As I was walking forward slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible, I soon chance upon two wolves that were eating what looked like a deer, and started approaching them even slower, hoping to take them by surprise and kill one of them before they could react.
When I was like five meters away from the closest wolf, I noticed his ears twitch slightly. Being quite sure that he heard me, I didn't even hesitate and lunged forward. As the wolf was eating with his back turned towards me, I couldn't only attack one place, so I plunged my spear up his ass.
A howl containing endless pain and suffering soon sounded throughout the forest. Not caring about it too much, I released the spear that was still in the wolf's ass and took the other one from my back to attack the remaining wolf. The fight was pretty easy, probably due to the constant fights I had inside my soul space against wolves. After ending the second one, I turned towards the first one. It was laying on the ground, eyes bloodshot and weak howls were still coming out if it's mouth. Feeling a bit sorry, I stabbed it's neck and ended it's suffering.
[Exp: 60/100]
'Ten more to go.'
I quickly left the scene of the crime, scared that all that howling will attract more wolves in the area, and hid in a tree 20 or so meters away. It only took two minutes before a pack of twenty wolves gathered around the area.
'Ai, what are my chances of winning?'
[One percent.]
'Oh, so I have a chance?'
[Yes, you can win if more than half of them die of a heart attack or other random event.]
A chuckle almost escaped my lips, but I managed to restrain myself, not wanting to alert the wolves. Being stuck, I just sat there and waited for the wolves to disperse. An hour or so of searching later, not finding anything, the wolves left the place.
'Ai, why didn't they eat the dead wolves?'
[Ethan, wolves will never eat their own kind. They will kill other wolves but never eat them, even when starving.]
'I see. Time to start hunting again.'
After all the wolves retreated, I got down form the tree and started searching for my next pray, avoiding the direction the pack of wolves just left in.
Five hours and three wolves later, the sun started setting. Not wanting to go back to the village before I leveled up, I apologized mentally to Anna and went to sleep on a branch atop a tree. I was slightly hungry but I didn't have any way to start a fire and didn't want to eat raw meat so I just endured it. Except the occasional howl and the biting cold, nothing of notice happened through the night. I really missed Anna's warmth during that night. In the morning I got down from the tree and started running around the area to warm up my body.
After warming up, I started making my way through the forest again, looking for other pray. As evening was getting close again, I finally killed my last wolf and leveled up.
[
Name: Ethan Knott
Age: Avatar 18;
Race: Avatar Human;
Experience: 0/200;
Health Points: 40/40;
Mana Points 20/20;
Level: 2;
Vitality: 4;
Strength: 3;
Dexterity : 3;
Intelligence: 2;
Resistance: 3;
1 free stat point
———
System Points: 0;
Spirit: 250;
]
'Why did my exp change back to zero?'
[Do you prefer to change the display from 0/200 to 100/300?]
'Very funny. I guess I will have to wait until tomorrow to go back.' I said while looking up at the sky that was slowly darkening.
[Your path was a bit circular so you can reach the village after one more hour of walking.]
'An hour doesn't seem that much, what direction should I go?'
After getting instructions from Ai, I started making my way back. I really didn't want to spend the night in the cold again. When I got close to the village, I noticed that there was a large amount of villagers patrolling around while carrying some improvised torches in their hands. Since this was not an usual occurrence, I could pretty much figure out what was going in.
'They must have found the bodies of the villagers I killed.'
I hid behind a mound of snow and waited patiently for a chance to sneak it. After two more hours, one of the torches they were holding finally burned out and a gap appeared. I silently made my way inside the village while staying low. I got lucky as no one seemed to notice me. Overjoyed, I went straight to Anna's place. After peeking inside, I noticed that she was not home.
'Where could she be at this hour?'
After waiting inside for a bit and seeing that there was no sign of her coming back, I picked one of my spears and started searching around the village quietly. Seeing no sign of her even after searching the entire place, I went to see old man Cunt. I didn't know why but he was the only other person who I felt I could slightly trust.
Arriving at his igloo, I made my way inside and found the old man just sleeping there. I got close and nudged him slowly using my spear. He woke up and looked at me confused for a moment before jumping up like a cat whose tail was just stepped on.
"What are you doing here? Do you know that there is a kill order on your head?"
A self-mocking smile appeared on my lips as I said "I figured as much, but I need to see Anna. Do you know where she is?"
The old man looked at me for a moment before sighing and saying "The chief locked her up and planned to use her as bait for you. What happened? Why did you kill those men?"
"They followed me out of the village and tried to kill me, so what am I supposed to do? Apparently in their mind I stole Anna from them or something like that. I had no choice but to kill them."
Seeing no traces of me lying the old man sighed again "I understand, but the chief will still have to make an example out of you. Killing three warriors will put the village in the danger of being unable to gather enough food."
"And how would killing me fix that?" I asked, a bit exasperated by the whole situation.
"It will not, but the others might rebel if you are not killed. He has to do this to ensure stability and save his own ass."
