Chapter 4: Encounter (I)

On the continent named Thetan, there lies the Golian Kingdom, the kingdom that rules the sheer west of the continent. The Durkton County, like other territories in the kingdom, would be familiar with the Glimp Forest, a lush, long woodland stretching vertically from south to north of the Golian Kingdom.

The Glimp Forest has two sections: the north, which borders the Durkton-Flint Counties to the Skev Mountain Range, and the south, which adjoins the Avastian Duchy and the Cradell City that holds the capital of the kingdom.

The Enn Village was on the eastern outskirts of the area where the Flint territory, north of the Durkton, meets the dense forest.

In the north-eastern corner of the Franz City, a small city on the border between the Durkton and Flint County, Horus and Vincent started strolling on a pathway that cuts through the dense, alpine forest unevenly surrounded with tufts of head-tall grass and shrubs.

He could also see hints of fist-sized insects, unknown flora, and murmurs of wildlife echoing in the forest.

Whirlwinds brushed towards them as Horus' neck-long hair started fluttering along with the towering grasses and rustling branches of woods. The dense, damp odor of the alpines overwhelmed his profound sense of smell.

"So this is the northern Glimp Forest."

Vincent focused on the source of that mumble. It was Horus, glancing cautiously under his sunglasses, strolling behind him with his hands in his pockets.

"You had changed; no, you're different than the Horus I know."

"Me?"

Horus replied utterly to that sudden comment. It took a moment before Vincent continued speaking.

"Young master..., you should have known I'm from the Enn Village. You truly saved my life there."

'Horus saved this guy?'

"I'm not upset or anything... It's just that..., you should not forget things like that."

Horus, pondering for a reply with an indifferent expression, suddenly halted as he heard something coming close, growling. No, it was a faint noise of uttered growling, almost whimpering.

'Wolf?'

Vincent, who noticed Horus, looked confused, with a hint of worry on his face.

"What?"

"Follow me."

Without explaining, Horus started making his way on a faint dirt pathway filled with shrubs on his right. He was walking sneakily, carefully observing with his unexpectedly potent senses.

'It's close.'

The shrubs were too dense and tall to see, but he knew it was nearby. He wasn't frightened since he had a hunch that he knew who or what it might be.

Aside from the natural wildlife in this forest, he remembered that there should be no canines here, but there were lynxes, bears, and vultures twice the size they should be in his former world.

However, there was a clan of tribespeople living in this forest. It was the Poliyan Wolf Clan, a group of tribespeople migrants from Poliya, the northern-most territory on the continent.

'It's about 10 o'clock in my direction.'

He shifted the direction of his slow, cautious velocity northwest. Behind the large clumps of shrubs, there lies the source of the whimpering sound.

"Is it a wolf...? There must be a hunter here, young master. We should be careful. They ain't friendly."

Vincent whispered as the growling, whimpering noises coming in front of them started to get louder than the noises made by the rustling sounds of the forest.

Horus started gently descending on the clumps of tall shrubs. He was profusely sweating as he was nervous about what he might encounter.

"Ha, haha."

Vincent, who dove into the shrubs after checking their surroundings, started hearing sounds of familiar laughers.

The source of that slow, almost sarcastic laughs was Horus. He was there, one of his legs kneeled on the flattened shrub while observing the body of a growling large, red wolf.

Despite its large size, this wolf is not an adult yet, perhaps about to become one. The red wolf with bruises all over its body started to stand shakily, growling while showing his large fangs. It was barely standing.

'Well, well, well. What do we have here?'

Horus was both astounded outside and frightened inside as he found something unexpected.

'It's not just a wolf from the Poliyan Wolf Clan. This very wolf in front of me is Basil, the main character in the novel's third volume.'

<A proud son of the Poliyan Wolf Clan head. He is the only wolf in the clan who possesses a majestic, dark red fur.>

In the book, the Poliyan Wolf Clan migrated to this forest after being ostracized by the Kruman Empire. The place that started the root of their kind was the uninhabited frozen mountains of Poliya in the north. The Kruman Empire kicked them out by burning their dens and exploiting their lands due to rich deposits of precious minerals in the mountains.

Unlike their hundreds of numbers in the north, they are only twenty or fewer who live in the Glimp Forest. They are, possibly, the remaining survivors of the clan.

"Move away!"*

(From now on, * indicates dialogues spoken in a different language or dialect other than the Kruman language.)

The wolf roared, loud enough to make Horus cover his ears. It sounded like a roar, but Horus, for some reason, understood it as if that roar was a language he had known ever since.

