A Wolfish Encounter

"Tell me, do you trust me young elf?" Jack asked while waking Evelyn up, his sword in hand.

The small girl was seemingly quite panicked, waking out of her a nightmare to end up in a real one. Feeling the undead's hand on her head, she looked at him with wet eyes then hid between the two warriors's back.

Hearing the wolves closing in and the timer ticking, Laena hurriedly replied :

"Uh, is it the right time to ask this ? I guess I trust you for this battle though."

"Perfect. This might feel a bit weird but fight as you always do and you will see the improvements."

He then tapped on her shoulder, making her body glow in a golden hue and tingling. Suddenly, Laena felt like her sword turned into a feather and so did her body a few seconds later. Even her green irises were filled by golden strands, allowing her to see the world clearly even with the night's darkness.

She heard the wolves panting and their steps on the grass, the creaking of Jack's bone joint and Evelyn's gasp of amazement as if they were next to her ears. Then, the foul smell of the animals invaded her nose : their sweat and other bodily fluids aggressed her brain before receding and leaving the others odors tingle her sense : The grass with the morning dew, the pine trees and the rest of the forest, the metallic smell of the other adventurer's blood remaining after their bodies were burnt by Jack's magic,...

It took her a few seconds to adapt to her enhanced body, taking small steps and slightly moving her arms from her stance in order to familiarize herself with her newfound speed. Holding her blade near her head, the tip pointing toward the enemies, she waited for them to come in her range like a snake hiding, ready to deliver a deadly blow to anyone who dare disturb his peace.

And that is exactly what did the wolves : Charging at her like rabid beasts, five of them jumped on Laena with a coordinated attack. Yet, none of their fangs reached her skin. Thanks to her fully focused state, the time was slowed down for her and she could easily react to such an attack. In a flash, she stabbed three of them through the skull and granted a painless death like a battlefield's reaper. Used to the sturdiness and sharpness of her elven sword, Laena was still impressed as the bones snapped like twigs under her powerful strikes.

Rolling on the ground, she quickly dodged the two wolves which had only bitten air and ended the life of the closest one, decapitating it with a rising cut. She then finished her movement by bringing the tip of her weapon through the last wolf's ribs, piercing his heart and ending his misery. The elf looked like a war goddess, bringing death around the glade with flashes of gold hue and irony silver lightening her path. She seemed to dance to the rhythm of the dying groans of her victims, letting her sword sing the enemies's requiem while moving in the air.

Evelyn was admiring her gracious movements, half scared by the danger of the situation and half amazed at the elf's performance. Looking around, she noticed that the beasts were seemingly scared of Jack. A few dared to try to sneak around him to reach her only to be sent to their maker by a stab of the undead's one handed sword. Another identified Jack as a target to destroy before accessing the young human's meat and rammed into the undead, sending the bones flying. Yet, they stopped in mid flight, returning to their owner and a tortured scream rose when the foolish wolf felt a bony hand tear one of his eyes out.

It quickly retreated, whimpering and hid behind what seemed to be his leader. A few seconds later, the situation reached a stalemate. Laena was standing next to Jack, not having a single drop of blood on her. Her eyes were glowing dangerously as she was glaring at the dozen of remaining wolves, thinking that she could mow them down like the other ten she slaughtered. Jack was simply standing still, counting the total number of wolves in the pack and trying to assess the situation while Evelyn was hiding in her tent, scared by the bloodbath all around her.

'From what I see, they were around thirty and we killed nearly fifteen of them. But why did they attack us then ? They could have retreated at their first losses but still continued the offensive, losing about the half of their brethren this stupidly.'

Seeing their skinny build and their ravenous eyes, he understood that they were simply starved and desperate. Losing a part of the pack would allow them to have more food for themselves and they were probably driven berserk by the smell of the soup lingering in the air. Sighing, Jack looked at the pack leader which seemed quite pained at the lost of so many members of his family while gingerly gazing at all the walking meat in front of him.

While they were hesitating, Jack ordered the others in heavy tone :

"Give them all the dried meat we have, I hope it will be enough to satisfies them."

Before Laena could complain, ready to butcher them, the skeleton explained while wryly grinning:

"The spell I cast on you only last a minute and the rebound is proportional to the use you made of your newfound strength. It is only a level one Lifeform Enhancement, for it to be this powerful I had to make a few concessions. I don't think you wish to be frozen in the middle of your murdering session will you ? Furthermore, I only managed to protect Evelyn because they are scared of me. A cornered animal is the most dangerous one, always remember it."

After having given the wolves some food and seeing them scram away with it, the group finally relaxed. Evelyn broke into fits of laughter when she saw Laena losing her golden eye color and then acting like a grandmother with arthritis. The poor elf felt like all her muscles and articulations were sore and gingerly moved around to pack her stuff. While they were sitting around the fire and begrudgingly finishing the soup, Jack explained them a suspicion he had since the wolves assault :

"I don't know if you noticed but those wolves were famished and this raise a disturbing question : Why are they this hungry, hungry to the point of risking their lives and coming near men? "

"Because there is no more food...?" Evelyn said with a weak voice, sadly looking to the wolves corpses around.

"Yeah, but the troublesome part is that wolves are supposed to be apex predators in those woods, easily catching their preys. So it means that either there is something scaring them, or even worse there is something so ravenous that it hunted down all the other animals." Laena grunted while wincing of pain.

"Indeed. An elf knowledge of the forest is as I expected, top-notch" Jack said, earning himself a deadly glare from the swordswoman. "I apologize if you felt offended, it was merely a statement." The undead laughed, making his excuses sounding as fake as a three dollars bill.

