Chapter 6: 6: Encounter (III)

It was already noon when they started heading south towards the center of the Glimp Forest, where the hunters' camp supposedly resides.

Axel and Horus ran on the dirt trail. The trail doesn't lead to their camp, but it's the most convenient path to avoid getting their eyes upon them. 

'There are hunters everywhere in this forest. They will not notice us if we come in this way.'

He knew this fact since this trail was leading south of the Franz City, where the Durkton territory begins stretching southward.

'There should be a faint trail nearby leading to their camp.'

They couldn't lay a camp for hundreds or so of hunters without leaving a trail on the vast forest. There had to be.

'Found it.'

Without words coming from either of them, Horus started pointing his fingers to his right, where a path of flattened shrubs led to some location inside the forest.

Unlike the other parts of the forest where the hunters laid traps, this path should be safe since this is their entry and exit point back to the main trail.

They started sneaking on the path. The cautious, slow steps they took made a faint rustling noise. 

"You want your Vitality Essense, no? Head straightforward. Hide somewhere nearby, and I'll send a signal for you to run wild."

Horus, who broke the silence, turned to the young man behind him.

"Tsk."

Axel clicks his tongue as he nods. He quickly leaped off the trail and hopped on the trees. Horus trusts he would do it since he should know how valuable the consumable cheat item, the Vitality Essense, is.

'How obedient.'

He wasn't this obedient in the story. Although there were cases where he lets particular people order him around, he often stands as the leader of his comrades, Effelia, Basil, and the others. After all, wise, keen, and cunning are the descriptions given in the novel to him.

Carefully assessing the area, ensuring that there were no traps around, Horus noticed something on the dirt path. 

'Blood.'

Around him were blood stains, tree scrapes, and crossbow bolts dug on branches and weeds all over the trail. It leads in the same direction where their camp supposedly is.

'What a sight.'

Horus sighed, sneakily finding his way. He was behind trees by trees beside the trail.

A glimpse of tents on a broad dirt area appeared in his sight. Instead of heading forward, he hid nearby the track, looking for a safe spot to hide as he could see a few hunters around.

He unsheathed the dagger while holding a rock in his other hand. He leaned behind the tree and peeked at the back. He could see a few hunters behind his sunglasses, sitting and wandering around the extinguished campfire.

One tent nearby his spot took his attention. He frowned and gripped the rock he held as he heard faint screams, utters, and shouts. He could also overhear a lashing noise from a whip coming from the tent.

"Hahaha! Scream louder!"

"AAHHH!"*

"You will die if you don't transform now."

"Sob. P-please, no more."*

"Why don't you shut your trap and transform?"

"AHHH!"*

A lash of a whip reverberated the area as a sharp, painful scream followed. Based on the voice and tone of the cry, Horus was sure it was from a wolf.

Restraining his sudden surge of emotions, he noticed blood dripping on his hand holding the rock. He gripped it too much. Ignoring the scrape it left, he tossed the stone into the gap between two adjacent tents. It bounced and landed with a light thud on the open area of dirt where the hunters were around.

Some hunters noticed it, but a sudden loud rustling of trees echoed the area as a figure of a young mercenary leaped off a tree.

Axel landed on the ground, slamming his greatsword on the dirt as it made a loud crashing noise. The area was then filled with a cloud of dust, making Axel's figure fade inside it.

"What was that?!"

"An intruder?!"

"W-who is it?"

Various shouts of men came after, making Horus move behind the tent where he had heard the recent cry from a wolf. He then moved his ear on the cloth that walls the tent.

"Tsk. What now?!"

The man inside the tent uttered an anxious shout.

Horus could still hear the screaming wolf's violent breathing and the restrained cries of many more wolves. A faint noise from rushed footsteps followed as the man inside opened the flap of the tent to exit.

"What is going on here?!"

As the man wearing a butcher uniform holding a bloodied metal whip shouted, a figure of a young man surrounded by a faint green aura emerged as the cloud of dust subsided.

Axel had a grim look on his face as he began swinging his greatsword, unleashing a green crescent projectile toward the hunters. It didn't hit them, as they were swift and alert. It landed with a loud, crashing noise that made the tree it hit crumble. 

