Seeds of Chaos: Chapter 8 (Monstrous Wolf)

Chapter 8

As Rennel ran, the surrounding was just like blur as she passes them quickly – an indication of her speed. And although she’s been running like that for two hours now, Rennel was not even breathing heavily.

“I should be arriving at the village soon.” She thought.

“Teacher, my subjugation target; the monstrous wolf, is it a guardian similar to that mysterious creature inside the Mazes of Trees?”

During her weeks stay at the forest known as the Mazes of Trees, Rennel actually met the mysterious guardian of that place during one of her hunt. Despite not knowing what the guardian originally looks like because of the mist covering its entire body, Rennel could tell that the creature had no ill intentions.

On the contrary, it was exceptionally kind to her, giving her delicious fruits that helped enhanced her body.

Thanks to those fruits, Rennel was able to survive the hellish training.

“Hmm… it’s probably not a guardian. A guardian doesn’t need to hunt livestock in order to survive. It’s most likely a variant monster from the canine family.” Chaos explained after thinking for a few seconds.

“Indeed, the guardian of the Mazes of Trees seemed to be a benevolent creature so other guardians shouldn’t be type to cause troubles to people as well, right?” Rennel thought out loud.

“Not necessarily. The guardian of that place was relatively good-natured but other guardians might not be as benevolent,” Warned Chaos.

Rennel was slightly taken aback but after thinking for a bit, her teacher’s words actually made sense. Since the guardian of the Mazes of Trees has an ego and personality, other guardian should have too. But the question was if the other guardians’ have similarly benevolent personalities.

“Don’t overthink it. You’ll have the chance to meet other guardians as well. So you should just see how those guardians are like with your own eyes.” Chaos reminded.

"Indeed! As long as I continue traveling with teacher, I should be able to meet other guardians."

Following her teacher’s advice, the girl stopped contemplating and concentrates on running. Before long, she saw the village gate.

Stopping just in front of the village gate, Rennel observed the inside of the village without entering the gate. Noticing that there’s no one outside, she could not help but frown.

“No one’s outside?”

Sensing no immediate danger, Rennel entered the village and cautiously looked around. She looked at the house and saw many eyes peeping at her.

“There are still people here! Don’t tell me that everyone’s inside their houses at this time of the day?”

Puzzled, Rennel looked at the other houses and saw more people cautiously staring at her. Sensing their curiosity and wariness, Rennel took out her adventurer’s tag and raise it for everyone to see.

“It’s an adventurer!” Someone exclaimed.

The door of one of the houses opened and a middle-aged man walked out. “Are you the adventurer sent by the guild?” The middle-aged man asked.

Renne nodded her head in affirmative to the man’s question. And as if on cue, the doors of the other houses opened almost at the same time.

“So she really is an adventurer! Finally, someone took the mission.” A woman said.

“Is she really an adventurer? She looks so young.” Another person said.

“What a beautiful girl. But why did someone like her become an adventurer?” An old woman commented.

The girl was rendered speechless by the sudden appearance of the villagers and their inquisitive gazes. Although she’s already used of being looked at, Rennel could still not help but feel a little embarrassed.

Seeing Rennel looking awkward, the middle-aged man quickly led the girl to the village’s chief house. If the girl backed down because of how the villagers were acting, it’ll cause trouble to the village.

Not only that, if the girl leaves without taking care of the monstrous wolf, the next adventurer might take a while to arrive. And by then, who knows what would happen...

****

Inside the village chief’s house, Rennel was sitting in a wooden chair with a cup of warm herbal tea in her hand. She was seriously listening as the village chief narrated the whole situation.

According to the village chief, the monstrous wolf appeared about a month ago. At first they were not aware of the monster’s existence only noticing that one or two of the villager’s livestock would disappear every few days. Although they were alerted because of it, there first reaction was that there's someone breaking in of the livestock’s enclosure to steal their animals.

But when they started investigating every household in the village, they found that none of the villagers stole the missing animals.

