“Let’s go! Let’s go out! Hahaha, it’s finally spring!” Yorick pounded on Emmet’s door without care. “Emmet, you hear me? Let’s go out! I finally got the ‘okay’ from mom! We can go out!”

“Ahhh…. fine…” Emmet groaned back. “Coming.”

From inside the room, Emmet glanced up from his book, slightly shaking his head. At this point, he had given up trying to make Yorick use the doorbell.

However, this time, he actually wasn’t too opposed to going out and causing trouble. Over the past three months, he had further improved his contraptions, and was eager to test them out!

The two dressed up in long-sleeved garb and headed out, Yorick armed with a shovel, and Emmet carrying a cloth bag full of contraptions. It was still just the start of spring, so it was still a bit chilly out.

“Hehehe… I’m excited. My mana has gotten much better since before!” Yorick cackled. He tapped his chin self-obsessively. “Man! I must really be a genius! Since it awakened, my mana hasn’t stopped growing!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Emmet rolled his eyes. “Congratulations.”

Over the past months, Yorick had seen it fit to constantly brag about his rapidly improving mana. Emmet could only sigh and shoo him off. He still tried every day to emulate what he saw from Yorick, even conducting extensive interviews with him about what he was doing to produce that blue aura, however, it was to no avail. He couldn’t reproduce it.

“Hey Emmet, watch this!” Yorick turned toward Emmet and smiled devilishly. He brought two fingers to his mouth and blew out a sharp whistle.

Ruff! Ruff!

A distant barking sounded, and then a flurry of activity appeared in the distance. Moments later, a small wolf manifested, eagerly bounding toward Yorick, its tongue dangling messily out of the side of its bouncing jaw. It arrived in a huff in front of Yorick and sat at attention.

“Hehehe, good boy, Wolfie!” Yorick smiled from ear to ear and stroked the wolf behind the ears. “It’s been a while, huh? How ya been?”

“A… a wolf?!” Emmet was completely stunned. Where had this wolf come from? Yorick had tamed a wolf?!

“Hehehe,” Yorick cackled. “You might recognize this little guy. That time in the winter when we were attacked by that wolf pack, this was the last little guy to attack me! I punched him in the face, causing him to collapse in the snow.”

Emmet stared at the little wolf sitting in front of Yorick, huffing and puffing cutely. It did actually look familiar… that day, the impression of the wolves had been firmly planted inside his head.

“Who could’ve known, a few days later, this little guy came to find me,” Yorick produced a strip of meat from his pocket and tossed it toward the wolf. The wolf hurriedly lifted his head up to receive it, and began enthusiastically chewing it up. “After he had collapsed from my punch, the rest of his pack fled, leaving him behind. He’s a smaller, weaker wolf, and wolf packs are ruthless. Those who can’t keep up are left behind.”

“So it came to find you?” Emmet was incredulous.

“Yeah, he came to the cabin to find me! I found him outside, pawing the door,” Yorick smiled, stroking the back of Wolfie’s head. “Winter pack wolves respect power. Under an umbrella of protection, you can be safe. This little guy was impressed by my power, so he came to serve under me, and I gladly accepted him! It took a while to completely gain each other’s trust though.”

Emmet gawked. Who would have thought, the same wolf who had tried to murder them just three months ago was now Yorick’s loyal pet?! How could that have happened?

“And you never told me?”

“I tried to!” Yorick insisted. “But you were always so busy with your puzzles, and so cranky, so I didn’t want to bother you. Of course, I didn’t tell mom or dad. So I just kept it between me and Wolfie.” He tapped the wolf and pointed toward Emmet. “Wolfie! This is Emmet! Remember him? He’s a friend.”

Ruff! Ruff!

Wolfie turned toward Emmet and gave a few friendly barks. With a further urging from Yorick, he rushed forward.

Slightly cringing, Emmet hesitantly let the wolf approach. He still had a strong impression of that day they had almost been mauled by that wolf pack. However, to his relief, the wolf merely playfully nudged his head on the side of Emmet’s leg.

“Go on, pet him!”

“Ehh…” Emmet extended a slow hand outward, hesitantly stroking the wolf on the top of the head. Luckily, the wolf was receptive, huffing in pleasure. Emmet’s eyes lit up. “Oh, this is actually nice!’

“See?” Yorick gloated. “Wolfie’s a good boy. Since he knows you’re my friend, he’s no harm to you. He’ll also come in handy today! Wolfie’s gonna be our forward scout.”

He turned toward Wolfie. “Wolfie, go ahead and find some animals for us to fight. The bigger the better!”

Wolfie briefly huffed twice, showing his assent, and then shot outward toward the distance.

“Good boy!”

-----------------------

“Hahaha! Would you look at that!” Yorick cackled out, pointing out toward the approaching fields. At this time of year, there were no long distances of long wheat stalks - they had long been harvested. The field was barren and plain, ready to be tilled and seeded. “It’s a horu-beetle! Looks like it’s feeding on some weeds!”

Emmet scanned his eyes forward, and sure enough, there was a large horu-beetle resting lazily on the fertile field earth. It was about a meter long, and in its mouth was a large piece of ginkgo root, a commonly seen weed during the spring.

Next to Yorick was the perpetually huffing and puffing Wolfie, proudly looking on and nudging Yorick on the side of the leg. It wanted praise for succeeding in its task.

“Fine, fine,” Yorick acquiesced, extending his hand down and petting the wolf. “Good boy, Wolfie! Very good job.”

The dog growled softly in response, clearly happy with its master’s praise.

“Alright, Emmet, watch me go!” Yorick stood back up and smiled evilly. “At such a lowly level, there’s not even a need for any of your support beams! Watch this!”

He cocked his shovel and dashed forward, his feet tapping gracefully across the moist field. He quickly approached the oblivious horu-beetle!

“Supreme warrior… strike!!!”

The shovel blasted down like a meteor. At the same time, a light blue aura appeared around not only his arms, but also around his twisting waist and wrists!

CRACK!

The poor horu-beetle’s hard carapace was cracked in half across the middle. Letting out a panicked squeal, it quickly dropped the ginkgo root and scurried away.

“Hehe… too powerful!” Yorick rested his shovel over his shoulder gallantly, giving a radiant smile. “So I have improved! Before, I could barely crack a horu-beetle’s shell with even a dozen strikes!”

“Ehhh…” Emmet sucked in a breath. Yorick really had grown stronger! Compared to last year, he was on a completely different level!

Even so… he felt a bit bad. It felt wrong to just randomly injure a harmless horu-beetle like that. Especially before there was any crop in the field… it had just been feeding on some weeds. And now, it had a huge crack in its back. It felt different from before, when their weak strikes were mostly harmless.

“This feels great!” Yorick exclaimed. “C’mon Emmet, let’s find some more prey!”