A tense atmosphere surrounded the place as Avian and his party were surrounded by 6 gray saber wolves, this particularly group seemed to be a single pack the leader of which was already a rank 1 creature while everyone else was unranked, it was obvious who would fight the rank 1 creature and who would fight the rest of the wolves.

Standing right in front of the rank 1 gray saber wolf, Gabriella readied her weapon as they stared at each eye to eye.

No real fighting had begun, but the person who strikes first wins, following this philosophy Avian wasn’t about to give up the initiative as he patted Dahlia’s shoulder whispering to her.

-Do it, the one right in front of me.

-Yes!

Dahlia followed, again getting into a prayer position, but this time she pointed her palm towards one of the weaker gray saber wolves who was the nearest to Avian and simply spoke two words.

-[Wind Blade]!

Upon chanting those words, a brief image of a fairy creature appeared beside Dahlia, the wind around them seemed to get sucked in as Dahlia concentrated it to herself and finally released it in the form of a invisible blade that flew at high speed towards the confused gray saber wolf.

Still even though it didn’t quite understand what was happening, the wolf wasn’t stupid, relying on its instincts it immediately understood that something threatening was heading its way, attempting to dodge out of the way, the gray saber wolf jumped back, unfortunately that was the wrong move to make as the blade of wind hit its mark not exactly cleaving the entire wolf in half, but opening its stomach which is where the blade made its work revealing the wolves’ intestine as an intense smell of blood wafted in the air and the wolf was basically out of the fight immediately suffering a lethal attack.

The blood and yelping sound of defeat from the wolf was also the signal that started the fight, now only 5 wolves remaining, every wolf jumped from its hiding spot as the battle finally began for real.

-AHAHAH!

Ogra laughed in glee, seeming to enjoy this fight as it was likely something to do with her orcish ancestry who loved fighting, with her spiked club in hand she made a wide swing as she aimed at 2 wolves at once, unfortunately missing, but becoming one of their prime targets as the wolves witnessed what became of the places they once stood on that turned into a small crater upon Ogra smashing it with her club.

The rank 1 gray saber wolf and Gabriella also started to tussle, going immediately at each other, the wolf pounced before Gabriella deflected it with her shield, a swing with her blade soon followed, but the wolf was fast enough to dodge turning their situation back at square one.

Avian saw this and decided that Gabriella didn’t need any help after all, instead turning to his other companions, he looked at what Cornelia and Deborah were doing, only to see that they were basically frozen as the fight begun shaking in their boots.

The wolves obviously smelled the fear, knowing to take out the weaklings first one of the wolves immediately charged at Deborah who was absentminded.

Seeing this and seeing that everyone was busy doing their own thing, Avian decided it was time for him to step in, Dahlia followed very sensitive of Avian’s movements, her job wasn’t done either, Avian had tasked her to look out for everyone and help out whenever she could with her spells, the problem was Dahlia could only do that when she was near Avian who kept her calm, in this bloody fight Dahlia would normally not able to do anything, but after contracting the spirits who supported her and being near Avian, Dahlia gained a form of security that allowed her to relatively stay calm, but really without Avian she would have been worse than Cornelia and Deborah who had frozen at the beginning of the fight.

-Stop standing there like idiots and fight!

Avian shouted, standing right in of Deborah as Dahlia stood behind him with a spell ready, fortunately she didn’t need to cast that spell as Avian with a swipe of his spear cut the neck of the wolf as it charged in, yelping from the pain the wolf tried to leave, but Avian didn’t give it any opportunity to do so, with his spearhead reinforced with [Blood Reinforcement] the first cut was already very deep, but the second one stabbing directly at the wolves head was deeper as it penetrated its entire skull killing it instantly.

Deborah woke up from her frozen state upon hearing and seeing Avian fight, she witnessed with her own two eyes how her master effortlessly slaughtered the wolf like it was nothing, she only now understood that her master was actually really strong, but Avian didn’t think so as he thought the only reason he was strong was because he trained and put his blood abilities to good use, in the end he didn’t have a combat oriented blessing like the others, but most importantly he believed with enough training Deborah would become stronger far faster than him, but to become stronger she also needed to stop getting scared as this was the main difference between them right now, which was the same for Cornelia who looked at Avian not surprised about what he done, but sullen as she realized how again helpless she was as soon as the fight began, she was once again reminded of how different they were, she was even worse than Dahlia who couldn’t do anything without Avian.

Cornelia truly didn’t know what to do with the fear she was currently experiencing, but Avian didn’t care what he wanted was them to fight and not to cower.

Having done his job, only 4 wolves were left standing, having immediately 2 wolves get slaughtered at the beginning of the fight, the wolves started to apprehensive as they weren’t sure about this anymore, but one growl from their pack leader who was fighting Gabriella immediately forced them to stay as they couldn’t go against their leader.

