"What do you think?" YunYun asked seeing Nick's confused look.
"Not sure. Clayton?" Nick in turn asked his older friend.
"They are definitely better than regular wolves, maybe even better than rank two. If we take their speed into account they are rank three for sure, but the rest of their abilities seem weaker. And there's not that many of them." Clayton was similarly confused.
"Don't you think these wolves look familiar?" Nick asked few minutes later after shooing another one away.
"You mean … but we are so far to the south west!" Clayton couldn't believe Nick's guess albeit had similar thought.
"Well, let's check it out. These little pups are not letting us sleep and I'm going to complain to their mother!" They both laughed while YunYun and guards couldn't figure out how the dangerous situation could be funny.
But their confusion turned into shock when Nick slowly took few steps and stood so close to the trees that a faster high ranked wolf could attack him from the darkness almost without any way to retaliate or evade.
"Scarlet! Call your children back! I don't want to hurt them!" Nick roared infusing Qi in his voice.
The whole world turned silent. In the dark night the roar reverberated through the forest and could be heard kilometers away, to not speak about the both ends of the caravan. Most people recognized this usually cheerful and polite voice, but the time, content and context was simply out of place and didn't make any sense in any of those aspects.
While the guards whispered to each other in confusion, there were no more sounds coming from the woods. It was as if there was no living soul present and if during the last two hours caravan guards wouldn't have had to play cat and mouse with those annoying wolves, they would honestly believe there was no one around.
Nick returned to his friends and widely grinned, "Let's go to sleep."
Seeing questions in YunYun's black eyes, he said, "Tomorrow I'll introduce you to a friend."
"Hmpf, acting all mysterious!" She snorted begrudgingly, but couldn't do much. Nick was like that from time to time.
The guards looked stupefied at the trio leaving without saying anything, but soon, to their big surprise, they noticed that the attacks had completely stopped. While weird, it was still good news and the rest of the night was spent peacefully.
In the morning, after the caravan started to move, Nick called YunYun over and intended to invite Clayton, but the latter sent him off, just asked to pass on his regards.
Of course, this time should be used as training as always, so both youths proceeded towards the back of the caravan while walking on their hands and, when they reached the very tail, Nick sat down in the grass at the roadside and waited. YunYun multiple times tried to persuade him to give an explanation, but he just smiled back and ignored her pleas.
When the caravan disappeared in the distance, both of them could hear some rustling sounds and soon the two small rascals showed themselves together with their beautiful mother. YunYun's heart almost stopped seeing this enormous, over three meter tall, wolf, but Nick carelessly stood up and came forward to greet it.
"Hahaha! I knew those were your kids!"
The two cubs came closer to him and carefully sniffed his clothes, while the huge wolf poked him with her nose causing him to fall over again like it previously happened during their first meeting.
"Come on, Scarlet, you are embarrassing me in front of my friend, don't you remember how to fist bump?" Nick still laughed while slowly getting on his feet.
When the three wolves came out, YunYun, of course, remembered the story about the rank six wolf that the trio met on their way to Olava, but it was already too unbelievable to hear about it. Now that this legendary being was in front of her, she was confused to the state of becoming silly.
While Scarlet was bumping Nick around, her two cubs came over to sniff YunYun as well. She instinctively tried to caress their heads as if they were domesticated and to her great surprise the two didn't resist at all, they even fought a little on who will get more attention.
"Scarlet, I want you to meet YunYun." Nick finally remembered how to be polite, "Remember, I told you we were on our way to rescue our friends? We rescued her as well, she is really nice and extremely pretty, well, in a human way, of course."
YunYun heard his introduction and turned to the big wolf as well and slightly bowed, "Nice to meet you, I'm Nick's fiancee YunYun."
Seeing Scarlet tilting her hear in confusion, YunYun blushed, but bravely explained, "I'm his wife!"
The wolf mother looked at Nick seemingly with a surprise in her eyes, but the latter could only helplessly spread his hands wide and sigh. Scarlet understood it as a confirmation, but this time didn't poke him with her nose but raised her front paw and Nick fist bumped it while laughing loudly again.
Then she came over to YunYun and carefully sniffed her, and then offered her paw for another fist bump. Flabbergasted YunYun 'properly' replied and Nick asked everyone to sit down for a talk.
Of course, he was the one who mostly talked, but YunYun listened with wide eyes and caressed both cubs while Scarlet from time to time made some sounds to take her part in the conversation.
