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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Yuziro
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Valian immediately stood up from his seat. He fastened the sword he had loosened at his waist, and tightened the strings of his slightly loose armor. He also retrieved the hand axe he had tucked under the chair, and put it in the back of his belt. Cleechee and Auntie Ransia looked flustered.
“Eh, Valian? Are you heading out right now? You were just drinking not long ago.”
“Yeah, I’ll go sober up a bit in the morning. It’s getting late tonight anyway.”
“Shut up, who was the one that first found that Kun guy’s shoe?”
“Well, it was my hunter friend Gio…”
“Where does he live?”
Cleechee scratched his head.
“Hey, Valian. Are you really planning to head out now? Gio is probably asleep at this hour.”
“Then wake him up. Wasn’t this an urgent matter?”
Was it the barbaric lack of manners? Cleechee and Auntie Ransia exchanged glances and shrugged. Well, it was true this was a problem that needed resolving quickly.
“I’ll show you the way.”
In the end, Cleechee took the lead guiding Valian to the hunter’s place.
The hunter’s hut was located close to the forest in a sparsely populated area. He said he lived out here because of the smell of blood from the game animals. Though it was night, the bright moonlight and starlight meant it wasn’t too dark.
There was a faint light leaking from the hut.
“That must be it. Looks like he’s still awake.”
Cleechee knocked on the hut’s door.
“Gio! Gio! It’s me, Cleechee! The warrior staying at the inn needs your help!”
The door opened right away. Hunter Gio looked at Cleechee and Valian with a slightly startled expression.
“Damn, don’t you ever sleep?”
“No, not me. This guy needs your assistance.”
“Yeah, damn. Don’t you people ever sleep?”
Looking at Valian’s large stature, Gio showed no signs of being intimidated. Valian examined his ears.
“Damned fairy, aren’t you? What are you gawking at?”
Valian asked with a laugh.
“So you were the one who first discovered Kun’s shoe?”
“Yeah, so what?”
Hunter Gio was curt.
“Take me there.”
“Huh? Are you ordering me around now?”
Cleechee interjected, sweating a little.
“Wait, wait my friend. Valian didn’t mean it that way. He’s from Aynakia, you see. His manner of speech can come across as rude, but he doesn’t intend any disrespect.”
Even after that, Gio grumbled and muttered complaints. But Cleechee managed to persuade him soon enough. Gio came out of the hut, carrying a few bows and arrows in his hands.
“Cleechee, you head on home. I’ll go with this barbarian.”
“Be careful with your words. And watch yourself too.”
Gio glanced at Valian as he said,
“Just make sure you can keep up.”
Hunter Gio dashed off into the forest, illuminated by the bright moonlight and stars. His movements were incredibly fast and agile, befitting a fairy folk. Gio glanced back briefly.
Valian was right on his heels, following closely behind. His movements weren’t as graceful as Gio’s. Where Gio lightly brushed past grass and trees, Valian trampled and snapped everything, charging straight ahead. Gio clicked his tongue needlessly.
“Uncultured barbarian.”
The Aynakian warrior who had never even seen Aynakia considered knocking this rude fairy down a peg.
As if sensing his thoughts, Gio suddenly increased his speed with a leap. Running at a full sprint that would exhaust most humans, Valian too quickened his pace to keep up.
Gio kept glancing back at Valian as he ran. Yeah, I wonder when he’ll start falling behind. Though irritated by the fairy’s childish antics, Valian decided to stay silent for now at least, since it allowed them to reach the site faster.
Their moonlit run didn’t last too long.
“Here.”
The moon and stars had vanished. The ancient trees didn’t let in even slivers of light. In the inky blackness of the trees’ shadows, faint bloodstains glowed a dull red. Or rather, to Gio and Valian’s eyes, they appeared to be glowing. An ordinary human would likely only see their own fears in this darkness.
Valian crouched down to examine the bloodstains. The blood was splattered haphazardly in all directions, as if something had been savagely mauled. A vicious beast, it seemed. One that enjoyed unnecessary cruelty. He got the feeling he might be able to fulfill Faina’s additional request after all.
Gio stood behind him, arms crossed, watching Valian with an expression that clearly asked how well he could perform.
Valian told him, “You can go back now.”
“What?”
“From here on, I’ll proceed alone. So you can head back.”
Gio’s eyes grew very strange.
“What exactly are your plans?”
“That’s my trade secret, so off you go now.”
Gio fell silent for a moment, practically glaring at Valian.
“…Fine, piss off then. Let’s see how a human survives in these woods.”
Gio turned and started heading back the way they came. Valian remained crouched down.
In truth, Valian didn’t have any special spells or abilities. He simply planned to track the trail left in the dirt, grass, and trees.
Usually, even a fairy would have difficulty following such faint traces. Let alone in this pitch black night. But Valian’s sensory abilities score far exceeded human levels.
To Valian’s eyes, the scene replayed of a human male being battered, mauled, and taunted back and forth by some massive, weighty beast.