Ogra had been dealing with 2 wolves at the same time, swinging her huge and heavy spiked wooden club, she had been missing miserably, but she didn’t look discouraged at all as she looked like she was enjoying herself, the wolves didn’t share that thought though as they knew one hit from her would be instant death, but since they had no choice but to fighting the wolves resolved themselves as they decided to attack together at the same time.

Pouncing at 2 different directions once Ogra missed, it looked like Ogra was about to bitten at either side no matter what she did, but unexpectedly as the wolves pounced at her, Ogra let go of her heavy spiked club, with her hands free and unarmed, it looked for a moment as if she had given up or something.

But this wasn’t the case at all, rather something more distinct occurred as Ogra’s dark green skin started to turn a dark red shade, her blood veins becoming visible as they twisted like serpents focusing mainly on her face as her eyes which were yellow started to turn a feral red, Ogra’s atmosphere changed immensely with her transformation within only one motion.

Ogra’s raised both of her fists before backhanding both wolves at the same time launching them away with powerful force and knocking them onto trees disorienting them as they coughed out blood from their mouths.

But unexpectedly things weren’t over just yet, having hidden itself from the beginning of the fight as soon as it saw one of its companions getting done in by Dahlia’s [Wind Blade], this cunning wolf attempted to take out what it thought as the biggest threat namely Ogra from behind while she was distracted by the other 2 wolves.

Coming at her from the rear a blind spot, things seemed sure to go its way as the wolf aimed for Ogra’s neck from behind.

Cornelia and Deborah saw and wanted to warn Ogra, Avian too was aware of it much earlier than those 2 actually, but the reason he didn’t warn her was because he wanted to witness what this gluttonous half-orc woman was capable of, even though he had been sure of her capabilities from the beginning, he wasn’t about to bet on it without seeing actual results and as he continued to watch, he wasn’t disappointed as Avian momentarily smiled in delight, something he rarely did without a purpose.

Ogra seemed to be in a perilous situation, but the reality was different, heralding from a race that is said to be born combatants and the most aggressive, orc’s had plenty feral instincts that guided them in battle without even needing to be taught, in a sense orc’s were the perfect warrior as their very genes were born from the fires of conflict and the blood of their enemies, Ogra was merely a half-orc so she wasn’t entirely pure in that aspect, but her ancestral roots weren’t to be underestimated.

As if she possessed a pair of eyes on the back of her head, Ogra decisively turned around without looking flustered, just as the wolf had pounced at her flying mid-air, Ogra’s red eyes stared at the wolf in absolute glee while licking her lips with hunger.

Next her hand moved like a shadow, grabbing a hold of the wolf mid-air by its neck, the wolf didn’t even have a moment to react or yelp as Ogra brought it back to the ground.

But not gently as Ogra crushed the wolves’ skull like a watermelon as soon as the wolf hit the ground head first with Ogra’s hand beneath its shattered skull.

And just like a crushed watermelon, the blood from the wolves’ head exploded outward, painting Ogra’s upper body red as her entire face was dyed with blood which she licked up as if she was tasting a treat, but looking slightly unsatisfied as Ogra remembered the fantastic meals Avian had cooked up for her, ever since she ate those dishes, she started to view all the things she had eaten before as beneath in quality, in the past she used to eat the meat of wolves such as this raw, not that orc’s ate their meals raw as they also were capable of cooking and preferred to cook, it was just that Ogra was also so hungry that she couldn’t wait for cooking.

Now it was the opposite, without Avian’s cooking she found the prospect of eating the wolf mean to be unattractive.

-…

-…

Both Cornelia and Deborah watched in horrified silence as they had just seen how Ogra had dealt with the situation in a shocking manner, they knew she was strong, but they had no idea she was this capable, the act of crushing the skull of the wolf itself was something they didn’t think was in the realm of human capability, but while it was true that it was because of Ogra’s half-orc lineage that she was so strong, another large part of her raw strength came from her blessing.

More aptly the ability she had just used that transformed her dark green skin to dark red and turned her eyes red as blood.

This was the signature ability of the [Barbarian] blessing, [Rage], Avian knew that this ability not only increased strength by a substantial amount, it also increased the users defense by all forms of physical attacks making a person with the [Barbarian] blessing nearly unkillable once they had used their [Rage].

Of course this ability for how powerful it was, wasn’t something a [Barbarian] could use infinitely, having asked Ogra earlier he knew that she currently could only use her [Rage] ability 3 times per day with proper rest.