"Steven got injured in the fight that we had with the big black wolves few nights ago, but he'll soon be fine. Clayton, the Qi master, remember him, right? He sends his regards, but couldn't come, because he has to protect our friends." Nick explained, "I hope you are not angry at me for causing the mess, I know you saw the result – but they attacked me first, I had no choice. Besides, we are in hiding here, undercover – you know? We have to pretend we are protecting that caravan so we can get to the west coast safely."
Nick took out a couple of plucked chickens that were part of their provision and offered them to the cubs and then continued.
"You see, when we rescued the girls, I had to kill the emperor and now the whole country is looking for us. Thus it's important for us to keep our secret identities as guards."
Scarlet was visibly shocked. She knew the emperor was the leader of the humans and a very strong one at that.
"Don't look at me like that, I just sneak attacked him while he was in a weakened state." Nick understood her expression.
Scarlet turned her head and pointed towards the woods and growled in a low tone.
Nick smiled back and then said with a sigh, "I would love to spend some time with you here and I understand you are the master of the place, but the girls have their mothers who are waiting for them at home. I can't make them wait for too long – remember how you felt when we were looking for your little kids?"
Nick pointed at the cubs in the size that was a bit bigger than a full grown wolf while they were leisurely enjoying YunYun's cuddling and chewing on chickens. Scarlet looked at them with love in her eyes and even sighed in almost human fashion.
"That doesn't mean I can't come to visit at some later date when I come back to the Nestri continent!" Nick smiled again. For some reason he always felt good when he was around Scarlet or Angel back in the day.
"Alright, let's speak about the important matters." Nick turned a bit more serious, "Are you training them? I'm pretty sure you're not interested in the meat of humans or the regular horses."
Scarlet looked back at him and shook her head. Then she opened her moth as if trying to say something, but only quiet whimper came out.
Nick saw her trying hard and calmed her down.
"Don't worry, we are not in a rush. So they are not training, that means they are doing it for their own pleasure!" Scarlet nodded lightly and then pointed her nose towards the way the caravan disappeared.
"Wait, they are not doing it for pleasure! These rascals love horse meat! Correct?" Nick guessed.
In reply he got satisfied poke with a nose to his chest.
"Hmm. I have no problems of arranging few horses, but even if they leave this caravan alone, the next surely will have a few Qi masters present. It's a high risk for them to continue like this."
Wolf mother looked at her cubs and sighed.
"I think I know what she means." YunYun spoke and turned to Scarlet, "They will grow up and live their own lives soon and you as their mother won't be able to take care of them forever. There will be dangers and at some point they will risk their lives. You are a legendary being and probably have lost loved ones already, but it's just how the world works."
Scarlet visibly trembled, but then nodded and came over to YunYun and poked her with her nose as well. Now Nick was absolutely certain that it was a way for her to express affection.
"Alright, since it can't be helped, then I'll just get few horses tomorrow morning and we'll leave those as a parting gift." Nick smiled.
"Scarlet, You have a beautiful name, but why did he name you this way?" YunYun finally couldn't hold back curiosity after she understood that the huge wolf thought of her as a friend.
Scarlet looked at her haughtily and then suddenly her fur turned fiery red.
"Ah!" YunYun exclaimed jumping up and instinctively stretched out her hand, but managed to pause her own curiosity, "May I touch your fur?"
The huge wolf lowered her head a bit and YunYun gently caressed her.
"You are so beautiful!" She whispered.
It was not a lie. Probably the sight in front of her was the most impressive she had seen in her entire life. YunYun didn't push her luck though. After caressing Scarlet a couple times she bowed politely and took a step back again just to get another affectionate poke on her chest.
They sat for a while and 'talked' but there was a start and end to every meeting. After saying goodbyes, Nick and YunYun dashed away with Nick loudly reminding to not forget to pick up the horses tomorrow morning. It was a bit weird for him to gift the domesticated animals who served humans to wild wolves as a snack, but he couldn't really offer them a flower bouquet.
Scarlet and her cubs saw them off and then reluctantly went back into the dark woods. Earlier Nick praised her for choosing a good place as her new home and she agreed. Not only because people rarely braved into these parts, but she could use this region to strategically hunt towards any direction and safely come back later.
She couldn't tell him about her new big cave she found in one of the high cliffs, but decided to show it off to her human friend another time when he came back. And her instincts told her she will definitely see him again, so she wasn't worried at all, just a bit reluctant to part.