“After inspecting every house and every possible place were the missing livestock could be kept and finding nothing, we truly hit the dead end in our investigation.” The village chief gloomily explained. “Only after the snow started falling that we finally found some clues.”

Clues?

“You mean just not one?” Rennel asked curiously.

The village chief looked at the girl in front of him and nodded. “Yes lots of clue, or to be more precise, lots of animal footprints.” He clarified.

Seeing that the village chief was about to explain what they knew about the monster, Rennel listened more closely and urged the village chief to continue.

From the village chief’s narration, the first time they knew that it was a beast, a monster that was stealing the villager’s livestock was when snow started falling and piling on the ground. On that fateful day, a villager went to the animal enclosure to feed the livestock but after he arrived there he noticed large animal footprints on the snow. 

Startled, the villager scurried inside the enclosure and to his horror saw the same footprints inside along with the remaining livestock that looked incredibly terrified. After counting all of the animals, he found out that he was missing two of them!

The villager quickly reported the incident to the village chief who brought several people to investigate. After the investigation, they concluded that the foot print belonged to a wolf, and a really large wolf at that. Alarmed, the village chief commissioned several village hunters to track down the beast and kill it.

But despite the hunters’ efforts, the beast remained elusive. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the hunters didn’t give up and finally located the beast in the mountains which was a huge mistake.

According to the hunters' report, the beast was more than 10 ft. tall and was, from heat to tail, as long as two cows combine. It has black fur, and glowing green eyes. It was a truly monstrous wolf.

Although terrified, the hunters did their best and confronted the beast. But not only was the beast big and strong, it was also incredibly fast. Not only that, it also possessed fur that could not be penetrated by spears that the hunters wielded!

Seeing that they’re no match for the creature, the hunter could only try to retreat. But it wasn’t easy. Some of them had been wounded in the earlier encounter, and needed the assistant of the other hunters just to walk.

Just imagine the scenario where hunters were assisting the wounded hunters as they tried to escape the monstrous wolf. It was a horrible experience. Thankfully, despite the wounds, all of the hunters survived the ordeal.

“They… survived the ordeal?” Rennel asked after a while, looking quite shock.

The village chief nodded his head in affirmation. “Yes. We found it unexpected too. But according to the hunters, the monstrous wolf didn’t pursue them after seeing them fleeing with the injured hunters.” The village chief explained.

“A wolf… lets its prey escape? Is that monster really a wolf?”

Rennel’s confusion was understandable. For a wolf to let its injured prey escape was truly bizarre. Wolves are not like that. They’re tenacious hunters that would stalk their prey before going for the kill. It didn’t matter if the wolves’ prey were humans or other animals; the wolves won’t let them escape after sustaining injuries.

“What an interesting creature.” Chaos, who was just listening quietly from the sides, spoke to Rennel telepathically. “If the village chief was tellinh the truth, then the monstrous wolf possessed great intellect. We should meet it and see if we could communicate with it.” It said.

“Communicate with it? We’re not going to kill it?” Rennel asked back telepathically.

“That depends. If we could successfully communicate with the creature then there’s no need to kill it. Since it hasn’t killed any of the villagers’ yet, there’s still a chance to salvage the situation. After all, subjugation doesn’t mean that we absolutely have kill it. Capturing it alive would do more good for your reputation compared to killing it.” Chaos explained.

Fully understanding her teacher’s intent, Rennel nodded her head in agreement. Having read the rest of the story, Rennel bid her goodbye to the village chief and walked towards the mountains while the villagers watched with worried expressions.

“Chief, can that young lady really subjugate that monstrous wolf? Aren’t we just sending the girl to her doom? No matter how I look at her, she doesn’t seem to be that strong.” A village woman asked looking really worried.

The other villagers nodded their heads in agreement. If several hunters were helpless against the creature, how could a delicate-looking girl defeat it?

 “Don’t judge her by her looks; she’s a very capable adventurer. Along with the quest order was a letter from the boss of the guild. According to the letter, that girl, Rennel was very capable and have a 100% quest completion rate.

