The wolf paused for a moment, and put the rodent on the floor.

The human couldn’t digest the hair on the rodent, and the guts of the rat were a thing so vile that it was only thanks to the [Devourer] skill that the wolf itself could nonchalantly eat them. Not to mention, it was highly likely the human would get sick from ingesting rat blood, which could result in puking. Which would only dehydrate her further, and could potentially make keeping her alive harder.

Of course that wasn’t a guarantee, as every human it had devoured had slightly different strengths and biological capabilities, but it was likely.

There were also other problems that would build up were it to feed her rat’s blood. For example, humans had trouble getting rid of the iron in their foods and bodies, so feeding her rat blood would give an iron overload. That would lead to various annoying and potentially dangerous issues, but only in the long-term.

Another more obvious issue, and one that would occur with near certainty, was disease. That, the rats carried plenty of. It didn’t know what diseases exactly, nor how they worked, but the microorganisms inside the rats and the substances on the rats could seriously mess up a weak human, especially since it probably didn’t have any Skills and natural resistances to such things like the wolf did.

That actually explained a long-time question it held about why humans rarely ate rats. Although burning the meat would probably solve most of those issues, there was also the problem of hunting the rats. One bite from them could be seriously difficult to deal with for things with weaker immune systems than itself, like humans. The amount of filth and bacteria in their mouths could easily kill someone if a bite was left untreated.

As it raked its teeth through the rodent’s corpse, slowly peeling off its fur and yanking out its intestines, which it quickly ate, it thought of alternative solutions to keep the human alive. It could create a sack of skin on its leg, and direct a bunch of blood to be formed inside it from the [Devourer] skill, before making a small hole in it and letting the human drink the blood.

It was a bit of a bastardization of the design of human mammaries, but it didn’t particularly care about how sanitary or uncomfortable something like a skin sac full of excess blood would be when it could easily hook a canine on it and just cut it off. It would be painless, and not terribly difficult to form, design, or get rid of.

So long as it kept the human alive, it was an option worth considering. The wolf wouldn’t even become anemic, as the blood would be provided by the [Devourer] Skill’s essence.

So while that triggered a bit of an… offensive feeling, to do such a thing to itself, it could do it, and its blood was undeniably far better quality than rodent blood. It could also tweak its blood to be higher in water content, as well as pump more vitamins and minerals into it so that it would be even closer to water, and thus keep the human healthier.

Actually… couldn’t it just create water?

Biological understanding was based on several dozen concepts and ideas that the wolf shouldn’t understand, like chemicals, electrical signals, energy and heat generation, and various other small tidbits that were necessary, but otherwise unrelated to biology, and more related to how the world itself worked.

It was a curious thing, that the wolf learned of them anyway.

Yet it didn’t feel like those extra bits were taught by the Skill. It felt like information pulled out of nowhere on the spot, and shoved into its mind to fit whatever it was curious or focused on at the moment, rather than information so well placed it was like remembering something previously forgotten, which was how information taught by the symbols felt like. And that odd learning process had started long before the symbols appeared.

It felt like something other, something different that it didn’t know about, working with the Skill to teach it.

Something to be considered and explored later.

As it focused back on its task ahead, it believed that it technically could reduce the blood plasma content of its blood until it would essentially just be slightly slimier water. The question was if it cared enough to change its body like that by applying that skin sack idea onto itself, even if temporarily, just to avoid getting the human sick.

The answer to which, for the moment, was a firm ‘no’.

It likely didn’t have that long with her anyway, and then her kin would arrive and help her, so it was going to stick to its original plan.

The bigger problem would be communicating and getting close to the human without scaring her into throwing ‘mana’ things at it like those sparks.

After biting off the rat’s head, forcing its hide down its throat, and carefully chewing through its organs, all that was left was a husk of bloody flesh, which it hooked onto its canines, before carefully trotting to the side where the human’s unusable arm lay.

In case it tried to do something with mana from its hands or something else, the wolf would have more time to react from the injured side, or so it hoped. It raised a paw with a short chuff through the meat in its maw to alert the human to its presence, and poked it in the side, prompting her to jerk in surprise.

“H-H-Hello?” The girl squeaked out in acknowledgement, and the wolf grumbled lightly back, in a sort of greeting. Not that it was at all sure if the human would understand its meaning, but hopefully that would eventually be solved. It walked around her shoulders to position itself above her head, its mind just as focused on the blood being wasted with every moment it wasn’t dripping into her mouth as it was focused on the human for any sudden movements.

It clumsily raised a paw, and prodded her cloth-covered head this time, making sure to have its nails unable to cut. They had no way of communicating, but it had to find a way to tell her what it was doing, so physical touch would have to work.

“You don’t understand me… r-right?” It whispered, shying away from the wolf’s touch by tilting its head away, and the wolf sensed her fear slowly evaporating as the seconds passed by while it clumsily tried to tug the head covering off her mouth.

The head covering was a great idea from her, considering the open wounds that were her eyes, so while it was tempted to just yank it off, it refrained, largely due to the presence of the flies. If they were anything like cockroaches, they wouldn’t hesitate to plant their eggs in her eye sockets, which would be…

Just the thought made it shudder. Getting rid of something like that would be horrible.

