We venture into other parts of the forest to look for beasts but to no avail. Giving up is never a choice as even if we want to be idle, there is no good place to rest. Late in the evening, we are ambushed by small group of dogs. We kill them but not long afterwards, a large group of dogs is closing to us. 

I order the minions to slowly approach them. Of course, I personally grab Kureha. I hold her body with my right hand to my waist which makes her blushed. Blushing Kureha is passive Kureha, so we won't get into early trouble with dogs.

Each of us hides behind a tree bark and observes how the beasts are lurking nearby. The dogs look hungry, roaming around us. 

I am patiently counting the dogs that come into my view. At first, there were about 15, then gradually became 30, before subsequently now over 60. They are large, but their size varies from one another. The largest ones are gigantic. What's wrong with this world? 

I wait further. More dogs appear until they are 82 dogs. After 82th dog, I wait for nearly half an hour but I see no more.

During that time, I estimate our chance and figure out tactics. I give cue to Chucky, to sneakily kill some dogs. 

Kureha is aware of my signal, looks at me like a cute puppy.

"Master, please let me go. I will kill more than Chucky." She cutely begs me.

"No, silly girl. You are too loud. You only alert the dogs."

"But, master..." 

"Don't worry. Your turn will come. I will count on you." Hearing my assurance, the troublesome girl stops struggling. 

Meanwhile, Chucky kills a neaby dog before hiding into the bush. He kills another 2 nearby dogs using the same method. He then stealthily goes the other side and kill 2 dogs before going into hiding. Dog has good nose, thus it won't be long before his dirty work is detected. But my plan is for him to keep stealthily thinning down their number and when the dogs attack, the rest of the minions ambush. 

The dogs start wailing and barking but I signal the minions to be stationary. However, after killing a dog near a tree, some dogs discover him and start barking even louder. The dogs run towards him.

I release the restless Kureha and shout,

"Guys, attack !!!!"

The 7 minions run towards the dogs. Kureha closes her eyes for seconds, maybe to calm herself before opening her eyes, and dashes towards the dogs.

The dogs are being ambushed from behind while they are chasing Chucky.

Unlike the wild boars that overwhelmed us with sheer number, the dogs move unpredictably like wolves, making hard for us to even land a hit. Rather than killing, the minions spent a lot of time blocking, dodging and hitting air. 

As planned all brute minions confront the larger hounds, while Pirlo, Kureha, Sterling and Chucky are in one versus many kind of battle against the dogs.

I, observing from a safe distance, am behind a large tree. It seems generally, despite being tricky opponents, are weaker than wolves. But the larger ones are much stronger than wolves as each is fighting evenly against a brute minion. Jabar, Rudolf and Raja is each fighting one on one against a large hound while Awang is holding his ground against two large hounds. What amazes me is how Eto can somehow fight 3 large hounds by himself. He is struggling but he is stopping 3 hounds.  

The situation is not very good. The only way to break us from this stalemate is if one of minions fighting the many smaller dogs, wins and assists the battle against the large hounds. 

I continue my observation. After approximately 30 minutes, the number of smaller dogs is greatly reduced. 

"Kureha and Pirlo, go help Eto and Awang!" I shouted.

They look at the large guys. Awang is barely hanging while Eto is basically trying to run away from the 3 hounds while fending off their onslaughts. 

I shout again, "Kureha, help Eto. Pirlo, help Awang!"

They dash to them who are about 30 meters away. 

The hounds push Eto to the ground, but Kureha takes that chance to stab her sword with all her might into a hound's neck. It struggles but she stays firmly until it collapse. The other 2 hounds turn to her but she backs away to lure them away from Eto.

Her aim is obviously for giving Eto enough time to recover. Eto, understanding her purpose, collects his strength and tries to stand up for a minute but falls his knee. It seems the lengthy defensive battle against 3 large hounds takes a toll on him.

