Chapter 48: In the wolf’s shadow.

Edward and Minx kept following the road and, by the end of the first day, just as the sun was starting to set, Edward happened to see campfire lights ahead of him.

“Guess we must be near the dungeon…” mumbled Edward before telling Minx to reduce her size and continued walking towards the light. He didn’t want a repeat of the last time, when all the adventurers got on guard seeing a giant wolf.

As he expected, there were a lot of adventurers all around, most of them looking quite strong, an aura of superiority radiating from each and every single one of them. The adventurers there also gave Edward a quick look, they didn’t find him that strong, but it was not everyday one sees a human riding a magic beast, more so one they haven’t seen before.

Edward started walking towards a group to the side, but before long he fixed his eyes on a transparent door in the distance. He could hear cries, laughter and other eerie sounds coming from within.

“That is one creepy dungeon…” muttered Edward before finally arriving in front of a small adventurer party, made out of four members.

One of the members of the party, seeing the newcomer approach his party, slowly stood up and asked: “Something the matter, fellow adventurer?”

Edward nodded and said: “I’m looking for Narna village. Can you point me in the right direction?”

The adventurer nodded and pointed towards a sign in the distance as he said: “You must follow the road south. It’s not far from here.”

Edward thanked the adventurer before heading for the sign to check it out.

South: <Narva Village>
North: <White Scale Burrows>
East: <City of Ashes>

‘So this road also leads to White Scale Burrows.’ Thought Edward as he asked Minx to follow the road south. It didn’t take them long, and an hour or so before midnight, a cluster of flickering lights appeared in the distance.

“That must be the village. Minx let’s camp outside tonight and go visit the village tomorrow. It’s already quite late.”

Minx nodded and walked towards a side of the road before decreasing her size. Edward stepped down and rested with his back against a big rock as Minx placed her head in his lap comfortably.

“Fenrir, do you think I can sleep tonight or will the wolf create trouble with the village?”

[I wouldn’t recommend sleeping tonight. If there is no one strong enough to repel the wolf in that village, it might no longer exist by tomorrow morning.]

“I figured..” Mumbled Edward before he started practicing his water curtain spell. After each fail, he kept speaking to Azure through Fenrir to ask for advice, while waiting for his mana to naturally recover. He didn’t want to remain out of mana either in case anything unexpected happened so he only spend a bit under half of it before taking a break.

Time slowly passed and, a little after midnight, Minx’s ears suddenly stood up and she lifted her head from Edward’s lap and fixed her eyes on the village. Not long after, she growled softly to attract Edward’s attention.

“Anything wrong?” asked Edward as he slowly turned his head to look at the village as well but he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

“Danger.” Replied Minx, mana already starting to escaped her small wolf body.

Edward also started getting ready for combat as he asked: “What exactly is the danger?”

Minx stayed silent for a while before saying: “I don’t know.”

Edward found her answer weird but Fenrir clarified it for him: [Magic beasts’ sense are a lot more sensible to danger. Trust her and be on guard.]

Edward was about to retreat with Minx, just in case, when he happened to spot a dark silhouette walking towards them on the road. Minx tensed up, ice spears appearing all around her as all the fur on her body standing up. Edward noticed her getting ready to attack and said: “Wait, it might be a villager.”

Minx stopped reluctantly, but Fenrir shouted from Edward’s arm: “Attack Minx. You too Edward. That’s no human.”

Edward still hesitated but Minx didn’t and all ice spears rushed out towards the silhouette slowly walking closer. Just as Edward though the spears will hit their target, the silhouette broke into tiny shadows and the spears passed right through them, not hitting any single one.

“What the hell is that?” asked Edward, also summoning three water blades while jumping on Minx’s back as she was slowly increasing her size.

No one knew how to answer his question as the shadows reformed into a single silhouette and started flying toward them again. Edward launched the water blades towards it, as did Fenrir with a new set of ice spears, but the same thing as last time repeated itself. The shadows broke apart into tinnier pieces once more and dodged the attacks.

Since it was dark and Edward was not able to see clearly, he tapped Minx’s back and said: “Run back towards the dungeon. We can’t fight that thing.”

Minx didn’t give it a second thought as she turned around and started running away. Edward looked back and saw the shadow was still pursuing them so he started launching water bullets towards it. The bullets didn’t injure it but at least they managed to delay it as it had to break apart and recombine afterwards, making the gap between Edward and that thing increase.

As he got far away and he wasn’t able to see the shadow anymore, he told Minx to stop. Looking at the road behind the two, he asked: “Fenrir, what was that thing?”

[I don’t know, but since it came from the village it might be related to all those disappearances you are being sent to investigate..]

Edward nodded and said: “We’ll check it out tomorrow. Minx let’s rest here until then.”

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The two of them sat down besides the road once again and spent the entire night slowly recovering their mana while looking around on full alert in case the shadow came back.

As the morning rays started shinning from the horizon, Edward heaved a sigh of relief and said: “I guess it really gave up on attacking us… let’s go Minx. I’m curious what the villagers know about that thing.”

