Despite the growing strength of the players, no one had attempted to hunt a Demon Bear yet.

There were a few reasons for this. For starters, most players in the village were turning their attention to the east side of the river. The discovery of the Iron Ants was a much higher priority due to the materials they could provide. As powerful and intimidating as the Demon Bears seemed, there didn’t seem to be a reason to go after them aside from bragging rights.

On top of that, fewer players were hunting to the west to let the ecology recover from their overhunting. Even if the players had never hunted the bears, they were still part of the affected area, and therefore included in the pseudo-ban on hunting.

The last reason was that the Demon Bears were still pretty intimidating to most players. They might not be as fantastical as 8-foot-tall Mountain Goats, but the bears seemed to have a higher level than anything they had seen so far, with even the weakest being Level 29.

The beasts were also hard to find, as there had only been five total sightings in the three months they had been playing New Eden Online. Most players had never seen a Demon Bear and assumed that their territory was closer to the foot of the western mountains rather than anything closer. Their rareness enhanced their mystique, the players’ gamer instincts telling them that a boss monster that rare had to be dangerous.

Despite all of this, Loran wasn’t worried in the slightest. Compared to the dangers of the Iron Ant Drones or The Wise One, a single enemy didn’t seem as intimidating, no matter how strong it was. His confidence was only boosted by the offensive abilities the new magic system gave him. As long as he could keep avoiding its attacks, he could kite(1) it with spells until it dies, a strategy as simple as it was effective.

There was the possibility that the Demon Bear had some kind of advantage or ability that Loran wasn’t expecting, but it wasn’t as if he could plan for something he didn’t know about.