"Surround him!"

One of the hunters quickly yelled as they scattered around the hunter, pointing their spears towards Axel.

"An a-aura-user?"

The butcher shakily muttered as he quickly but stealthily rushed to the largest, another tent beside. Axel, who noticed the man, swung another projectile in its direction. It didn't hit the rushing man, but it crashed on the tent the butcher was running to, almost destroying it as another cloud of dust emerged.

"Call the leader! Send the signal!"

The butcher shouted as he crawled on the planks of woods of the destroyed tent.

While all that ruckus happened, Horus made his way inside the tent. Using the dagger, he made a hole in the fabric wall of the tent.

As he set foot inside, what appeared to him was a grievous sight of limping children tied up on the beams that support the tent with gags on their mouths. He noticed that they were all in their human form.

'They transformed to their human form to not get butchered.'

Horus frowned in disgust as he recalled that they needed to force the wolves into their berserk form to skin them.

They were five children inside, all tremblingly naked, with their furs scattered all over the straws underneath them. One of the bunch, perhaps the oldest among them, looked horrible. Its bare, skinny body is full of blood, cuts, and abrasions made by a spiked, metal whip. The severely injured wolf is curled in the corner, trembling with his eyes shut with blood.

Horus started to observe his surroundings. There were pegboards with clean knives and gear for butchering and skinning animals and cloth mantles in shades of white and olive hanging from them.

Using the edge of his dagger, he untied the wolf children. He also took the gag off their mouths while they observed the sunglassed young man with a frightened expression on their smeared face.

Horus grabbed the mantles hanging on the beams, perhaps used to wipe the butcher's tools, and quickly tucked the limping wolf in the corner. He also handed some to the shivering children.

Blood started to run on his hands as he laid the body down on the mantle. The wolf is trembling, breathing heavily but isn't responsive.

'He is losing too much blood.'

Loud clunks of clashing weapons from outside resonated in the area in loud bursts. Expectedly, Axel is running wild, fighting the hunters guarding outside.

"Fuck."

He swore using the Kruman language as he quickly pulled another set of mantles hanging. He then tore it into vertical pieces with his dagger and strapped them onto bleeding parts of the wolf's body. He sweated as he did it, but the bleeding wouldn't stop.

'Damn it.'

With a frown and sweats running on his temples, he raised his black sunglasses above his forehead as he turned on the young wolves observing him.

"Anybody of you is a healer?"*

They each flinched with different expressions on their faces looking at the young man with crimson eyes. They were frantically whispering to one another until one of them began to stand.

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"I could help."*

The only female among the bunch spoke. She had the white mantle Horus provided covering her entire tiny body.

She kneeled beside the injured wolf and closed her eyes as she started breathing heavily.

'Ah... wolf healers use pheromones to heal their fellows. Pretty much like aromatherapy.'

A deep, ardent balsamic smell started to fill the space around them. 

Aromatherapy; it's a broad field of medicinal study in this world. Tribes lived independently from human civilization. Thus, to thrive on their own, they had developed their own culture, custom, social hierarchies, and even a way of practicing hygiene and medicine. 

The body bruises on the injured wolf started to shrink but did not entirely disappear. The breathing returned to normal as the blood spots began to disappear.

Horus was amazed at the sight as he noticed the abrasion on his palm started to heal. He knew that something like this existed in this world. He had a smile that looked more like a smirk on his face.

At that moment, he turned toward the wolf girl, who was sweating bullets as she started coughing drops of blood.

'I guess there is a drawback to amazing things.'

"This is all I could do."*

She was running out of breath as she halted. A slight tap of solace reached her shoulder after.

"Good job. Don't overdo it next time, however."*

Horus, who commented, handed her a piece of cloth as he began to untighten the bandages on the now less injured wolf. During that time, the wolf regained consciousness as the windows of his eyes trembled to open.

"Brother Ota!"*

The girl, wiping the stains of blood off her mouth, shouted in relief. The other three wolf kids also rushed towards them. Some of them are consciously covering their body with the mantle Horus handed to them.

