There were many confusing exchanges of words at the beginning, a reaction that ranged from caution to desperation on the part of the wolf pack.
"So you are trapped in this frozen meadow eternally by the curse of a witch girl... with a red cloak... who chased you through the forest and you said that you didn't do anything to the which." I said to myself rather than asking them... Her eyes showed no sympathy...
He didn't know if he was more confused by the reversal of the cliché of the Little Red Riding Hood tale or by the fact that the wolf pack seemed to actually believe in it...
"rfhhh... that's human... but there is a way to free ourselves. Beyond the forest, there is a secret cave... inside lives an ogre, who keeps a music box... rhfff that music It could make us sleep, and in this way find the way through sleep to get out of this frozen meadow..." Despite all the pride that the leader of the pack could have had, his tone sounded more like a plea...
"Why don't your whole pack go and take over the box...?"
"grhhrr... we only know the power over the ice... and the ogre barely leaves the cave... we can't open the door by ourselves... maybe you can open it and give us the box... we would give you the snow pendant that you so long for in return..." his head bowed down. It was not submission; it was rather shame for his own inability...
My skepticism only increased. How did they know about the box? How did they know that it could free them from that kind of eternal punishment...?
"How do you know that this is the solution to your captivity?" Not that I cared about the answer, but the situation was getting weird for a tutorial test...
"Just as humans worship their stone symbols, we winter wolves pray to the moon with our grhhrrr howls, and one day the moon sent us a vision of how to end this lifeless life in this frozen forest."
It's not like I had many other options: fight the ice wolves and take the pendant by force, or visit the lair of another monster that I otherwise wouldn't have known existed and thus solve a super hidden mission... I could see in the eyes of the wolves that they would attack me as soon as I got what they wanted from the cave, but in the end, it was about fighting now or later.
"Take me there; I have nothing to lose…"
The pack led me through the forest. They stayed close enough that I could follow them and far enough away that they wouldn't be easily hit if I decided to attack them...
The cliff on the other side of the forest was imposing, an icy wall that not even the best mountaineers with all their equipment would dare to climb.
You could barely make out the stones under the layer of ice. The wolves stopped a few meters from the wall, as if they were truly afraid that it was going to suddenly open...
"Don't come close yet, human."
All the wolves stood in a crescent formation, and icy mana began to pour out of their jaws. The ice sheet began to shift and shift, leaving an area of exposed rock beneath.
Anyone who had seen the rock wall would have had no indication that there was any entrance there. However, however between my senses and my abilities, it was clear that a section of the wall that was a single rock over 4 meters high had something strange... the edges were not equally buried, nor were there traces of moss or dirt anywhere on the surface. It was just a huge stone, but I knew that was where the supposed entrance was.
My stone mana spread across the surface, and inside the rock, it would be no more than 3 meters wide in the central part, and on the other side there was air... a natural tunnel...
I concentrated my will to do something similar to what the wolves had done with the ice, thinning the rock in the center and accumulating its mass at the edges. When an opening was created large enough for me to cross without having to remove my shield and armor, I entered the tunnel while watching the wolves retreat to an even greater distance.
Whatever was inside, the wolves not only couldn't get in, but they feared it...
The cave on the other side was damp and cold; the corridor seemed to be about three meters wide and the height of two men... everything was in complete darkness... my eyes easily adjusted to the environment, and I could see how the natural cave descended little by little as it turned to the left. Although the walls of the tunnel were not regular, they rarely narrowed beyond two meters.
To avoid making noise as I moved, I began to levitate and slide, aided by a gentle current of air.
The cave went for hundreds of meters into the mountain, and although there were some crossroads, my mana senses prevented me from having to trace many tunnels that would have only led me to dead ends.
As the path continued, areas began to appear where the stone had been broken on the walls to widen the passage. The marks were from a large hammer, one that must have had a head at least two hands wide.
My mana senses warned me that about 50 meters away there was a living being, although unlike what I expected, it was not a monster of terrifying size. He was short, no more than five feet tall, and he kept moving from one place to another in a large room...
The light was dim in the room, and with the curve in the tunnel, it could not be seen from where I was.
There was furniture, a bed, even something resembling a desk with some alchemy equipment and a big book...
When I got a little closer, I heard him talking to himself in a strange monologue that I didn't know how, but I could understand...
"I have failed again... experiment 27088 has been another failure. There is no use using creatures from universe 9... although they have some natural magical affinities, their minds are too scattered and they die before I can replace their consciousness... "Besides, their bodies are still dreamlike; they don't give me time for more advanced experiments..."
"If only the Bolgruts weren't chasing me... damn the imperial guards, if they hadn't discovered me, I could have stolen the entire royal treasure... and now I'm here trapped in the dream world... I need a body... different to be able to return to Athair..."
Suddenly, an alarm started ringing in the cave... I hadn't noticed it until it was too late, but a filament of mana broke in the hallway as I tried to move forward silently...
"It seems we have another rat in the hole…" The creature began to chant what seemed like a spell. Although I could understand the words put together, they made no sense to me…"
A "swiftttt" sounded in the room...
"Attack…" was heard when ordering in the room…
Large, heavy footsteps began to echo on the ground. Something was approaching... 3 and a half meters tall, backs as big as two men standing sideways, a large hammer resting on top of one of their shoulders... Pig face, three eyes, and an intense thirst for blood...
"grwlllll!!! Blasion kill for the teacher!!!! Grwllll!!!!" The body of the creature began to be seen at the bottom of the tunnel; it seemed to see me and began to charge...
Although I had already killed many monsters under my belt, seeing such a large mass charging still scared me...
I fired two lightning bolts at point-blank range that hit the monster's chest, knocking it onto its back. Its body was smoking, but it was still too alive for my liking...
He got up without difficulty...
"Little Ant wants to play with Blasión... Blasión doesn't like tickling... Growlllll!!!"
Tickle? oh! Really? Two lightning strikes that would have killed many of my previous enemies, and the pig-face said I had only tickled him...?
My pride felt hurt... Before the monster could attack, 10 wind blades cut it, or at least that's what I expected to happen; however, an invisible barrier had stopped them. That left me surprised, and with defenses low...
I didn't feel the blow of a giant hammer; the monster had no space for that maneuver; it was a kick that hit me in the chest... a kick from a muscular leg the size of my waist... I felt my ribs break and dig in. In my lungs, I wanted to scream in pain, but I could only spit out blood.
I tried to heal myself by putting all my life's mana into my destroyed chest. I managed to breathe when a huge fist crashed into my face... at this moment, the other being said, "Don't kill him. Bring him to me, and we will try to use him as a test subject. Another giant fist crashed into my face. After that, everything was darkness...