Vincent quickly moved in front of him while holding a dagger, cautiously looking at the wolf.

"Y-young master..., it's danger-"

"It's okay, Vincent."

Horus slowly stood as he spoke without dusting the dried shrubs off his clothes. He gently walked past Vincent and gave him a shoulder tap to reassure him.

"You're poisoned."*

Horus, who uttered that undistinguishable speech as it sounded to Vincent, was looking at the arrow impaled on the wolf's back. The long, sharp bolt, perhaps shot by a crossbow, had a trace of pale green liquid.

"Y-you... can speak my lingo?"*

The wolf replied with a whimpering growl. Vincent, who was standing there petrified, was looking at them shakily.

"Yes, it seems that I can."*

"W-who are you?!"*

The shaking, barely standing wolf replied as Horus spoke.

Horus, who stood still in front of the wolf, was sweating bullets since it was not a common sight to see a wolf larger than his height. His hands are on his back as he replies.

"It's not important for now. I knew you ran away here to stall the hunters."*

Remembering the traces of Basil before the third novel, Horus knew why a wolf, one of the main characters at that, might be in this situation in this forest.

'I remember it.'

Horus supposed the hunters had attacked the wolves' new den in this forest. He remembered that there was a scene where Basil was telling Axel his story in the third volume. Basil angrily pointed out that hunters consider Poliyan wolves' fur precious since it had a high resistance to magic and aura.

As in the novel, the elder wolves remained in their den in this forest to stall the hunters while the young, inexperienced wolves escaped with Basil. However, a group of hunters tailed them as they got away, forcing Basil to fight them head-on, attempting to stall the hunters from reaching the escaping wolf children.

His stall worked as it seemed to him at first, but it ultimately failed as the youngsters got abducted by the hunters. Their den got obliterated along with the elders, making Basil the sole survivor of that dreadful incident.

That event was Basil's most regretful past that made him lose his sanity and played a crucial role in his character development in the novel. Unfortunately, his life only lasted up to the third volume.

'Damn author.'

As Horus was about to reply, a faint, rustling noise of steps, perhaps from a group of men, reached Horus' and Basil's ears.

Basil quickly leaped off the bush and ran towards the group of hunters. Some of the men were carrying sacks with someone, perhaps with a small body, inside them.

The men holding crossbows started shooting bolts in their direction, where a wolf leaped, making Vincent pull Horus to hide in a tree nearby.

"Fuck."

Horus, the one who swore, peeked beside a branch to observe the red wolf who lunged in the direction of the hunters. Vincent had an anxious but composed expression as he whispered.

"Young master, Let's get away from-"

"Listen."

He interrupted, looking at Vincent with a grim expression. Vincent, instead, turned himself to listen attentively to Horus.

"You go to the Enn Village."

"But-"

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"There's a pigsty at the western-most side of the village. Find a guy named Axel and lead him to this exact location. Use this if you think you can't persuade him."

He hurled his pouch of gold coins towards Vincent. Vincent, who quickly caught it, started to speak with a confused, anxious face.

"What if I still can't persuade him? And what about you?"

"Tell him these exact words: 'I know where the Vitality Essense is.' As for me, I'll hide here. In any case, give me your dagger."

Vincent quickly handed his sheath with the dagger in it to Horus. He stared at Horus with a worried expression as if he was waiting for an assuring response.

"Don't worry. Go."

After hearing that, Vincent started to run as fast as he could, heading northeast, the location of the Enn Village. Horus, now alone, sneaked inside a tall shrub as he observed the fight between the red wolf and the hunters.

"Shoot! The bolts have paralyzing venom in them!"

He could see six hunters: others had crossbows with the rest had spears. Based on their bright, lustrous armor and finely-smithed silver weapons, they look more like a knight than a hunter.

The red wolf, on the other hand, ran behind the trees. Bolts started shooting as they hit the woods, without hitting the wolf as it was fast. The hunters who had a spear started following the wolf.

"Damn bastards!"*

Running trees by trees without falter, the red wolf roared as he lunged at one of the hunters with a spear. The wolf bit the handle of the spear coming to him and swung it, which flung the hunter holding it.

"Jett! Fuck, hit your god damn bolts!"

The other man holding the spear yelled to the four hunters holding crossbows.

"Shut up and stall him! We can't hit him if you don't find a way to make it stop moving!"

One of the men with crossbows yelled back.

'He's doing good despite being paralyzed.'

Horus, who started collecting sharp stones, thought. He was planning on throwing it to the men with crossbows, perhaps to stall them for a second while waiting for Axel, then run sneakily and move to a different location.

