In the middle of the night, loud rustles of leaves sounded in the dark forest barely lit by the crescent moon in the sky, announcing the presence of someone in the darkness of the forest.

"It's us." Said the deep rough voice similar to an animal's growl from the darkness.

"Gorig?" Asked a voice from behind the trees.

"Who else did you expect?" Said the big wolf-like creature stepping out of the darkness.

"How did you find us?" Asked an adventurers team leader as other men also stepped out of their covers that they hid in when their ranger noticed someone's presence.

"We've been following you since sunset when you left that house. We returned just in time to see you leave. Then took some time to make sure none of them would follow you. There was someone that went after the carriage." Said the big wolf standing in the open while holding something on his shoulder. "I assume they will find only the dead idiot that spoke with the knight captain, right?"

"Yeah. We disposed of him and erased all traces." Answered the team leader.

"Good." Said Gorig looking around while from behind him a few more figures covered in capes stepped out of the dark forest similarly holding something on their shoulders.

As Gorigs squad came into view, adventurers noticed that there were a lot fewer people than initially. Besides the Gorig and two monsters from the Frostgale family, there were only two more people, which surprised everyone quite a lot. 

The Bloodhound family just like all werewolves was a proud warriors clan that relied on their own strength so they did not use mercenary teams, unlike the Frostgale family that strongly relied on magic and needed close combat fighters for support. So the people that were sent after the women were the ones serving the Frostgale family and Gorig came with them as the team's ranger to trace their prey. However he was the strongest of this team, so they naturally listened to him as the team leader and followed him as a commander in this operation. 

After they split up at Samantha Wild's hideout three days ago some of their people were sent with one captured woman back to the hideout, while Gorig and Frostgale family monsters went after the rest of them. 

Theron's people stayed back to wait for the Gorig's team to return. They were supposed to provide them with a cover of a traveling merchant traveling with a big team of bodyguards. And according to the plan they would have been long on the main road by the time the dark association would have reacted and sent the team to investigate their assassin squad's disappearance. There were lots of merchants traveling back and forth on the main road, so no one would suspect them there of anything even if they stayed a few days at the common rest point place. However, that idiotic servitor insisted on staying near the place where they attacked the dark society and ruined the initial plan.

But it looked like them being found by the city guards was not the only thing that went wrong.

The team that served Theron was the middle C-class adventurer's team and was a lot stronger than the D-class teams that served Frostgale's family's young master. However, losing so many people in the presence of Gorig and two representatives of the Frostagale family was quite strange. 

Samnthas's team suffered from dark society's assassin's squads ambush quite severely by the time they got to them. And fight with Gorig shortly after tolled them even more. Could they really bring such losses to the Gorig's pursuit team later?

"What took you so long?" Asked the adventurers' team leader.

"They put up a good fight, making us run quite a bit to catch them, but most unlucky was to meet a border patrol." Answered Gorig.

"Damn. Had any problems?" Asked adventurer.

"Lost a few people as you can see. And took some time to cover traces. But what are you little boys, tired from a little walk and take and decided to take a break?" Said the huge wolf-like creature.

"Tsk." Voiced adventurer. He really hated Gorig's usual demeaning words but could not do anything about it as that werewolf had strength enough to back his arrogance.

"Took a piss. Want to sniff around, dog?" Said the man with a grin.

"One of these days, boy, Theron will tire of his toy and then I will play with you." Said Gorig, a wicked canine grin spreading on his wolf mug.

"Looks like someone hasn't been scratched behind the ear today and is all grumpy. Want me to help you with that?" Said the adventurers' leader putting his hand on the sword handle.

"Pff. Next time puny humans. Have you rested enough already? We have to get back to the hideout while it's still dark."

"What about the goods?" Asked adventurer.

"We got 'em." Said Gorig pointing at the object on his shoulder, that adventurer could finally discern it as a body when he came closer. "Had to rough them up a bit. But they did not lose the marketable condition."

"Good. How do we travel? We will be suspicious of such a big group and carrying them. There is no way we will reach the city by the end of the night and we have no carriage as a cover. If we are seen by the city guards patrol…"

"We will travel until the end of the forest. Then we split and wait for you while you get to the safe house and send others with a new carriage for us."

"Wouldn't city guards be on the lookout for it? They now know we used a fake merchant as a cover."

"There won't be any people they saw at the safe house. Send some other servitor with carriage to pretend as a merchant just in case. Those soldiers would be checking all carriages going in and out of the city but there is no way to check every carriage on the road. They will do some skimming checks at most. Luckily we won't be entering the city and won't be checked well. As long as we cover these women well, no one would find anything suspicious if we are stopped on the road."

"Alright." Said the adventurer, nodding in agreement with Gorig's plan. He felt something strange from Gorig's team but did not dwell on it for long. The werewolf was easy to anger and these three days no doubt already put him at the edge of his nerves. No matter how strong-willed he was in answering Gorig's occasional provocations, he did not really wish to have a bout with him. "Let's go." He added, turning to his people and beckoning them to follow.

After uniting the group moved fastly through the forest without stopping. With Gorig in the lead, they could move a lot more freely as his keen senses were a lot better than any rangers, allowing him to recognize any danger or enemy presence a lot smoother.

By the time the sky over the horizon started to light up they finally left the forest and witnessed the city in the distance that was their destination.

