The four of us walk through the forest at the foot of the mountain, Claire occasionally pointing out different animal tracks and what they are from. Thanks to my sword I have no problem memorizing these things as we leisurely head in the direction of the spirit wolves. 

 Yesterday we had a pleasant dinner with (read listening to) Alex before retiring to an inn, luckily with no more unpleasant encounters. Waking up with the sun, Claire requested Sif to track the Spirit Wolves we have to find but only point us in their general direction to start so I could learn what to look for.

“Spirit Wolves are essentially just wolves that have been infused with magic, giving them supernatural strength, agility, endurance, and healing. But contrary to common rumors, they don’t gain the intelligence to communicate with humans and their habits remain the same. In fact, they are easier to track for mages like us.” Claire points to some wolf prints glowing faintly with blueish white mana, “Look at these tracks and take note of the faint residual mana left in them. The fact that it hasn’t dissipated yet means they are close.”

Scratching her head she stands up and stares at the sky admitting, “Honestly, I am not a great tracker, I just know the basics and wouldn’t be able to tell you how old a pair of tracks are or anything else about the target. But being able to sense mana makes much of that unnecessary as you can guess how long ago a magical being passed by just by looking at the ambient mana. If it is faint like this you can guess they passed by maybe 20 minutes ago.”

Turning and looking me in the eye she continues, “So we are close now. You saw how we fought the bandits before, and how we fought the thugs at the guild. I think you should set the formation and take on however much you feel you are ready for. I would rate these beasts will be at least as organized as the bandits were and try to surround us and pick off an opening. Wolves are smart animals and they know their increased strength is now enough for them to give humans a good fight, so they will attack once we get closer.”

“Err, we have three mages and Lyn, so we can let Lyn go first, have Sif make a wall surrounding us with only one entrance with the opening around Lyn, and then just shoot magic at the ones that come?”

“Wroooooong!” Lyn chimes in, “raising walls high enough and fast enough to stop the spirit wolves from just jumping over will demonstrate that we are much stronger than them and they will just run away.”

“Well, how about we just form a triangle and have Lyn act freely in case come close. Sif can stand ready to create some earth spikes when they charge at us while we all blast them with magic.”

Claire lightly knocks my arm and grins at me, “That sounds better. Mages like you who rarely leave to take on small requests tend to overthink things. We have lots of ranged firepower and the strongest melee support we could ask for, no need to make anything too complicated and trip over ourselves.”

Walking only a minute further my three companions halt. 

“Get ready.”

Noticing two pairs of eyes emerge from the tree-line in front of me I grip the hilt of my blade and chant, “Power Stage 3, Earth Arrows, Form.” The ground before me erupts into motion as I form 30 projectiles that come to float around me, leaving a patchwork spread of earth between me and the spirit wolves. The eyes disappear in a blur of white as the two wolves race towards me.

“Fly Forth” I shoot ten arrows at each wolf. The wolf to my left manages to dodge sideways out of my cone of vision. The other is not so fortunate, having been delayed by the dangerous field I created as a byproduct of forming my earth arrows. Said earth arrows peppered the wolf, piercing straight through, leaving the beast collapsed, not dead but of no further threat. 

Turning to find the other I see it took the split second I watched the other wolf fall to reduce the gap between us.

“Fly!” I shout, this time fanning out my ten remaining arrows to cover any attempt to escape. In what seems like slow motion I watch as the wolf powerfully leaps above my volley, propelled with supernatural strength on a collision course with me. 

Staring at the suspended wolf like it is a painting, my thoughts race. It would take too long to form more Earth Arrows. I can rely on Sif, to form the Earth Spikes around us, or Lyn to knock it aside, but I refuse to be powerless again. 

I stretch out my hand and say, “Flames”. This time I use an image I have used countless times to produce the magic. Provided rare ores by The Empire, I created every ingot I used. A torrent of flame washes the wolf, hot enough to liquify mythril. The ashes of the wolf scatter in a trail on the Earth Spikes that Sif had just created around us.

“Earth Arrows, rise.” I create 20 more arrows and turn to see how the rest are doing. There are two charred wolves lying a ways away from Claire. Lyn is behind me smiling, and in front of Sif there is nothing.

“Sif, any more?” I ask, still tense.

She turns to me and smiles, “There are no more around us. We were attacked by seven and have defeated those ones. There were four who were just watching and they withdrew quickly.”

Lyn hugs me from behind excitedly, “You did so good mistress! You were able to keep calm and fight even as you used the rest of your Earth Arrows. That ol flame spell was perfect! Melting the wolf was very smart since the sheer mass of the beast would still wound you if it crashed into you after you finished it off.”

I feel heat rise to my cheeks and ask Sif, “You said there were seven, where are the other three?

“I simply caused their steps to fall into the earth and buried them alive. I heard that pristine quality remains are often bought for more, so I thought I would just suffocate them.”

Aaaand that forces me to remember that even though she now has a human appearance, Sif is still an earth spirit that can be absolutely brutal. 

Claire chimes in, laughing quietly at my frozen face, “And it is a good thing too. My kills are charred and not very good quality. Not to mention you incinerating things again. Glad you didn’t pass out this time, how you feeling?”

“Ya, I have used this spell many times before, it's what I used to smelt mythril before so I could handle the drain.”

I shyly grin and admit, “I also couldn’t think of any other attack to use at that moment. But remembering the first time I overdid a flamethrower type magic I scaled it down to a reasonable level.”

Claire stares deadpan at me, “Reasonable. Instant disintegration is not reasonable.” 

“Don’t we have some more Spirit Wolves to chase?”