The pair walked back towards the centre of the village.
When Isaac saw somebody coming in the opposite direction, he stopped them. He faced the bearded man dressed in loose hemp clothes and asked,
"Who does the village's hunting? Where can I find them?"
"Huh? I never seen you before. Yer an outsider, ain't ya? Don't bova us reg'lar villagers and go find out for yerself."
The person tried to walk past Isaac, but Isaac grabbed them by the shoulder. His grip was tight and vice-like so they couldn't get away,
"Ow ow oww! Tha' hurts, lemme go!"
Isaac refused to loosen his grasp. Meanwhile, Abbie stood in front of the man and spoke aggressively,
"Listen here. We're not lowly commoners like you. We're cultivators sent by the sect. Look at this badge." she grabbed the badge pinned to her coat and shoved it towards the man's face, "We're here to save your little village, so show a bit of gratitude and answer the question."
When the man heard 'from the sect', he shook involuntarily,
"I'm sorry! I apol'gise sir and madam, I had eyes but I failed to see! Please 'ave mercy on this poor man!"
Isaac commanded coldly,
"Just answer the question."
"O-of course sir! Aivar, Ragnar, Leith, Linnéa and Klara do most of our huntin', but Ragnar and Klara died not so long ago. Aivar stays..."
The man proceeded to list off directions to the 3 people's homes. Abbie whipped out a pen and paper and asked the man to repeat them so she could write them down. Then Isaac asked,
"Who's the most experienced hunter? Which one of them knows the area best?"
"Well, Aivar's been huntin' tha' longest, but Leith proba'ly knows the wild best. His dad and grandad were both hunters ya' see, so he got a lot of knowledge from them."
Isaac nodded when he heard the man's words. Then he released the iron grip he had on the man's shoulder. The man looked at Isaac somewhat fearfully and somewhat warily. He rubbed his sore shoulder while waiting for Isaac's permission to leave.
"Go."
That was all it took and the man scurried away like a sewer rat. Isaac turned to Abbie and spoke,
"Good. Let's see if we can pay Leith a visit."
*************************
A short while later, the duo were sitting at a man's table and being offered tea. Both declined. Abbie began a bout of questioning,
"I've heard that you're a hunter, Leith."
"Yes, that's correct."
"So you know the area well."
"I'm out in the wild every day, so yes. I have good knowledge of the surroundings."
"And would you say that anything's been strange recently? Have the animals been behaving differently? Have you seen anything unusual?"
"The animals were getting rather skittish about a month ago, then they quieted down for a period before becoming agitated again... about last week? I stopped hunting 5 days ago, just after the second attack on our village, so I'm not sure if they're still like that."
"Would it be correct to say the animals' unusual behaviour is due to the presence of the wild beast?"
"Yes, I believe so. Though I don't know what scared them a month back."
"You see, that's why we're here today; the wild beast. You wouldn't happen to know where it lives, would you?"
Leith was startled by the sudden question.
"U-uhh, no. No, I don't," he stammered.
"You don't sound sure about that though... do you not even have an idea?"
"Umm... if I had to guess, I'd say it's probably somewhere on the west side of the village – the animals on that side have been affected the most."
"Thank you for your help, Leith. We'll be going now."
*************************
After that, the pair visited Aivar and Klara. They asked similar questions to what they asked Leith, but they either got the same answers or no answer at all. In the end, they didn't learn much.
The only thing worth noting was a question Aivar asked, 'Is Leith alright? His sister died last month and he hasn't stopped grieving since, so I'm just a bit worried about him, you see.' Those were Aivar's exact words.
Abbie responded with a curt 'Yes, he seemed fine.' and passed over the comment, but Isaac picked up on it. The wolf attacks had only started last week, so somebody dying a month ago was strange. At first Isaac thought she'd died on a hunt which had gone wrong, but Aivar told him she was a guard, not a hunter.
He asked a couple more questions and learnt that, just over a month ago, 8 villagers had suddenly died. Aivar didn't know too much about the case since the village head had hushed it up, but there were rumours about them being murdered by intruders from Kukkula Village.