"Old man, do you have any idea how I could save Anna peacefully? I can't leave without her and if they stop me I will probably end up killing a lot more people. If I do that, the village is for sure finished and I don't want them all to die because of me."
The old man pondered for a moment before saying "You probably can't, but I should be able to. How about you wait here and I'll try to bring her to you?"
"Old man, the plan is good but how can I be sure that you will not go straight to chief and bring him back instead of Anna?"
"You can't. I can only tell you that I'm also not part of the village. I was an adventurer that took a quest to kill those ogres with my party. My entire party died and I saved myself by running up the mountain and reaching this place. Since then, I was stuck here, having to train the warriors in the village as payment for taking me in. I would like to go down the mountain and at least get the chance to die home, not here in this forgotten corner of the world."
"So you want to come with us when we will leave?"
"I do. The guild probably posted more quests to hunt those ogres and we might have a chance to actually leave the mountain. I was planning to give it a try sooner or later and it's safer with more people anyway."
"Fine, old man, but we'll do it another way. You go and get Anna and I'll wait for you outside the village. After you are back with her, we will all make our way down the mountain. This way I can be sure I will not get surrounded by other villagers in case you change your mind."
"Good. Wait for me at the place where we trained before."
After we talked about a few more details, I sneaked out of the village by grabbing a torch and pretending to be one of the guards. No one bothered to check too close as they were not expecting me to come out of the village instead of trying to get in.
After reaching the place where I used to train with the old man and took Anna on a date, I hid nearby and waited. Not long after, a commotion could be heard from the village and I could see the old man running together with Anna towards me. Seeing me walk out of my hiding place, he changed his direction slightly towards me and said while still running.
"They spotted me when I got out of the village. We must run, now!"
I walked up to Anna and without saying a single word, I picked her up in a princess carry and started running after the old man. After leveling up, Anna felt as light as a feather to me.
'Ai, how strong am I now exactly?'
[One unit of strength is the strength of an average adult human. Now, you are three times stronger than an average human so carrying a weight of 60 kgs poses no problem for you.]
The tree of us kept running for an entire hour until the howls of wolves kept sounding all around us. Old man Cunt immediately said:
"Seems like we entered their territory. Quickly go up some tree. We'll wait for the morning there as they will not follow us anymore."
After hearing the old man, I picked the nearest tree and rapidly climbed up, sitting down on a thick branch.
Anna, who stayed silent the entire way, suddenly started bawling her eyes out while hugging me closely. A long while later, after she calmed down, she said to me softly with a hint of blame in her voice.
"I was scared you will leave me alone as well."
"Didn't I promise we will search for that cave together? How could I leave you?"
"But, they said that you killed someone from the village and ran away."
"I had no choice. Those people I killed followed after me and tried to kill me. After I killed them I decided to hide in the forest and come get you later. I'm sorry I made you worry." I explained and kissed her on the lips to calm her down shortly after. While we were immersed in our kiss a voice came from in front of us.
"Yeah, don't mind me and continue."
Anna quickly broke the kiss and hid her head in my clothes like a startled rabbit.
"Old man, you really know how to ruin the mood."
"But, I told you to continue. I was actually enjoying the show." Replied old man Cunt sarcastically.
I really wanted to throw him off the branch in the middle of the pack of wolves but I really owed too much to this old man. Clearing my throat, I said.
"So, old man, what do you think we should do now?"
"I suppose we could go see what's the situation with the ogres and make a plan after that."
"How long will it take to reach them?"
"Two days if we rest the night."
"Do you mind if we do something before that? I kind of have a promise to fulfill."
Old man Cunt frowned at my words and asked "What promise?"
"To search for the cave where Anna's parent disappeared. It should be in one day distance from the village."
"Why would you want to go to that god forsaken place?"
"Huh? You know about it?"
Anna also peaked out of my chest, waiting for the old man's answer.
"I do. The chief sent warriors to follow Anna's parents tracks and found the cave shortly after. After sending six warriors inside, none of them came back. The chief soon sealed the cave with a big boulder, scared of whatever was inside."
"I see, so he told Anna that they left the village to find another path and never returned to stop her from wanting to check up the cave. Now I'm even more curious about it. Old man, do you know how to get there?"
"I do. I was there to help with pushing that boulder but I'm afraid that we will need at least five people to push that boulder out of the way."
"Don't worry. I'm stronger than I look."
"Tsk.. I would have believed you if you didn't spend the last few months getting beaten up by me."
Provoked by the old man, I added the free point into strength and punched the tree trunk as hard as I could. Seeing that my fist actually penetrated the trunk, a gawking expression appeared on the old man's face. I smugly looked at him and asked
"Do you believe me now?"
"Why the hell did you bother me all this time if you were already this strong?"
While we were in the middle of our bantering, Anna meekly asked from my chest.
"So, are we going to the cave?"
"Sure. Tomorrow morning we'll make our way there and check it out."
"Great."
After a bit more chatting, we all made ourselves as comfortable as we could get, considering we were sitting in a tree, and went to sleep.