Wolf

A few hours later

“Well, this is a nice surprise,” I mutter as I stare at the floating, blue orb in front of me.

After skating for quite some time while occasionally finding monsters, I ended up finding a cave. The cave is really well hidden, and if it wasn’t for the angry frozen tiger, then I probably would never have found it. It’s also really shallow, and only has a single cavern within it, with no tunnels branching outwards.

The tiger itself was a large white creature, spanning about two meters in length, with razor sharp fangs and claws, along with two extremely long fangs pointing out of its mouth. Kind of like a saber tooth tiger; except with starch white fur.

I glance at the now-dead tiger before focusing on the blue orb again and reaching for it.

As soon as my fingers touch it, the EXP orb flashes blue and explodes into a bunch of tiny blue lights before disappearing into my hand.

Not even a second later, the EXP count on the top right corner of my interface begins to rise at an extremely fast pace, giving me an entire two levels worth of EXP.

“Damn,” I mutter with a smile on my face, “these EXP orbs are even better in person than they looked on the livestream.”

It’s too bad that they aren’t very common.

I glance at the dead tiger again before turning around and making my way out of the thin crevasse that makes up the cave entrance.

The entrance is so well hidden that – unless I am extremely careful and searching every tiny detail of everything around me for hidden areas – the only likely ways that I would be able to find other caves like this would be to feel for the lower amount of ice element within the cave, or to sense any monsters that may be inside of them.

After getting out of the cave and back into the raging blizzard outside, I turn back towards the crevasse before muttering, “I pity anyone without my abilities who has to travel through this floor.”

I turn back around whilst opening my map before remaking my ice skates, getting back on my make-shift ice rink, and continuing my merry way through the floor.

Aegis – Safe Zone 52

A tense atmosphere fills the council room as the twelve council members all watch the two unknown visitors in the middle of the room with wary looks.

The two visitors cloaked in white, with deep cowls covering their faces had appeared out of nowhere whilst they were discussing the food problem within the safe zone.

“Who are you?” Manfred asks with a calm look on his face, “and why are you here?”

One of the two cloaked individuals lowers their cowl to reveal the face of a woman with long brown hair, sharp golden eyes, and a neutral look on her face.

“We are the people that are going to help you with your food problems,” she says without giving anything away about her identity.

Before the council members can show their surprise at her statement, she continues, “We know that you are beginning to run low on food now that the monster population in the area is declining, so we are willing to offer you some seeds, along with a way to grow them despite the climate.”

Most of the council members frown at this offer.

“Why would you want to help us?” Jessica asks with suspicion coating her words. “And what do you want in return?”

The other cloaked individual lowers their cowl at this, revealing a young looking man with short black hair before he asks, “Do we need a reason?”

The suspicion on the council members' faces grows at his answer, and the first individual recognizes this before she says, “You have two talented craftsmen from what I have heard, so just call this us helping you out in return for a favor that can be returned in the future.”

Her answer alleviates some of the suspicion as most of the council members begin to relax a little bit, but Luke just stares at them and asks, “Shouldn’t you have better craftsmen than us? Ours only recently joined the System after all.”

A smile appears on the woman’s face as she turns to the man and says, “Yes, but craftsmen that have gone through an initialization tend to have higher leveled skills and are also often times more creative than our craftsmen. After they get stronger and age a bit of course.”

The woman – Amalea – continues to smile as she sees the suspicion lower slightly from Luke’s face before she thinks, ‘So this is the Prince’s father?’

Luke stares at her for several seconds before saying, “Who are you? And what would the favor be?”

Amalea’s smile grows even further at this question as she says, “Not an enemy, that’s for sure; and the favor won’t be anything that will go against your ethics, or harm you in any way.”

Several seconds pass in silence after her answer before Luke turns to Manfred and nods.

‘We need the food, even if it means we owe these people a favor,’ Luke thinks with a frown as Manfred begins to discuss the visitor’s offer, ‘otherwise we wouldn’t be able to last the winter with the amount of people we have.’

“Thank you again for your assistance,” Manfred says with a bow of his head.

Amalea just nods her head in response before both she and the other visitor vanish without a trace, startling the council members slightly.

After a few seconds of silence, a commotion breaks out from many of the council members.

“Who were they?” “How did they even get in here?” “Why did we accept their offer?”

Luke suddenly claps his hands once, causing the sound to echo throughout the room before everyone goes quiet and looks at him.

“We didn’t have a choice,” Luke says with a frown, “the monsters have declined drastically, so we won’t have enough food to get through the winter without their help.”

Avery opens his mouth to interrupt, but Luke just glares at him to stop him before continuing, “If my guess is correct as to which faction those visitors were from, then I seriously doubt that they would have any plans to do anything against us.”

Aidan suddenly interrupts, “Which faction do you think they were working for?”

“The Grand Werewolf Empire,” Luke says without any hesitation before explaining at the confused looks on the other council member’s faces, “from what I have been able to research about the two empires near us, the Dread Empire has a completely different style of approach from the Grand Werewolf Empire. While the Dread Empire takes a more… blunt approach to things, the Grand Werewolf Empire uses stealth more often.”

Manfred looks surprised at this as he says, “But aren’t werewolves affected by a bloodlust? Why would they take a stealth approach?”

“Yes, they are affected by a bloodlust,” Luke admits, “but it doesn’t affect the pureblood werewolves as much, and the lesser ones can take the pureblood werewolves’ blood to calm themselves down. After that, they train themselves to keep their composure to limit how often they might lose themselves to their bloodlust, and to limit how badly they lose it when they do.”

All of the council members excluding Manfred and Wolf’s family and friends reveal surprised expressions after Luke finishes his explanation.

“How do you even know all of this?” Avery asks, his previous attitude being replaced by curiosity.

Luke turns towards him and says, “Wolf.”

Manfred ignores the others’ reaction to Luke’s answer and says, “Luke is right. We didn’t have much of a choice in this matter. All of the neighboring Safe Zones are also beginning to have difficulty obtaining food, so we can’t trade for it from them, and while the visitors would without a doubt have plenty of food, most of them probably wouldn’t be willing to share it without something in return. And many of them would likely try to take advantage of us in the process.”

“Besides,” Jessica suddenly interrupts him, “we have a relationship with the Grand Werewolf Empire through Wolf, so we might as well use it. Especially if all it costs us is having the crafters make them something when they are able to.”

Everyone finally calms down as understanding dawns on the faces of those who were upset with Luke and Manfred’s decision.

‘I just hope that the Werewolf Empress doesn’t try to hold this over Wolf’s head somehow…’ Luke thinks to himself with a frown.

Lucia notices this and tilts her head at him in question.

Luke just shakes his head and mouths ‘later,’ before Manfred says, “Since the food problem is solved, this meeting is over.”

Everyone begins to get up to go about their own business while Luke approaches his wife and whispers, “I know that the Werewolf Empress has been helping Wolf out quite a bit, but I highly doubt that the help will be free; and those two never once mentioned that they would want the crafters to do something for them later on.”

Wolf’s mother nods her head and whispers back to him, “You think that she might use this favor as a way to get whatever it is that she wants from him?”

Luke nods his head without another word.

“Then let’s warn him,” Lucia says before making her way towards the exit to the council chamber with Luke following behind her. “Even if this is just a baseless suspicion.”