The following morning, Ian woke up alone in his tent. He could hear the sounds of men working hard outside. He put on a jacket, since it was cold in the morning, before stepping out of his tent. Based on the amount of light he could see, Ian believed It was still very early in the morning
When Ian stepped out of his tent, he was greeted by Kevin and Emmett. They were next to a fire cooking some meat with some other random ingredients. Ian looked towards the sky and saw that the sun was still rising.
Ian walked up to Kevin and Emmett and asked, "What's going on?"
"Oh, Emmett and I are making breakfast for everyone. Erik allowed us to use some of the wolf meat to make meals for everyone." Kevin kept stirring the pan of random ingredients.
Ian sat down near them and said, "I understand that, but what I don't understand is where you got the other ingredients."
"What do you mean?" Kevin said as he cracked an egg into the pan.
"Where did you get these mushrooms, wild vegetables, and eggs from? The salt, pepper, meat, and other condiments I get, but not those." Ian's face still looked a bit sleepy.
Kevin gave a quick glance at Emmett before saying, "We went out to look for them. The eggs we got for a few bird nests. The mushrooms we found growing on some trees. And the wild vegetables we found growing scattered throughout the forest. It took us an hour to find everything."
"Okay, but how do you know if they're safe to eat?" Ian still looked a bit confused.
Emmett raised his hand to get Ian's attention and said, "I've seen you use them before. Not only that, but Zoey has also told me about wild foods that are safe to eat."
"Oh…fair enough. I guess I'm still tired from yesterday." Ian rubbed the sleepiness off of his eyes.
"Yeah, thank goodness your dad showed up to save us again," Kevin said.
The three of them sat in silence for a few seconds before Kevin continued, "By the way, what happened to the wolf pups? Did Erik kill them?"
Ian twitched when Kevin mentioned the wolf pups. He took a deep breath and then said, "No, I killed them. He told me to do it, so I did."
I then went on to explain everything that happened in the cave after Kevin and Emmett were knocked out. But he left out the part about him not killing the black pup.
"I see. Well, thank goodness he got there when he did. If he didn't, then we would have been goners." Kevin said this nonchalantly.
Kevin turned to face the fire once again and with a serious face, he said, "To believe that those pups were the children of that wolf. If I had known, I would have killed them on sight."
Then, as if a switch was flipped, Kevin went back to being all smiles and said, "But thank goodness you were there to finish the job."
Ian gave him a nervous smile and said, "Yeah…right."
Kevin gave Ian a weird look. "You did kill them, right…right…RIGHT!?" as he spoke, Kevin also got closer and closer to Ian's face.
"Yes, Jeez." Ian looked a bit uncomfortable. Then he looked at the fire and said, "Kevin, the food is burning."
"Oh crap!" Kevin turned back to the food and tried to fix it. He wasn't the best at cooking but he had never burnt food before so he had no idea how to fix it.
Ian watched Kevin try to fix the food for a while before stepping in. "You Idiot, give me that sh*t. I'll cook the food. You two go get more ingredients. We don't have enough for everyone."
Kevin did not try to argue. He knew that if there was one thing he couldn't argue with Ian about it was cooking. Kevin and Emmett both stood up and walked into the forest to look for more ingredients.
After half an hour, Kevin and Emmett returned to the camp with many more wild vegetables and mushrooms. Upon entering the camp, they were met with the sight of multiple hunters sitting around the fire eating food.
Upon a closer look, they could tell the hunters were eating what appeared to be scrambled eggs cooked with wild vegetables and mushrooms. Alongside that, they also had a piece of well-seasoned meat.
The sight of the food made both of them extremely hungry. They both rushed over to Ian hoping to get some breakfast.
"Yo Ian, you better have saved us some," Emmett called out.
Ian stopped stirring the food for a moment and turned to face them. "What took you guys so long. I've almost finished serving everyone."
"We brought more ingredients, just like you asked." Kevin dropped a bag filled with a variety of different ingredients before sitting down.
"You brought a bit more than what I needed, but it's okay. I'll make you guys some breakfast soon." Ian returned to stirring the pan.
"So where's Erik? I thought he would have been here eating," Kevin asked.
"He's talking to Liam with the communication crystal. Apparently, Liam and the others should be arriving soon, but who knows how long it'll be till they do," Ian spoke but did not look up from cooking.
Kevin was about to say something but was interrupted by Erik who said, "Smells like breakfast. Ian, give me a large plate of food. Liam and the others will be arriving in around 15 minutes so I want to be fed and ready to go."
"You got it, boss. A large plate of scrambled eggs and vegetables with two well-seasoned medium-well wolf steaks coming right up." Ian spoke so casually as if he knew exactly what Erik wanted.
