They departed soon after the warning from Ebin; it was still pretty early in the morning.

Guided by a still exhausted Lucius, Joanne talked to the men working the fields. Luc didn’t care much for them.

To him, the faces of the inhabitants of Hillside often bled together into a formless mass of indifference. No different from a blur in the corner of the eye.

He preferred to let his newfound teacher do the talking; he stuck to Joanne’s back, the farmers probably didn’t want to deal with the half-elf son either way.

If it was that little shit they would kneel before him, “young Lord”, but since I’m me, they don’t acknowledge my existence. We should let the Katillrs eat you all while you sleep.

“So, you saw a pack of them arrive from the southeast, they looked at you two and then, just, left?”

“Aye, we were here just working since early, we stopped to eat and we saw them on the road, all the way there at the end of the field, but they didn’t do shit. It was probably because of Big Bar here,”

He patted a barrel-chested man at his left, he was tanned, had a block-like face, and was almost three heads taller than him “he’s as big as a bear so they probably thought twice about attacking us, what a good decision that was! Bar could rip them apart with his bare hands, aye!”

Big bar was surely an imposing man. You would be excused by thinking he was half-orc o had some weird mixed blood of some type, but he was fully human, at least on the outside.

Even so, ripping a Katillr apart with just his hands is probably impossible.

“They might have been traveling, or just sizing you up, if they were truly hungry or saw you as a threat they wouldn’t have thought twice before going for your necks… Big Bar or not,” Anne smiled wryly “I heard something about a dread wolf too?”

“Aye, one of them furry fiends was way! bigger than the rest, dread wolf alright!”

“I see. I will look into it, make sure they’ve left, and if they didn’t, I’ll make them go,"

“Oh! You have my t0hanks then, miss guardian. It would be a relief to work without having to worry about some crazy animals attacking us!”

She gave her thanks, and the two walked the short distance to the end of the wheat fields, where the supposed pack of katillr had been spotted.

Lucius couldn’t see anything. He had no tracking abilities whatsoever. He didn’t know the first thing about hunting, so it was a futile effort to even attempt to find any animal tracks.

In good contrast, Joanne of Wald is an experienced and seasoned adventurer as well as a fully trained monster hunter. She didn’t have to look twice, as soon as they arrived, she knelt down and easily found what she was looking for.

“Well, at least they weren’t lying. Those Katillr do exist,”

“Were you doubting them?” Lucius inquired her.

“I had my doubts yes… it’s better to be a bit distrustful of everyone, you should take that to heart it makes life easier, not everyone lies out of malice though… some people really do believe what they say, they just don’t know any better," She turned to face him, her cheeks a bit reddened “Don’t say anything or get weirded out yes? Or I’ll make you run until you drop”

Without mediating any more words, she closed her eyes and sniffed loudly, tilting her head back as she did, white hair falling backward as she searched for something in the air itself with the help of her nose. After a few seconds, she smiled and re-opened her eyes.

“Got them,”

“Is that a wolfkin' power?”

“Not a power, my sense of smell is just a tad better than normal,”

“Normal humans can’t smell animals over long distances,”

“Then it’s fortunate they aren’t really far off,”

Lucius's eyes grew bigger in shock

“Are they going to attack?” he was about to unsheathe his sword before Anne caught his hand

“Don’t worry, we aren’t in danger. They haven’t even noticed us. They’re too far for that,” She stood up. “You really aren’t knowledgeable about this stuff, aren’t you? Wolf kin like me can smell anything over very long distances”

“So, it is a power then?”

“Not a power, just a perk of being born a freak. No one told you about us?”

“No, I leave reading to other people. I have better stuff to do than waste my time hearing about the achievements of better men,”

She giggled. “We’ll want me to teach you?”

“Not really, but I can’t stop you,”

“You sure aren’t cute. You’re not getting any girls like that. Such a waste of your good looks, though young ladies like those types too,”

“Which type? I’m no type and I have no interest in them,” Lucius' voice grew more annoyed by the second.

“The cold-hearted, handsome little asshole type. Know anyone like that?”

