The small electric lantern sat at the center of our short table, lighting only our immediate surroundings in the dark night. There was no breeze, but I became cold when I peered out into the darkness, only to see the glowing eyes of over ten mysterious beasts glaring back at us. I stood up quickly along with the others, and my hand instinctively went to the dagger attached to my side.

The reflective pairs of glowing eyes circled around us slowly, dancing up and down as they came closer and closer until the figures of sixteen wolves were apparent in the faint light. Their silver fur glistened from the lantern, revealing their large bodies. Each wild animal was bigger than any dog I had seen, and even just a single one would be able to kill off a normal person easily.

The muscles on the legs and back of the nearest wolf to me bulged as it prepared to lunge. It opened its mouth in a wide smile, revealing a large set of sharp, glinting white teeth.

Abby whispered something to us, but I didn’t listen. I was already focused on the danger in front of me, my natural instincts taking over. Taking my knife out of its holding place, I bent my knees into a fighting position.

Abby frantically whispered again from behind. “Day! What are you doing? We need to come up with a plan! You know we can’t fight all these silver-fur wolves head on!”

Her warnings went straight out my other ear. What else could I do in a situation like this? Cower and wait for them to attack? I’ve fought with strong animals before, back when Irnoma had left me to fend for myself. An ordinary person might be no match for these beasts, but I was no ordinary person either.

Without waiting any longer, I leaped towards the wolf, striking the first attack. The wolf reacted quickly and dodged to the side, ready to send its teeth sinking into my body. I smiled. “Too slow,” I whispered to the animal.

Suddenly, the beast’s motion slowed. Through the faint aura, I saw its fur swaying slowly through the air and its foot lifting sluggishly as if through a viscous liquid. Before it could turn its head to face my direction, I was already by its side, my knife puncturing through its ribcage and into the place I was sure the heart resided.

I slid the sharp blade smoothly across the beast’s rough skin, and bright red blood sprayed out in slow motion. Drops of red liquid slowly flew through the air behind me as I left the wolf dropping to the ground.

The next wolf was right behind the first, charging at me with its jaw wide open. I let out a chuckle at its useless plan and arched back, ducking under its sharp fangs by a hair and sending my dagger across its muscular leg, cleanly cutting it off. As it fell to the ground, I sent my blade up and across the wolf’s abdomen and let its insides spill out.

With the second wolf now dead, I went to the third and fourth, which were standing right next to each other. It was two against one, but I knew this would be easy. I charged into the pair and jumped up just as one sent a claw out and the other lounged for a bite. After performing an elegant and totally unnecessary flip in the slowed time, I landed on one of the wolves, reached down under its neck, and sliced its head clear off. A gush of blood exited the wolf’s neck, decorating the air in an elegant, sparkling red curtain.

The other wolf looked back in shock, but it was already too late. I jumped off the headless wolf’s body, which fell limp into the grass, and landed on my next victim. Remembering how that previous few animals had made such a large mess with its blood, I held off on decapitating this wolf or slicing its body open. Instead, I sent my dagger along with my hand straight into the wolf’s back. The tip of my blade punctured the creature’s heart, and I pulled out. My entire arm was soaked with wet blood now.

After the fourth wolf dropped to the ground, I released my time sprint and bent down, breathing heavily. I had probably gone overboard in how much I should have decelerated my temporal speed. These wolves looked far more dangerous on the outside than they actually were.

When I caught my breath, I stood up and looked back at the other three to tell them how they were wrong about how tough the animals were. But when I looked in their direction, I saw that they were already away from the table and fighting the wolves on the other side of the circle.

“Aaah!” Em screeched just as I landed my eyes on her. A wolf was approaching her from the side. Ari pushed the wolf he was fighting to the side with his longsword and came to Em’s rescue just in time.

He sent the heavy blade across the new wolf’s face. It stumbled to the side but regained its posture quickly. However, Ari had anticipated that. Right as the wolf lunged in for an attack, Ari spun around with the momentum he already had and landed another blow on the wolf’s head, hitting it to the ground in the middle of its leap.

“Now! Em!”

Heeding Ari’s signal, Em resumed her posture, and her staff’s crystal glowed. Suddenly, ice grew out from the ground and wrapped the wolf’s legs. The strong creature tried to escape, and with almost no effort, pulled a leg out. Just a moment later, another limb was freed. The large hound crouched down and was about to leap out of the frozen water’s grasp, when…

BANG!

