type of energy and we're not exactly going around force-choking people, I will be referring to it as Mana in this story. Keep in mind that Mana is synonymous with Mind which Danmachi mages use for their magic, and will be used interchangeably.)

Cassian sat down cross-legged. Closing his eyes he tried imitating the meditation art. The essence of meditation was to clear one's mind of all thoughts. A specific and rhythmic type of breathing helped do this, though not because of some mystical mambo jumbo various gurus tried shoveling to you, but because putting all of one's concentration on a single task helped trick our monkey brains into getting rid of all other thoughts and quite down all background noise.

After a while, Cassian's mind was clear of all thoughts, it was as if he had fallen asleep and yet remained conscious, he entered a sort of trance where he remained aware of his surroundings and yet not at the same time, all information his senses processed was sent to the subconsciousness, but instead of moving to active consciousness, all of it was deemed unimportant and discarded so to not disturb his mind.

With each breath, Cassian's awareness sank deeper into himself, moving beyond the physical constraints of his body. A soft, green light began to pulse from within, radiating outward and twisting into intricate patterns around him. The air around him shimmered with a faint, ethereal glow as if the very essence of the forest held its breath in anticipation. The elemental mana around him was responding and synchronizing with every pulse of the green energy, slowly being drawn inside his body.

Cassian felt that his very veins and arteries were transforming into glowing conduits of magical energy, drawing energy in from the atmosphere and suffusing it in his body, pooling at his center. He felt he could guide it now, manipulate it however he wished, direct it outside, and bend the very laws of nature to his will. It felt fascinating, even more so than his enhanced physique, to be able to wield such a fantastical power was enough to take his breath away and leave him in awe.

With a final, mighty pulse that shook up the trees around him, as if a gale blew on them, Cassian opened his eyes and could now distinctly feel the mana inside him and in the nature surrounding him, with earth and water mana being the most prominent in the forest. With this, a slew of information came rushing into his head. It contained the basic information of the 6 basic Witcher signs. 

While Cassian was wrapping his head around the data injection his brain just received, Nikolaos also awakened producing an even stronger pulse of energy, but blue in his case. Cassian wasn't surprised he managed to do it so easily despite his younger age because Nikolaos, being a Source, had a higher affinity and talent in magical matters than him. Cassian didn't have to be an empath to sense the sheer amount of joy and excitement radiating from his little brother. He always was a magic nut so this was like a dream come true.

"CASS! Look what I can do!" And with that he produced small whirling winds in his hand, twisting around each other. Just like Cassian, he received basic information and an instinctual understanding of his magic, though in his case, instead of witcher signs, he received the basics of air magic, his primary and strongest affinity. He also had affinities in other elements but they were much weaker than his air magic.

"That's cool Nico, now it's my turn." Cassian then arranged his hand into a gesture for Aard and released a telekinetic blast at a tree powerful enough to blow it into splinters and topple it over, all while smiling giddily. He was doing magic! Witcher Magic! Easily his favorite game, and while witcher signs were not as glamorous as sorcerer's, for him it was still amazing. 

"Oh yeah?! Check this out!" Not to be outdone by his brother, especially in magic, his competitive spirit was spurred and the chant came naturally to him. "Tempest, strike! Wind Cannon!"

The winds in his hands intensified and condensed, before shooting out as a football-sized sphere and striking a tree, blasting through it like Cassian's Aard did a second ago.

"Niiice." Cassian congratulated his brother and they high-fived. He knew just how much this meant to him.

"So what spells do you have? I only received a few basic wind spells, though I was expecting more." Nico frowned a bit disappointed and worried.

"Don't sweat it, Nico, the perks we purchased were primarily talents and affinities rather than instant powers, I also didn't get some stuff like Armsmaster and runesmithing. I'm guessing we will need to train and learn about those ourselves and the perks will just act as boosters. For now, I received 6 witcher signs." Cassian then proceeded to showcase all of them except Axii due to not having targets. They were:

Aard, Which fired a Telekinetic Blast.

Axii, Hypnotized targets, although it was fairly weak now and wouldn't work on anyone but animals and weak monsters.

Igni, Release a small crescent wave of fire.

Yrden, Places a seal on a surface, which upon being stepped on, would slow down the target.

Quen, Surrounds oneself with a protective skin-tight barrier that remains passively active but breaks fairly easily. Basically a lifeline against a single attack if you make a mistake.

Heliotrop, On the other hand, is a more active shield that manifests as a bent sphere around the forearm. It can handle a lot more punishment than Quen. 

All of these spells could be activated either through special hand gestures or verbally by Cassian, and considering how useful both hands are in combat to have one throwing up gang signs, he will most likely be utilizing the verbal activation most of the time.

Nico on the other hand got 4 air element spells. Wind Cannon, Wind Bullet, Wind Blade, and Air Wall. Quite a limited repertoire, but one he could grow with time and training.

Now it was time for them to start making their way out of this forest.