1 week later.

It’s been about a week since my short fight against the wolf, and... do you want to know something? it’s not leaving me the fuck alone! This damn dog with steroids as been following me for the past week non stop and this shit it’s really irritating. I tried to make the wolf go away and leave me alone, I really tried for the first few days, but the wolf wouldn’t leave me, the piece of shit would either ignore me or just defy me and state that it would follow me since we are brothers, I never understood that thing. I tried fighting it a few times during the first couple of days, but it would always win, somehow I would always end up knocked down with almost no power left, but it would never give me a killing hit, at the end of each fight it would only start laughing and… say? Kind of… it would state how interesting and exciting it was to fight with me and how much I still needed to learn before I could beat it.

- “…?”.

- “… hmm?…”.

- “...”.

We don’t really talk, just walk in the forest looking for more enemies to kill, to level up and collect monster cores… my intention was to ignore it hoping that it would eventually go away by its own will, but it’s been futile so far… oh, by the way, getting back to my level, currently I’m level 19… I know what you are thinking! it’s been a week, then, how have you leveled up only 1 level so far?… well, the answer is quite simple, first of all, apparently most of the slimes and horned hares are all under level 7, in fact, most monsters I found after the wolf were lower than level 5, and they are actually the majority of the monsters in this forest, which is a real bullshit considering that the more I level up the less close they get to me, I mean, I could get them with my speed, but they are giving me too little exp anyways and I think I have everything I needed from them, so right now I just got a few monster cores of slimes in my storage space, plus the ones I have left of the horned hares, and also, I have successfully hunted a boar, 2 spiders, 1 monkey, and 1 snake, all of them really low-level though. Second of all, I’m being followed by this psychotic wolf, who is also hunting monsters, and the piece of shit is so damn fast that I can’t follow its rhythm to hunt, so it has gotten most of the monsters, it probably has leveled up as much as me or even more, I also realized that when we fought about a week ago, the bastard was holding back, it probably was able to easily kill me in a matter of seconds the first time we encountered each other, the bastard!... well, at least I’ve gotten to live for this long in this place, and in all honesty, it kind of feels good to have some company… even if it’s still an irritating and stubborn bastard who keeps hunting more monster than I do with ease.

- “…!”.

- “…?”.

I feel the need to mention that the total amount of monster cores I have right now is 12, a little bit of every monster I’ve encounter so far, except for dire wolves who I haven’t seen in a while with the exception of the one beside me, anyway, I haven’t had the chance to use them or even to check what they can be useful for, after all… every time I want to check it, I can feel the gaze of the wolf looking very attentively to my every move, that makes me nervous so I’ve been restraining myself from using them or my unique skill… fuuu… how did I end up in this situation? I mean, I still can’t fully understand exactly what happened that day about 1 week ago.

Flashback.

- “Hmm… don’t you know? I can’t read minds, it’s just that… when you killed my pack members, you got the skill “pack bond” and thanks to that skill we should have a certain understanding of each other thoughts, to begin with, “pack bond” is a skill for team purposes like team fights or hunting… hmm… the one who bathed himself in the blood of my pack, needs to learn a few things… interesting!”.

- “…?”

… what the hell is this damn wolf talking about? I can’t understand anything. I’m bored of useless talk so I ran towards the wolf in an intent to hit him with my hand, I even used charge to increase the damage, but… just when I was about to get it, the wolf once again evades my move and give me a headbutt pushing me back again, then it push me once more with its paws making me fall to the ground, and finally it bite my right leg, and before I noticed, I was lifted up in the air and thrown away, landing hard against the ground… What in the hell? what a crazy strength that bastard has!

- “hahaha… you have spirit, fitting for someone who killed my companions”.

Tch… I killed them just to survive, if not they would have killed me… wait! Is that what this is about? Revenge? It makes sense actually, considering the difference in strength, I would say this one was their leader… such a problematic situation.

- “... hmm… you don’t get it, do you?”.

The wolf looked at me with such a serious yet tired expression that I almost forgot how dangerous the bastard is.

- “… fuuu, nothing to do about that. I want you to know, this is not about revenge, they fought you, and they died, that’s the survival of the fittest, the one rule above all rules in nature… I feel pain for their deaths, of course I do, they were my pack, my companions and siblings, we all used to belong to a bigger and stronger pack, so not feeling anything would be anti-natural of me, but… I came looking for you with another purpose...”.

… so it wasn’t revenge? No, don’t trust its words, it has to be revenge, I mean, what other purpose could it have that includes me? there’s nothing beside the wolves and the humans that connect me to this wolf… so… if not the revenge for the wolves, it’s about the humans?

- “… no, although I don’t like them, and even though they killed so many of my companions, it’s not about the humans either, it’s about you. You, a summoned golem that in no time grew strong enough to defeat several dire wolves by itself, a monster with such a potential that it ranked up and got stronger with just a day of difference between our first and second encounter, the second creature that I’ve seen in this forest, besides me, that has ranked up...”.

- “…!!?”

… no way! How did it knew I was a summoned creature? Has this thing kept an eye on me?

