With the wind at their heels, the wolves sprinted down the hill. They ran past a thicket of thorns and twigs before they arrived at a place that could be considered the underbelly of the forest. The forest floor was dark and ominous. A perpetual feeling of paranoia permeated through the air. Still, the wolves were unaffected. A steely gaze of determination colored their faces.

They traveled in a triangular formation. Three wolves to the left, three wolves to the right, and one at the center. Naturally, Wight acted as the arrowhead.

As expected of the children that Ellis personally raised, they were fast. Their figures blurred like speeding bullets as the pack rapidly approached the calamity-class monster.

“You really think they can do it?” Grisella worriedly asked as she kept her gaze locked onto the Looking Glass.

While the wolves recklessly rushed into danger, Grisella, Ena, and Ellis remained on the hill. They watched over the action through the lens of Grisella’s magic artifact. Just then, a slight breeze swept through the area and ruffled her night black hair.

“…”

Ellis did not immediately respond. It would be a lie to say that he had absolute confidence in the wolves. Wight and the others were certainly strong, but a Calamity-class monster was on a completely different level. Victory would not be so easily gained this time around.

Still, he chose to believe in their capability.

What’s more, Ellis knew the importance of today’s trial. For the wolves, it was something absolutely necessary for their growth.

After the battle with the Slime, Ellis felt as if his eyes had been opened. For the first time, he was introduced to the powers that dominated this world.

He couldn’t help but breath out a sigh. The slime already gave him so much trouble and that was only one calamity-class monster out of who knows how many! If even a dingy forest like Ilpin had such monsters lurking around, then what about the rest of the world? What about the summoned heroes? What about the shitty God that ruled over Lull? How strong was he?

Ellis shook his head.

It’s just like what Alma said, this world is a place where strong monsters are as plentiful as the blades of grass within a field.

With his current strength, he might be able to survive, but the wolves were different. In the face of overwhelming might, they were little more than ants struggling to survive.

As a result of his epiphany, Ellis created a new goal. He wanted to boost the overall power of his companions.

At the very least, they should all be calamity-class monsters! If not, then it’s hard to say what sort of tough lives they might end up living…

Right now, he felt like a father planning out his child’s future.

As for how he would go about achieving such a goal… for the simple-minded him, there really was only one way: battle!

Through the looking glass, the wolves continued their mad dash forward. The moment they got within ten miles of their target; the Spore Goblin suddenly twitched. It slowly sat up and stared out into the distance. Due to the mushroom cap that covered the top half of its head, Ellis could not really see its eyes. Still, its mouth twisted into an ugly frown.

It waved its hand in the air and made a gesture similar to snapping its fingers.

At the same time, something amazing happened.

Right around where the wolves currently were, the earth suddenly began to tremble. The numerous tiny mushroom heads that covered the ground rapidly expanded. They grew to ten, fifteen, a hundred times their original size! Some reached even larger than that.

Underneath the spotted mushroom-caps were creatures that resembled more plant than monster. They had skin reminiscent of tree trunks, while the end of their limbs spindled and branched out like gnarled roots.

Their bodies were pale white in color, a complete contrast to the dirty brown mushroom caps that covered the entirety of their upper faces.

The mushroom monsters all varied in shape and size. Some of them resembled oversized goblins, while others had vaguer, more indiscriminate forms. An ogre-like mushroom, a wolf-like mushroom, there was even one that bore the faint resemblance of a dragon.

“It really is an amazing ability…” Ellis couldn’t help but praise as he stared at the unfolding scene through the looking glass.

If the monsters that the Spore Goblin created were as strong as they looked, then regardless of the Goblin’s personal strength, it definitely deserved the title of Calamity-class.

Still, that’s not enough to stop them. A small smile floated to his face.

One of the mushroom monsters let out a tremendous roar. Its strength alone would not lose out to the first dragon that Ellis encountered. With that one roar, both sides rushed forward.

The battle had officially begun.

From the very start, the wolves showcased their ferocity. They tore through the first wave of monsters with ease. In less than one minute, the forest floor was littered with ‘corpses’ (although those corpses looked a lot more like diced vegetables than actual corpses).

After they cleared the first wave, the wolves did not waste any time and continued forward.

As for the Spore Goblin, it did not look all too concerned. It paused for a moment and tilted its head to the side. Judging by the creature’s reaction, the Goblin possessed a method to remote view the locations within his designated territory.

It waved its hand again. More mushroom creatures crawled out from the ground like decaying zombies.

Some grabbed at the wolves’ limbs, while others threw themselves forward like desperate linemen. The second wave had nearly twice as many creatures.

The wolves fought through the mushroom army. They tore, shred, and ripped their way forward. Still, no matter how fierce they were, for every one creature that died, two more would replace it.

By this point, mushroom monsters continually spouted out from the ground like stubborn weeds. Prior to the battle, the Spore Goblin had a habit of ‘planting’ its seeds all around its territory. For the Goblin, this was half a hobby and half a defensive measure. Whenever a monster entered its territory, the seeds would germinate and attack anything that moved.

Of course, the Goblin could also remotely germinate the seeds, much like what he was doing now.

All the seeds that it had planted within a mile radius of the wolves suddenly germinated. The result was a literal sea of mushroom caps.