Minx nodded and Edward climbed on her back once more. It took around an hour until the village finally appeared in their sights once again. Seeing that they were close, Edward unmounted Minx and asked her to decrease her size to a normal one not to scare the villagers.

Walking towards the village besides his faithful wolf companion, Edward observed his surroundings and noticed that there were still traces of Minx’s magic attacks from last night. Getting close to the place one of her ice spears was melting, he looked around for any clue of that shadow but didn’t find any.

“It looks like we didn’t manage to hit it at all…” mumbled Edward as he gave up and resumed walking towards the village.

As he approached the entrance, a middle aged man carrying a speak started walking
towards him.

“Halt. Don’t come any closer.” Said the man once Edward was around 100 or so feet from the entrance. Edward stopped and said out loud while showing his adventurer badge: “My name is Edward Black and I was sent by the adventurer guild to investigate the disappearances around the village.”

The middle aged man look at the badge and then at Edward before muttering under his breath: “They sent a fucking child. Damn bastards.”

Walking in front of Edward, he said: “You should turn back kid and tell them to send someone else. Whatever those things are, you are definitely not able to deal with them…”

Edward felt a bit indignant about the man treating him like a child but responded calmly, not willing to fail his quest by getting into a conflict with the locals: “I was just sent here to assess the threat and report back, not to deal with it. Do you mind telling me a few more things about what is happening so that the guild can send someone more adequate the next time?”

The middle aged man was quite surprised by Edward’s respectful tone, used to adventurers being quite brash and quick to anger. Nodding slightly, he said: “I can tell you all I know, but you must leave the village by nightfall. It’s not safe here…”

Edward nodded and started walking forward, only to be stopped by the man as he said: “You don’t want to go in. While I might understand it’s not your fault, the others are quite annoyed with the guild not doing anything for such a long time and might choose to spill their sorrows on you.”

Edward sighed and asked: “Alright. Can you tell me what you know?”

The man nodded and said: “It all started happening three weeks ago. I remember that night quite clearly. It was a full moon and I was just playing with my daughter as I was getting her ready for bed when the light coming form the village lamps through our window started flickering.”

“I didn’t think too much about it at first, but soon, a loud cry resounded thought out village, scaring me and the others villagers as well. Figuring it might be some beast from the forest attacking us, I told my wife and daughter to hide in the cellar of our house and walked outside with my spear as did the other warriors in the village.”

“Once I was outside, I started walking towards the place where the sound came from, only to see a dark shadow slowly. We didn’t know what that thing was, but attacked it nonetheless. Our attacks did nothing, passing through it’s body and leaving it unharmed until it finished covering the villager’s body and disappearing in front of our very eyes.”

“We searched all night long throughout the village but we couldn’t find any trace of the missing villager or the shadow. With nothing else to do and already used to losing people once in a while to the forest beasts, we all resigned ourselves to the fact that he might be already dead and decided to just report it to the guild like always.”

“The next night, the same thing happened once again and we understood something was hunting us. We organized patrols to look around the city and try to protect ourselves, but whatever that things it, it’s unnatural. Our weapons pass through it like nothing and, the moment we attack it, it also attacks us. Also everyone touched by the shadow slowly gets covered into a dark mist before disappearing completely.”

“Since we couldn’t deal with it and we noticed that it only took a single person with it before disappearing if we left it alone, we started trading our lives by attacking it so that it wouldn’t take one of our children and made a request for the guild to help us…”

Edward understood that, whatever that thing he encountered last night must be the same shadow responsible for the abductions, but he still had no idea what it was and how to deal with it. Thinking for a while, he asked: “Did you tell all that to the guild when you requested help?”

Seeing the man nod, Edward found the situation all the more strange. If that was true, there was no reason for him to be here since the guild should have already known that the thing responsible was a black shadow and should have been included in the quest information.

“I already met that thing last night. I arrived quite late and decided to wait in the outskirts until morning before I entered the village. Around mid night, it came from the direction of the village and was walking towards me. I attacked it but didn’t manage to injure it at all as it turned into wisps of shadow to avoid all my attacks. Seeing I had no way of fighting it, I retreated on top of my spirit beast here..”

“So that’s why it came a bit late last night. It usually appears around midnight, but it appeared quite a bit later.”

After asking a few more questions and getting no real answer, Edward turned around and started walking back with just as many questions as he had when he arrived.

“Fenrir, do you have any idea what that things is? Or does Azure?”

[We don’t know, but from what that villager was saying, it appears to be somewhat vulnerable to mana attacks. He said that their weapons passed right through it, but when you and Minx attacked last night, it would split it’s body into small shadows to avoid the attacks…]

“Do you think I should give fighting it one more try?” asked Edward, feeling about reluctant to try.

[Azure says that it should be possible if you use your new spell, but it you were to ask me, it’s not really worth the risk.]

Edward sighed and turned to take one more look at the village, he also wanted to retreat and just let the guild deal with it, but he felt bad leaving them like this, without even giving it a try.

“We’ll try one more time. I’ll spend the entire day practicing and try again tonight. If it has a way to avoid it, we’ll just run.” Said Edward as he gently patted Minx’s head.

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