462 – Fenrir Counterattack

I continue to watch the three shadows carefully.
Should I make the first move? No, there’s three of them.
I can’t afford to act carelessly.

I calm my mind and breathe in.

“GuuOOOOOOOOh!”

I [Roar] at the shadows.
As though lured by my voice, one of them steps forward.

“Giiiii!”

The beast prowling towards me is the same fenrir I met by the river, its back still bloody, and its four eyes burning with rage.

In other words… The other two are also fenrirs!?

“GiiOOOO!” “GiiAAAAah!”

Following the emergence of the first fenrir, the other two quickly show themselves.
Two more sets of four sinister eyes loom out of the fog.

Aren’t fenrirs supposed to eat everything in an area!? Why are they cooperating so much?! Fight each other already! I guess the one I killed did have [Ally Call], but I had thought for sure it must have been a remnant from a previous evolution.

…I guess this means that this area isn’t the one-sided fenrir hunting ground I thought it was.
There must be B+ to A rank monsters that are dangerous enough to force them to band together.

“GiiOOOOh!”

I twist my body backwards to dodge the bite of the first fenrir.
The moment I move, the second fenrir launches itself at me in a tackle.
Keeping the third fenrir in my sight, I jump to the right to avoid the tackle…is what I had planned but, underestimating its reach, my shoulder is cut deep by the second fenrir’s claws.

“Guruoh!”

The second fenrir lands neatly and turns to face me, howling in satisfaction.
They’re used to fighting this way.
They don’t plan on letting me break free of their encirclement.
I could easily take down any one of them if I charged, but if did that, the other two would seize the chance to attack.

They’re swarming me like the red ants of the desert.
Though each of them is closer to the giant centipede in terms of strength.

“Dragon-god-sama!”

Aro calls out to me.

Aro is B+ rank, but the fenrirs’ average level is 70 while hers is only half of that.
She has a lead on them in terms of HP and magic so it’s not completely impossible for her to fight, but her speed is far too lacking.
To compensate for that, the only option is for her ride on my head and shoot out a continuous stream of magic.

“GuuOh!”

I nod slightly.
Aro nods back.

“[Gale]!”

A gust of wind causes Aro to shoot up to my head.

“It appears I have a role to play this time!”

Volk charges out by himself and swings his sword at one of the fenrirs.
The fenrir catches the sword in its claws and swipes him away.
The moment Volk touches the ground, he swings his sword again to release a [Shockwave] towards the giant wolf’s face, before kicking off the ground to close the distance once again, leaping high into the air.

With a look of annoyance, the fenrir lowers its head to dodge the [Shockwave], and then swings its claws at the midair Volk.
It appears for a moment as though the claws pierce his body.
But then I see Volk standing atop the fenrir’s arm.

“Gih…”

He sprints along the fenrir’s arm and jumps off, landing on the ground.
Blood spurts from one the fenrir’s eyes.

“Leave this one to me, I’ll draw away.”

Volk grins, then dashes away.

“GiiOOOOOOOOh!”

Its eye wounded, the fenrir gnashes its teeth and chases him… Is Volk seriously a human?

The two remaining fenrirs exchange a glance and then begin to circle around me.
They must want to strike me from a blind spot.

“[Dark Sphere]! [Dark Sphere]!”

From atop my head, Aro fires magic into one of their paths.
The black lights explode, kicking up dirt.
That’s good, keeping them coming! When you run out, draw from me with [Mana Drain].

As expected of the fenrir’s speed, her attacks don’t come close to hitting it, but cracks are beginning to appear in their plan.

“Gih…!”

Sensing that their current strategy isn’t working, one of the fenrirs appears about to retreat.
But, just as it begins to move away, Aro’s [Dark Sphere] crushes its escape route, causing it to stop for a second.
This can work! I shoot a [Wind Slash], which gouges out the fenrir’s thigh.

“GiAaah!”

The wounded fenrir screams.
I immediately leave it and charge at the other.

With the first fenrir’s leg injured, it shouldn’t be able to attack me right now.
I’ll use this chance to take down the second.

The second fenrir seems to hesitate over whether to run away or attack, but then with a twitch of its eyelids it changes its course to head towards me.
Nice, it’s getting overconfident!

The fenrir kicks off the ground and twists through the air as it leaps towards me.
This fenrir seems to be particularly fond of this kind of attack.
It’s taking the simplistic approach of repeating an attack that has worked once before, and is trying to hide its speed disadvantage in the irregular movement of its spin.

But the situation has changed.
Back then it was three-on-one, and I couldn’t focus entirely on the single fenrir.
Now it’s alone, and I have Aro with me.

“[Gale]!”

Aro fires wind magic into its path.
The fenrir stretches out its legs to land and avoid the attack.
It’s quick to give up.
It probably judged that it was impossible for it to sneak an attack in against me the moment Aro forced it to slow down.
But, it should have made that judgement just a little sooner.

“GuuOOOOOh!”

I jump towards the fenrir and tear my claws through its back.
It slumps down, its belly hitting the ground.

“[Dark Sphere]!”

A black bullet of magic flies towards the fenrir’s head, and its skull caves in in a splatter of blood and flesh.

【1076 experience points have been acquired.】
【Due to the title skill [Walking Egg: Lv -], an additional 1076 experience points have been acquired.】

That’s one of the three down.
It seems like Aro got a good amount of the experience.
Her level has risen from 35 to 39.

Finishing off the last one is a simple task.
Having healed its leg with [Autoregeneration], I end up having to chase it a little further than I would have liked, but between me and Aro, we easily accumulate enough medium-range damage against it for me to safely leap in and finish it off.

Covered in blood, Volk returns with a satisfied expression.
A while later, I go to collect the three fenrir corpses, then butcher them and hang them with the nightmare’s thread to drain… The cavern entrance has become a rather grisly sight, but that can’t be helped.

However… My level didn’t go up this time.
The 120s seem to be particularly hard to raise.

I’m surprised it didn’t increase even after killing two high-level B ranks.
I only need two more levels to evolve, but the wall between me and evolution is still thick it seems.

It might be better if I was hurrying a bit more.
There’s some risk to it, but it would be possible for me to fight three B ranks at once.
Compared to fighting the chaos ooze, the ruin, or Beelzebub, the level of danger would be almost nothing.
I could try leaving a fenrir on the verge of death to get it to call for its allies.

The flies’ eyes are obstructed by the poor visibility here, but Lilixira has Laplace.
It wouldn’t be strange for her to show up as early as tomorrow.
I should to be operating with a little more tolerance for risk.
I should be counting of Volk to be strong enough to protect everyone.

We’re in an unknown land, and the visibility here is poor.
There’s no telling what monsters will show up.
However… The danger that Lilixira poses is more important.
As a result of narrowly escaping death so many times, I might have become a little overly-cautious.