With two wolves dead and one injured, Leon leisurely looked around at what was happening.
The group of men had managed to give some tiny nicks and cuts towards the two wolves they had ganged up on, however, no major injuries were apparent on either side. Meanwhile, the wolf that was injured by his horse had been dodging his horse's continuous charges but had started moving towards one of the exits of the clearing.
It saw its two brethren get slaughtered with ease and felt that the wolves didn't even have a possibility of winning the fight, so it howled before it started to run off. The two wolves that were fighting the group of men heard its brother's howl and made a dash for it.
Seeing this, the group of men didn't chase but finally relaxed and most of them fell down onto their knees or butts. Although the fight had been a breeze for Leon, the experience for the normal men most likely felt like it had shaved a few years off their lives, as they weren't used to the nerve-wracking and life or death situations.
The only person who looked like he hadn't lost years of his life was the man who was giving out the orders earlier, he stood on both his legs but leaned on his spear as he panted.
Observing the enemies run away, Leon's horse started to trot back towards him and when he got there he merely puffed out some air as if he was saying.
'Look how great I was!'
Leon laughed out loud and rubbed the mane of his horse affectionately.
"Hahaha, you did good buddy."
The horse stamped the ground with one hoof with joy. Before Leon could dote on his horse more, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to find the old man who was sitting in the cart bowing in front of him.
Leon could tell that bowing was difficult for the man as he obviously was quite old and used a cane, so he politely helped the old man stand straight.
"There's no need to bow, I was just doing my job as a good samaritan."
Hearing Leon's humbleness, the old man's wrinkled face revealed a smile and let out a chuckle.
"It's good to see the young generation isn't completely devoid of good people. At least allow me to thank you for helping us, it would've been quite hard for us to deal with those beasts without your help."
The old man turned over to the group of men who were still on the ground.
"Cmon, y'all. Come give thanks, it's the least we can do for the person who helped us."
Although some of the men were still breathing heavily, they didn't hesitate to follow the old man's word and came over to give their thanks to Leon.
Leon gave a nod at the thanks before he voiced out his questions.
"So out of curiosity, what are you guys doing out here? If you don't mind me asking, you guys don't exactly look like your adventurers or from around here."
The old man hit his wooden cane on the floor in approval.
"Quite astute! You are correct. We are from a village about five days on horseback from here."
Suddenly he pointed towards the girl in the cart who was wrapped in a cloth blanket and hadn't moved the entire time Leon had been in the clearing.
"Normally we stick to ourselves, but since my granddaughter suddenly became too ill, that even our village apothecary/herbalist couldn't cure her. They recommended going to a city for treatment, but due to the serious nature of the illness. We had to take the shortest path to the closest city and Mifis just happened to be the closest."
Then the old man used his cane to point at the middle-aged man with the spear, who had been giving out orders earlier during the fight.
"Since we had to cross the canyon which meant we possibly could run into monsters, I gathered up any men willing to come with us, and luckily he used to be a soldier. Although I didn't think we would be attacked by five gray wolves, once again I give you my thanks. I would give you some money as a thank you, but even though I am the village chief the treatment will most likely cost me an arm and a leg"
Leon nodded his head with a kind smile.
"No problem, your thanks is plenty. How about we go together? Coincidentally I'm also going to Mifis. Doesn't hurt to have another person to help along with the journeys does it?"
Hearing Leon offer to essentially help protect them, the old man couldn't be happier, although Leon hadn't mentioned it. It was painfully obvious that Leon was an adventurer and while Leon obviously wasn't a powerful one unless he was disguised, any adventurer would be valuable when all that was left were regular men and a retired soldier.
"We would be delighted"
Although gray wolves were weak and decomposed quite fast, it had barely been a few minutes since they were killed so their cores weren't exposed, but Leon still was curious about how they would distribute them.
"As for the cores, would you be fine with a one-for-one split?"
The old man shook his head and Leon was nervous that the old man had hidden his true colors and was really a greedy man, however, the old man was in fact the opposite.
"Take both of them. After all, you did kill both of them."
Leon looked at the poor kid who, upon closer inspection, was sweating bullets and breathing heavily even though she hadn't moved at all.
"Are you sure?"
The old man merely nodded.
"Think of it as payment for helping us get to Mifis even though we can't pay you with coins."
Not wanting to seem annoying, Leon just decided to go along with the old man and walked up to the corpses and carved out the two cores with Ensis, since the body hadn't decomposed to the point that they would be exposed yet.
As the sun started to drop in the sky, Leon climbed up his horse's saddle and started going forward.
"Let's get going before the sun sets."