He reconstructed the events from the direction of the bloodstains, indentations in the ground, bent grass, and scattered leaves.
It ended with the shredded man being set upon by a wolf pack.
This vision arose from Valian’s extraordinary senses that didn’t miss the slightest clue combined with his own imagination. As such, Valian didn’t fully trust this reconstructed vision. He vaguely thought this was how it might have happened, but it was just deductive speculation, not established fact. A likely possibility, not a confirmed truth.
Nevertheless, Valian calmly started walking, following the trail of his reconstructed vision. It wasn’t like he had any other leads to go on. He had always lived in this other world making do with what he immediately had at his disposal. He didn’t expect to have anything more.
“There.”
Following the trail, Valian’s eyes spotted a wolf in the distance. The wolf peeked at Valian through the grass and trees before fleeing.
Valian didn’t panic. He didn’t rush to chase after that wolf, instead leisurely continuing to track the original trail.
More wolves appeared. They didn’t flee like the first one. They circled Valian, seeming to watch him closely.
Two, three, four, six, nine. The wolf numbers kept increasing.
The ones that had been glaring at him from a distance grew bolder as their numbers swelled, slowly closing in and eventually snarling right beside him.
Growls and low howls emanated all around. Their glowing predator eyes pierced right through Valian. It was an unsettling sight enough to make one’s hair stand on end.
But Valian paid it little mind. Of course, he didn’t disregard that each of these wolves was large enough to tear apart five or six of the goblins he used to fight in Noife. He simply considered them not the monster he needed to focus on right now.
His eerie stroll continued.
Valian kept walking as the wolves circled, occasionally coming close to snarl before retreating back into formation. Their numbers grew into the dozens.
“…What’s this?”
Valian noticed something strange about the wolves. Why were they getting so huge?
The initial ones were regular wolf-sized. Not small by any means, but the later arrivals kept getting bigger and bigger. Some stood on all fours at shoulder height to Valian.
“Well, well.”
These were no ordinary wolves. The line between beasts and monsters was blurred, but these wolves could definitely be called monsters. And they started baring their fangs at him.
When Valian paused, sensing something amiss, the circling wolves stopped too. Then one suddenly charged right at him.
Instinctively, Valian drew his longsword and swung it. The charging wolf’s upper jaw was sliced clean off.
With a heavy thud, the wolf collapsed, its severed head gushing blood. At that moment, all the wolves froze, quietly staring at Valian. The forest that had been clamoring like a market fell so silent one could hear leaves falling.
“…What’s this? Why so quiet all of a sudden? Let me hear more barking, mutts.”
As if understanding Valian’s taunts, reacting against that brief stillness, the massive wolves began howling madly enough to make one’s ears ring.
“…Dammit.”
The wolves started charging at Valian from all sides, frothing and baring fangs to tear into him.
Valian brandished his own fangs in response. Sidestepping a wolf’s charge, he slashed downwards, severing its neck. Lifting the descending blade, he disemboweled another that got too close. He grabbed one leaping at him by the throat and flung it away to crash into its kin. Valian also drew the hand axe from his belt.
Swinging the longsword with his right hand and chopping down with the axe in his left, Valian lashed out as ferociously as the berserker wolves rushed him.
He parried and counterattacked, impaling foreheads with the sword, splitting skulls by throwing the axe, ripping out jaws with his bare hands, sweeping the blade in wide arcs to fell two at once. One wolf tried to subdue him with its sheer mass, but Valian easily lifted and spiked it into the ground, snapping its spine.
Valian became surrounded by a sea of fur. Bloody, gutted pelts rolled all around him. He briefly considered skinning a few – there were probably some skilled tanners in the village he could commission to prepare the hides to sell at a coastal town or city for some decent coin.
But even as such idle plans crossed his mind, Valian kept slaughtering the wolves. At present, they lacked any of the usual wolf abilities – no strategy, no heightened senses, no cunning – simply trying to overwhelm Valian with fangs, claws and brute force.
Of course, they were still highly threatening. Their weight and fangs were very real, and Valian could die to them. His ability scores were extraordinary, but not enough to make him invincible.
At some point, Valian’s sword started tearing rather than cleanly cutting the wolves. The steel blade was becoming dull. Valian tightened his grip, and that alone allowed the faltering blade to regain its former speed.
With a crunch, another wolf went tumbling across the ground, kicked away by Valian’s foot. After that one, none of the remaining wolves rushed in anymore.
Dozens of massive wolf corpses littered the area, the last one drowning in the blood it vomited before collapsing. The survivors had retreated to a distance, no longer growling, simply standing there.
Only a handful were left. Valian shook off his notched blade, its edge now jagged like a saw from all the fangs it had chipped against. His hand axe was in similar condition. Valian himself was an unsightly mess, drenched in blood and clumps of fur sticking to him.
Still, he wore a satisfied expression, having earned a hefty experience haul.
Then the snarling started up again. Thinking the wolves were renewing their attack, Valian turned towards the sound to see a monster there instead.
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