A hole was punctured through the center of the beast’s skull, and blood sprayed out. Abby, seeing the opening Ari and Em had made for her, had finally taken the hit. She was standing in the back, holding a large, heavy rifle in her arms.

“Come on! Next one!” She called out as she cocked her rifle. Ari turned to come face to face with the wolf he was originally fighting and swung out his sword just in time.

Despite the fact that the three had only killed two wolves in the time it took me to drop four, they were doing quite well working together. Ari stood up front, fighting the wolves in melee combat with his skills in wielding his long sword. When the swordsman dropped the enemy to the ground, Em would cast a freeze spell from behind to stop the wolf in place. With the wolf frozen in place, it wouldn’t be able to dodge Abby’s bullets as well, giving her an opening to hit it with a single shot from her rifle.

I was probably a bit too enamored in the elegant strategies of my companions, as it was only until a new wolf was less than an arm’s length away from my head when I saw it in the corner of my vision. I accelerated my temporal speed again and sent my dagger across the animal’s face. Its leap was deflected to the side from the swift motion of my arm powered by my temporal acceleration.

As the wolf flew away from me, two of its accomplices came from behind. It was two to one again, and once the first wolf recovered, it would be three to one. I didn’t care, though, since I already knew how weak these creatures were.

When the two wolves came close enough, I dodged to the left and rammed into one of the animals. It collided with the other wolf and sent them both off balance. Sensing the first wolf coming in from behind, I ducked down, letting the wolf leap into the other two, biting into the skin of its own comrade. These creatures really were horribly coordinated.

I held my dagger out again and sent it into the wolf’s chest the same way as last time, pulling a blood-soaked arm back out. After doing the same to the other two wolves, my kill tally was brought up to a total of seven.

Standing up and looking around me, I counted the remaining heads. Only five of the sixteen wolves were left standing. I ran to the closest group of three wolves and finished them off just as my travel companions dropped the other two. The victory was ours.

With all the wolves finally killed, I sheathed my dagger and relaxed. All around me was a bloodbath. The grass was sprayed red around a few of the first wolves I had killed. The air now reeked of blood, completely pushing out what little smell of our dinner was left.

I looked down, and only then did I realize the amount of blood soaking my clothing. It surprised me, even though I had seen myself like this many times after the hunting trips I went on while living alone in Irnoma’s world. So I closed my eyes and shifted my clothes back to a cleaner state. Now, they showed not even the slightest sign of any red stain.

After I cleaned myself up, I walked back to the table with the only light source on it. Miraculously, none of the fights had gotten near our dinner, and the food was still just as we had left it. I realized I had only eaten a crab, so my stomach wasn’t full yet. My appetite was already ruined by the smell of blood mixed with dirt, but my stomach was still empty enough to make me sit down and take an oyster, slurping it in.

When I put the empty shell down and looked back in front of me, I finally saw my other companions staring at me. Abby was standing in the middle, her arms crossed.

“So Day, you should at least tell us that you’re going to initiate a fight next time.” She sounded like a mother lecturing her child.

“Hey, just calm down, Abby,” Ari said. “He killed over half of those wolves just by himself, didn’t he?” Em nodded, agreeing with Ari’s assessment.

“That isn’t the point here! He just ran in and risked our lives. It would have gone far worse if we hadn’t had a plan in case something like this happened.”

“But—” Em started as Abby marched back to the table and sat on the corner opposite from me. “At least we’re still alive, right?”

“Yeah, let’s just give Day some time to settle in with the team. I’m sure we’ll unbeatable with all that combat power you displayed back there!” Ari sat down beside me gave my back a hefty pat. Em following and sat across from me quickly.

“Yes yes!” She said with curiosity. “Can you tell us how you were moving so fast back there? I only got a few glimpses, but you were so fast I couldn’t tell what you were doing!”

“Um… It also has something to do with temporal manipulation, I guess,” I told her as I picked another oyster from the plate.

Abby stood up suddenly, and I stopped talking. “Anyway, we should go to another place, away from this smelly scene! I can’t even focus on my meal anymore!”

The rest of us stood up slowly as she waved her hand, and the table disappeared, along with everything on it. She marched back to the road, carrying the lantern with her. Em jogged up beside Abby, carrying her staff. Ari shrugged and headed out as well.

Staying behind as the last person left in the battlefield, I could have sworn I saw a movement at the edge of my vision. When I glanced to the side, at the hill where the moonlight shone, though, there was nothing. My instincts were telling me something was wrong, but I pushed the thought to the back of my head as I turned to follow Abby’s light back onto the road, leaving the corpses of the wolves to rot in the dark field.