"Leave us!"*

"Brother Basil is around!"

Horus could hear the cry and mutterings of the four wolf children in sacks piled behind the hunters with crossbows.

Holding a stone and was about to throw one, someone descended off the tree behind him. It was a quiet fall, as Horus could deduce that it might be an assassin.

"Young master, please retreat."

A man wearing a black robe with a katana on his side spoke. He had a black mask covering the upper half of his face. Horus, however, knew this man.

"Greze?"

Greze. He was his brother's close confidant and one of Count Glen's close men that appeared in the fourth volume of the novel. He was an assassin that Luther assigned to investigate the death of his brother when Horus was beaten to death by Axel.

"You know me?"

"Help the wolf."

Horus replied without addressing his question. Greze, the man wearing a black mask that asked, sighed as he lowered himself to level his height on the shrubs surrounding them.

"Young master Hok, please retreat."

Greze sighed again as he spoke. Horus, however, had a trace of a smirk on his face.

"I'll tell father your scandal with the maid."

"Ha. Haha. Hahaha. How did you brat know that?"

He shuddered as he quietly but sarcastically laughed while holding his mask, trying to realign it on his flabbergasted face.

"Help the wolf, then."

Greze had no choice. His job would be at risk if the count learned about it. Horus knew that the maid, the head maid Merida, would lose her job too once he shut his trap open.

"Fine. We'll have a serious talk soon."

Horus glanced at Greze as he started to take off his robe to hop upward with ease without much of a noise. The black robe fell on the ground as Greze ascended, staring at Horus with a grim expression.

'That vicious...'

Pacing himself back in the direction of the fight, the wolf was still running toward trees after trees nonstop. The hunters still followed the wolf with a determined look on their half-armorer faces.

"It's about lunge at your left! Prepare to shoot!"

The hunters with crossbows started loading bolts on their weapons as the other man with a spear ran towards them and yelled. The wolf lunged to the left as bolts started shooting in its direction.

The wolf was about to dodge, but at that very moment, a man with black attire holding a katana descended. That man swung his sword to parry the bolts as his foot touched the dirt.

Horus, who held Greze's fallen robe in his hands, had moved behind the shrub where the confused wolf stood. He started to speak behind the wolf while stealthily hiding inside the shrubs.

"He will help you."*

The wolf did not reply, but he knew he heard it as its tensed stance eased as he said it.

"Who are you?!"

"The wolf is ours; we found it first!"

The hunters grunted to the man. That man, Greze, was releasing energy that enveloped his sword. It then slowly covered his entire body with a gray, transparent aura that resembles vines, no, slithering snakes.

'Sword aura.'

It is a powerful force, an energy that most experienced swordsperson wield. The energy they release, called an aura, takes shape based on a swordsman's inner spirit. A master aura-user can create their avatar based on the attribute of their inner spirit.

Greze's aura attribute is white, taking its form as a snake. In the novel, Greze's avatar is a white basilisk. For Axel, however, his aura is still a prototype as it is still in its early stage. In the later volume of the novel, his avatar will be out as a green, fierce dragonhawk.

Greze was standing still, channeling his aura in the direction of the hunters. He started to step toward the hunters, who froze in fear.

'Aura is a dominating force. It can make your opponent feel sheer fear, the anxiety of being dominated.'

Thinking about it makes Horus shiver. He will certainly make sure he won't mess with Axel.

"Ugh..."*

The wolf who stood still whimpered as its body fell into the shrub in front of Horus. The wolf, Basil, was conscious but trembling.

'The venom had taken a toll on his body.'

"Can you transform into your human form?"*

He asked while observing the wolf's body. The wolf, in turn, growled to reply.

"Yeah."*

The fur of the red wolf on the ground started to shrink, and so did his body. It ended with the body of a naked young man with red hair, canine ears, and bloodshot eyes.

Horus swiftly but gently wrapped the young man with Greze's robe, fully covering him beside the left arm had a bolt impaled. He started pulling him backward since he hadn't had the strength to carry him towards the small area with flattened shrubs.

At that moment, Horus could hear terrified yells coming from the hunters.

"R-run!"

"B-but I can't m-move!"

"Why is t-there an a-aura user h-here?"

'I told him to help the wolf, not to kill anyone. Right?'

Horus was pondering, but he quickly shoved off those thoughts as he looked at the bruised body of the Basil. He was used to such sight as Clay was once a nurse assigned to a Naval Military Corps.

Basil's body was laid on the ground gently, growling in pain.

"It will be alright."*

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