"S-sob. B-brother Ota! I was s-scared you were going to die."*

"You're o-okay now, brother."*

Ota, the injured wolf, shakily lifted his body as he looked at the young man who helped him.

"T-thank you."*

"I barely did anything."*

Horus quickly replied as he sighed. He stood while brushing the straws off his now shabby clothes full of dirt. He turned toward the other three wolves observing him.

"You should thank yourself and your family who put their lives on the line to save every one of you."*

Silence filled the room as he said that. Without a word, Horus started rummaging on the things he might need inside the tent. Most of which are trivial things like butchery tools and gears, but his eyes set upon the small yet fancy-looking box hidden inside the pit between the pegboards.

He could not open it for some reason, but he took it for now. He turned towards the four children observing; no, waiting for him to say something.

"Ah. Your brother Basil is safe. I'm not sure about your parents, however."*

They started to look grim, gritting their teeth. At that moment, the tent's flap unfurled, and a figure of a young man with brown hair and green eyes appeared. That figure, undoubtedly, was Axel, who had a greatsword resting on his back.

"Young... master, they are gone."

'Gone? You mean dead?'

"I took down some of them, but they escaped quickly."

'Did they escape? Did they inform their superiors?'

Horus, who wanted to ask more questions, frowned as he noticed the stains of blood on the greatsword on Axel's back. He ignored his thoughts and mumbled instead. 

"Let's move away here for now. I don't feel safe here."

He started to lead the way outside the now ruined camp. Most of the tents around them are barely standing, with planks and shattered crates all over the dirt.

"Follow me."*

The wolves quickly followed, some of them supporting Ota. Axel followed on his back, furrowing his brows.

"Why are you helping them?"

He asked, crossing his arms. His eyes squinted as he moved close to Horus, who was leading their way.

'I don't know either.'

That are the words Horus wanted to spit out, but he knew he had a reason why is he going so far.

On the first day he transmigrated, he had settled himself to live a trouble-free life. He would enjoy his new aristocratic life, avoid the main characters at all costs, possibly discover things in the academy, and find a means to survive the oncoming war without pain.

He lived as a coward, and he doesn't find it wrong to live his life here as one.

'It's not like I'm doing something like this again.'

He composed himself, closed his eyes, and gave a short answer. 

"I'm doing things that will help me live a relaxing life in the future."

Thinking of living with tons of money from his family already gives him a burst of dopamine. He unconsciously let off a wide grin as Axel observed him in confusion.

"I don't get you at all."

They finally reached the western gate of the Franz City, orange light of daybreak covered the land. The guards, Zeke and Brant, let them in free with a smile.

He had made Axel head to the wolf den to aid Greze and mentioned he would be staying in the coffee shop in the city with the children.

The children were silent but wary as they followed him with mantles covering their bodies from head to toe. People would stare at them occasionally, but they ignored it since the sunglassed young man helping them looked unbothered.

After passing street by street, Horus found Dale leaning on his back outside the about-to-close Silver Canary Cafe. Dale noticed them and ran, observing the wolf children behind his young master.

"Y-young master...?"

"Ah."

"Young master, who are they? And your clothes..."

He asked calmly, eyeing each one of them as he noticed Horus' shabby appearance with a baffled look. Some of the youngest children grabbed onto Horus' pants, hiding their faces under the white and olive mantles.

"Young master Horus!"

As Horus was about to reply, a loud, lively shout came on his back. It came from Vincent, who was rushing towards them. He was profusely sweating, catching his breath as if he had just run a marathon.

"Vincent."

"Haaa..., I had prepared a lodging for you and the children nearby."

'How neat.'

Horus was quite satisfied with Vincent's recent work. Both Vincent, who was panting, and Dale were studying him as he mumbled a reply.

"Let's head there first. I look and smell funny."

He was itching to take a warm bath. His bones were also tired from running around the north of the Glimp Forest.

Remembering all things he needed to do, he sighed.

First, he needed to find a way to shelter Basil and the young wolves. He also had to wait for Axel and Greze's report on the situation in the wolf's den. He also had to worry that he needed to go back to the academy soon.

'Ha. My poor life.'

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