After seeing the Lycans go and get the notification, Erend smiled with relief because the battle was finally over.
He glanced around. The scars of the battle are visible. It was as if this place had just been used by fighting monsters.
'Wait, does that mean I've become a monster?'
It was then that Erend realized what he had become.
He was not a human anymore.
His strength is not human. And when he fights, his rage and savage to slaughter opponents increases many times.
Erend was never someone who was cowardly and weak.
He who was born and started life in Slums knows how to stand up for himself.
He had fought many of his peers or older men, along with Billy of course.
And he doesn't always win. But he never gave up or was afraid.
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Even so, Erend always does it to survive. However, when he looked around, and realized that all of this was something he had done, Erend didn't know what to feel.
The headless humanoid corpse was still lying where Erend had let him.
If he was still a human, would he be able to do something like that?
"Ahhh, whatever."
Erend shook his head as if to drive the thought away from him.
"I just have to focus on using this power to protect."
Erend has done a lot of good with his powers. And he has saved many lives.
What he had killed were the evil beings bringing harm and he protected the good ones.
Wasn't that enough to make him feel at ease?
"Yeah, that's enough," Erend said to himself. "Open the Portal."
The Portal opened as soon as Erend said that. Erend immediately stepped into it. Back to his own world.
From a distance, Grim was still observing Erend from a hidden place. He has now changed back into his wolf form.
Grim watched what Erend was doing and how he disappeared into the Portal.
'So he might indeed be from another world.'
Grim had guessed since he came out of the Portal that the man wasn't from this world.
His clothes made his judgment even more obvious. And now he was simply back inside the Portal after he had done.
The man who was the Dragon was very strange. But Grim could conclude one thing, he only came when there was great danger and wanted to protect humans. But why?
"(Grim, what exactly happened?)" Kein, one of the Lycans in his pack asked in a confused tone.
His question seemed to represent the confusion of all of them.
When Grim looked at them all, the Lycans looked at him as if demanding an explanation.
Because Grim used Magic to cover up what he was talking about with the Dragon, they didn't know what was going on.
"(I managed to talk him into letting us live on one condition,)" Grim replied.
"(What are those conditions?)" Kein asked.
Grim glanced at Kein and the other Lycans in front of him and prepared to say something that would be hard for them to hear.
"(We should kill the monsters around this area and protect the humans.)"
Upon hearing the answer from Grim, the reaction of the Lycans was something he had expected.
"(What are you saying, Grim?! Us?! Protecting the humans? are you crazy?!)" Kein said.
"(If it had been Sigewulf, he would not have made such a decision!)"
"(Yes! Sigewulf would choose to fight instead of protecting humans!)"
There were exclamations of disapproval from the Lycans in this pack.
They even shouted angry words at Grim for making a decision that hurt their pride.
"(Sigewulf wouldn't make up his mind the way you do!)" Kein said with a growl to Grim.
"(And where is he now?)" Grim asked in a calm tone. The Lycans didn't answer.
"(That's right. He's lying dead headless back there. Did you guys see what hit him back then? Who did he fight? How did they fight?)" Grim asked a rhetorical question to the Lycans.
None of them were able to answer it.
"(If it's still Sigewulf who makes the decision. I'm sure he would rather fight the Dragon than accept the conditions to protect humans,)" Grim continued. "(But he won't be able to defeat that Dragon. Never.)"
"(We can fight it together instead of having to submit to those conditions, Grim! With our numbers-)"
Another Lycan shouted from behind, but Grim cut him off before he could finish.
"(Then we all will also die like Bjarki's pack. I think some of you have passed out because you are too weak and don't see what's going on. That's why you can say idiotic things like that,)" Grim said.
"(With your strength like that, how long do you think you can last against that Dragon?)"
The Lycans fell silent and stared at each other.
Then they lowered their heads to the ground and no longer raised their voices against Grim.
"(You think for yourselves from now on whether my decision was right or wrong. Which is better than carrying out the conditions of those extraordinarily strong beings, or having our pack all butchered to pieces of meat there.)"
After saying that, Grim walked past them first.
Then he sank into his own thoughts. The power he had sensed in Sigewulf before he died at the hands of the Dragon earlier was something strange and foreign.
However, the fact that Sigewulf had it meant that it was within their reach.
Grim is sure that Sigewulf said something before he died. But because the Magic pressure was so strong, Grim couldn't hear anything from him.
After a while of walking alone, Grim felt that one by one the Lycans who had disagreed with his decision started walking beside him.
"(Now that I think about it, you made the right decision,)" said a female Lycan on his right.
"(If it had been Sigewulf's decision, we would all have met the same fate as him.)"
Among the pack members, there are indeed some who disagree with Sigewulf's way of leading.
Now, those who previously could only obey Sigewulf will have got a new, better leader.
~~~