69 Tardide’s Joy

It was mid-morning when Jayde and Reiko returned to Tardide. Jayde garnered much attention walking down the dusty road that bisected the town, with the Alpha's head tied to a wooden pole. The wooden pole rested on Jayde left shoulder, while Jayde was not happy with the attention that she was drawing, she had no choice.

During her conversations with Yinxin, Jayde had learned that the magic of Telia was not as advanced as on Doha, and the people of Telia had never seen artifacts like spatial rings, thankfully Jayde had found out that piece of information before she returned to Telia, as heaven knows what sort of commotion she would have caused conjuring the Alpha's head from her spatial ring.

Jayde was curious why such important detail hasn't be included in her mission briefing, but when she questioned mission control, the response she received was that her query was beyond her mission parameters.

Walking towards Elder Ryunzo's house a small crowd of villagers followed behind Jayde. Jayde could hear them whispering to each other. Just before reaching Elder Ryunzo's house, Jayde caught a movement from the corner of her eye. Turning she spotted Milta running towards her.

"Is that it ... Is that the Alpha head" Milta demanded out of breath as soon as she reached Jayde.

"Hmm, as promised Milta, here is the head of the Alpha of the Direwolves" Jayde said, placing the Alpha's head at Milta's feet.

At Jayde's confirmation, the crowd behind her broke out, and started shouting questions at Jayde.

"Is it true, that is really the Alpha head of the Direwolves?" an old lady shouted.

"Is the whole pack dead?" another woman yelled.

"How many were in the pack?" a young boy asked.

"Where the rest of the bodies?" a black haired man bellowed.

"How did you kill them?" another little boy hollered.

Jayde was taken aback by all the questions being shouted at her. Just then Elder Ryunzo's voice rang out.

"Hey enough, give the young mistress some breathing room."

With Elder Ryunzo statement, the crowd quietened down. Meanwhile, Milta had been staring speechlessly at the head lying in front of her. Finally, she looked up at Jayde, tears filled her eyes as she whispered: "Thank you."

Then like a puppet whose strings had just been cut, she crumbled to the ground and started to bawl her eyes out. Her grieving wails filled the air. Some of the older women came over to Milta and helped her to feet, with their arms around her they led the grief-stricken mother away.

Once Milta had been led away Elder Ryunzo turned to Jayde.

"Young Mistress, the pack of Direwolves, they are really dead?"

"Elder Ryunzo, we have discussed this before, call me Jayde, and as to the pack, yes the whole pack has been destroyed"

With Jayde's statement the crowd again broke out, Elder Ryunzo quickly bought them under control, then telling the villagers that Jayde needed rest and that he would give them all the details later, he led Jayde into his house.

After taking a seat in the living room, Mrs. Ryunzo served tea with her delicious snacks again, much to Reiko's delight. Mrs. Ryunzo, of course, served Reiko his plate full of cakes and dainty sandwiches and didn't jump much when Reiko gave her his customary lick of thanks. She was actually starting to think that Ebonywolves were quite cute.

Maybe having one around the house would be a good thing she thought. It was just as well that Elder Ryunzo couldn't read his wife's mind, because if he had, he most likely would have fainted on the spot. In no way would anyone sane think that an Ebonywolf was cute — they were notorious for being vicious, bloodthirsty killers.

Mrs. Ryunzo never gave up her idea about having an Ebonywolf, months after Jayde had left Telia, Elder Ryunzo worried that his wife might just be crazy enough to bring home an Ebonywolf pup as a pet, begged Behro to find a cute but safe animal for his wife — Behro found a cute Teal-Eared Silver Serval kit for Mrs. Ryunzo, these felines only were only forty centimeters tall when fully grown, and made cute cooing sounds, they were easily tameable and ended up being excellent hunters of common household pest, and with that a new craze started on Telia with families starting to adopt small beasts as pets – but this was years later.

After taking a sip of her tea, Jayde then detailed her adventure in the forest, leaving out the details about Yinxin and her wyrmlings. Elder was really awestruck that Jayde had managed to wipe out the Direwolves in a day, it again bought it home to him, just how powerful mages were — for years they had been terrorized by the pack, and they had lost a couple of good young men trying to eradicate the pack.

Elder Ryunzo wanted to throw a feast for Jayde to celebrate her victory over the Direwolves, surprised and a little touched, Jayde made the excuse that she had to return to her camp in the forest.With Elder Ryunzo insisting Jayde promised to return to the village in three days time.

After leaving the village, Reiko and Jayde returned to the forest, they still had the whole afternoon to hunt, it wasn't long before they come across a herd of Albatross-Bighorns which were large deer-like beasts, on average they stood nearly six feet tall with a pair of curved horns on top of their heads. Jayde and Reiko managed to bring down three of them before the rest of the herd escaped, collecting the bodies into her spatial ring, Jayde decided to look for some more prey to hunt.

Just as Jayde was about to give up and return to the cave, she ran into a herd of Bronze-Nosed Zorses, while not as large as the Albatross-Bighorns, Bronze-Nosed Zorses were about four feet tall, they had a similar appearance to old Earth horses, with zig-zag stripes. Using her bow, and with Reiko herding them Jayde managed to bring down six of the beasts.

Happy with a successful hunt, Jayde estimated that she now had enough food to feed the dragons for a couple of days. Tired and hungry Jayde and Reiko returned to the cave.

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