3 bar menu

Volume 2 Chapter 4 Part 1

CHAPTER 4: Awakening

By the time Clara arrived at the Forest of Eternal Darkness, it was past midnight on the day she heard the news from Luna. When she entered the forest path and looked up at the night sky, the moon was shining with an eerily shade of red. Even the light of the stars was of the same reddish color. Clara then changed from being a wolf to her Werewolf form, and then she proceeded to make her way cautiously through the woods.

Then the fog started to gradually appear in front of her, getting thicker and thicker with each step. Along with that, her vision became blurry, the sense of smell became muffled, and the sounds of her surroundings became increasingly more difficult to discern. Clara wanted to follow Luna’s scent all the way to where she was being held, and she managed to get this far, but now she could not even decide which way she should go.

「It is the work of a witch, isn’t it? 」

Clara muttered to herself.

Witches are common in Artuk. However, a powerful witches with exceptional abilities could be said to be somewhat of a rarity, since the normal witches from Artuk’s villages were usually occupied with things like fortune-telling, brew medicine-like things, and keeping black cats.

However, it would seem that the witch with whom they are dealing right now is a fairly powerful one. Not only did she managed to shake off Ion’s pursuit, but she also managed to force first-rate Werewolves like Emma and Luna to run away from her.

「Just when I thought the fog had disappeared, the heavy knights of Waldrind appeared as if they were laying in ambush… 」

Clara remembered Ion saying so. That means that if they are following the same pattern, then there must be people armed with heavy crossbows waiting just beyond this fog.

(The moment the fog disappears is when the real fight is going to start…)

After telling herself so, Clara began to walk quickly, for she has decided that she would not be waiting to be attacked first while the fog was still on.

And after she walked for a while, the fog suddenly cleared up.

At that moment, Clara jumped high into the air. With her strong legs, she could even jump higher than the trees of the forest. And while she was up high, she saw the bullets of light traveling at high speed to the place where Clara was just a moment ago. However, their intended target was long gone from there, so they only hit the ground and the trees and then exploded after a short delay.

Clara quickly observed the ground from the sky. There was an old building half covered with plants not to far away from her current position. The heavy knights of Waldrind armed with heavy crossbows were scattered all around it.

「Thirteen… 」

Clara muttered after assessing the situation.

Emma’s tied up silhouette could be seen laying at the feet of the heavy knight who looked like a captain of that entire unit. However, the figure of the witch herself was still nowhere to be seen, and Clara could not feel her presence anywhere she looked.

The knights reloaded their heavy crossbows and tried to launch their next salvo of light bullets into the sky, but by then Clara had already landed back on the ground. Then she kicked off the ground and leapt onto one of the heavy knights lurking in the bushes nearby.

The knight held up his heavy crossbow but didn’t even have time to fire it. When Clara him with her right arm, the area from his neck upwards turned into bloody mist and was blown away.

「First… 」

Without stopping her movement for even a second, Clara kept her head near the ground and ran forward in that position. She kicked the ground hard with her toenails and jumped over the surface of any obstacles standing in her way. From time to time she had to puts her hands on the ground to support and turn her body properly to avoid incoming attacks and the few rounds of light bullets that were fired at her, but she managed to dodge all of them without worrying about them too much as she was closing the distance to the rest of the heavy knights as jumped again and landed on the ground while raising a cloud of dust.

Clara’s bright blue eyes were now completely focused on the prey in front of her.

The heavy knight had already fired two shots towards her. He hastily pulls out the sword from his waist, but there was no time for him to hold it up properly. Clara in her Werewolf form ran past him in an instant while ripping his left shoulder from his chest while she was already at it. The impact caused the heavy knight’s body to rotate, and fresh blood spattered from his wound as he fell to the ground and died.

「Two… 」
Clara puts her hands on the ground and forcefully stopped herself. Then she released her stored power and flipped behind. Curling her body upon the landing, she rolled on her back toward the third prey.

The next heavy knight also missed two of his shots, and there was no room for him to load the third shot. He drew his sword and assumed a fighting stance, but he could not keep up with the movements of the Werewolf rolling on the ground at lightning speed.

「S-Stay away from me!!! 」

The heavy knight started panicking and swung his sword around recklessly. But the Werewolf Queen jumped at him without a shred of hesitation. He thrust out his sword in pure desperation, but it was easily knocked out of his hands by the sharp claws of one of her hands, and then she used the claws of the other hand to rip him to shreds from head to the chest. He could not even raise his voice, and fell to the ground in front of Clara without making any more sounds. The ground beneath his corpse was immediately soaked with blood.

「Third…」

Clara took aim at her next prey and slashed with her claws left and right while moving forward the entire time.

「Who knew she would be so tough… 」

Elmer was astonished as he tried to follow the Werewolf Queen’s movements with his eyes. He has fired three shots at her so far, but each and every one of them missed its mark without even coming close to hitting her as she dodged them with ease. He tried to correct his aim as much as possible, but the Werewolf Queen was simply moving too fast for him to catch up on top of her constantly changing the rhythm of her movements.
「Take that! 」

Elmer shouted and shot the fourth shot from his heavy crossbow. The arrow changed its trajectory and hit the Werewolf Queen’s left leg. Clara lost her balance and fell forward, but when she put her hands on the ground to support her body, she bounced through the air, and with the newly gained momentum, she pounced towards her target prey.

The next heavy knight was waiting for this moment with his heavy crossbow ready to fire another shot. Even if it kills him in the next moment, he decided to fire the holy crossbow bolt from the safe distance.

「Eat it! 」

When he shouted that, he shot an arrow that had all the power of the Crest poured into it. He cannot reload the next ammunition until the power of the Crest in his crossbow is restored, but for that, he would need a complete few hours of rest. But that rest would come to him soon enough. It will be an eternal rest from which he will never wake up from again though.

The Werewolf Queen flew through the air, thrusting her outstretched right hand toward the crossbow bolt that was fired towards her. An arrow hits her palm, turning it into a piece of minced meat and blowing it away. However, the Werewolf Queen did not seem to care about it at all and just bit off the heavy knight’s throat.

His neck bones were chewed up in an instant, and his unsupported head fell onto his back. Blood bubbles bubbled up from his neck, which had only a piece of skin left on it. his body was pulled by the weight of his head, and he slowly fell over onto his back.

「Four… 」

Clara licked the blood around her mouth and spat it out along with her spit as she lightly shook her blown right hand, which had started to instantly regenerate. The wound on his leg has also healed completely.

「M-Monster…!!! 」

The Werewolf Queen’s strength far exceeded Elmer’s imagination. His fellow heavy knights were also twitching in fear.