Wolf

We take off at a jog through the snowy fields towards the forest as a light snow falls around us. At some point during the jog, I start playing around with my ability by making several little balls of ice float around my feet as a form of control training. Of course, since I’m doing it just barely above the ground, no one back at the village should be able to see the balls.

Mom either has the same idea as I do or just decides to copy me as – when I glance back at her – I find her floating several small rocks around her own feet. She smiles when she finds me looking, making me snort in amusement before facing forwards again.

Although, as I turn, I notice Katie pouting at the both of us – obviously having noticed what we are doing.

Oh yeah, her ability needs someone to be injured to use it, so she can’t exactly practice it like we can. At least, not without any volunteers to hurt themselves. Which doesn't sound like a pleasant experience.

As for dad? He is ahead of us and - unless he turns around like I did - can't see what we are doing. Which is probably a good thing, considering that he could accidentally slice open his foot if he tried doing what we are doing with his knives.

Anyways, we arrive at the forest a few minutes later before dad raises his hand to call for a halt. He then points in the direction of the howl from earlier while pulling out his combat knife.

I nod whilst grabbing my knives as the sound of metal sliding on metal indicates that mom unsheathed her sword.

We all crouch low to the ground before making our way through the forest towards the howl while using the snow-covered bushes as cover.

After a few minutes, another howl rings out through the forest from just up ahead, so we slow down our pace even more as we continue to step as softly as we can. Unfortunately, our shoes aren’t exactly built for walking around on snow, so we end up making a little bit more noise than I would prefer.

Light growls suddenly begin to sound from ahead, followed shortly by the crunch of snow, so we sprint behind a large bush for cover. Dad then takes a short glance around it and raises his hand towards us with two fingers pointed upwards as a signal to get ready.

We all get ready as the snow continues to fall to the ground around us, with the only noise being that of the wolves – judging by the sounds – ahead of us.

A few seconds pass in silence before dad suddenly whispers, “Go!” prompting us all to sprint out of the bushes, interrupting a small pack of white wolves as they enjoy their recently hunted meal.

I try to create a small dagger of ice next to me with a very surprising success before I use my ability to put enough force in it to fly straight at one of the wolves, even after it leaves my range of manipulation. Meanwhile, dad does the same thing to another wolf with one of his copy knives.

Both knives strike true into the wolves shoulders, just barely missing their necks due to our lack of practice with these weapons, causing the two wolves to fall with a pair of whimpers, startling the others as they let out a short yelp of surprise. Some of the uninjured wolves then begin to back up from their food to protect the injured ones, while the others immediately break off into a sprint towards us, growling all the while.

The two that were hit with the blades struggle to get back up, so I create another ice dagger – except of slightly better quality this time – and send it flying towards one of them before I roll away from another wolf’s lunge.

A strange chime suddenly echoes in my head before another blue box appears.

System Notification

Congratulations! You have killed your first monster!

As a reward, you will be given the skill ‘Identify.’

I wave the notification away to focus on the wolf that had just leapt straight past me into a tree.

Someone’s a little impatient.

Without waiting for it to get back up, I freeze its paw – along with the snow beneath it – to the ground as I rush in, quickly slicing through its throat with one of my starter knives.

Another chime rings in my head before I turn to face the others, only to find the rest of the wolves already dead on the ground.

I walk up to the wolf with the ice dagger in it before pulling the dagger back out and attempting to put it in my inventory, only for it to not do anything.

Huh, I guess I can't put weapons made by my ice into my inventory.

That's unfortunate.

“Those chimes are annoying,” Katie says as she wipes her knife on the dead body of a wolf.

I glance at her before bending down to do the same, only to pause as I think of something.

“Let’s see if this works,” I mutter as I look at the blood covering my knife.

“Hmm?” Dad looks over at me with curiosity as I freeze the blood on my knife without freezing it to my knife. I then swipe the frozen blood away with my hand before holding the knife up to my face.

A smile stretches across my face as I mutter, “Cleaning my weapons just became a lot easier.”

“Okay, now that’s just unfair,” I hear my dad mutter before I turn to find him staring at my now-clean-knife.

Excuse me? You didn't even use your actual knife, so you can't talk.

I raise an eyebrow at his comment before Katie comes over and asks, “What’s unfair?”

Dad just simply points to my knife and says, “Magic is.”

This confuses Katie for a moment before she notices the frozen chunk of blood on the ground.

“Seriously?! You can clean your knife with your ability? That's so unfair!” She exclaims, raising her arms into the air with obvious jealousy.

I chuckle in amusement, “Yep!”

“Alright, putting that little bit of unfairness aside for the moment,” mom interrupts us before pointing at the wolf corpses. “The hides from these wolves will probably come in handy later, so place the corpses into your inventory.”

