Chapter 81: Fenrir (1)
Chapter 81: Fenrir (1)
Fenrir's Point of View
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(Backstory of Fenrir first before going to the present story.) (The dots will symbolise inner thoughts and back story parts)
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"Where are you going?" I asked, while watching the Alpha wolf leave the village behind.
"We do not have any food left in this forest. Those humans kept hunting for our meals, leaving us with the monsters they cannot fight!" answered the Alpha wolf.
"But how about the puppies and injured wolves who couldn't walk? How can they join your pack?!"
"They won't. We will leave them here. And if you plan on staying with them, you may do so. The pack does not tolerate weakness. I am so disappointed in you, Fenrir. You have the most agility among us, Alphas. And yet, you gave it all away to save these. pests."
"DON'T CALL THEM THAT!"
Despite shouting with me, all my words never reached the alpha wolf.
After our exchange, the Alpha wolf led most wolves out from the forest, leaving me with hounds that could not fight for themselves. Some wolves even had injuries that hindered them from climbing the mountain. Those puppies also needed nourishments to survive in this treacherous forest.
But that was my fundamental problem. Because of the humans hoarding all those boards, wolves and other creatures did not have the luxury to get one. Even the hares, which gave the bare minerals we needed, disappeared from the woodlands.
The Alpha wolf only took those wolves who could fight and stormed off the original pack, leaving them all to me. These wolves looked up at me, hoping that I would not abandon them. But as the daughter of that assholic wolf, I could not leave their sight.
Within countless days, I hunted down monster meat inside the forest. Those meats tasted bitter, like craps left behind by humans on the nearby lake. However, we could not choose our meals, so we had to make use of our resources.
Fortunately for me, these wolves understood our situation as they thanked me for their meals.
However, everything changed when even the monsters disappeared inside the forest. Those monsters escaped from the village and went elsewhere.
I tried gathering herbs, but some of them had poison in them, which led to the deaths of half of the puppies. After witnessing the effects of my ignorance, I stopped collecting herbs and tried roaming around the forest.
But no matter how hard I tried looking for animals, those boars never showed up. All my eyes could witness were dozens of insects covering the trunk of a tree.
"You've been helping us quite enough, Fenrir, my dear. You need to rest too. I haven't seen you touch your food for days...," the old wolf voiced her concerns, while rubbing her face on mine.
I returned the gesture and transferred my warm fur to her skin, which made my stress levels flopped on the ground.
"We need to survive, or else the puppies would die I need to gather more monsters outside the forest."
With no experience of fighting, I traversed the borders and found some monsters lurking around the vicinity. My eyes knew those beasts in front of me, especially when these fiends wielded weapons in their hands. I, who only had the power of an Alpha wolf, needed to take them down. I must also take one with me on my way home, considering that my pack was already running low in meat.
There were three monsters in front of me. Each of them only had an eye carved at the centre of their face, which made their visions blurred during flights. These beasts had bulky muscles covering their bodies, making it difficult for me to gnaw them down to death.
With the help of my innate powers, I dashed to the side and took one out in a flash. However, I could only use that skill during ambushes. Now that the monsters saw my figure, I had no choice but to scurry away without the dead cyclops.
After running for half a mile, I settled in with rabbits hopping beside me. Although these meats were not enough to fill our stomachs, I had no other choice but to take these animals with me. If those puppies starve, they will die.
And I did not want to carry that responsibility.
It took me two hours to organise the meat. I scooped all the red flesh around dozens of gigantic leaves while delivering it using my mouth. As I gripped the leave's end, I raced back towards our cave, only to witness a horrifying scene in front of me.
"NO!" I screamed, and let go of the leaves clipped in my mouth. "W-WHAT HAPPENED HERE!"
The cave's insides had red painted all over the place, with the wolves and puppies I saved from the Alpha wolf. Some of them even had their fur completely taken off from their skin. And others had missing heads from their necks.
And among the twenty puppies I had, there were only five of them alive. Those injured wolves raised a good fight, since they revealed their claws even after death. They wanted to protect those five puppies they left behind, knowing that I would return to this cave.
In front of those corpses was the wolf who saved the five puppies. I rushed towards the old wolf and caressed her head. If those wolves did not hide the five puppies, all of them would have gotten massacred by this mysterious intruder.
"Thank you," I whispered, and gave the old hound a lick on her face.
Those were the words that escaped my mouth. I couldn't say anything more, since the scene muted me for good. It was as if fate mocked me, telling me I should have joined the Alpha Wolf. If these puppies and wolves could have died, protecting them became a joke to me.
It was not my purpose to defend them when I also needed food.
But those negative thoughts disappeared as these puppies smiled upon seeing my face. Despite the horrifying scene that happened in front of them, the puppies continued chuckling to themselves as they saw my face.
A glitter of hope shined my way, telling me to move on from the murderous area. But before I escaped the cave, remnants of weapons scattered on the ground, piercing the wolves's corpses.
I could only guess those shards came from the adventurers hunting down every beast they saw, including the ones who could not fight. Since those humans were the only beings capable of skinning wolves, I finally had my target.
But attacking them right now without proper training would mean suicide to the puppies and me. We needed to relocate to an unfamiliar area and eat some monsters along the way. Since humans had already inhabited this place, I carried the puppies away from the forest.
After a myriad of days, we settled into a different woodland. This place did not have any violent monsters, except for the wild rabbits hopping from here and there. There were also no humans visiting this mountain, considering the height that they needed to climb before arriving at this summit.
I gathered the measly animals while bringing along the five puppies with me in battle, hoping for them to learn some combat moves. Within countless encounters, I deemed these puppies ready for battle.
However, within a few moments, we encountered the mercenaries at the mountain's bottom. I had to fight them off while protecting the puppies with me.
I could escape from this battle and head towards the mountain, but I did not want to risk that place from the humans. If these pests leaked the summit's location, they would flock to the terrain and kill all the animals like what they did from the previous forest.
I activated my form and tried finishing the battle in one go. However, the humans were no pushovers for a fight. These ten mercenaries aimed their spells at the puppies behind me, placing my group at a disadvantage.
I did not want to lower my pride and beg for our lives, since these humans were also the ones who killed my pack.
After getting dozens of hits from the humans, a man ran towards us and defended my puppies. It was a boy who wielded one of the three Excalibur inside this world. This event was my first time seeing a human protecting beasts, especially us wolves. Usually, people hunted us down for our skin and meat.
But this guy.He was beyond the word stupidity.
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Before the start of the war (or right after Arthur meeting with the mercenaries.)
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"Hmph. Serves him right."
Arthur really got a hearing from the mercenaries. Those eight idiots confronted Arthur and told him to protect the village alone. They clearly did not want to meddle with the problem brought by Arthur to this village, despite Arthur's willingness to help them.
"This is why I hate humans. they're greedy.... selfish.. lacks empathy," I growled, while clenching my fist.
Those pesky humans also attacked my puppies when I took them out for a hunt.
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