Wasn't that for what you were looking forward to?"
"Nah, not really. I was looking forward to being the hunter and not the fucking prey," Luz retorted with grinding teeth while pressing the trigger.
An arrow immediately left his crossbow and hit one of the wolves, who yelped in pain.
"Time to change weapons," Lewis shouted as sweat formed on his forehead. "We don't have time to reload again."
By now, the duo was surrounded by orange eyes, staring at them from the dark as their growls grew louder.
Without any hesitation, Luz followed Lewis's advice, throwing his crossbow to the side before taking out his shield and Falcata hanging on his back.
Just like Luz, his partner Lewis used a shield as well. But unlike him, Lewis instead opted out for a shortsword since he was more used to piercing rather than only hacking.
However, the wolves didn't remain idle. One of them began sprinting towards Lewis.
Lewis sighed with his back against Luz's while positioning himself, "This will be fun."
But before Lewis could lament further about his situation, a giant wolf jumped at him with his mouth wide open, filled with rows of sharp white teeth.
Nonetheless, Lewis didn't lose his composure and immediately hit the wolf with his shield before stabbing it the next second with his shortsword.
Wailing in pain, the wolf began biting onto Lewis's arm, protected by leather armor. But the latter calmly ignored it and pulled out his shortsword of the growling wolf's abdomen, and blood splattered everywhere.
On the other hand, Luz didn't remain idle either, and as the wolf's focus was on Lewis, he hacked mercilessly at the wolf's neck with his falcate, causing large flesh wounds.
Luz's actions were more than enough to force the wolf's mouth open, and Lewis immediately took the opportunity to pierce its throat.
"One done, hehe," Luz gasped before shifting his focus towards the surrounding wolves, only to see two wolves jumping at him.
They were way too fast for Luz to even react, and he was thrown against the ground as they began biting onto his leather armor.
Horrified by what just happened, Lewis wanted to help Luz, only to realize he as well was surrounded by four growling wolves. His eyes immediately narrowed as he cast a spell while letting his weapons fall to the ground. 「"Blaze."」
Flames instantly started shooting out of his palms, and Lewis turned into a living flame thrower as he set all of the wolves surrounding him ablaze.
Enraged by what was happening, Luz muttered his favorite spell,「"Spatial destruction,"」while slapping each of his palms against the wolves' back of the head.
Confused by what their prey was trying to achieve, the wolves continued mercilessly biting onto Luz's leather armor. The space around Luz's palm began to tremble, destroying anything it came into contact with. Their craniums, as well as their brains, were decimated in a fraction of a second. Brain matter and flesh got thrown in all directions as they collapsed onto Luz.
"Don't fuck with me," Luz panted as he thought for a second about the progress he had made over the last three weeks. 'That spell wasted around 50% of my mana.' (Timeskip.)
Over the time skip, Luz dedicated most of his free time to his combat abilities. His familiarity with the weapon of his choice increased significantly, and one could even consider him an amateur knight.
However, Luz made most of his progress in magic. Not only has his familiarity with most of his elements increased, he even learned a new casting discipline known as fake dual casting.
This discipline only has the name because most magicians confuse it with dual-casting whenever it is employed, even though they are entirely different disciplines.
To nobody's surprise, dual casting is used to employ two spells at once. But when it comes to fake-dual-casting, one simply increases the number of attack surfaces through which a magic spell gets utilized.
The only drawback is that the intensity and damage output of a spell is split between each attack surface, while around 10% of mana evaporates.
But let's stop with the theoretical stuff and focus on the fight.
The usage of magic scared most wolves shitless, and the number of wolves eager to attack them decreased to the relief of the hunting duo.
Because of that, Luz and Lewis could engage with one wolf at a time, making their fight easier.
Half an hour later:
"OY, OY, OY, where is your fighting spirit now!?" Luz laughed loudly with a grin on his bloodied face as he mercilessly hacked onto a poor wolf's face with his Falcata.
The wolf wailed loudly in pain and immediately gave up on any further engagements with Luz. Unfortunally for it, Luz was lost in the heat of the moment and didn't give in. Luz mercilessly kicked the wolf's belly before chopping at his neck with his sword again.
Lewis, who had been quietly watching the spectacle from the side, could only shake his head. "Luz, stop toying with that poor wolf and give it a quick death."
Panting, Luz finally returned to his senses and let the twitching wolf die in peace as his stomach began to growl. But that wasn't all. The schizophrenic voices from the parasites in his body echoed through his head.「"Devour it."」
Drool slowly escaped his lips as his suppressed animalistic desires began growing stronger. He slowly placed his shaky hand onto the wolf's wound as he was ready to devour it.
But Luz didn't continue further. His self-control barely stopped him from following their words.
"So what will we do with all these carcasses?" Luz asked as he shifted his gaze onto the dead wolves surrounding them. Under the moonlight, Luz counted around twenty-five slain wolves.
"I don't want to say it, but we gotta leave them here," Lewis sighed as he slowly walked towards Luz.
Neither of them liked the idea, but what else were they supposed to do? The blood was spilled already, and it was only a matter of time till the real deal, apex predators found this place.
Hesitantly, Luz suggested, depressed, "But let's take two of them with us so that we can at least make a few silver coins, selling their body parts."
Lewis nodded to his proposal. "Sounds like a good idea. But let's take wolf ears with us. Maybe we could get some extra pocket money for taking care of local predators.
The duo chose the two wolves with the most minor injuries while Lewis also cut each of the wolves' ears.
"Let's quickly finish the quest you told me about before getting the fuck out of here," Luz sighed as he slowly grew tired from all the walking.