The Hedgewolf was inching closer and closer to where Rue and Len were at. Looking at them I could see that they were still breathing and I didn’t see any big injuries on them. Formulating the fight with the wolf I came up with 2 different ways to approach it. One is to sneak up behind it, slice it with my halberd, and the battle quickly. The other plan is for me to just scream at it to attract its attention and then just fight it normally.

[Frog: “Wow I didn’t know that you are this slow.”]

[Me: “You freakin green piece of... *breath* and what do you mean by that?”]

[Frog: “We got a gorilla here.”]

[MiniGo: “Yes?”]

[Me: “I don’t… wait a minute.”]

Right, why should I fight like a man when I could just fight like a coward? You might say that it's not cool, but consider this, cowards usually live longer (according to me). With the plan in my mind I quickly jumped down from the tree and gathered many rocks strewn on the ground, thankfully the previous explosion had created many for me. I put them inside my pockets (because I forgot to bring any bags…) and circled the crater to a closer area to the wolf. I stopped when I got a clear look at the monster. Looking at it closer it really was big and now I could see the big fangs too making it even more terrifying.

I took a deep breath and planted my feet to the ground. I gripped the rock firmly and started the throwing motion (that I copied from a baseball pitcher I saw on TV once) not forgetting to ask the help of MiniGo for maximum damage. Combining both our power I threw the rock straight at the wolf’s limping feet, hitting it so hard that I could hear the sound of bone cracking and the pained grunt from where I am. Then I leaped up on the tree and swung away hiding among the leaves.

[Me: “How’s that?”]

[Frog: “Cowardly, but seeing how weak you are currently this is the best option we have.”]

[Me: “Gee thanks.”]

When I found a good hiding place I looked back at the wolf. It was sprawled on the ground with its broken leg. I then looked around my surroundings to find the next place for attack.

[Frog: “Oy kid, shouldn’t ya go faster here?”]

[Me: “Huh? Why?”]

[Frog: “Oh Lord. Wolf? Howling?”]

[Me: “Oh shoot.”]

The Frog actually gave me good advice for once which was surprising. I hurriedly got closer with the wolf to hit its head and finish the fight. In my hurry though I forgot to stay quiet and alerted the monster to my presence. It jumped up despite its injuries and pointed the quills on its back towards my direction. Sensing the impending danger I jumped down towards the ground. As I landed and reorientated myself I could hear the sound of flying projectiles above my head.

[Frog: “That’s a trap.”]

[Me: “Thanks, Einstein.”]

[MiniGo: “Don’t stop moving!”]

[Me: “Roger.”]

The wolf kept firing its quill at me at high speed, strong enough to penetrate the trees around. All that I could do was dodge the quills by jumping and running all over the place in a somewhat zig zag pattern to try to confuse the wolf, to no avail sadly. At first I thought of just letting it shoot all of the quill off its back but the it seemed the wolf was already aware of this problem as it shot only a few quills at a time, if I continued with this tactic I’m afraid that the battle would take hours and I simply don’t have the stamina to fight for that long.  

Seeing no other way to win other than to counter attack I grabbed another rock from my pocket and threw it in the wolf’s direction. The rock flew at the wolf heading straight for its head. The wolf however dodged the rock with no difficulty at all. I felt regret that I didn’t aim my first attack at his uninjured leg instead. The battle of attrition continued for a few minutes without any attacks landing a clear hit on the both of us, I got many scratches from quills plus the trees and the wolf had a few rocks hit its body but nothing too deep to weaken it significantly. During those few minutes I made two discoveries about the wolf, he needed to lower his head to fire his quills giving me a split second for counterattack and its wounded leg actually affected it as the leg kept bleeding more and more as the battle continued on, sadly only a few minutes of dodging already drained me that a battle attrition was still an impossible option.

[Me: “Don’t you guys have any ways out for me?”]

[MiniGo: “There’s actually one but...”]

[Me: “But?”]

[MiniGo: “You have to ask uncle Froggy for help.”]

[Me: “I really doubt his snark will help me in any situation.”]

[MiniGo: “Not that, uncle is poisonous.”]

[Me: “His tongue?”]

[MiniGo: “His body.”]

[Me: “I see. Frog!”]

[Frog: “I ain’t doing any job for free.”]

[Me: “You sent me here with nothing and you ask for something back?”]

[Frog: “Hmm… fair enough, I’ll help you once.”]

My hand suddenly secreted some kind of liquid. I didn’t need to guess that this is a poison from the frog, I just hope that this wouldn't kill me. I grabbed a rock with my other hand and transferred it to the poisonous hand coating it in the poisonous liquid then I waited for the wolf to shoot and lower its head. Just like before, the wolf dodged and the rock just grazed its body. I coated another rock to continue the assault but this time the wolf that just jumped to dodged my attack fell on its side, its breathing began to quicken.

[Me: “Wait, how strong is this poison?”]

[Frog: “Dunno.”]

[Foxy: “I think it's better for you to cancel the poison power now else you’re going to lose a hand.”]

[Me: “What!?”]

I hurriedly severed the connection with the frog, threw away the poison coated rock, and grabbed a few leaves to wipe my hand. Thankfully without the connection with the spirit the liquid kinda disappeared, or was it just turned into steam and I’m actually just breathing in poison fumes? Anyway, even though the wolf was poisoned it was still alive so I grabbed a new rock to end the fight. I once again lined up my shot (I felt like a baseball pitcher by now) and… an arrow suddenly appeared from the forest and hit the wolf straight in the brain. I traced the arrow back to the source and there I saw Len already standing with a bow while leaning on a tree. There was only one thing that I could say at the moment,

Me: “Kill Stealer!”