In a way, that was a good sign. If the water wasn’t safe to drink, most animals would have avoided drinking from it. There were five wolves. Normally, they lived in bigger groups, but seeing smaller ones or even a few loners wasn’t that strange.

Seeing them from up close was frightening. Among the wolves, one stood out more. It was bigger, and its fur color was different. A dark blue, compared with the rest, who’s fur color was only of a pale blue.

After inspecting the monster, Gorn ordered sternly: “Hold your hands and quickly get behind me!”

The alpha wolf started to slowly circle around them. Its eyes were looking only at Gorn, undoubtedly sensing that he was the only threat. It was carefully analyzing his opponent, evaluating if it should attack or not.

Silence.

Gorn took a step back and grabbed Rebeca by the hand. Like he commanded, all of them also held hands. If they were connected that way, Gorn could teleport them all along with him, since their total weight wasn’t over five hundred kilograms.

Race: Monster
Bloodline: Epic
Power level: 1250
Abilities: Track (Lvl8); Intimidation (Lvl 9); Pack leader (Lvl 7)
Loot: 1250 gold; Track (Lvl8); Intimidation (Lvl 9); Pack leader (Lvl 7)

Confirm target? Yes    No

The alpha wolf growled at him, and in the end, decided to retreat towards the deeper parts of the forest together with its companions. From his point of view, fighting wasn’t worth the risk. Gorn let out a breath of relief, but then frowned.

‘For normal people, the chances of dying are getting higher and higher.’

The girls were trembling to some extent. The aura of that wolf was just too savage. If they were by themselves, the chances of them winning in a fight or running away successfully were almost non-existent.

This kind of opponent was totally different from the mindless reapers they killed so far. Rebeca’s hard gain confidence took a great hit. Even Ella was shaken. Her fearless gaze now knew what fear meant.

“In case of some emergency, just held each-other hands, so I can teleport us all to a safe place.”

The mood changed completely. No one spoke a word. Various negative emotions took over. Gorn wanted to encourage them, but could not find the words to do it. His original plan of building an army from scratch wasn’t so feasible anymore. In theory, it was possible, but judging by how things stood, that was a very lengthy project.

‘Looks like a power level of five hundred is barely sufficient in order to survive.’

Without any special skills, or someone strong protecting you, survival was very uncertain. All of a sudden, Gorn understood why there were so few humans. Without the special protection of those mysterious crystals, probably only five percent of the city’s population would survive.

‘Just what is going on here? Where exactly was I brought?’ Unfortunately, he did not have any real answers for those questions.

After some time, Gorn decided to follow a smaller river that was connected to the main on. It went up a gigantic mountain. Climbing for a few hundred meters, they finally reached what looked like to be a good spot.

A stream the size of one’s leg was gushing out directly from the ground. There were small and medium-sized rocks all around, and a small pool formed beneath. The water was crystal clear.

Gorn took out a sip directly from the source. Everything seemed fine. “This is good water.”

Taking out all his empty bottles, Gorn started to fill them up. The process went smoothly, and ended with him storing the bottles back into his inventory.

“This is very similar to a shower. You can wash your clothes and take a bath if you want. I’ll guard you.”

His suggestion was something that they already thought about. Giving each-other a glance, they agreed to wash up, taking turns. This way, privacy was respected. It took less time than expected. Gorn also helped them dry the clothes with his fire ability.

“Thank you, Gorn!” said Elisa, as well as the rest of the girls. The mood became noticeably better.

“No problem. We will now return to our tree, but taking another route. So that we can get more familiar with the area.”

“Can we gather some food for later?” asked Rebeca. She was reluctant to make such trips too often.

“Of course. I will help you transport it.”

With that being said, they went on their way. Shortly, they came across a patch of good blueberries. Gorn went towards a nearby tree, and using his sword, he cut a big piece of bark. That, together with a few other materials found in his proximity, Gorn managed to build a decently looking recipient.

“Here. You can use this. I’ll make one for each one of you.”

Everyone looked at him with great interest. “You can use your imagination to try to build various stuff. Exactly like these. They look quite crude, but are very useful to transport things if you don’t have any storage abilities.”

“That seems like fun,” commented Ella, eager to try it herself.

“You can try that in your free time, not now,” said Gorn firmly.

It sounded harsh, and an underlying meaning was there. No one dared to say anything in protest. Remembering how they spent almost an entire month doing nothing, they felt rather ashamed; especially Elisa, who was in charge of them.

“That’s enough blueberries for the time being. Give them all to me, I’ll help you carry them.”

One by one, their recipients disappeared from sight. It was truly magical.

“You have so many cool abilities,” said Ella while closely observing what he was doing, just maybe she could do it as well.

“Maybe one day you will have them as well.”

“Really?”

“Many things are possible,” said Gorn while patting Ella on the head.

“Let’s continue.”

The party advanced slowly but steadily. From time to time, they encountered small groups of reapers and wolves. Thankfully, they were manageable. Creatures like that alpha wolf weren’t encountered anymore.

“If we don’t encounter beasts like that frightening wolf, then surviving in this area should be within our capabilities,” said Elisa, trying to lighten up the mood.

“Right, the place of such monsters should be deep within the mountains and not so close to the city,” continued Nora.

Her sister hesitated for a moment, then asked: “What about other humans?” Her questions attracted everyone’s attention.

“Sadly, humans are the scariest…” He could get into detail, but they most probably knew what he meant.

“That’s why, please, be very careful with strangers. Don’t trust anyone,” said Elisa imperatively.

While they were talking, sounds of fighting could be heard from up ahead. Everyone’s eyes turned to Gorn, waiting for his orders.

“Let’s go take a look. Just stay close to each-other.”

With Gorn in the lead, they sneaked closer and closer to the source of the sounds. Before long, they could see a group of ten people fighting a few reapers. Analyzing their actions, and how they struggled, it was obvious that they were very weak.

It took them some time to kill all the reapers, even though they outnumbered the enemy. Unexpectedly, a man turned towards their location and shouted: “Come out, I know that you are there.”

Gorn got up, and came towards them. That man kept glancing at his arm while at the same time extending it in his direction. When Gorn was only a few meters away, the watch on that person’s hand showed a number.

1040

“One thousand and forty?!” Hearing those words, everyone became frightened. The reason was simple, their own power was just around three hundred. Their lives were now practically in Gorn’s hands.

“That’s an interesting device you have there,” said Gorn with a straight face.

“Greeting sir! I am the leader of this small group of people. I’m extremely sorry for being rude earlier, please forgive me.”