In a starless night sky, the moon shone brightly down onto the surface of the darkened world. At this time, most creatures would be at their homes and fast asleep except for certain creatures that prowl at night to for food.
In a densely silent and still forest, where the light of the moon was barely visible, running footsteps echoed between the trees. The runner was breathing rapidly as they seemed to be in a hurry to get away from something. That something became evident as several running footsteps seemed to be chasing the lone runner.
“AAAAWWWWWOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
The howl of a monster suddenly exhibited from the pack of running feet, indicating that they were monsters chasing their prey through the dark forest.
“Damn!” The voice of a girl exclaimed as she hurried to get away from the monsters. “Why did it come down to this?”
From the light armour and equipment on her, she appeared to be an adventurer that seemed to be there for a reason. She looked over her shoulders and saw the gleaming eyes of the large wolves that were chasing after her with saliva dribbling down their hungry mouths.
“Why?!” She exclaimed and turned back to face the front as she ran before thinking back to the events that led to her current predicament.
Three-hours-ago, she had come to a village on a quest to take care of wolf monsters that had been terrorising the locals. She met with the acting head of the village as the previous village had died in a recent monster attack and was informed that the monsters carried away several of their sheep and even some children in that attack.
“Please! Bring our children home!” The acting village head beseeched her along with the other villagers at the village entrance.
Their desperate plea caused her to hesitate in her actions in accordance with the quest she was given from her adventurer guild. The plan was to exterminate the monsters that were there and receive her reward. However, the need to save both farm animals and people made it difficult for her to decide.
Finally, not having much of a choice after seeing their desperate looks, she agreed by saying, “Alright. I’ll do my best to save them.”
That was what she said at that time, but when she entered through the forest and arrived at the layer where the monsters lived, she was shocked. It was just a little larger than average clearing, but it looked like the place was packed with a lot of wolf monsters. There appeared to be over twenty monsters in that space that alarmed her.
She was frozen by shock for only a few seconds before she snapped out of it and shook her head to get her thoughts back in order. Peering through the hedges near the clearing, she glanced around in an attempt to try and find where the sheep and children were.
While glancing around, she noticed that the wolves were already munching down a few sheep that they had killed, but there were no humans. Feeling a bit relief, she continued to look through the crowded monsters before spotting six humans, all huddled together near a tree trunk and shaking from fear.
“Thank god they’re alive,” she muttered to herself in relief.
There was no moment to respite as, at that moment, a mighty wolf monster, several times larger than the pack of small ones, appeared around the tree trunk. As it appeared, the smaller ones quickly got away respectfully as the bigger one appeared to be their leader.
The wolf leader glanced down at the small humans huddled together and licked its mouth with hunger. The adventurer could tell just from one glance what was going to happen and reacted immediately by pulling out her wand and aiming it at the centre of the clearing.
“Fire Riser.”
With one spoken word, a magic circle formed in the middle of the place before a huge fire erupted out of the ground. The wolves howled with fright and quickly escaped from it while the closest ones roared with pain as they failed to escape and got burned up from the mighty fire. Due to this, the smell of charred remains of the dead monsters hung in the air.
Their leader saw the fire and let out a mighty roar, so loud that the adventurer girl had to clamp her hands over her ears and wince in alarm. Then it began to sniff loudly as if trying to find out something and soon enough, turned its head when it somehow managed to smell her despite the charred smell of its underlings still adrift in the air.
“It smelled me through all this?!” She exclaimed in alarm when the wolf leader roared at her and seemed to issue orders that the others immediately obeyed and began to rush at her.
The first thought that came to her was to run away as there were a large number of them that she alone would have trouble facing. She was an A-Ranked Adventurer but fighting twenty wolf monsters alone of this size was ill advised, but she did not want to leave the children behind.
So, she aimed her wand at the still firing burning from her earlier magic and said, “Smoke Wave.”
In an instant, the fire suddenly exploded as a large smoke began to spread through the clearing. Putting her hand over her nose and mouth, she went over the hedge she was hiding behind and hurried to cross the clearing to reach the children.
On arrival at the base of the tree, she saw the children coughing and looking disoriented by what had happened. They looked up at her and were surprised to see a human there as they seemed to have believed their lives were finished.
“Come on! We have to leave now!” She declared loudly and extended her hand out to them to help them get up.
The children looked stricken and anxious, but one of the braves ones gulped and reached out with theirs to grab hers.