On the other side, Pirlo fights against a large dog, which lightens Awang's burden. Now, Awang and Pirlo each is fighting a large hound. 

I am worried about Kureha. My highest level fighter is more agile than the 2 hounds and even cut fhem multiple times but the wounds inflicted by her are not fatal enough to render them. Luckily, the slow dogs cannot touch her. She should be fine as long as her stamina can hold on.

Sterling and Chucky are steadily dodging and killing the smaller dogs one by one but only one large hound is dead. We are still in a stalemate. 

When the number of smaller dogs is reduced to less than 10, I shout,

"Chucky, follow me."

He nods and left Sterling to face the remaining dogs alone.

We run to Raja who is fighting against a large hound. I throw several rocks to its head to provoke it. It turns towards us, giving space to Raja to catch his breathe. Chucky stands in front of me and I draw a sword while stepping away from him. It chases after him but Chucky easily leaves it in the dust. 

I crouch my way to Raja.

"Are you fine? Can you still fight?" 

"No problem, master." He stands up. Unlike Eto, he  still has a lot of power left. While Chucky is running around it, we walk to nearest fight, Rudolf. 

I throw rocks to Rudolf's foe. It turns and runs towards me. Raja fights against it. Rudolf catches his breathe before running to us. The three of us are ganging on a large hound now.

It cluelessly rotating in circle as we slash it from different directions. After nearly 10 minutes, it grows weaker and a final swing by Rudolf's axe kills it. We catch our breathe while observing other battleground. Chucky is too quick for its chasing foe so we can take our eyes off him afterwards. I bring Raja and Rudolf to Jabar. 

Using the same method, I throw rocks to Jabar's opponent. It runs to me but is stopped by the two large men. We rain on it slashes from different angles before Jabar joins in shortly afterwards. Like before, this hound aimlessly bares its fang to four direction while being ruthlessly cut by heavy slashes. After nearly 10 minutes, Jabar ends its life. We catches our breathe. 

We return to Chucky and encircle the hound. It becomes confused. Rather than attacking anyone, it is just howling and barking. We attack it simultaneously and it doesn't even survive until 3 minutes before Raja kills it. 

I am worried about Kureha. Without wasting time tobrest, we run to Kureha. We look around but there is no Kureha. There is only a hound's corpse. 

"Kureha."

"Kureha."

We call her and walking past the original battleground. Then, we discover another hound's corpse. Amazingly, Kureha held her ground against two large hounds despite being physically weak girl and kill one of it.

I am starting to be increasingly worried. We search further. 

"Kureha."

"Kureha"

"Master, it is Kureha!" Chucky points to the front. We can see Kureha's silhoutte. It seems she is still alive and kicking but her movement has become sluggish maybe due to exhaustion. She dodges its attack by crouching from one tree to another tree. Thus, every foe's attack hit a tree bark while she swiftly hide behind the bark. She no longer attacks.

"Attack !!!"

I bellow and the men run to surround the last hound. It is whacked so helplessly that it can only wail. Eto who just join make a large swing into its head, crushing it. 

I order Chucky and Pirlo to check on Sterling as I stride to the Kureha who loose her strength and fall tonthe ground.

"Are you wounded?" I ask a meaningless question as I touch her body. She has 2 wound but not severe enough. Other men has wounds but Kureha looks more terrible due to her smaller and frail looking body.

Soon, Pirlo, Chucky and Sterling arrives. Despite being covered with wounds, they managed to kill the remaining dogs. 

After this hard battle, I realize that we could be severely injured during any fight and medical treatment is pertinent. I am not a doctor, I don't even have a medicine, and I don't even know where to get medicine. At the village, Jack and the others treat injuries with self made medicine from herbs. 

In this world we use game like abilities, there could be something like potions that could quickly heal people or even magical spells to heal quickly. Although I don't know where to find those things, maybe I can summon minions who have that abilities. Thus, I look at my control panel upon getting to Level 4 as I can now summon another 6 new minions.