Kukkula Village was the only other settlement near here and lay 3 km northwest of Kirk Village. This business about 'murder' was certainly unusual for a quiet village like this, but Isaac didn't pay it much attention. His job was to kill a wild beast, not act as a stand-in for the local police, so he had no intention of getting involved.
Instead, it was nearly midday so he and Abbie headed back towards their residence near the other side of the village. When they got back, Eva and Johan were already there waiting for them. Abbie opened the door and saw the pair sat at the table, so she asked,
"So? What did you dig up?"
Johan sighed,
"Not much, unfortunately. We went round to see each place the wall's been attacked. The first spot is completely repaired, you've seen the second spot already – it's a shoddy job – and the third area is still in tatters. They've got a lot of guards focused in that region, but there are still holes in the wall big enough for a man to walk through.
"We also heard there were more attacks: merchant groups travelling from the west have been attacked and killed by the beast; people found ruins of their carriages 5 days ago. Other than that, we asked a lot of guards what the beast looked like. But all they knew was that it was a regular-sized black wolf."
"That's fine." Said Isaac as he pulled out a seat to sit at the table, "We got a much better description; I know what beast it is."
Abbie looked at him sideways, using her eyes to ask 'Why didn't you tell me this earlier?'
Isaac ignored her antics and continued to explain,
"It's a wolf with pitch black fur and blazing orange eyes. Its size is about the same as an adult wolf – or perhaps slightly smaller – and it has 2 special abilities. The first is a black claw phantom which appears sometimes when it attacks."
Johan's face lit up when he heard this. It seemed he had also guessed what the beast was. However, Isaac continued,
"And the second is to 'disappear' and then reappear somewhere else a few seconds later. Rather than disappearing, I believe it is travelling through shadows."
"It's the Sarcevic Wolf, isn't it."
Isaac nodded when he heard Johan's words. Eva's expression also brightened as she recognised the name.
Sarcevic Wolf. The name 'Sarcevic' was a very famous one in Northern Tundra. Very few children would grow up without being told the tale of Mikael Sarcevic at least once. He was a legend of this continent known as the 'Prince of Shadows' for his incredible usage of darkness-style Anima. He was also renowned for founding what used to be the continent's largest city.
As a child, Mikael had been abandoned by his parents. His family had lived in a small village which worship one of the various wolf gods. Every month their village would offer a sacrifice to the gods by venturing into the forest and leaving babies just outside a special den. The villagers referred to it as a 'shrine', but it was actually the den of wolf wild beasts.
That month, Mikael's parents had offered him and his twin sister Tori as sacrifices, since she simply couldn't afford to raise 2 children. She brought them to the mouth of the 'shrine' and left them there.
Of course, the pair were soon discovered by the wolves. When the 2 adult wolf wild beasts saw the small, innocent babies outside their den, they dragged them inside to eat. The wolves were raising young pups, but these pups didn't show any aggression towards Mikael or Toni. Instead, they played with them. The wolf parents saw this and chose not to kill Mikael or his sister Toni.
Wolves have very strong paternal instincts. Once they decided not to eat the twins, the wolf parents cared for them as if they were their own children. Mikael and Toni were safely raised by the wolves until the age of 9, when the wolf parents both died. Then the twins ventured out into the wild along with their wolf siblings.
It's unknown how much of the legend is true, but one part of it stuck. After the story was repeated over several generations, people began to refer to the species of wolf that raised Mikael as the 'Sarcevic Wolf'.
It was a very famous story and many people were acquainted with the features of a Sarcevic Wolf. It was slightly on the small side for wolves, had pitch black fur and bright amber eyes, and possessed 2 innate abilities due to its affinity with the shadows: phantom claw and self-like-shadow.
It was a rare nocturnal species of wolf which only hunted at night. During the day, it would hibernate in its underground den, and at night it would hunt a wide variety of prey: bears, elk, caribou, arctic hares, foxes, oxen, and other wolves. It would even use its phantom claw to catch birds if they flew too low.
All in all, it was a deadly creature whose strength was approaching the upper echelon of Rank 1 beasts. And now the group had to fight it.