Chapter 21: In search of a new pack. A wolf in need.

Seeing that the young man started gathering mana to attack him once more, Edward turned around and bolted in the direction of Minx. It wasn’t that Edward didn’t entertain the idea of fighting back after he found out that it wasn’t Rave Barlow who attacked him, but that fire bird attack from early pretty much crushed all of his hopes of being able to fight back.

He needed just around ten more minutes and he’ll be able to reach Minx, but the young man didn’t plan on letting him do it, as a large number of fire balls started flying towards him from the back.

Edward quickly started launching his own water balls backwards, aiming for the incoming fireballs, making the attacks cancel each other into small explosions of steam. Five minutes later, Edward’s mana reached the single digits and he started feeling drowsy.

“Damn in, I won’t make it. Fenrir, can the wolf take care of this guy?”

[He also appears to have used quite a lot of mana so it might be doable, but completing the transformation also takes a few seconds. He might kill you before the wolf even gets the chance to come out.]

Edward quickly thought of something and moved one of his water balls slightly to the side, hitting a bit more than half of a fireball before letting the other half hit his body directly.

The power of the attack was greatly reduced, but the explosion that ensued the moment the fireball came into contact with him still managed to char around half of his body.

Seeing that his attack finally hit, the young man canceled his other attacks and started approaching Edward’s body that was now laying unmoving on the ground.

“Haha, what a joke. You call that control? Hahaha”

Edward, hearing the young mage’s laughter and footsteps getting closer, smiled slightly despite the pain he was feeling before closing his eyes slowly.

Once Edward closed his eyes, the body that laid unmoving on the ground started releasing cracking sounds as his joints started dislocating all over his body,

The young man stopped his steps and carefully observed the body wriggling on the ground as he channeled another fireball above his hand.

“What are you struggling for? You are already dead. What are you going to do now that you are out of mana? Punch me to death? ahaha.”

A cruel smile appeared on the young man’s face as his words ended and he continued approaching Edward’s body.

“If you think your death will be easy, think twice. I’m going to take my time and slowly burn your entire body, piece by piece. You’ll die a slow and painful death and maybe then you will learn to never dare look at something that belongs to me once again. Circe is mine. MINE ALONE!! hahaha”

By the time his speech ended, the wolf completed it’s transformation and opened it’s pure black eyes. Since the young mage was still a few meters away from the body and it was already quite late in the evening, he didn’t notice the change of Edward’s body or the pure predatory eyes that were staring at him unblinkingly.

After waiting for the young mage to take a few more steps, the wolf suddenly jumped out of the ground and, ignoring the two fireballs that exploded near him, bit straight into the mage’s neck.

The mage tried to scream as his face contorted in horror, but all that came out of his throat were unintelligible noises combined with the sound of gurgling blood. In less than two seconds, the light started fading from his eyes and he eventually fell limply to the ground, ending up as food for the ever starving wolf.

Edward listened to the narration of the fight from Fenrir and let out a sigh of relief once it was over.

“Damn, that bastard was strong…” said Edward as he stared at the black void extending endlessly above his head.

“He was… if he hasn’t gotten careless, probably not even the wolf could have dealt with him. You need to be careful and try to avoid making enemies everywhere...” Replied Fenrir with a reproachful tone.

“Hey, don’t put that on me. I don’t even know the dude. You said he said something about Circe being his, he might just be some crazy stalker…”

“That might be the truth, but you can’t ignore his element of choice. Circe said that Rave guy will come after you some for or another. Maybe he was the one who tipped this stalker of you being Circe’s disciple. Why can’t you control that mouth of yours and have to piss any guy you stumble upon?”

“Hmph..” Edward snorted and closed his eyes, not responding Fenrir’s question.

Seeing that Edward didn’t seem to want to respond, Fenrir also sighed and said: “Your body is almost healed and your mana is fully recovered. You’ll wake up soon.”

It didn’t take long after Fenrir’s words ended before Edward woke up and was surprised to see Minx sitting next to him, already licking the blood of his body.

A smile appeared on Edward’s face as he pat her head and said: “You know, Minx, since I can now use water magic there’s no need for you to clean me up anymore.”

The wolf ignored his words and continued licking his body. Edward didn’t know if she just liked the taste of blood or if there was any other reason, but he let her do her stuff as he looked at his now ragged pieces of clothing. The only part that still looked all right was his underwear, but even that was completely drenched in blood.

“That wolf really made a number on my new clothes…”

Once he was licked clean by his faithful wolf companion, he didn’t bother wasting mana to wash up since he didn’t plan on returning to the city too soon, but since it was already dark and he couldn’t really hunt, he decided to continue practicing magic.

“Hey Fenrir, Circe could somehow summon her contracted spirit in the form of a little bunny. Can you ask Azure how I could do the same?”

It took a while until Fenrir eventually replied.