“Just stop and tell me about the wolfkin or whatever makes you change the subject”

As if I would go for any of these dirty human girls, they gave me no chances when I arrived and now, they give me weird looks, fuck them, don’t care for no wench, I’ll find my own women, elven girls.

“Well, since you’re so interested in my people, I’ll give you a short class. Follow me,” She walked westbound and the elf boy followed close behind.

“To make things short, long time ago, the first king, Enerin, had a problem, he wanted a kingdom but didn’t have the strength to get it for himself, since the enemies weren’t other humans or other races, but large, unknown and dangerous creatures even the weather itself since it was too cold and harsh to live in, they could barely hold what little ground they gained. Even so, the king wanted more, so… one of his followers created the first wolfkin. How exactly? isn’t really known, but it probably wasn’t anything pretty, the first wolf kin could live in the coldest and harshest of climates, they were faster and stronger than any human, had sharp senses, and collaborated perfectly with each other, they probably were more wolf than human,”

She looked to Lucius, who was staring off into space.

If I swing in that motion, I might be able to get he-

“You follow?”

“Yes yes, harsh climate and lots of monsters,”

“Yeah, they used them as cannon fodder, to wipe out all the most dangerous of creatures, to brave the deadliest of places, in the end… once they didn’t have much use for us, well, once you wipe out all the bigger fish, there’s no one else in the pond but you,”

So, they got wiped out?

The pack of ravenous beasts were so-called Katillrs, quadrupedal animals that resembled wolves, but they had long thin cat-like tails and ears, plentiful fully black fur with a characteristic white line crossing from the tip of their snouts to the end of the tail.

After a long search, they found them drinking from a pond in the middle of a clearing. Anne and Lucius were on top of a hill overlooking the pack’s move. So far, they avoided detection by following Anne’s strict orders.

“What are we going to do?” Lucius asked.

“For now? we watch them, afterward, I’m not sure… and try to keep a low voice, we don’t want to be found, they have sharp ears”

“Never seen one before. Are they really that dangerous?”

“In terms of strength, a bit more than a dog, maybe a bit less than a wolf, but they’re not dangerous for being strong”

“Yeah?” why then?,”

“Super fucking aggressive and territorial as hell, they tend to migrate a lot but once they settle you won’t get them out without a fight,”

“So, if they notice we are here, they might attack us?”

“Most likely, they don’t really do the whole try to intimidate thing, usually they just go for your throat unless they don’t care for you,”

“hell,”

Hope they can’t see us from here

“Maybe we should have brought Big Bar with us?” Anne joked

“What, aren’t you a monster hunter? Not feeling scared, are you?”

Anne stifled a giggle that threatened to leave her lips and become a full-on cackle, but since that would give away both their locations, she managed to hold it in. The reason was that she noticed the young elf’s legs tremble slightly.

He sure doesn’t like to be honest, just like Free, so cute!

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” she mocked him

“Shut up old witch!” he replied in a low tone. “what about that dread wolf thing?”

“Ah that, yeah, forgot about it” she looked up while grabbing her chin.

Lucius' face almost made her laugh again

“Don’t worry, they saw that big one over there,” she pointed to one of the Katillr, probably the alfa of the pack given he was twice the size of the other five “There’s no way two farmers on this region have ever seen a dread wolf, to begin with, they don’t live here and even if they did, why would they travel with a pack of katillr? they just got scared by the size of that one by the tree and just called it a dread wolf. Remember what I said about people not knowing any better?”

“Then what is a dread wolf either way?”

“Tell you later, we can’t ignore it anymore. What do you think about this now? we kill them?”

“I’m going to fight that?”

“As much as I would like to make you fight a wild animal for training, Freesia might have my head for it, so no, you stay put, I’ll kill them all, I know you want to be an adventurer, but Alden asked me to give you more than just sword lessons since you probably would replace him one day,”

Figures, that asshole asked her to train me, if he had told me to train under her before leaving, I wouldn’t have done it, so they didn’t say anything, she just waited for me to ask, they had me playing on their hands this whole time.

“Don’t make that face, I heard you have some issues with your father but even if you don’t want to become the next guardian and do end up leaving the village, this is going to help you, you have to learn how to take risky decisions… so I will present it to you,"

Joanne proceeded to speak in a more serious tone.