"Yet, it is still true that we should get going and walk away from this forest swiftly, I have the feeling that a storm is brewing in here."

The party left the bloodied glade at dawn, leaving behind them the eerie scene of a wolf slaughter while having collected all their tails in a bloody bag made with Evelyn's former dress. It seemed that it could be used as a proof of extermination and thanks to this, Laena would be able to get the quest's reward back in town. They were in dire need of money, even if they collected a few gold coins on the adventurers bodies. Evelyn, for example, really needed some clothing.

She was now wearing the swordsman's clothing because even if it was too big for her, it was still better than the rag she had before. Laena had even kindly cut the floppy extremities, used the useless clothes by making a small rope out of them and put it on the young girl as a belt. This resulted in an outfit made of brown colored canvas a bit too huge for her, giving her a frailer appearance but she still seemed happy with the result.

The road was quiet, allowing Jack to relax a little since even if he had a cloak his identity was still pretty obvious. Before, he simply walked alongside the road by hiding in the forest but now that he had some clothing he could be a little more daring.

Curious, he asked many questions about Laena's sword and other elven custom. Yet, all he earned was a few elusive answers so all he could do was curse his former lack of interest for the elven peoples. He was also pretty proud of Evelyn progress as she slowly but steadily got a hang of how to create wind mana.

They had plenty of time so he gave her an extensive course over the wind nature, what it could do, how it influenced other elements like thunder or fire, etc. Jack noticed Laena's ears twitch from time to time as she was probably listening their conversation. Chuckling inwardly, he found it cute that her ears revealed her true self, kinda like the animals part of the beastmen.

He also had to defuse a dangerous situation when a group of farmers passed by, eyeing Laena like she was a piece of meat. Disgust, sadness and unbridled hate took turn to show themselves on the woman's face. Stopping her from hacking the group of people, Jack put a hand on her back and asked her :

"If you wish to kill them then so be it, I'll even help you but I have to ask you : will you regret taking those people life? I wouldn't, but I don't wish you to be more broken than you are right now."

She then seemed to ponder his words and gave up her foolish idea. Sighing, she mumbled :

"Am I really getting reasoned by an undead old man? Since when monsters like you have something like a moral and do some psychological counselling ? "

"I find that offensive you know, I think I'm way past the "old man" stage and I only said to help you live a decent life. I would have no troubles murdering a whole town by the way, I did it in the past." The skeleton said half jokingly. He simply thought that killing them would have been a loss of time and mana. In another situation, their bodies would have been ashes before Laena could act.

The elf shuddered, wondering if those words were true and went silent for the rest of the day, listening to the duo's magic discussion along the way. Unexpectedly, she found herself quite interested in this subject. Back home, magic courses costed a lot and were heavily dependent of one's talent to understand the elements and create their magic heart. Many failed or became low class mages stuck with level zero or one spells so the lower households didn't dare to take this kind of investment.

Yet, from what she understood Evelyn had easily awakened yesterday and was steadily growing thanks to Jack's precise and well explained courses. Laena couldn't help but feel jealous by seeing somebody so young getting such luck while she had begged her parents to no avail. Focusing on this allowed her to forget her pain and soon they reached a suitable place to raise a camp.

After eating some bread and vegetables, Laena went away to train her swordsmanship, hoping to clean her mind while working out. Evelyn went to bed shortly after, thanking her teacher for all he was doing for her. Jack simply dismissed her thanks, saying that he was only doing it to fulfill his part of the bargain and gently put her in a makeshift bed under the tent they had scavenged previously from Laena's former party.

Jack was simply standing next to the fire, looking at the stars as usual when he heard the elf come back from her training. She seemed a bit cuter, her skin having taken a pink tone thanks to the exercise but she still had a lot on her mind, her face showing it with a huge frown. The skeleton asked jokingly while handing her some water :

"Wasn't it too hard to train with all those aches?"

She let out a dissatisfied grunt in response while drinking some water. Taking a deep breath, she finally decided to quench her curiosity by asking :

"Tell me Jack, what are you exactly? You didn't reply clearly last time and I get that you want to keep some secrets but seeing how much things you know about all those different types of magic, how deep your knowledge is I can't help but wonder."

"I don't know that much about all the types in reality you know. I just had way too much time deep down there so I could only ponder, theorize and guess. Since I never made any experiments, you could qualify my knowledge of shallow at best you know."

"How can you say this when you are able to cast such spells like the one you used on me earlier?" Laena said, having troubles understanding her immortal partner.

"Hold on, I said that I was shallow on my general knowledge as I am not an all rounder. I'm way more familiar with my field of work and used to be a master in it." The skeleton laughed, enjoying Laena confused face. She seemed to fight with herself, trying to tame her pride in order to ask something.

After a while, the fidgety elf blurted out :

"I-I get that you are a great magician and by seeing Evelyn's progress, I can see that you are a great teacher too. Would-would it be possible to..." Her voice died out while she hid her face in her hands from embarrassment, feeling like a kid asking a favor.

"Possible to ?" The skeleton asked, guessing where this discussion was going.

"Possible for you to teach me too?" the elf finally managed to say, fixing her emerald gaze in the blueish soul fire.

"Nothing is free in this world, young elf." Jack replied , revealing a wolfish smile. " Here is my offer : I shall teach you magic while you teach me swordsmanship. I used to have a mace for weapon but now I lack the strength to wield one correctly. Learning the way of the sword would be pretty useful since my mana capacity doesn't allow me to go through a whole fight only wielding my spells. "

"Deal, but my sword style is more designed for piercing with a sword like mine than slashing with one like yours." Laena grunted through her teeth. She would have to transmit her elven heritage, but what she would get in return would be worth the disgrace.