[Azure said that it’s possible, but it’s too hard for you to try yet, it might even be considered intermediate magic on this world. She said that if you want to practice magic, you should work on a defensive spell. Using water balls to counterattack the enemy magic is just a waste of one’s mana.]

Edward nodded and didn’t doubt her words before asking: “Does she have any spell in mind?”

[For protecting against a simple attack, a spell called water shield should be enough. The spell consists of a small shield made out of water created in the direction the attacks are coming from. After creating the shield, you can use mana to continuously keep it up and move it around your body in the direction any attack might be coming from. This will reduce the mana cost by a lot since you will just be supplying mana to a single spell and will also provide a better means of defending yourself.]

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Edward nodded and listened for a good while to Fenrir explaining how the spell should work before starting to practice. It took until a while after midnight before he managed to show some progress, but his mana was already spent and the spell still looked far from done.

Deciding that it was enough for one day, he went to sleep for the rest of the night. In the morning, Edward woke up and, after getting cleaning by Minx once more, he backtracked to look for his missing badges. The unexpected transformation into the wolf made him not have time to hide them and the wolf lost them in the successive hunt. Once he recovered everything, he asked Minx to search for some pray that he could hunt.

*Swish*

A whistling sound followed by two loud thumps and a quite large ape fell to ground split in two. Edward got close and placed his tablet on one of the halves, but even after waiting for quite a while nothing happened.

“What is going on?” asked Edward as he looked at the tablet in his hand in confusion: “Is it broken?”

[I think the beast was too weak to provide any useful life force and that’s the reason the tablet isn’t responding.]

“Huh? But I’m barely level 2? How can I not level up from it?”

[Don’t you remember Circe said you’ll have to absorb life force from beings of your level? The ape’s life force must have been equivalent to a level 1.]

“And where am I supposed to find level 2 magic beasts? I don’t even know how to tell their level…”

[I don’t know. You might have to ask Circe or even go to the dungeon to continue increasing your level.]

“But I should be too weak to go to a dungeon on my own…” muttered Edward as he continued thinking about a solution, but after coming with no answer for quite a while he decided to go and ask Circe for her advice.

With a sigh, he used water magic to clean up his body and the rags that used to be his clothing and started heading back towards the city.

Seeing his pathetic appearance, the guard at the gate stopped him and said: “You can’t go into the city looking like this. Not even your pants are in one piece…”

Edward sighed and explained: “I was attacked by wild animals in the forest and, even tho I managed to escape, my clothes weren’t so lucky..”

The guard gave his torn clothes another look over before sighing and saying: “Since I’ve seen you walking out of the city quite often, I’ll let you borrow a cloak, but I’ll need you to return it to me after you manage to change into some new clothes. Understood?”

Edward nodded happily and the guard handed him a gray cloak. After donning the cloak over his rags, he thanked the guard and made his way straight towards Violet’s inn.

As he stepped through the inn’s doors, the entire atmosphere inside turned quiet and everyone, Violet included, turned to look towards him.

‘Dealing with demi-humans is really such a pain…’ thought Edward as he let out a sigh and headed towards the counter.

“Are you all right?” asked Violet doing her best to control her facial expression, but Edward could still notice her nose twitching slightly.

“I’m fine. Do you mind giving me the key so I can get a change of clothes after taking a bath?”

Violet nodded without asking anything before handing him the key to his room. Edward went to pick up a new tunic before quickly washing up and changing.

Placing the key back on the counter, he thanked Violet and was about to turn to leave when she muttered: “Edward…”

Edward raised and eyebrow and waited to see what Violet had to say.

“That blood… it was human...”

Edward didn’t bother denying and nodded before saying: “I’ve been followed and attacked by someone from the city and had to kill him. That’s why the torn clothes and the smell of human blood…”

Seeing the conflicted expression on Violet’s eyes, he didn’t say anything and just started walking towards the door. Looking at his departing back, Violet raised her hand and opened her mouth like she was about to say something else, but in the end stayed silent and watched him leave with mixed feelings.

“Was it because of me…” muttered Violet once he was gone, thinking everything must have been because Edward intervened with the protection money collector

Edward didn’t waste any time and went to see Circe. Finding her inside the library of her tower, he explained his current predicament.

“That’s only normal. Most of the strong magical beasts around the city have been long killed since they pose a threat to the people of the city. If you want to find stronger beasts to hunt, you’ll have to either go in locations that are further away form civilization. Deep inside the mountain is a good place, or you could try going to a dungeon.”

“So that’s how it is…” muttered Edward with a dejected look.

“You know, you can just go to the adventurer guild and look for a party to head into the dungeon with if you are worried about not being able to hunt inside a dungeon on your own. As your level increases, you’ll need a party anyway. Better to start early and meet a few people you can trust.”

After Circe finished crushing his hopes of leveling up on his own, Edward left with a downcast look and started heading towards the adventurer guild. He thought about telling her about his attacker, but was worried that she will just create more trouble for him and decided against it.

“In the end, I still need to join a party…”

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