He broke out of his sad trance, he remembered the look the wolf gave him and looked at the two wolves. They were alive, barely but they were.
For some reason, Stef felt happy about it.
He mumbled ,"Few, they are alive, but they should run."
He made eye contact with them and as if able to read his mind they did what he said
"Hey."
He got startled by the call when the survivors all looked at him. He was nervous, he had no idea what to do.
"H-hello." He looked at them, unsure what to say next.
"Thank you very much for saving us."
The girl closes in. Stef's face looked puzzled.
"Without you, we would have not been able to defeat it." Stef looked at them. He got up slowly and looked at them. The robed man came over with the arrogant child, carrying the injured man.
"We have to bring this guy to a doctor, we have no potions so we have to be careful."
'Potions? Like in a game or fantasy story?'
He looked at them, the robed man spoke," thank you for saving us as well, Mr ogre, with out that roar, it would have been the end of us."
Stef looked at them puzzled. He felt like he should reply so he just said what came to his mind, "um yeah, no worries."
The female spoke up, "if you may, can you join us, we are low on supplies and we have to bring the young master back, and having an extra hand will be helpful."
She beamed at him, he was still slow, "um yeah, I can."
She smiled and the robed man nodded his head in gratitude, "thank you."
They looked at each other and saw looked at where the wolves were earlier," Aaah, the wolves are gone, what should we do?"
Before anybody could say anything, Stef intervened, "Leave them."
His face was strong and the lot decided not to argue.
They started moving, the arrogant kid gave only a look and started moving. Stef followed, still thinking about the comment.
'Never in my life have I been called an ogre, was it an insult, because I am fat?'
He looked up at them, they were moving faster than him and it was obvious why. The female noticed and worried, slowed down.
"Sorry, we just ran off without even introducing ourselves, my name is Peria. What is yours?"
Stef looked at her and thought about what to say, "my name is Stef, nice to meet you," she nodded, the hooded man looked back, but before he could speak, Stef spoke up, "why do you think I am and ogre?"
He was still unsure if it was a joke or not, but Peria's reaction gave it all away, "huh, what do you mean?"
Stef looked nervous.
'Wait, so they really think I am and ogre? Why?'
"What I am trying to say is-"
"Did you have a spell on?" The robed man looked at him excitedly. It was not hard to tell he was a mage with all the fire, so him coming to that conclusion makes sense, sort of.
"Um, well," he stroked the back of his head, unsure to how to answer."
"Oh we are sorry, we did not mean to break the spell with you helping us, thank you again for that."
The hooded man still carrying the person on his back filled in gaps with some nonsense, but Stef saw it as an opportunity.
"Um, yes, no it is fine."
He kept up with the act, but disliked the misunderstanding.
'What happens if some other people see me, and say I am not and ogre, that will cause problems, but still, what makes them say I am and Ogre?'
"Um, when the spell broke, or, um, was inactive, what gave away I was an Ogre?"
Stef was pleased with the question he asked, he hoped the hooded man can come up with something.
The girl replied, "because of how big you are, that's it."
Stef looked dumfounded, "so... my size gave it away?"
The pair nodded. Stef stayed calm, "I see."
'That really is an insult, are you kidding me?! Well, lets see if others will see me as an ogre. That must mean that most ogres are big then, right?'
He sighed. The hooded man finally spoke up, "You can call me Robin, I have a question, how did you activate it?"
Stef looked at Robin, he was feeling the weight of walking for a while, so he would not be able to come up with something on the spot, he put it off, "now is not a good time, I am not in the right... condition. So I won't be able to do it."
He hoped that was good enough. Robin nodded, "yeah I understand, none of us are, except one." He glared at a specific person, he was at the front of the pack, not as tired, and had not been wounded (even Stef did more than him, calling out the wolf to stop).
"And who is he?" Looking at Robin, he looked annoyed, and so Peria answered. "His name is Fredrick, he is the head of a noble, which were told to look after, but..."
She looked at the wounded guy, "Jenny got hit."
She said nothing more, Stef did not ask for more, he more was more intrigued on how that was a female, getting his priorities straight.
'I thought the whole time that was a guy, maybe in this world there are different views of people, like me as an ogre, maybe that or I am just stupid?'
Definitely the latter. The pair kept on walking and the order who was in front and behind was easy to tell. Stef was obviously last, then Robin in front carrying poor Jenny. Peria was trying to keep close to the young lord, but was far too injured.
Stef was breathing hard, making sure not to be a burden to the group, even though he had not been fighting, he had walked many minutes before hand so it made sense why the guy was crying from the extra exercise.
Fredrick did not glance back at all. Stef imagined from his experience of video games what the reason was for him being cold-hearted.
But all that came to an end. The group had found a road. It was a rocky path which led somewhere. The lot looked excited, Stef was too tired to care.
'Damn, so much walking.'
Peria announces, "we should have a rest, before we move on, I think that would be the best." She did not look the best, exhausted before and now no stop walking back.
Stef nodded his head vigorously, he intended anyways. Robin nodded for him. Fredrick looked annoyed, he spoke out, "What?! Are you crazy we found a road, now all we have to do is just walked down, we are not stopping just because you were not able to do your job!"
Peria looked worried.
Robin's eyes were on fire, he placed Jenny down, "Don't you dare speak like that when you did not even do anything, because of you, Jenny might be-"
"Don't blame it on me, she just did a lousy job!"
"She was protecting you!"
"Well, she did not do a good job at it!"
"Why you-"
"Stop!"
Stef roared at them, bent down. They stayed quiet and looked at him. He looked up," we are having a rest."
He then collapses onto the floor, lying down. Taking in as much air as possible. Peria looked thankful. The pair looked away from each other, still angry. Fredrick made sure to move as far away from the lot while Robin made sure be as far away from Fredrick and as close to Jenny.
Stef just collapsed where he was. Peria moved over to Stef. "Thank you for stopping them, I don't think I could do that."
She smiled pleasantly twiddling her thumbs, then looking down, Stef nodded, too tired to speak.
Peria looked around, then at Stef, "how we ended up in that situation was my fault, but they are blaming each other. First was that we had to bring the young master outside. We only had to do this so he got experience of the real world, and see what a real monster is like so he can fight one when he is ready, that was his father's aim anyways. It was great pay as well instead of the low pay the guild now keeps on giving us, just because..."
She paused for a second, took a breath and calmed her face, "I think it would be best to say that nothing bad could happen because we were too happy. But the young master moved away and then we stumbled upon the wolves. We dealt with them but, Jenny stopped the big wolf from injuring him, and..."
She stayed quiet after that, Stef heard quietly the complaint and nodded. "She got slashed and she has been quiet ever since, we don't know what is wrong with her, her heart is beating but..." She kept on going faster until she got to appoint and calmed down again.
He understood the problem.
"So, did Fredrick want to attack the wolves?"
She stayed quiet after the question. The situation was clear, because the young lord wanted to fight the smaller beasts, he brought the big beast out.
"So dumb, why fight those poor creatures," he muttered to himself.
"We didn't need to fight them but it made no sense not to, they could have done something bad."
Peria tried to justify the reason for attacking them, Stef looked at her, he said what he thought," don't give a dumb reason why you had to attacked the kids, it was pointless, and you know it."
Stef gave an annoyed look. He looked up at the sky, happy he could see better rather than being clouded by the leaves.
Peria did not say anything, Robin and Fredrick were quietly listening.
"So," Peria looked at him, making eye contact," what would you have done?"