A rough estimate put the number in the tens of thousands.

Thanks to the Looking Glass, Ellis saw all this from a bird’s eye view. The sheer volume of the Goblin’s army thoroughly shocked him. From his perspective, they resembled an endless horde of zombies!

The wolves were firmly within the thicket of such a mess. They fiercely fought even as their circle of space rapidly shrank.

Fortunately, they were not completely at their wit's end just yet.

Six hours of constant battle soon passed. Although the wolves had good stamina, they were not nearly as freakish as Ellis. They gradually grew tired. Luckily, fatigue was not a condition that they could not solve. When they got tired, they consumed the emergency potions that Ellis had given them earlier.

These potions were not the Grandelier potions that Grisella had concocted back in her cottage. While she did make them and while they were equally as miraculous as her other potions, they had completely different effects.

Buggy Potions. A greenish liquid stored within a cylindrical glass jar.

A single concoction consisted of a number of different herbs, some rare, others common. The main ingredient was the abdomen of a certain insect that could only be found within a remote location on the eastern part of the continent.

They possessed only one function: recover stamina.

It started roughly a few days ago. Ellis had started hanging a jar of the stuff around each of their necks. It was a method for the wolves to keep fighting without having to rely on Ena. Lately, that little fox has gotten lazier and lazier.

Ever since the big battle with the slime, she spent much of her time sleeping. In essence, these potions were necessary in order for the wolves to fight unassisted.

Right now, two jars dangled from their necks. One was green and the other was red. With both a Grandelier potion and a Buggy potion at their disposal, the wolves were like immortal warriors.

Slowly but surely, they progressively clawed their way deeper into the forest.

****

Ellis let out a yawn.

He unconsciously looked up. Past the canopies, he could see the faint vestiges of a hot pink sky. He stared for a moment before he looked away. He diverted his gaze towards Grisella. Right now, she was asleep, curled up underneath a thick blanket. Ena sat a few feet away from her. She too was asleep.

At some point, a full day and night had passed.

“Did those guys finish already?” Ellis mumbled to himself as he walked over towards the Looking Glass.

To his surprise, the wolves were still fighting. They were now less than five miles away from the Spore Goblin. In their wake, they left behind a countless number of corpses. Unfortunately, even more replaced the fallen.

As for the Calamity-Class monster himself, it was actually sleeping! Throughout the ‘battle’, the Goblin would occasionally wave its hand in the air. Other times, it spent the rest of the time in a near-catatonic state.

Its attitude was a complete contrast to the wolves’. Even if their bodies may not be tired, their minds surely were. The wolves felt mentally fatigued; their bodies trembled while their eyes grew bloodshot.

They wanted to stop, but they didn’t. They couldn’t. The moment they stopped would be the moment they died. It would take less than a fraction of a second for the tides of mushrooms to overwhelm them. Right now, the only thing keeping them alive were Grisella’s Buggy potions.

Her potions were like drugs. It was quite literally an energy drink on steroids. Even if they wanted to keel over and die, they couldn’t. Their bodies simply refused to fall.

Unfortunately, they did not have an infinite supply of potions.

Right now, about two-thirds of it had been consumed. Of course, the rate of consumption was different for every wolf, but the average was around that general ballpark.

“…”

Staring at the scene before him, he couldn’t help but narrow his eyes. To be honest, this was completely outside Ellis’s expectations. By this point, he honestly thought that the mushroom army would have decreased by now. To his surprise, it did not. In fact, the army might have actually expanded.

How many monsters can a single Spore Goblin truly produce?

“It’s not really infinite, is it?” Ellis couldn’t help but mutter to himself. “If so, then that would be completely cheating!”

“No, it’s not actually infinite, but it does feel like it.” Someone responded to him.

He turned around, only to notice that Grisella had woken up. She rubbed her sleepy eyes and let out a yawn. After a few seconds of silence, she continued, “There was a record of a certain battle that took place nearly a thousand years ago. That battle pitted a single Spore Goblin against an alliance of small kingdoms. If I recall correctly, there were nearly three million soldiers on the alliance’s side… Unfortunately, even with an army of that size, they still lost.”

“…”

Ellis did not respond. The implications of that battle were clear for anyone to see.

The Spore Goblin had nearly no limits! Even if it did, then its limits did not exist within the values of a thousand, or even tens of thousands, but rather, within the millions!

He had to ask himself: could the wolves really handle such an amount?

“…”

Even after he racked his head, he could not come up with an answer.

For the first time, Ellis hesitated.

Should I help them out? Should I pull them out of battle?

He did promise that he’d fight together with Wight someday, but doing it now would undermine her training.

To be honest, even if others had trouble dealing with a Spore Goblin, to him, it would be as easy as stealing candy from a baby. It couldn’t be helped. His insane physical strength was a complete hard-counter to the Goblin’s abilities.

Should I cut their training short and save them now before something irreversible happens?

“…”

After five minutes of contemplation, he breathed out a tired sigh.

In the end, Ellis decided to adopt a wait and see tactic.

Since Wight and the others were still trying so hard, he did not want to interrupt.

This was a trial meant for them. It would not be appropriate if he were to cut in prematurely.

Just as such worries filled his head, a certain white-eared wolf suddenly moved into action.