Moreover, according to the boss of the guild, if Rennel failed the quest then no hunter in Alchur could subjugate the monster!” The village chief explained. “In other words, the guild sent the best person for the job!”

Hearing the village chief’s explanation, the villagers were taken aback and looked at the mountains with complicated expressions. To their surprise, the delicate-looking girl with silver hair was the most capable hunter in Alchur!

There’s something that the guild boss, Arnold didn’t mention in the letter he sent to the village chief. And that was the fact that Rennel had been a hunter for just two weeks!

If the villagers knew the truth, what kind of expression will they make?

****

Rennel (and Chaos) climbed the mountain steadily. Despite the cold weather, the snow covered ground, and the steep sloped, the girl was still able to traverse the rugged path with ease.

“Did you felt it?” Chaos asked.

“Yeah, we should be near its lair.” Rennel answered.

The moment Rennel entered a certain range; she was able to feel the presence of her target thanks to her an ability granted to her by her ‘seed’. It was an ability that acts as radar that allows her to feel the life force of creatures within a kilometer range.

The ability in question first awakened during her training inside the woods of the Mazes of Trees. When Rennel first awakened it, she could only detect presence within a 100 meter around her. And despite the limited range of the ability that time, it still served her well – allowing her to detect animals and monsters inside the forest.

Following the direction of the presence, Rennel was able to locate the lair of the monstrous wolf. It was a cave hidden in one of the precipice. It was really well hidden. If not for her ability, Rennel would have missed the monster’s lair despite knowing that it lives in these mountains.

“The lair is really well hidden. Not only that, the location makes going down there quite difficult without proper tools or skill.” Rennel marveled as she observed the cave from her location. “Judging by the creature’s lair, it must be quite nimble. If not, it wouldn’t be able to traverse such a steep cliff.”

Observing the cave some more, Rennel didn’t notice any movement inside it. Yet, Rennel knew that her subjugation target was inside thanks to her detection ability.

“This is why highly intelligent monsters are so difficult to handle compared to monsters that only knew how to use brute strength. I don’t want to be rude to the other adventurers in Alchur but if other adventurer aside from me took the mission, the chance of them failing is very high.” The girl commented.

“True, other adventurers pretty have very low chance of completing this mission if they faced that thing. Forget finding the creature, those adventurers’ might not even wound it. The level difference between the monster and the adventurers of Alchur is just that huge.” Chaos said in a lazy voice.

Chaos and Rennel were really curious why such a powerful monster was stealing livestock from the village of Fahl. Moreover, with the creature’s intellect and strength, it should be able to hunt prey easily.

Alas, now’s not the time to contemplate on the reason. They should subjugate the beast quickly before the weather worsens. So having found the location of the target, Rennel hesitates no longer and jumped down towards the hidden cave!

Using the protruding rocks as foot holds, Rennel jumped from rocks to rocks before safely reaching the cave.

“Don’t let your guard down.” Chaos warned.

Rennel nodded her head and entered the cave. Because of the cave’s location (hidden in a precipice), the cave was unsurprisingly dark, Nonetheless, the girl wasn’t bother by It nor does she plan to light a torch. At her current level, seeing in the dark was easy.

Yes, the girl can see in the dark. And yes again, it’s thanks to her ‘seed’ that the girl was slowly becoming her less and less human. Of course, the girl haven’t notice it yet. Not to mention that Chaos couldn’t be bothered to tell her the truth. It’s not like it’ll chance anything anyways.

The cave’s surprisingly big, not to mention the corridor’s long, I wonder if this cave connects to other caves?” Rennel thought as she observed her surroundings. “It’ll be troublesome if it did since the monster might run away after seeing me.”

Worried that the wolf would detect its presence, Rennel tries to hide her presence as much as possible. Unfortunately for the girl, her effort was for naught because a huge creature with glowing green eyes stood on her way.

What could it be other than her subjugation target, the monstrous wolf?

****

To be continued

Previous Chapters: https://read.cash/@beastion