CH 93

After I finished explaining the circumstances to them, the three of them grimaced in unison. They were most likely trying to figure out the best course of action.

“Certainly… staying here might give us the highest chance of survival, but… if there are more than 5 Angry Wolves, then there won’t be much we can do in that situation.” (Lyra)

“Honestly, I think even 3 of them would be tough… From what Lewin and Porta said, there’s a minimum of three of them, right? If that’s the case, then I think the best course of action to increase our chances of survival would be to run away.” (Byrne)

Byrne and Lyra both disagreed with my opinion that it would be easier to stay here and fight them. After that, the three of us continued to discuss our opinions, but there was no sign of reaching a quick consensus on the matter. If we continued on like this, the Angry Wolves would show up eventually, so we all knew that we had to make a quick decision. But this decision was so critical that it was not one that we could reach immediately.

“…We’re really out of luck, huh. Just looking at it in terms of probability, it seems so unlikely for us to have been attacked successively like this.” (Nina)

“I’ve also been thinking that this is strange. This thought had been on my mind since last time, but it feels like the Angry Wolves seem to be moving with a purpose…” (Porta)

As Lyra and Byrne were racking their brains, Nina was off to the side muttering to herself. Hearing what she said, Porta agreed with her. And… I felt this way too. The first time I was attacked by an Angry Wolf, as the person who was fighting it, I knew that that time was really just by coincidence. However, the one that we had fought last time was slightly different. Instead of fighting for the purpose of catching prey, it was fighting with the intent to kill. Because of that, I wasn’t able to do anything against it. Also, the killing intent was clearly directed towards me, and I knew that best.

―Thinking along those lines, a strategy suddenly popped into my head. It was quite a gamble, but I thought that it was more than worth trying out. If it were to work out, our chances of winning would shoot up.

“Hey, after hearing what Porta said, I came up with an idea… Would you listen to my proposal for a second?” (Lewin)

★　　　★　　　★

The whole area was filled with burning Magical Grass, creating a shroud of terrible stinking odor. I was standing there alone in that open clearing halfway up the mountain, just waiting for the Angry Wolves to come. The members of [Iron Gear] were nowhere to be seen, but by no means was I abandoned there.

That’s right. This was the decoy strategy I had proposed. Based on that earlier hypothesis that the Angry Wolves were aiming for me, if they had vision of me, then they would come towards me in a straight line and attack me. The strategy was extremely simple: while the Angry Wolves had their attention turned towards me, the members of [Iron Gear] would ambush them and take them by surprise.

I knew from last time when we were escaping that Magical Grass dulls their sense of smell. Thus, before the Angry Wolves arrived, we filled the entire area with the stench of burning Magical Grass so that the Angry Wolves wouldn’t be able to notice the members of [Iron Gear] who were waiting and hiding. It would be a lie to say that the thought of being left as a decoy and abandoned again didn’t cross my mind, but I knew that I could firmly believe in [Iron Gear]. Or rather, I volunteered to be the decoy, thinking that I would be fine with it if it was [Iron Gear] who abandoned me.

I decided to believe in the four of them and wait, when an Angry Wolf slowly approached from my rear… which was the direction coming from further down the mountain. The moonlight illuminated its silvery fur, reflecting an eerie glow. With its imposing, dignified appearance, it possessed the air of a tyrant.

Although it was my third encounter with them, I still couldn’t get used to their intimidating presence. Except… the big difference this time was that I had been training.

Last time, I had a really shameful performance, so this time I wanted to get at least one hit in. In my sword training, if it was a human, I would imagine Ahmed as my opponent. If it was a monster, I would imagine an Angry Wolf… With those images in mind, I honed my sword every day.

In my image training, I had never won against either of them, but, even if the support from [Iron Gear] was late, I should be able to face them for a while and buy some time. I’d made enough preparations to be at least this confident.

Just like in my image training, that single Angry Wolf that was prowling up from my rear suddenly broke into a sprint. It was going as planned. In the case that it caught up to me, I would fend it off with my sword to stall until support arrived. For now, my objective was to reach the shade of the rock in the corner of my vision; the members of [Iron Gear] should be hiding behind it.

The moment I started running in that direction, the Angry Wolf from the rear leapt forward from its pouncing position, emitting a loud howl. Perhaps conveying that its sense of smell was disabled, two more Angry Wolves appeared in two different locations in the distance. Before the other Angry Wolves closed in, I wanted to try to deal with this Angry Wolf that was alone.

With that single thought in mind, I sprinted at full power. But… the Angry Wolf was quicker than I expected. There was quite some distance between us at the moment I had started running, but now it was already on my heels. I could hear the rough breathing of the Angry Wolf right behind me, and my heart began bursting with urgent anxiety.

From the shade of the rock that I was aiming for, I could see Nina preparing a spell, but there wasn’t enough time. I was putting my entire being into running so I couldn’t see behind me, but, judging by the presence I felt from right behind me, the spell wouldn’t reach me in time before the Angry Wolf caught up to me.

In that case…

Two more steps. One more step. I pulled forward with the last few steps, and, when the Angry Wolf was almost on top of me, I suddenly killed all of my momentum and turned in mid-air, whipping my body around. Using the force of the rotation, I grabbed the steel sword from the scabbard at my waist and drew it in one fluid movement before cleaving downwards with all of my might.

If I can cause the Angry Wolf to falter even a bit with this, I’d be happy.

The moment that this thought flashed through my mind, the steel sword carved downwards, sundering the air, splitting through sound― and ripped through the Angry Wolf’s skull.