Oscar had intervened to save the wolf, taking care of all seven without any issues. The wolf cub seemed wary at first, even baring its fangs at him in a bit to threaten.
Oscar sighed, not knowing how to communicate to the wolf. Well there was no need to as the wolf noticed that he wasn't planning on attacking it stopped, however, due to weariness and blood loss the wolf fell unconscious.
Oscar swept a glance around the area once more.
"An earthen bear, a Zin wolf and seven foxes, all dead." Sighing, he checked his device to see if the battle had drawn the attention of any other wild animals to their location. Fortunately it didn't.
He decided to clean the place up, he buried the adult wolf. Gathered the dead foxes in one place.
Taking one more look at the burnt animals, his stomach grumbled a bit.
Oscar's hunger was justified, he had only been eating fruits for the past few days, most plants were either inedible or unknown and he didn't want to take any chances.
"I can't believe I'm going to eat meat in such a manner again, when I get back I need to learn how cook, for the sake of my sanity. Now should I take the wolf or the bear?"
As he was contemplating his choices, the wolf regained consciousness, it was still disoriented and weak from the fight. It's eyes focused on where it's mother had laid before, not seeing anything. It started to sniff around, catching the scent and then locating the grave where she was buried.
The wolf pup was intelligent enough as it looked at Oscar and understood, releasing a mournful howl it sat beside the grave.
"Hey!" Oscar called out, drawing the wolf's attention.
"Aren't you hungry?"
"..."
"Oh I forgot." Oscar facepalmed recalling the fact that it couldn't understand what he was saying.
He went towards the bear, pointing at it, but the wolf still couldn't understand, fatigue was still evident in it's eyes. The exertion and loss had also affected it's mind.
"I guess I'll have to do it for you to understand."
Seeing no progress in the one sided conversation, Oscar decided that actions would work better.
Standing in front of the bear, he engulfed it in flames, burning it to a crisp. It began to emit a meaty fragrance enticing the wolf.
"Haa... let's eat."
***
In the verdurous Dunkel forest, a young man and a beast sat side by side. In the past few days, they have wandered the forest together, hunted and slept together. Currently they were both engaged in the same action, performing it uniformly.
They were eating.
"According to the map, we should be outside the Dunkel forest in less than two days." Oscar said as he sighed with relief in the process.
Looking at the wolf cub beside him, he was amazed by it's capabilities. He discovered that the wolf was a mana beast and had awakened it's bloodline. He uncovered this fact when they ate the burnt bear and the wolf's body was healing rapidly in the process.
Mana beasts were animals that had the ability to harness and use magic basically attuned with their affinities. Using magic like it was second nature to them, they awakened earlier than humans, being able to use their powers a year after being born. This was mostly due to the stimulating effect of their competitive environment.
The Zin wolves were strong animals gaining affinities with the darkness element, they preferred to hunt at night using stealth to attack and reinforcing their claws and fangs with dark magic, seeking to kill their prey with one hit. They were nature's very own assassins, possessing skills of camouflage, high agility and terrifying strength.
Oscar and the Zin wolf had developed a sense of camaraderie. The wolf pup had been able to understand a few gestures by Oscar. The young boy was amazed by her ability to comprehend his gestures within this short amount of time. He had thought of giving her a name too.
****
At the city centre of the Iyun territory, there were security officials on patrol, when Oscar Lane went missing early on, they searched for him covertly under the directives of the young miss, heir of the Iyun family, Myra Iyun.
She had covered up the fact that he was missing from her family, giving an excuse that he had to leave due to an urgent matter. She told some of her knights to help search for Oscar covertly, the search bore no fruit. When he didn't return to the manor after two days, she decided to come clean to her parents, explaining what happened.
Though they were furious and reprimanded her as she didn't inform them on time, they knew that he had left of his own volition. There was no time to play the blame game so they chose to search for him.
"Have you found him?" Myra question the knight in charge the search party.
"No My Lady we haven't, we have searched all over the city but found no clues."
'Where did you go?' Myra thought to herself.
"So you are telling me that you have combed through the Dukedom and still haven't found any clues?"
"Well..."
"Well what?"
"There's still one place we haven't checked."
"And where is that."
"The Dunkel forest, if he went into that forest and hasn't returned till now then we can only assume the worst, my lady." He said that while taking note of her facial expression.
Currently Myra did not look like her normal self, after Oscar's disappeance. She couldn't focus on her training properly, as thoughts of their last discussion clouded her mind.
Though Myra had a calm exterior her mental state was the definition of restlessness. She had a hard time sleeping, dark circles were noticeably under her eyes even when she used makeup to conceal it, that didn't hide the redness of her eyes.
"Let's go there."
"What?" The knight was confused, thinking he didn't hear her clearly.
"The Dunkel forest, let's go!" She shouted jolting him out of his confused state.
If there was one thing Myra regretted not telling him, it was how she truly felt about him.
'Oscar you idiot.' She muttered under her breath.
****
Walking through the dense uncultivated tract of trees, Oscar and his new pet, the young wolf were tracking a prey they took notice of a while back.
Calling it prey would be an unusual term for such an animal. It was large with shaggy hair, a short tail and a long snout, when it stood with its stocky legs, it was over four metres tall and when it walked on four it's fearsome aura was unmistakably dreadful. This particular animal was the earthen bear.
Oscar and Zeia, which was the name he gave the female pup, had made it their goal to hunt and eat the strongest animals they could kill. As there was an abundance of strong and dangerous beasts in the forest, they went after the ones they could take on without dying themselves. That didn't mean they never got injured, in fact they got wounded more often than not, nonetheless, they still succeeded in killing whatever animal they approached.
This time, they made it their objective to hunt and eat the earthen bear before leaving the forest together.
"One more day before we reach the outskirts of the forest Zeia, the bear meat should be enough for us till we reach the end." Oscar spoke to the wolf like he was speaking to a human being even though the wolf couldn't understand him, for now it only knew the gestures and signals that Oscar gave any more than that was incomprehensible.
Reaching a specific point they halted, not wanting to alert their prey of their existence, they observed it for a bit as it laid down. The bear was not asleep merely lying lazily on the ground.
Oscar gave the wolf signified through gestures telling when to attack and the place it was to target.
"You will attack the legs and I will go for it's eyes and once we are sure it can't move or see. Then we deliver the final blow. Do you understand."
The wolf signified by swaying it's head down.
"Okay, let's move."
They snuck up on the bear, thinking they could get closer without alerting it but they were wrong. The bear immediately stood up carefully observing it's surroundings, trying to see if there was anything that stood out. It still hadn't found them regardless it wouldn't take long before it did.
Oscar and the wolf looked at each other, as if coming to an agreement they began their attack.
Oscar sent a large orb shaped fire at the bear's head. The attack was so fast that the bear could barely block it. It did use a rock it created to shield itself from it.
However, the next attack that came caught it off-guard. Zeia clawed at the hind legs off the bear, causing extensive damage and grievous pain.
The bear roared in anger, immediately focusing it's aggression on the wolf, which was quick to retreat not giving the bear a chance to retaliate.
Angered beyond measure it roared once more, this did it no good as Oscar's second attack sealed it's fate. It's head was blown off from the body and before it could even realize what was happening, it was dead.