- “… not an eye, I can smell it in you… a few days ago, a lot of humans were moving through the forest, looking for another human, said human summoned several golems all along the forest in an intent to escape from the other humans, I smelled the human and some of his golems, you have the same smell… and yet, so different… also, I can perceive your power, your energy, you are not that far behind of me, the difference between us just in raw power is enough to kill you easily, and yet, our powers are still pretty close one from the other, but you also seem to lack battle experience despite the fact that you smell like blood of several monsters and monster cores...”.

A human summoning golems? My smell? This wolf… he seems to have gotten so much about me just by smelling me? that’s… disturbing… but also… is not this guy a little too smart for a monster? it seem like this monster really give some thought to my circumstances.

- “Ah! Of course I would noticed, a monster with such a great growth, I couldn’t miss to see that… on the other side, you seem to share the common human thought that monster are not smart, which is kind of curious, considering that golems are practically toys without any train of though beside obedience, and even with such a limited range of thoughts they still are so slow and weak, only high level golems actually show some sight of intelligence, and yet, here you are, a summoned creature who is surviving alone by using its own strength and mind… that’s interesting!”.

… hmm… I wonder, what should I do now? This monster obviously has been paying attention, and I seriously think it could kill me if it wanted… damn it! What do I do? I don’t even know if I can trust it, but for some reason nothing it has said to me seem to be a lie or have other intentions, but… if it is like that, then… what does it really want with me?

- “…!?”.

- “I’ll tell you what I want… since we are both monsters who ranked up recently in this forest, since you killed so many of my companions and got their power, since you have the dire wolf skill “Pack Bond”, and since I’ve tested your power and determined that you have potential, now you and I are brothers!…”.

- “…!?”.

Huh? brothers? What in the hell is this thing talking about?

- “hahahaha, you seem really confused about it, let me explain... dire wolves, we are predators in this world, we are fast and powerful with improved senses, most dire wolves are ranked as “+” among monsters, which makes us be among the strongest creatures in each rank, but, we move in packs, groups if it’s easier for you to understand, we are strong as individuals, but our true strength only is shown when we cooperate with each other, the skill “Pack Bond” is nothing more than a manifestation of this reality of our species, a skill that not many kinds of monsters in this world possess, it’s a skill that we gain only after we start hunting with our packs not long after we are born, and the ones who never get that skill are known as lone wolves, the ones who have a skill completely opposite to pack bond, a skill that makes them stronger alone… I am not one of the second kind, I’m not a lone wolf, so, even though I am stronger than any other dire wolf you will find in the territory of this forest, my true strength can’t be shown unless I have a companion, a partner, a brother, a creature that can cover my weaknesses and improved my strengths… a creature like you!”.

Me? what? But I’m not a dire wolf! What the hell is wrong with this guy?

- “hahahaha, you don’t need to be a dire wolf to be my brother, after all, the blood of dire wolves, my brothers and sisters, their power, their skills, they are already a part of you… besides, you, golem, have high vitality and your defense keeps improving, even your speed and strength are not bad, with my speed and experience, and your high defense and vitality, plus both of our strengths, we can become quite the powerful team, that’s why I chose you to be my brother! From now on I won’t leave your side, and together we’ll grow stronger than ever hahahaha!!!”.

… NO WAY!!! there’s no way I’m partnering with this psychopath, forget it, I’m out of here. I turned around and ran with my full speed in the opposite direction, after a few seconds, I looked behind me, and I noticed the bastard running beside me with a smug face.

- “you won’t get rid of me! I already told you, now we are a team, brothers in arms, HAHAHAHAHA!!!”.

What in the bloody hell??? GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!!!

End of Flashback.

Fuuu… and that’s how I ended up in this situation. I don’t know what to do anymore, I want to keep leveling up, obviously, but between low-level enemies running away from me and having to share the monsters to hunt with the psychotic bastard that’s following me, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to level up properly again.

- “… stop!”.

- “…?”.

What? What happen? Is there something wrong? The wolf seems to have gotten in full alert, something must be very wrong, it seems worried, I’ve never seen this smug bastard that nervous in this past week.

- “… shit! We got too close to the center of the forest, we need to run back, Now! Follow me!”.

… Eh? The wolf started to ran away at an incredible speed, I follow it as fast as I can just out of fear, fear because the wolf seemed agitated, something that I’ve never seen in it. When I was thinking that while looking at the retreating back of the wolf I felt something behind me.

- “GRAAAAA!!!”.

- “OOH OOH, ROAAAR!”.

What is that sound? When I look back to see what is going on, I’m absolutely stunned at the realization that it was a gorilla… A BLOODY GORILLA!!! a red-brownish furred giant gorilla with enormous fangs coming out of its mouth, and it’s in the air falling straight to me… AAAH! What the hell is going on!!?

- “OOH OOH, GRAAA!”.

- “Dodge it!!!”.

I heard the voice of the dire wolf but I didn’t have much time to move away so I tried to block it putting both of my arms in front of me, yet, the gorilla just gives me one freaking punch that I’m sure would have make me spit blood out of my mouth if I had any blood in this body, its punch cracked my arms and send me flying back, knocking down several trees before I finally stopped.

