Chapter 107
“We’re near to the other side of the valley now. The mountain caves are where they live. We should have run into them by now.” Destiny spoke, a worried expression on her face. “Just where are they?”
“Who knows?” I responded flippantly, although I was already well aware of them.
There were already ten wolves circling us. The reason they hadn’t launched an attack mostly had to do with Shui’s group. They had fanned out and taken strategic places around us to control the situation with the wolves. Shui didn’t expect the wolves to realize this. They were worried it was a trap, so they were intentionally keeping their distance. From a predator’s point of view, two low-levels walking innocently while higher-level fighters hid in the shadows, it looked like we were bait.
As if her words prompted them, a wolf let out a long howl in the distance. Destiny jumped, nearly grabbing my arm. However, she remembered how I had my arm around her earlier and couldn’t help but blush.
“I shouldn’t have spoken.”
“They’d have appeared eventually either way,” I responded, looking out into the shadowy forest.
The sun was starting to reach the horizon. After everything that had happened today, the night was finally coming. At night, the wolves would have even more of an advantage. This was a bad situation, anyway someone looked at it. Even Shui’s confidence was becoming a bit strained as he watched the sunset. In truth, we should have encountered the wolves shortly after entering the valley. He wasn’t expecting us to reach the other side of the valley unmolested. That was a two-hour walk. At this point, there was no way to return without traveling in sagebeast territory during the night. Even Shui didn’t want to do that if he didn’t have to.
“Hey, boss, maybe we should be heading back?” One of Shui’s men started to get cold feet.
They were all trained city guards, but a city guard didn’t usually risk his life. He might break a few skulls at the local bar during a drunken fight, but that wasn’t anything close to fighting sagebeasts deep within their territory where they held the advantage. Shui made an ugly face, seeing his plan to dispose of Destiny’s new vassal falling apart. However, before he could answer, the howl from the first wolf was followed by howls of a dozen more wolves.
“Crap! I saw one!”
“I saw one too!”
“They’re everywhere.”
Shui’s men were starting to see wolves, and wherever you saw one, there was a half-dozen that you couldn’t see. They were starting to panic. Shui took a deep breath. He wasn’t just elected guard captain because of his family. He had the skills to back it up. His eyes opened with a flash.
“If we want to survive, we need to find somewhere we can protect ourselves. We’ll be sitting ducks out here.” He concluded.
“Should we head back?” One of the men called back.
“No, idiot. They’ll pick us off one after another in the dark.” Shui muttered. “We need to find somewhere safer, somewhere with walls where we can pincer all of their attacks from the front.”
“It’s the forest though…” One of the men spoke helplessly.
I rolled my eyes. “You mean like one of the caves in the mountains? At the least, we can block the entrance and wait until day.”
“Ah! Good idea!” Destiny looked at me as if my words were unexpected.
Shui made an ugly face. “Yes, let’s hurry before it becomes dark.”
He had naturally been thinking about the caves too, but he wanted to do a play of it with his subordinates not able to come up with ideas before he came up with their salvation. It was probably to show off to Destiny, but I decided to ruin his gimmick in advance. Grabbing Destiny’s hand, I began running toward the nearest mountain. She looked at me holding her hand, but she didn’t let go.
“He’s surprisingly dependable in this kind of situation.” I heard her mumble to herself.
Of course, Shui was forced to run after us with his group, an extremely unpleasant expression on his face. The six of us picked up the pace as howls continued to come out from various directions. The howls were growing closer and closer, giving everyone a sense of urgency. Furthermore, they seemed to come from random directions, never from the same place twice. Whenever a howl came from the front, we had no choice but to change directions. It was clear the wolves were herding us toward a particular mountain, but there was no point in bringing it up at that moment.
Everyone was growing edgier by the moment. It wasn’t just the sounds of the wolves, but occasionally one of them would race by too. At one point, one of the guards shot an arrow from a crossbow they had on their back, but they ended up hitting nothing.
“Don’t waste it. We’ll need it to defend at night!” Shui told him.
With those words, we continued moving as fast as possible until we finally broke out into a small clearing immediately before the mountain pass. There was a worn pathway leading up a distance, and at the top was a cave entrance, which was exactly what we all had been looking for in the first place. One of the guards let out a cry of relief, however, it was at that moment that another guard let out a scream. One of the wolves had lunged at him, and in his moment of lost focus looking toward the cave, he had failed to defend himself.
The wolf ended up biting his neck, bringing him down in a single stroke. Shui moved toward the guard, his speed far quicker than I would have thought. He arrived at the side of the man and the wolf and with a single strike of his sword, sent the wolf flying away. It let out a whine as it hit a nearby tree, but by the time it struck the ground, it was already dead. He kneeled to the man bleeding from his neck.
“I-is he dead?” Destiny asked, her eyes turning wet with tears.
“Yes.” Shui lifted his sword and then stabbed the man through the neck.
Destiny took his words at face value, turning away in horror. The other guards couldn’t help but exchange glances though. The man had still been alive. It might have even been possible to save him, but doing so would have put everyone else at risk. Even then, he still might have died if they couldn’t get help right away. Instead of dealing with that, Shui just decisively removed the dilemma, even lying to Destiny about it. However, the message was clear. Anyone who became a burden would be removed immediately.
“We need to go!” I turned a bit serious too, pushing Destiny until she was running toward the cave.
The other joined us, and it was only a few moments later when a half dozen wolves exploded out from the forest. They began to chase the guards in the back, which caused them all to run at full speed up the hill toward the cave. The wolves snapped at the guard’s heels, but that only caused them to run faster, trying to keep their necks covered so they weren’t instantly killed like their friend back there.
Although the cave seemed an impossible distance with the wolves on our heels, everyone was able to flee into the cave without losing another member. As soon as we reached the cave, Shui turned and got into a defensive posture. He pulled the crossbow off his back and then aimed it at the entrance. Just as a wolf darted in, he fired. The wolf was struck directly in the head, and letting out a single squeal, it collapsed to the ground.
The other guards immediately pulled out their crossbows as well. However, after a single long wail, no more wolves charged into the cave. After waiting for several minutes, Shui finally stood up and pulled off the pack belonging to one of the guards watching the entrance. He then pulled out several torches and lit them. Soon, the dark cave had enough light that we could see its general shape. It was just a large room with a pit in the middle. That pit was filled with bones, and some of those bones looked like they might belong to a human.
“What is this place?” Destiny asked, her body shaking slightly as she remained close to my side.
I took a few steps forward and then reached into the bone pit. A moment later, I pulled out a nearly complete skeleton of a person. However, the reason they remained together was because there was a complete suite of armor on it, as well as a sword. Destiny let out a gasp when it finally registered what I was holding.
“I believe we found the fate of the D-ranked team, Richter Scale.” I muttered in a flat voice.
Now, we were all in the same trap.
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