This was the place where they would split up. After agreeing on the place where the other team would meet with Gorig, Theron's adventurer team turned to walk away in the city's direction.

"Hurry up! We have to make it to the auction in time." Growled Gorig, and the group went back into the forest to hide, watching from the forest's darkness as adventurers ran through the fields in the direction of the villages in the distance while the darkness of the night still covered the world and let them pass unseen.

"Let me down." Said Samantha from the shoulder of a moose-like monster that was carrying her like a sack the whole night. 

"Any more and I am going to throw up." Said Kate from the shoulder of another monster.

Both monsters bent down almost simultaneously, putting down the two tightly tied women to the ground with almost identical movements as if they acted in sync with each other.

"Son of bitch!" Hissed Lilly from the werewolf's shoulder. "You do that again I will fucking tear your hand off!" She said kicking around with her legs, unsuccessfully trying to hit the werewolf.

"What is wrong my lady?" Said the Werewolf with his wicked grin on the mug while his hand placed on her butt was clearly not to hold her tighter as it stroked her bun fondling her thoroughly. "Here let me help you down." He said making a move to place her down while his hand on her butt kept squashing her tight bun.

"You!" Hissed Lilly again while struggling in his hands even more. "Let go, you bastard."

Werewolf put her on the ground and backed off with his hands raised as all three women gazed at him with icy gazes.

"Peace, peace." Said the werewolf as his appearance started to become transparent. "That was just an accidental slip of the hand." Said a feminine voice from the transparent figure then it slowly morphed into a form of Gorig in his human appearance. "No need to be so angry." Finishing the phrase a masculine voice that somehow reminded of Gorigs werewolf forms growls.

"Accidental my ass! Bitch! You've been fondling it the whole night." Said Lilly struggling in anger in her ties.

"Was I really?" Said Gorig turning away and scratching his cheek. "Can't remember."

"Can't you be more serious? We could be found out because of your behavior." Said Noah's voice coming from one of the mercenaries standing near the Tariaksuqs monsters. As he pulled back his cape a middle-aged man gazed at Gorig with an annoyed face. Then he took out a mana potion from his pocket and downed it in a few gulps.

"Oh come one. This whole act was on me. Do you know how nervous I was? I needed something to lighten my soul to relax. And this perky ass of hers is just so relaxing when you fondle it. You should try it yourself. Here let me turn her for you." Said Gorig bending toward Lilly.

"Get the fuck away from me!" Roared Lilly seething with anger so much her body was trembling.

"Girl, we were so close. Your butt was literally at my face the whole night. There is practically nothing we have not experienced yet together, no need to be so shy." Said Gorig

"Enough!" Said Noah seeing as Lilly was about to blow up with wrath from all his/her/it provocations….whatever the doppelganger gender was. "Just shut up, both of you. You will blow our cover."

"Killing him and using werewolf corps as a puppet is still an option." Said Brianna's voice from under the cape of another mercenary that stood near Noah, as he pulled his cape down as well revealing the face of another middle-aged man. With Noah's skill of making an illusory appearance and their connection, Noah wondered if it was possible to change someone else's appearance too and Ugy quickly managed to do that for him. However, mana cost was a lot higher than changing his own appearance.

The voices were still giving them out, but Ugy was working on it too.

"I AGREE!" Said, Lilly.

"I support." Said Samantha from the ground at Noah's feet.

"Me too." Said Kate, sitting near Samantha.

"Well, the majority vote decided your fate." Said Noah with his middle-aged man's face spreading in a grin

"Ok, ok. Sorry, it won't happen again." Said the doppelganger in Gorigs body raising his hands in surrender. "Sheesh. Were you in my place could you keep your hands with that wonderful bun near your face…"

"Die!" Roared Lilly.

Noah rolled his eyes with a sigh. This doppelganger was really insufferable, but he performed his act well and they needed him to keep this act further.

Although Brianna could make two monsters pretend to be alive, he noticed that her skill was still not at the level of them looking fully natural as Tessa described her skill once. It was tolerable for Tariaksuqs that were keeping at the back of the group and did not engage in conversations, but to make Gorig look believable her skills were not enough. Besides, only the doppelganger could really perform the act as he was able to partly steal Gorig's memory. In Noah's homework folder, where he held the corpses of these monsters after killing them, time did not influence them so the quality of replication that a doppelganger could make was quite high, making this all act possible.

"Alright, calm down, Lilly, the more you react the more he enjoys it." Said Noah

"So fucking what? I should tolerate this? Untie me! I'll rip that hand of his off."

"If he deserved that, what's waiting for me if I untie you." Said Noah quietly and all three women went silent gazing at him for a moment then turning away with blushing faces remembering the accident in the Greenville town's forest.

Gorig looked from side to side looking between the four people that turned their gazes away from each other and scratched his cheek thoughtfully.

When the doppelganger first heard Noah's plan and explained that it wasn't possible as the corpses were too old, he was quite surprised when he actually tried it and found out that the amount of memory that was still left in their brains was similar to bodies that had been killed barely a few moments ago.

It never heard of an item with such a potent dimensional pocket that could stop time for a placed inside the pocket object, and wondered if that was a dimensional pocket skill instead of item. Whatever it was, he was greatly interested as for the doppelgangers such ability to preserve corpses was simply priceless.

His ability to change appearance was quite surprising as well.

This guy was very interesting.