While she had a few abilities she could use outside her [Rage], [Rage] was still an ability that was the most crucial to a [Barbarian] as it made up 50% of their entire power, using a charge of [Rage] in a trivial fight like this was not something Avian really condoned considering her was sure that Ogra could have dealt with the situation even without using her [Rage], but then again maybe Ogra didn’t care which was likely something Avian would have to teach her later.

As for the other two, the wolves had basically been culled by a half, only the pack leader and the 2 injured wolves hit by Ogra remained.

Gabriella was still fighting the pack leader, not having killed it yet, but looking at her fight and seeing how she was merely giving it some superficial injuries while not actively seeking to critically injure it, Avian already understood what she was doing when she would take each opportunity to see how the others were doing.

Gabriella particularly looked at Cornelia and Deborah, everyone present had already killed a single wolf, only Cornelia and Deborah hadn’t done a single thing, if Gabriella now killed the pack leader, the fight was basically over as the 2 wolves would immediately run the moment their leader had been done in.

This fight in general wasn’t anything special.

Since they were still on the outskirts of the forest, no powerful creature would be roaming around here as they all would more likely make their territory near the center of the forest leaving outskirts to the weaker monsters that couldn’t make a place for themselves.

In the first place they weren’t here to challenge powerful creatures, but to practice fighting monsters for real while also giving those who didn’t have any fighting experience a way to get used to it.

Dahlia, Cornelia and Deborah were the people who needed this as they had never fought against monsters in their entire lives.

In 2 more days, a monster horde would arrive, 2 days’ time was not an amount sufficient enough to train these guys until they could fight monsters skillfully, because of this Avian and Gabriella had concocted this plan to at least make everyone be capable enough to fight compared to becoming more skilled.

Since Avian had decided for everyone to stay, freezing in fear like Cornelia and Deborah did earlier would likely spell doom the worst came to fruition, to avoid that Cornelia and Deborah needed to overcome those fears, as their lives would likely depend on this.

-Huh?

Feeling a hand suddenly holding hers, Cornelia snapped out of it as she looked at the person who just grabbed her, looking at him, she found Avian as he had somehow without her knowing pulled her short sword before placing it in her hand.

She felt all sorts of emotions go through her when she saw him do this, but most importantly were his cold and unfeeling eyes as he stared at Cornelia before speaking.

-Cornelia…do you remember what we talked about?

-Talked about what?

-I mean that time we were on the road, a week ago when I asked you why I was training you the way I was.

A brief recollection of that time came to Cornelia as she remembered the whole conversation as if it was just yesterday, she gripped the cold hard handle of the short sword harder the more she remembered.

Yes, she knew, Cornelia knew that she if she couldn’t keep up, then she was useless, from the very beginning Cornelia couldn’t expect Avian to do everything for her, she needed to decide, right here and right now who she was going to be.

A helpless abandoned noble lady or a strong noble warrior.

Either way the fact that she was a noble had never changed, the blood of her dear mother flowed through her and with her, her entire proud ancestry, Marco didn’t die for Cornelia to end up becoming some wolf’s meal, Cornelia swore she was not going to let that happen, because that is what she wanted.

-…!

Walking away, Avian gave Cornelia space as she held her short sword with one hand and walked towards the injured wolf with determined steps, Cornelia had noticeably changed from the look of her eyes, and the change reflected every step she took as she started to walk faster and faster towards the injured wolf that looked at the approaching Cornelia viciously and ready to fight even when it barely stood on its 4 feet.

Avian didn’t bother to observe anymore as he next turned to Deborah, just like Cornelia she had been frozen still, but Avian would change that too as he put his hand on her shoulder and spoke.

-Remember, if you run you won’t be different from your father, and as I said before I am not merciful to those who run, if anything you are seeing right now means anything to you, you know what to do.

-…!

With her eyes wide, Deborah didn’t know what to say as Avian didn’t wait anymore before walking away, but as she thought, her hands to started to move more naturally as her mind stopped being clouded.

Deborah was here for a reason, just like Gabriella had said when they were together in the bath, Deborah wasn’t fine being the way she was, she had a goal, she couldn’t stand here doing nothing, she wanted to get stronger, find her father!

Being scared was fine! It was okay! But staying in one spot doing nothing, that was not something Deborah wanted to do.

Drawing her short bow, Deborah focused with her eyes as she aimed at the injured wolf while drawing her bowstring.

The wolf recognizing the danger stood up with all its strength, getting ready, it burst into a charge as it aimed to kill Deborah before she could fire her arrow.

Both Cornelia and Deborah projected their goals at their opponents seemingly being of one mind a loud war cry erupted from both of them while the wolves did the same as they knew this was a fight for their survival.

-AHHHHHHHHx2

-RAWWWWRRx2

Birds nestling atop trees flew away with those cries.

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