“You have six Katillr, highly dangerous animals, known for being territorial and aggressive, a kid or a woman wouldn’t stand a chance against them, they would get mauled if getting caught by one of them, hell, even Big Bar would die if more than one attacked him. We don’t know if they plan to make this their new territory or if they are just passing by in-migration, if we leave them be they might just leave on their own, or do we just risk it and attack the pack now before losing our chance?”

So, risking ourselves or the village? This thing again, so disgusting, I hate to think about him or his half-assed lessons, but, well, it’s not like she would get hurt, right? What’s there to lose by killing them? I’m in no danger myself.

“Kill them,”

Anne didn’t say anything else, she planned to kill them either way, it’s the rational thing to do in this situation, but she wanted to hear him say it, it’s the duty of a guardian to put himself on the line before anyone else after all.

There wasn’t much to hide behind in the clearing, so she did her best to remain unnoticed by the beasts by hiding behind the small bushes and trees as she descended the hill.

She knew it was going to be nearly impossible to get close to them, they were wild animals, their senses of smell and hearing wouldn’t allow for them to get ambushed, all she wanted was to get noticed a long distance away from Lucius, that way he would remain safe.

Once she decided she was a fair distance from the kid hiding on the hill, she drew her sword, Merrow blood felt light on her hand as always, the runes on the blade lit up ever so slightly as she strengthened her grip on it.

She channeled mana all over her body. She would need to be fast for this.

There were six of them including the big one, two of them were playing, biting their tails and rolling around, definitely the cubs of the pack since their size was not much to speak about, another two were resting close to the pond and were probably fast asleep under the sun, the leader was resting on a tree a close distance away, lazily overlooking the activities of the young.

The last one was the closest to Anne, it was a fully grown Katillr, the watch “dog” roaming about the place, it was getting closer and closer to the bush where Anne was preparing herself, she reasoned it was a few seconds away from finding her, so she decided to take the first strike, I wasn’t in her to lose the strategic advantage without cashing in on it.

The Katillr didn’t notice what happened to him, his head was rolling in the air so fast he barely had any time to react.

The wolfkin woman left a cloud of dust in her wake, but now all the creatures noticed her.

Without skipping a beat, she darted to the closest ones to her. The little cubs, one of them, saw her approaching and ran, while the other stood their ground, growled at her. It was the last thing it did. The blade struck on its body, penetrating the heart. It died instantly.

She wanted to go after the other cub that ran off into the forest, but the two adult ones had woken up and were closing in on her. With two adult ones and the alpha getting closer, Anne knew she had to cull the numbers, and fast.

She stood mere centimeters away from the corpse of the first cub, blood spurting freely from the pierce inflicted wound, the eyes of the young creature lifeless, colorless.

The two adults sprang violently towards the woman. Rage reflected on every movement. But she stood her ground, she knew better than to lose her nerves against this kind of enemy, showing her back would be fatal.

So, she would attempt to stall for time by avoiding their attacks. Joanne prepared herself to attack as soon as the opportunity presented itself. She had been taught to never waste a moment.

Combat may not be avoidable, but it must be ended as soon as possible.

The pair came after her, side by side, but split up in an attempt to get her at the center of an improvised pincer attack.

She dashed to the left as soon as the Katillr leaped towards her, fangs filled with primal hate.

The monster hunter launched herself to the ground and slid under the animal. As it soared above her, without losing any time, she pierced it, aiming at the heart. The creature tumbled to the ground, lifeless.

The carcass collided on its way down with the other Katillr. The beast was at a loss as to what had happened to its pair.

But Anne had been taught to have no mercy or empathy for her prey.

They are to be killed and kill she did.

Her hands don’t tremble nor doubt as Merrow blood enters through its chest and comes out from the lower part of the neck.

Four gone, two more left, and the biggest one of them arrived.

Hello, there big guy, you wouldn’t attack a lady now, won’t you?

Anne hastily removes the sword, blood splatters unceremoniously, she readies her stance and braces for an assault that never comes.