While it was good that the human was suddenly less scared, it didn’t care all that much, carefully balancing the act of moving its paw to drag the fabric off her mouth with the act of paying attention to her ‘mana’ and constantly twitching its ears to be rid of all the flies that were still buzzing around.

Most of said flies were focused on the rotting corpses, thankfully, but that still left a ton of them to bother itself and the human.

As soon as it got the bloodied fabric bunched up under her nose, it tilted its head to see better, and aligned the rodent’s neck stump with her lips, watching the drops of crimson gather before slowly dripping downwards.

The process of skinning and eating its organs had significantly drained the rodent of blood, which was a bit annoying. There was probably little more than a handful or so that it could drip into her mouth before all the blood trapped in its veins and muscles would stop moving. The first drop met her chapped lips and trickled down to the side of her mouth, her head already turned away from the wolf. The human stiffened, but the wolf sensed no mana being involved with the way it clenched its working fist, and remained in place.

Another drop, and another, and her tongue curiously flit out between her lips to taste the blood.

And she stiffened even further, bunching her shoulders up near her neck, despite her injured arm being jostled by the movement.

It gave a short grumble, partly to comfort the skittish human, and partly to rush her along, because it watched a drop trickle down her cheek, utterly wasted.

It was just blood. Fairly vile blood, sure, but would she rather die of dehydration than eat something gross?

Humans were not only built extremely strangely from a biological standpoint, they were also utterly illogical. Another drop trickled down her lips, and the wolf grumbled again, more forcefully, putting a paw on her mouth and pulling her bottom lip down just enough for a couple drops to enter her mouth.

She would only survive three to four days without water, and it was already around two and a half days since she’d come into the pit with her team. So the fact that she wrenched her head to the side and out from under its paw, was highly frustrating to the wolf.

Another couple drops were wasted.

Just as it was about to give up and eat the rodent by itself, the human turned her head up towards the wolf, and hesitantly opened her mouth with her mouth scrunched up into a sort of… grimace?

Finally, they were getting somewhere.

For a couple minutes, the wolf stood in place, weathering the discomfort of the annoying insects to let the human drink. Sometimes it had to pause and rake its nails through the flesh to make the corpse bleed a bit more, and sometimes the flies would try and enter the human’s mouth and she had to twitch her facial muscles and blow out air to make them go away, but regardless of those interruptions, around a small cup-full of liquid was extracted in the fifteen or so minutes it took to hydrate the human.

It chuffed through its teeth once it decided it was done standing in place, and put the rat’s mutilated remains on the floor, quickly devouring it. The human would survive for a while without food, and digestion needed water which would further dehydrate the human, so it wouldn’t even say that it was being greedy for eating the rodent without trying to get her to eat first. Even if it was mostly motivated by greed.

It could, after all, put the food into much better use than the human could.

The girl made some gagging noises shortly after swallowing the final, small mouthful, but settled down quickly as it chomped down the rat in a few final bites. Raking its nails through the flesh had made it exceptionally easy to tear apart and swallow.

As soon as it clacked its teeth shut for the final time, licking bits of gore and blood off its chops, the human took a deep breath, and softly spoke.

“Thank you.”

The wolf didn’t understand, but it chuffed again, and moved to the human’s injured side before settling down on its haunches as the human pulled the bloodied fabric down to her chin again. Now, to try and speak. The sound of ‘thank you’ that the girl made was relatively simple compared to the frenzied gibberish they used with each other sometimes, so it was a good base for it to start.

It just didn’t know how to start.

That, and it remembered that it had to get the human up the stairs before more rodents started showing up. Trying to communicate with the human while surrounded by rats was just asking to die. The rodents didn’t exactly investigate every sound, but they would at least turn towards it just to check, like any animal. And if they thought that something was alive, they’d rush at it.

Making sure to make as much noise as it could reasonably make as it walked back up towards the human’s head, simply to not make it panic, it mentally prepared itself for hard labor, and with one last searching look for any nearby rodents, it chuffed again, and bent down to the human’s left shoulder.

It slowly bit down, making its teeth only partially cut through, and as soon as its canines bit through the tough covering and pricked the human’s skin, made them not cut at all.

With [Bloodrush] ready at the merest hint of ‘mana’ or movement of the human’s uninjured hand, it leaned its body weight back, and started pulling. Even with its natural strength, far greater than any normal canine of its size, it instantly realized just how difficult it would be to drag her up an entire loop of stairs.

Its body weight was too light to give it any great assistance in dragging the human. Even if it leaned all the way back and pushed with its paws, it was still far too small to easily drag humans around. It could only hazard a guess that it was some sort of feeding frenzy that allowed it to drag the even heavier male earlier. Still, it heaved back, and the human started slowly moving, one tiny bit at a time.

And with that movement, came pain, the human’s breath hitching as she sucked in air through her teeth in a sort of warning hiss, a sound which made the wolf tense, ready to snap its jaws open and turn its head to tear her throat out in an instant if she tried anything.

