Chapter 12:The Contract

Mun puts on his wooden mask on with one tendril and lifts Aura in the other. “a wolf.. huh”

Mun stumbles across the forest, looking for the wolf. It doesn’t take long for him to find a bloodied wolf lying on the ground, unable to do anything but breathe.

Mun looks at the dying wolf, as he slowly walks towards it..

It doesn’t have much time left. In the end I never figured out why it fought, but it was probably a fight for authority. I know wolves sometimes fight each other to confirm who is the strongest in the pack, the strongest becomes the leader.

“hey wolf.” Mun crouches down, as he calls the wolf. The wolf only continued its haggard breathes, his chest rising and falling every few seconds.

“Why did you fight.” Mun is curious, he wants to know why an animal as intelligent as the wolves would risk his life for control. Mun doesn’t quite understand why he wants to know such useless information, perhaps it is the wolf’s eyes. Its eyes still shined brightly, even in its time of death, it would not surrender its pride, it would die gracefully.

This time the wolf turned its eyes to Mun, for it was all it could do. ” Freedom.” The wolf responded. “I wanted my freedom, even it costed me my life.” A short silence befell the two, the wolf only looked forward and Mun continued to stare at the wolf.

After a solid 3 minutes, Mun slowly cracks a smile. He knows the feeling of wanting to be free, free from your parents. Everyday alive was hell when he was with them, especially his mother. So at this moment Mun is smiling; smiling because he now knows that even animals desire such a freedom. Mun doesn’t understand the circumstances, but he knows that this wolf was fighting his father. How badly do you want to be free? Would you risk your life, Mun doesn’t know if he can do what the wolf did. Mun only escaped by sheer luck, a twist of fate, but it came at the cost of his dear friend. The price was perhaps too high but in the end he wasn’t that made the choice.

“No one deserves to die alone, I’ll wait with you.” Mun says, showing the dying wolf a bright smile, something uncommon for mun. the wolf of course didn’t know that Mun was smiling behind the wooden mask, but felt comfort in his company. Of course Mun didn’t abandon Aura, he brought he with him.

“is she your master.” The wolf asks; because of the nature of the wolf’s ability to speak, no energy is need to talk, thus a conversation between a dying wolf and its kin is possible.

“haha, No. she is my chain.” Mun has been holding back his blood lust, for aura. When he first arrived, he slaughtered any monster he saw, he killed them without mercy it wasn’t just for survival. That was the only way to take out his anger that had reached its boiling point over several years. When Mun’s life ended, he had become a murder; by either misfortune or perhaps luck, he was hit by a truck , ending his life, as he made his escape. After ending the lives of all the monsters near him, he finally calmed down. Mun doesn’t know if he will blow up, he doesn’t want to become the monsters he hates so much, yet there is a temptation within him. If he can become a true monster, won’t the scum of the earth fear him? Aura’s existence is not chains, rather she is a temporary solution for a ticking time bomb of emotions.

The wolf looks into Mun with his eyes.

“Lies.” The wolf replies, Speaking without emotion. “You are protecting her with your life, I didn’t see much but I saw enough.”

“We all hide things from people we care about.” Is all that Mun responds with.

The wolf recalls, hiding his inner pain from his father. He would do everything his father ordered, even when the other wolves would mock him for his weakness. Now thinking about it the wolf realized that hiding his pain was not the answer. Maybe his father would have understood, if only he had said something sooner. Perhaps he would not have forced his father to fight him. The wolf knew his father well, during the entire fight, his father held back, he kept saying that the wolf could get a second chance if he just backed down. In the end the wolf never backed down and his father had to end his life. The wolf wants to cry, but wolves are unable to do such a thing, so he just lays there staring at the tree in front of him.

“Hiding it will only make it fester.” The wolf eyes turns to Mun. The wolf finally closes its eyes, knowing that it’s life is coming to an end.

It seems more and more people are telling me that. I am trying to hide as best I can, and I doubt I have showed it. Well it doesn’t matter for now, I can hold it in a bit a longer. Now, let’s see if this power actually works.

Animals, are creatures that Mun feels neutral towards. He doesn’t have love or hate for them; but the abuse he faced made him unable to love animals the way most people do, that is why he is watching the wolf die. To test his ability, the one that he used on Aura by accident. This time he will do it on purpose.

Mun would have done it sooner, but he understands that the power derives from empathy, that was why he was able heal Aura, because he felt empathy for her. Mun is still unable to empathize with the wolf but somewhere in his heart he feels an ever so small prick.

Mun walks up to the wolf, holding the sleeping Aura at his hip creating small wooden cradle for her in his left arm, putting his right hand on the wolf’s chest. Nothing happens. Mun starts to think in his mind, Heal!! Nothing happens. He looks at the Wolf, its eyes open, they are slowly glazing over, its body still warm. Then, a blue screen showed up in front of Mun.

………………………………

The wolf wakes up, he tries to move his body, but as soon as he tries to move, an unbearable pain overwhelms him, he falls back down. The wolf doesn’t understand why he is still alive. How can he be alive? The if the fight with his father wasn’t enough to kill him, then the fall down the slope. should have been. But now the wolf is still alive, and he doesn’t feel that his life is in danger, his body is stable, although suffering bad muscle pain.

The wolf looks up to the being in front him, it’s a human, one that the wolf has never seen before.

“Who are you.” The human doesn’t respond, only extends his hand to the injured wolf.

“I don’t understand.” the wolf says, the Human stays silent for a few seconds before it speaks.

“Will you accept the contract. Become my familiar, grey wolf, I will guide you, and you will watch over me, together we will grow stronger Do you accept these conditions?” The voice echoes across invisible walls. This world that the wolf is in is a semi spirit world created through a certain skill, The animal contract skill. The wolf has only ever heard myths of animals making contracts with the humanoids.

The Mimic, is he asking for a contract with me? Will I heal faster if I accept, do I want accept? The pain in his body was growing stronger. The wolf understand that he doesn’t have much time left. The contract doesn’t ask for much, in fact it asks for very little. The wolf makes up his mind.

“I accept this contract.”

………………..

The blue screen that appeared in front of him was a skill called The Familiar Contract. Mun doesn’t understand much about it, or even why he suddenly gained the skill but he quickly activated the skill. Almost instantaneously the contract was accepted and Muns started to suffer from several wounds from body parts that don’t exist in his body; Unlike with aura, who received a complete heal, The wolf only heals to the point of stabilization, In muns mind this is because of his lack of empathy for the wolf, that is to say it was not the same empathy he felt for Aura.

After several seconds of healing, Mun loses 400 Hp, an incredible amount all things considered, This added to the wounds from the previous fight is to much of for mun, he collapses and falls unconscious.

What is left is a peculiar scene. A grey wolf, one of the most feared creatures in the forest, A demon girl, a creature hated by the people of this kingdom, and a Mimic, a creature that many consider quite troublesome. Yet this scene does not look like a fight between the three. No The demon girl clings to, to the Mimics humanoid appearance, like a child to her elder brother, and the Mimics head lay on the sleeping wolf, like a tired man who fell asleep playing with his dog. Today in this forest a strange thing happened, it was peace, a loving scene of a brother his sister and their pet. Not even monsters creeping near dare disturb the three.

………………

Soft giggles of small creature’s ring about. Silhouettes of green, shadows of winged creatures, watch over the three, protecting them from the ferocious monsters creeping about.