‘I just have to be careful,’ he reminded himself as he walked through the woods. ‘If we want to keep getting stronger we’ll need higher-level enemies. It's time to see how these bears measure up.’

~~~~~

It was now late evening, and Loran was sitting before a campfire with a roasting Green Rabbit and a few pieces of deer jerky. Even though he had several days' worth of rations with him, he didn’t know how long he planned to stay out here, so he wanted to make his supplies last as long as possible.

Loran watched the rabbit like a hawk as it cooked. After his time hunting and eating poorly prepared Drones, he wanted to make sure he didn’t ruin this as well.

‘Not like I have anything to season it with, but I’ll take bland meat over whatever the hell I was doing to those Drones.’

His dinner was close to finished, the meat browning nicely as beads of juice rolled down the side, evaporating before it even reached the flames below.

The crackling of the fire and the sizzling meat created a nice atmosphere with the quiet of the woods. After hunting Drones and higher-level enemies in the eastern woods, the lower-leveled west had little that could intimidate him.

Times like this almost made Loran forget that he was in a hostile video game and not camping in some national park.

*CRACK*

Loran winced as a slight but sharp pain ran through his head, the sensation similar to hearing a loud snapping sound despite knowing that the surrounding woods were almost completely silent.

“I just finished setting that up,” Loran sighed.

Five Moss Wolves were currently sneaking up on him, and probably thought they were doing a good job too. Admittedly their presence was so subdued that even [DANGER SENSE] was just barely able to detect them, but they had no experience dealing with magic.

The reason Loran felt safe heading out and sleeping in hostile territory was thanks to the discovery of a new spell. By stretching the mana out while making sure to suppress any volatility, the mana would start to become solid. By stretching this mana out as thinly as possible, it became a floating string, difficult to see and fragile enough to break without notice. Add to that the fact that breaking it created a kind of painful feedback for the caster, and Loran had discovered a perfect perimeter alarm.

It cost a lot of mana to set up a decently sized area, but with [EXTEND SPELL] it could easily last until morning and let him rest easily.

‘Did they even notice stepping on it?’ he wondered as they got closer. ‘I know it’s hard to feel it after testing around the village, but wouldn’t wolves be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary at a time like this?’

As he debated whether his assailants were confident or ignorant, the wolves drew closer. The slightest of growls could be heard as they slowly started to surround him.

The wolves were 15 feet away when Loran attacked. Turning suddenly, he charged for the one furthest to the left. The wolves leapt forward a second later, barely fazed by his lack of surprise.

With the Moss Wolf only five feet ahead of him, Loran raised his hand and released a spike of mana straight for the wolf’s head. The beast’s eyes widened as it tried to dodge, but it barely had any time to do so, and Loran’s control over the spell allowed it to follow through.

The glowing blue spike struck the Moss Wolf’s shoulder and buried itself in the beast’s torso. The mana dissipated into mist, and a moment later blood gushed from the half-inch-wide hole faster than the Wolf’s Boon moss could heal. The wolf began to limp away but collapsed to the ground after a few seconds.

‘What?!’ Loran thought, stopping suddenly with his mouth hanging wide. He knew that magic was potent and that Mana Spike was his most powerful spell, but he hadn’t been expecting it to one-shot a Moss Wolf so easily. ‘Did it pierce the heart? There’s no other way right?’

*BARK*

Loran was shaken from his stupor as the remaining Moss Wolves all lunged at him. They had also been surprised by his supernatural abilities and the loss of their packmate, but their instincts knew to keep attacking and wouldn’t miss such an easy opening.

Loran leapt back while activating [SPRINT] evading the first two while the others came from his side. One of the closer wolves moved to bite at his face, but Loran knocked it aside with a backhanded strike.

The last wolf, moving below the others, managed to clamp its jaws around his ankle, but the attack did little damage through his armor. Swiping his hand downward, Loran launched a blade of mana at the wolf’s neck. Unable to dodge, the blade cut through the beast’s spine, not deep enough to sever the head but still killing it instantly.

‘I get that this is the low-level area, but what the hell?’

Curious, Loran used [ANALYSE] on one of the wolves, and he quickly realized just how much stronger he had gotten in the last three months.

[NAME]: N/A

[SPECIES]: Moss Wolf

[LEVEL]: 5

[STATUS]

{HP}: 90/90

{SP}: 90/90

[END]: 9

[STR]: 14

[AGI]: 19

[DEX]: 9

[PER]: 14

[INT]: 5

[SPT]: 5

‘That…I almost feel bad,’ he thought as he deactivated [SPRINT].

Across the river, the only things that had levels in the single digits were the Iron Ant Drones, and they still had their abnormally high stats and powerful Skills. With their low stats and empty Skill lists, these Moss Wolves weren’t just weak, they were downright pitiful.

‘Maybe I should try to scare them off?’ He thought as he began dodging their attacks. ‘There’s no real reason for me to kill them at this point.’

He wasn’t sure if it was possible to intentionally scare them away with how aggressive animals tended to be in NEO, but the more he considered the idea the more he wanted to try it. After all, they were still waiting for the boosted spawn rates to fix the hunting damage so letting these three live was probably for the best.

‘Now how do I scare them?’

He had already demonstrated just how deadly he was, and while killing two of them did seem to scare them it just made their attacks more frantic in the hopes of killing him sooner.

‘I guess my only option is to try pinning them down. I can hold down three wolves right?’

He was pretty sure the answer was no. While he was stronger than each of them (by at least 5 STR) the difference didn’t seem big enough to make up for the fact that these wolves were rather large. Large enough that they could probably support his body weight with minimal issues. Their forward legs were also a bit more flexible than what real wolves would have, so grabbing them by the neck would probably result in him getting cut up by their claws.

‘Still, I may as well try. Who knows, maybe this will be the trick to taming these guys. I just have to overpower them.’

With a vague plan forming in his mind, Loran activated [SPRINT] and lunged at one of the wolves, using his greater speed to reach around the beast’s neck and get it into a chokehold without getting bit.

Throwing his weight sideways, Loran and the Moss Wolf hit the dirt. The wolf’s legs flailed about as it tried to get to its feet, and when that failed it tried to scratch up Loran’s back. The first few attacks left their marks through the armor, but Loran quickly formed a defensive wall of mana over his back before more damage could be done.

As the other two wolves tried to attack him, Loran kicked one away while managing to get his weaker arm around the one that aimed for his neck. Despite the debuff on his arm, it really only affected his wrist, so while holding the wolf caused him a bit of pain, he could still put enough strength into it that it couldn’t break free.

Now with a Moss Wolf under each arm, holding his head up to avoid their snapping jaws, Loran began pouring mana into the shield on his back, both to repair the damage and to extend the spell as well. Doing both at the same time was difficult, but he managed to finish just in time to see the last wolf lunging for him, its claws and jaws aiming for his exposed stomach.

Before the attack could connect, Loran created a light right in front of its face, briefly stunning it as he kicked it in the face again. Loran made a rope with mana to hold the wolf against the ground but was surprised to see that it was barely moving.

He then realized that he had kicked this poor creature in the face twice and understood that it probably couldn’t do much at the moment.

‘Honestly, it’s kind of impressive that I didn’t break its neck or anything.’

Still feeling bad, Loran wrapped the wolf's legs in the mana rope, not tightening it but ready to do so if it started to fight back.

‘And now, we…wait?’

The frantic attacks from the two wolves slowly stopped as they looked at the injured wolf. Perhaps they realized that he wasn’t trying to kill them, or maybe they had lost hope. Either way, they weren’t fighting back anymore, so it seemed like his plan was working.

As the wolves stopped moving Loran made eye contact before slowly releasing them. When they made no attempt to attack, he let go completely and allowed the rope to dissipate.

Once freed, the two wolves quickly regrouped with their injured packmate. After some prodding, the injured wolf opened its eyes and slowly climbed to its feet. The three stared at him but made no attempt to attack, likely wondering what he planned to do.

‘So far so good.’

Loran tried to move closer, but the two wolves began growling at him as the third took a step back.

‘Okay, how about a peace offering?’

Moving into a sitting position, Loran slowly reached into his inventory. The wolves seemed nervous as his hand seemed to disappear for a moment, but that fear turned to curiosity as his hand reappeared holding three dead Green Rabbits. Loran had wanted to do most of his hunting near the village so that he could focus on exploration once he went further west, but if he could figure out how to tame these wolves by handing over his kills then it was worth it.

He tossed the rabbits in their direction and after a moment of hesitation, the three wolves began eating.

With the wolves now pacified, Loran remembered his own dinner and turned his attention back to his campfire.

The rabbit had been knocked into the fire during the fighting and was, of course, semi-charred. It was still mostly edible, and he managed to slowly force it down despite the protests from his tastebuds.

‘Can't I get this right? Just once?’