Suddenly, the large wolf monster appeared out of the smoke and was aiming directly at them with its mouth open as it was letting out a furious roar. Reacting instinctively, the adventurer whirled around and aimed her wand at it before casting her magic at it.
“Wind Blast.”
A magic circle formed on the tip of her wand before a mighty wind erupted and smashed into the oncoming monster. The wild beast was lifted into the air and it spun several times before crash landing on its back a few meters away.
Once the monster feel, she checked her surroundings and seeing that the other monsters were still confused by the smoke, she firmly told the children, “Let’s make a brake for it!”
With that, she began to push the children from behind and got them into sprinting as fast as they could. Together, they made it out of the clearing before the wolf leader let out a roar, ordering its underlings to chase after them. Like that, the children and an adventurer were being chased by large hungry wolves.
The wolves were a few meters behind them, which allowed her and the children to widen the gap as quickly as possible. They reached the part where the trail leads out of the forest, she urged the children to go there as she realised the danger the village would be in if it got attacked by this large group of wolves.
“Don’t worry! Older sister will take care of them!” She reassured them with a fist bump to her chest.
Still looking worried, the young ones nodded and hurried away towards the exit of the forest. Making sure to see them off, she turned and saw the large pack of wolves rushing towards her at high speed.
“Fire Ball,” she said firmly by pointing her wand at them, determined to get the beasts to focus only on her.
A magic circle appeared at the tip of her wand before a ball of fire shot away towards the charging beasts. While some attempted to dodge, a few failed and got hit by the attack, causing them to burn up and flop dead on the ground while the rest of its brethren continued to charge at her while letting out ferocious roars.
“Here we go,” she sighed and began to sprint deeper into the forest.
As she went, she managed to aim her wand over her shoulder and fire magic spells such as Wind Blast that blasted the target flying away and Wind Shock that stopped the target in its tracks. Still, the monsters kept up and it was around this time that she did not see a deep groove on the ground, where her feet got caught and she subsequently fell on her face.
“Oww…!” She winced from the pain her face was feeling.
The adventurer looked towards her fallen wand and sighed when she found it smashed to pieces.
“I knew I should’ve spent more on that premium one instead of this cheap stick!” She complained with a disappointing look.
There was no time to worry though because the wolves were quickly catching up to her, so she got up and began to run again. From there, she continued to ran while complaining about her situation.
“When I get out of this, I’ll get a refund for that stupid wand,” she sighed wearily.
After feeling that she was a safe distance away from the village, she came to a stop and turned around to face the monsters. With no wand to fight them back against, she decided to fight them with the only other way she knew how.
Thus, she activated something within her and began to transform. She clapped her hands together, which caused a flash of light to occur in the dark forest before the light dimmed and revealed a large ferocious beast looking towards the incoming wolves.
“Come and get some if you dare, punks!” She growled fiercely, causing the pack of wolves to come to a stop a few meters away from her.
Her threat momentarily worked and they looked at her with fear, but one of them stubbornly growled with fury and charged at her. In retaliation, she opened her mouth and breathed a huge fire at the charging beast.
The wild beast opened its eyes in alarm before it got engulfed by the flames and got scorched to ashes. As its lifeless body lay there, the other wolves seemed to become nervous to attack her. Just then, a large shadow appeared from behind them and revealed itself to be their leader.
“Damn!” The girl in beast form thought to herself with worry as they begun to spread out.
The larger animal glared at her with fearsome eyes as blood seemed to come from a side of its face where it probably grazed itself as it crashed from her attack earlier. Now, she glared at the beast form of the girl and let out a roar to its underlings, which made them begin to steadily advance on her with fierce looks in their eyes.
Just as things did not seem to be going her way, there was a sudden rumble from high up in the sky. The beasts stopped and all of them looked up as small bursts of lightning occurred in the sky before a violent bolt of lightning broke away from the sky and came soaring down to the ground.
It struck the ground between the beast girl and the wild beasts while causing their eyes to strain from the violent flash of light. As the lightning dissipated, they saw a weapon had seemingly struck the ground from where the lightning had landed.
The weapon, which was halberd with glowing runes all over it, began to emit a lightning field before there was another burst of lightning from the sky that soared down and struck the weapon. This time, a man appeared out of the lightning and landed nearly on top of the weapon, which was piercing the ground.
The wild beasts growled at him with angry eyes while the mysterious person straightened up and showed them a big smile on his face as he nonchalantly greeted them with, “Hello there.”