I ignore her little jab as I focus on the wolves I had killed and mentally selecting them in my mind.

The wolves then disappear from the ground before appearing in my inventory.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Inventory:

Player’s ID 1x

F-Class Healing Potions 3x

F-Class Stamina Recovery Potions 1x

F-Class Bandages 5x

Level 2 Wolf Corpses 2x

Return

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Wait, these things were level 2?

They didn’t seem all that strong to me…

“Woah! This is new!” Katie shouts out of nowhere.

She then enthusiastically shakes my shoulder as she says, “Wolf, look at me, then look to see if there is a little lightbulb above my head!”

A… lightbulb?

What the heck is she talking about?

I turn to her and look above her head.

Surprisingly, I do find a tiny little lightbulb floating above her head.

“What the…” I mutter, making her giggle in amusement.

“Mentally select it like you would one of the menus from the System!” she says while still shaking my shoulder in excitement.

I push her hand off of my shoulder before mentally selecting the lightbulb.

The moment I do, a wave of text replaces it above her head.

_-| Katie Adler – Level 1 |-_

What the heck…?

Wait a second!

“Is this that identify skill that we got from killing our first monster?” I ask her with both of my eyebrows raised in surprise.

She nods her head, “Yep!”

Interesting. Very interesting!

This will help us a lot in planning strategies. After all, it’s best to know how strong our enemies are before we attack.

I turn to find both mom and dad staring above each other’s heads, likely trying out the identify skill for themselves.

While I wait for them to finish, I begin to mess around with my ability a little bit more to find out the exact radius of which I can manipulate the ice element.

After a couple attempts at extending a ball of ice as far as it can go without it just dropping to the ground, I learn that my current radius of manipulation is about half a meter.

Does that mean that it will expand by half a meter each time I level up?

Or will it only increase by a fraction of that?

I am interrupted from my pondering as mom says, “We need more EXP to reach level 2, so let’s go find some more monsters to kill. After that, we can head back to the safe zone for the night.”

“Okay,” my sister and I say at the same time before we begin to follow her and dad through the forest.

I quickly use the ice element in the air to freeze a wolf's muzzle as it comes charging at me with saliva dripping out of its open maw, causing it to headbutt me instead of ripping into me with its fangs before I grab on to it with one hand and slit its throat with a knife in my other hand.

A chime echoes in my head before the box I have been waiting for finally shows itself.

System Notification

Congratulations!

You are now level 2!

“Finally!” I exclaim as I lay down across the grass and snow in exhaustion.

Dad looks over at me and says, “Did you reach level 2?”

I slowly nod my head without getting up as I cover my eyes from the lightly falling snow.

Mom looks at me as she says, “That’s good. Now all we need is–“

“Yes! It’s about time!” Katie shouts while jumping up and down, interrupting mom as she is trying to speak.

“Never mind then. Assuming you are interrupting me because you leveled up?” she asks Katie with one eyebrow raised in question.

Katie calms down as she says, “Sorry about that, but yeah! I just reached level 2!”

I stand up from the ground as mom chuckles and says, “In that case, let’s begin heading back towards the safe zone.”

“Okay,” the rest of us say in unison before we begin heading back towards the village.

I wonder how the people there are faring?

On the way back, I manage to figure out what my new radius is for my ability while also training my control of it even further.

It turned out that my first guess was correct. My radius of manipulation appears to expand by about half a meter each time I level up.

The safe zone comes into sight soon before sundown without much having changed since the first time we were here. Although I do notice several of the people near the totem sending us strange looks as we return.

Suddenly, one of the people – a middle-aged man who looks like he works out – approaches us with a not-so-friendly look on his face.

“Where the hell were you?” He shouts at us, further drawing the attention of anyone who wasn’t already watching us.

Dad just simply takes a wolf carcass out of his inventory and says, “Hunting.”

This seems to take the man by surprise before he reaches towards the carcass.

Mom suddenly draws her sword from its sheath and uses it to slap his hand away, leaving behind a small scratch in the process.

“What the fuck?!” The man shouts as he backs away holding his hand.

“Keep your hands off of other people’s property,” she says in the same cold tone of voice she always uses when talking with people outside of our family.

The people around us begin to back away after seeing this, likely afraid that she might turn her sword on them next.

The man mom had cut stares at her with anger plastered over his face before glancing at the sword.

I don’t like that greedy look in his eyes…

Mom stares back at him without backing down an inch as the atmosphere grows tenser and tenser by the moment.

“Wolf? Is that you?” A familiar voice shouts, completely ignoring the tense atmosphere.

I turn to the source of the shout, only to find Aidan sticking his head out from between a couple of the huts.

“Aidan?” I call back to him in confusion.

What’s he doing here?