Erik pointed two finger guns at Ian and said, "You know it. You know exactly what I always want. Too bad we don't have any cheese."
Once Erik finished speaking, he sat down near the group of three and began talking about the previous day's hunt. After a few minutes of chatting, Ian finished making the last meals and sat down to eat as well.
Everyone was relaxing and enjoying themselves. But that would only last for so long. Not long after Ian finished eating, Liam showed up.
"So this is where you fellas are at," Liam said when he saw everyone.
Liam, you made it. That's great, now we can get started." Erik turned to face everyone and said, "Alright everyone, the backup has arrived. I need everyone to start packing up and be ready to head out within the next 15 minutes."
Afterwards, Erik and Liam turned and walked in the direction Liam came from. Since Ian, Kevin, and Emmett had finished eating, they stood up and began to undo their tent.
Ten minutes later, almost everyone was done packing up. Slowly, they all started to walk in the direction Erik and Liam went. After walking for a few minutes, the groups of people were introduced to the sight of a massive stone giant. Alongside that, there were ten others who were moving wagons around.
The group of hunters looked at the wagons and counted them. There were 40 in total. Each wagon was the size of a minivan. However, two wagons stood out from the rest. They were both the size of a house.
The hunters could tell that one of those wagons belonged to the stone giant but they wondered who the other one belonged to.
As everyone thought this, Erik and Liam showed up again. "Oh, it seems almost everyone is here. That's alright, we can explain everything now," Liam said.
Erik gave Liam a nod and said, "Alright everyone, each one of you will be given a wagon to fill up. You are tasked to fill up these wagons as much as possible. Once you've done that, you can start to make your way back to the village so you can unload. After you have unloaded the bodies, you will come back to get another load. I expect you all to use your full power so you can make multiple trips in one day. It takes me slightly over an hour to make a full round trip at max power, so I expect you all to at least make two trips. If you make more than two trips, you will be rewarded. Do you have any questions?"
Everyone looked around to see if anyone had something to say. No one seemed to want to say something. But then Kevin raised his hand and asked, "So I understand that Liam's stone giant will be pulling one of the giant wagons, but who will be pulling the other."
Erik looked at Kevin and said, "Easy, I will. The second one is for me."
Everyone looked shocked. They didn't expect Erik to pull such a big load but no one objected to him.
Seeing as no one else had a question, Erik said, "Well if no one else has anything to ask, let's get to work." After Erik finished talking, he walked over to his wagon, grabbed its rope, and pulled it effortlessly.
Everyone watched in astonishment as they saw Erik pull that massive wagon like a child pulling a toy wagon. Even the gold ranks wouldn't be able to do that.
Once Erik left, Liam climbed into his stone giant and pulled his massive wagon away. Shortly after, everyone else began to grab a wagon and headed towards the wolf territory.
Ian, Kevin, and Emmett waited for everyone to grab their wagons before getting one themselves. Once everyone left, they grabbed their wagons and started to pick up all of the wolf bodies they could find.
It wouldn't take long for them to fill up their wagons. After collecting 20 bodies, the three of them began to head towards the village.
The three of them decided to make the trip home into a race. They wanted to see who was the fastest. Ian, Kevin, and Emmett lined up next to each other, ready to run at full speed.
Kevin turned to the others and counted down, "Three…two…ONE!"
The three of them bolted at full speed. Kevin was in front of the three of them. He used his wind powers to give himself a boost.
Emmett was barely behind Kevin as he too used his elemental power to boast himself. He would create small pillars under his feet to push himself forward.
Ian was the furthest behind. He tried running as fast as he could but he was still falling behind. If he wasn't pulling a wagon he could've used a skill to give himself a boast. But that would be impossible in this situation.
After traveling for two hours, Ian finally fell too far behind. He lost all sight of them just a moment ago. Even if he did fall behind he was still going to keep moving at top speed.
Along the way, Ian watched as other higher-ranked people ran past him. If the wagon hadn't slowed him down he would've been able to catch up to some of them. He kept running for another hour until he finally saw the village up ahead.
Once he reached the village, he took the wagon to the village plaza to unload. There, he saw a large mountain of wolf bodies. There had to be over 600 bodies.
Near the bodies, around 60 people were moving, cutting, and skinning them. They worked extremely fast and efficiently.
When one body got moved, it would take 10 minutes for two workers to skin. Afterwards, it would be moved to another group of workers. They would cut up the body and separate the pieces into buckets. Once the buckets were filled, they would immediately be replaced. The full bucket was then taken somewhere else for further processing.
Ian was astonished by the whole process. He couldn't help but let his mouth hang open. After a brief moment, Ian began to unload before running back towards the wolf territory.