That, or at least use the human’s fear to make it re-think any notion of attacking.

After a moment, the human relaxed a bit, its breathing strained from pain.

“Sorry.” It said, and the wolf took it as a signal to continue.

Which it did, sometimes having to separate from her to kick some rotting rodents out of their path, before darting back and slowly dragging the human to safety through her grunts and groans and harsh breaths.

Just to experiment, it tried to invite that strange bloodlust that came from its Skill again, even starting to think of random things that might trigger it. Imaginations of battle and danger seemed to do nothing, so it began imagining that at the top of the stairs would be a huge mound of meat, nurturing that image, and just the tiniest trickle of power entered its limbs at the mere prospect of feeding.

That was so… strange. It explained much, but it was also a highly restrictive power. That, and it wasn’t terribly potent. Dragging the human got a bit easier, but that was about it. Still, it could trick the Skill into empowering itself with the power of imagination, so that was an important discovery.

A rat eventually noticed them, one of the very few that made their way back up to the pit’s lip, and it instantly rushed forth.

The excitement of battle was somewhat muted by now, especially due to how every fight with a rat went the same way. They just stupidly rushed at it. Batter it onto its side, grab, disorient and slam into the floor, and that was that. It let the rat’s corpse be for now, judging the human to temporarily be more important.

The staircase was a circular thing that jutted out of the sizable sides of the pit, all easily more than fifty feet wide, and despite having cut off a part of it and having walked up and down its entire length, it still felt daunting to tread up, especially when it had to drag a human along. A human that, despite being in very obvious pain, judging by her constant whines and groans, was being thankfully compliant with the wolf, even as it began to lift her torso up the first few steps.

Or, she was, until a hand shakily raised to touch its neck.

A hand that, in the last millisecond, it noticed had a faint sense of ‘mana’ coating it, like an invisible mist that it felt more than saw. The wolf made its teeth cut through the cloth and instantly leapt back a step, raising a throaty warning snarl, ready to activate [Bloodrush] and kill the human. One bite in almost any spot in her body, and she would bleed out while the wolf danced away from her ‘mana’ constructs.

The human froze solid, her hand trembling, and the faint scent of fear entered its nostrils, something it felt like it wouldn’t even be able to detect without that singular point in Perception.

“I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was… i-its a [Haste] spell. I’m sorry.” It whimpered, laying its quivering hand back onto the floor, her chest moving up and down with her uneven breaths as the faint sense of ‘mana’ around her hand dissipated.

Accepting her swift submission, it stopped the rumbling growl in its chest and relaxed its lips to cover its teeth again.

It was expecting the human to try and hurt it, yet it still felt a faint sense of betrayal all the same. A coil of anger formed at the bottom of its stomach, aimed at the girl for attempting to hurt it, especially after all the help it had given her, when it could have easily bit through her nape and gotten itself a delicious meal.

It sped up in its quest to put her somewhere safer, no longer caring about how much pain she was in, simply wanting to be done with its task. It hooked its teeth back into another spot on her garment that was intact enough to support its pull without tearing, activated [Bloodrush], and quickly dragged her gurgling, sobbing form up, step by shaky step, the sounds of the human accompanied by the scrape of metal as her iron-clad feet were dragged up the metal planks.

Three loops up, and they wouldn’t even be bothered by the flies, so that was where it decided to put her.

The human kept whimpering and groaning shakily, showing every sign possible that it was in pain, and after the first loop, the wolf’s anger had dissipated along with [Bloodrush], and thus, with a hint of hesitation, it slowed. The human panted, and the wolf really wanted to join her in that particular activity, because as soon as the little boost it gained from imagining a pile of meat on the top of the stairs left, combined with its anger and [Bloodrush], it felt half as strong as it did mere moments ago.

It could drag her up later, it decided, and after moving her towards the railing in a position that wouldn’t tug or put pressure on her injuries, as a sort of reward for not being too difficult besides that little sneak attack incident, it finally unhooked its teeth from the torn garment.

Oh.

Its gums and jaws felt absolutely wrecked. It didn’t even know its gums could feel sore. Which made it wonder what would happen if a tooth were to fall out. Would it be able to regrow the tooth, and if so, would it still have the properties of its current teeth? It most definitely did not want to find out, so it tried its best to remember to severely reinforce its gums when it got to sleep.

That done, it quickly walked back down the stairs to go pick up the rat it had killed earlier. The human could probably use a bit more fluid, assuming the rodent hadn’t already bled it all out on the stone.

It made a mental note to cut less with its teeth when dealing with rats it could afford to kill by just slamming them into the floor, and it quickly walked around the railing on the final step as its paws met stone once more, heading to the rat’s corpse just two dozen feet away. It bit into the holes it had already made when it killed it just to not waste more of its blood, before turning around and trotting back up the stairs.

-

(If you are reading this story on any website that isn’t RoyalRoad.com, you are reading stolen content from a free site that runs no intrusive or obnoxious advertisements. Just google "RoyalRoad Fleabag" and you'll get to my story on the site it was meant to be hosted on.)