"Rabid animals, or animals that had succumbed to a disease that induced madness and extreme aggressivity, are amongst the most dangerous threats to travellers. Even a scratch from such an animal may transmit the disease to people, and unless promptly cured by a healer, the disease is almost always fatal. For this reason, most travellers travelled in groups and tried to have healers with them." - Sempronius Adamanthus, head of Levain adventurer's guild, FP 672.

Cal had a smile on her face as she watched Fheeri interact with Fyodor as they travelled. The hyena-therian girl has always had an outgoing character, and she quickly made friends with the tall but gentle man that was Fyodor. They were roughly at the same relative age as well, As Fyodor was thirty four, and for a mixed up hybrid like him specifically, that was just around the age one matured.

The idea that the already massive man might not be done with his growth just yet baffled Fheeri for a good while.

The first week of travel went mostly uneventfully, as they made good pace and rested either in their tents, or in villages that happened to cross their path. As they neared Levain however, the atmosphere in the villages they saw grew tenser.

Apparently, there had been a very recent outbreak of rabid animals near Levain. In a couple villages Cal even saw people who cried as they put down dogs and cats that had started to show symptoms of the disease. In one village, Cal even treated one little girl who had been scratched by a rabid animal, to her mother's tearful gratitude.

The village was too far away from larger cities where healers usually are, and they would not have made it if they tried to bring the girl to the nearest city. The girl's father had taken a horse and went to the nearby villages in search for a healer but had not returned yet.

Cal's blood magic lacked the healing properties needed, but what lessons on herbalism she received from her mother gave a solution. Al-Shan never had issues with rabid animals, because they had a remedy for it. The issue was that a crucial ingredient for said remedy only grew sparsely in specific conditions, and what the Al-Shan herbalists had were mostly traded from the merfolk.

Between that and the fact that another crucial ingredient was a flower native to only Al-Shan's northwestern islands, made that remedy one mostly unknown to the world. Fortunately, Cal kept doses of said ingredients with her, and quickly concocted a remedy for the girl.

Maybe she should suggest to Xain to spread the recipe for the remedy to Paradise, and see if they could find substitutes for the ingredients absent from the mainlands.

They departed the village the next day, to another series of tearful thanks from the girl's mother, and continued on with their trip.

A day out from the village they ran across their first rabid animal. It was just a small fox, red in the eyes and frothing at the mouth. The way it aggresively ran their way instead of away, made it pretty clear that it had went rabid. Fheeri just picked it off with her sling, a stone she picked up off the ground for ammunition.

Later that same day, a pack of rabid wolves accosted them. Cal mostly allowed Fheeri to use them as target practice - even after so many times, the way the girl managed to be so accurate with a sling still impressed her -, and this time the therian girl used her lead projectiles since Cal promised to buy her better ones later.

Three of the wolves got closer before Fheeri could kill all of them, and Cal went to accost two of them on the left after Fyodor said to leave the other one to him. One quick swing of Cal's halberd reduced both slavering wolves to chubks of giblets, and when she turned to see how Fyodor handled his, she saw that he was finished as well.

His wolf was firmly nailed to the ground by a large metal trident. With a gesture from Fyodor, the trident's tines shrunk and elongated, and easily pulled itself out from the wolf's head, before the metal twisted around itself into a ball and floated back to him.

To be honest, that performance was about what she expected, since he managed to keep up with her and Fheeri for over a week of travel with ease on that disc of his. Cal guessed that he was not at archmagus level yet, but when his young age and his current prowess was considered, that seemed a certainty in the future.

His metal manipulation was very smooth and done with rapid speed, and she guessed that he probably stored multiple chunks of raw metal in his storage, so as to save mana. That way he could just manipulate them instead of having his mana wasted by conjuration.

Cal had mostly given the rabid animals they came across to Fheeri, to allow the girl to train a bit, something Fyodor followed as well. She herself rarely stepped in, at most to clean up a creature or two that Fheeri didn't get in time when there were too many.

A day out from Levain however, a situation occured where Cal had to step in seriously. A small horde of rabid animals had burst out from the forest, and amongst them was a massive bear, at least four meters long, probably more. She judged that neither Fheeri nor Fyodor had the firepower to handle the creature in time, so she stepped forward with her halberd in hand.

The two behind her, she warned to keep their distance and to take out those beasts that went around or avoided her.

Call herself stood before the beast horde, and went to work. Blood, guts, and unmentionables filled the air and splattered all over the grass as she swung her halberds. Beasts were cleaved in twain, or downright pulverized by her strikes, while from time to time projectiles from Fheeri's sling or Fyodor's magic flew by and took out a beast that gave her a wide berth.

The smaller creatures were easy enough, but the giant bear proved a bit more of a challenge. The beast turned out to not be a regular large bear, but a monster, evidenced from how its wounds closed at a visible pace after Cal landed a blow on it.

To make matters more complicated, the bear showed initial signs of rabidity, but mostly still had its mind intact. That made it a harder opponent than if it had gone completely rabid. Fheeri's sling projectiles were too light and small to injure the beast, while Fyodor's weren't fast and agile enough, as the bear swatted a metal spear he threw off to the side.

As she noted the issue, Cal took the fight to the beast more aggresively. She went close to it, and struck aggresively, only to withdraw at the last moment. The bear's injuries healed itself swiftly, but she noticed that its healing slowed as she piled injuries on it, and severe wounds healed notably slower than lighter ones.

After one missed swipe from the bear Cal spotted a good chance and struck the side of its right knee with the hammerhead on her halberd. The blow held nothing back, and the thick bone and cartilage broke apart before it. The bear stumbled and fell down on its forepaws as its leg gave way.

Fheeri and Fyodor took that chance to attack, as a pellet from Fheeri lodged itself in one of the beast's eyes. Fyodor bodily hurled a large spear of metal that landed on the bear's front left paw and nailed it to the ground.

Cal took that chance and struck the beast's head hard with her weapon. Three brutal strikes and its skull broke apart and gave way, and a fourth blow sent the beast to the ground once and for all.

After the carnage, she carefully made sure that Fheeri and Fyodor were not injured in any way. Even a scratch from a rabid beast could prove potentially fatal, so she took no chances. She herself took several scratches during the fight, and took a portion of the medicine she made in the village back then. She had made extras just in case they would be needed.

They camped for the night once they were far enough away that the horrible stench of death was no longer noticeable even to Fheeri, and the first thing Cal did was to take a good, long bath.

It felt utterly disgusting to be covered from head to toe with animal blood and guts.