- “…?”.

- “GRAAA!”.

The gorilla took a tree and with ease got it out of the ground just to throw it directly at me, and another, another one coming, all that while walking in my direction making angry noises.

- “ooh OOH! AH AH OOH!”.

I can’t understand what you are saying, stupid gorilla, but I have a gift for you… can you see this? It’s my rocky middle finger.

- “GRAAA!!!”.

Hahaha, it seemed like it understood that. The gorilla is prepared to give me another hit in the face, and I barely can feel my arms, it’s like they are numb, maybe just too damaged to work properly.

- “ROAAAR!!!”.

Eh? just before the punch of the gorilla hit me, that psychotic bastard dire wolf jumped straight to its face and bite it. The gorilla started to cry in pain while trying to shake the wolf off of its face, but the crazy bastard has a good grip on it… this is my chance! I have to actually force my arms to move, which is surprisingly difficult, I moved the trees that are over me and then stand up… I could leave that crazy arse wolf here alone to deal with the gorilla, but the bastard got back for me… so I better return the favor. I use my charge, and just in case activate as well my quick step and low harden. Then I use all the strength I can in one hit directed to the gorilla stomach. The gorilla was still trying to get the dire wolf away from its face when I hit it, with that the gorilla gives a loud cry and falls down, giving the wolf the chance to release is grip and… run? Why are you running? aren’t we going to kill it?

- “Don’t stay there like an idiot! It will recover soon and more might come after hearing that cry of pain”.

Oh! now I get it… shit! I have to get out of here. I start running with my full speed following the crazy wolf, I even used my quick step several times one after the other to not lose speed while running. I don’t know exactly what the hell was going on, but that freaking gorilla had a bloody powerful punch, I seriously don’t want to face that thing again.

- “… I should have been more careful, I should have noticed that we got too close to the center of the forest, such slip up could have gotten us killed...”.

… what is this wolf murmuring while running? He knew about that gorilla? He said that more would come, wait! How in the hell did he knew that the gorilla was coming? And what is that about us getting killed for a slip up?

- “…?”.

- “… hmm… I’ll explain everything, but first we need to get as far away from here as we can”.

At his serious tone I can’t do more than nod my head and keep running, I wonder what will this wolf tell me.

Several hours later.

We ran for hours, non-stop, no looking back, just running… for me was more like following the lead, since I’m the slower between me and the wolf, and I don’t know this territory as well as this guy does, so it only makes sense to follow him. We just stopped very close to the end of the forest, the dire wolf decreases its speed until it just stop walking and finally left out a sigh of relief, then it looked up and to the sides with a very sharp look before relaxing again… just what is going on?

- “…! …!!!”.

- “uh? Oh, right… we can relax now, at least for a while, hopefully those overgrown monkeys didn’t follow us”.

The wolf said with a bitter expression… seeing that expression I don’t even have the energy to correct its statement, fuuu… can you explain what it’s going on!?

- “… what do you want to know?”.

I want to know... what the hell was that? Why did that gorilla attacked us? And how did you knew it was coming?

- “Fuuu… you have yet so much to learn… alright! First of all, that was us getting too close to a restricted area...”.

… a restricted area? In a forest? Why in the hell there would be a restricted area in a forest?

- “… for the same reason that that monster attacked us, that deep inside of the forest, it’s the home of the chief of this territory… the chief of the forest...”.

… hmm… what do you mean by chief? Is it the one in charge of the place?

- “… eh? You don’t know about the chief of the territories?”.

No idea! How could I have known that there was some kind of monster in charge of the place? More important than that, is that monster the head of the deepest part of the forest or is it the head of the entire forest? If the later, then why haven’t we seen it in this last week?… eh? Don’t give me that look!

- “… fuuu, you are either too innocent or too stupid, I can’t really tell which one… for your information, the existence of a chief in a territory is common sense for any creature in the world, even humans learn about them since very early in their lives… how should I put it? Hmm… we could say that it’s part of our instinct to know or at least have the idea of a monster over all the other monsters in a certain territory, they receive many names, but the most common is chief, the one at the top of each territory, the strongest monster in a territory that has other strong monsters following it… the monkey that attacked us, it was just one of the few followers of the chief, and although the chief controls the entire territory of this forest, it usually stays in the deepest part of it, where the stronger monsters live”.

Eh? seriously? Hmm… now you mention it, it does make sense that there would be a monster stronger than the rest in this place, but I didn’t think much about it since I was focused on leveling up.

- “yeah, well, is not like it changes much, we are lucky to be alive, even between the 2 of us, I doubt we could have won against that gorilla, much less against the chief”.

Eh? you say that even though you are so strong? In all honesty, if I didn’t knew that it’s not you, I would have confused you with the chief of the place.

- “… that only shows how inexperienced you really are… my strength, my power, it’s nothing compared to the chief of the territory, if we were to fight… I doubt I would survive… no, forget that, I doubt I would last even a minute against the chief… even one of its followers would most likely kill me”.

… are you joking, right?… its expression and tone were so serious… just what kind of monster is the chief of this bloody place!?