Elent closed his eyes, channeling the power within his body, and used his newly acquired Elemental Perception to probe the surroundings.
“I think I found a footprint?”
Before Celia could react, Elent was already running off in one direction.
“Hey, wait for me!”
Celia had no choice but to shove the rest of the Glowing Mushrooms into her bag all at once, then chased after him.
The deeper they went into the forest, the more pronounced the eerie silence became.
A faint smell of blood began to waft through the air.
“Something’s not right.”
“Priestess, get back!”
Before his words even faded, Elent pushed aside the dense thicket in front of them.
“Who’s there?!”
As the bushes were torn open, a wave of intense blood stench hit them.
A Silvermoon Direwolf, its size comparable to a bull, lay collapsed in a pool of blood. Its throat had been pierced straight through—it hadn’t even had time to let out a scream.
Elent recognized this monster. This was a C+ Nightmare, more than enough to wipe out a standard Adventurer party.
And next to that massive corpse, a middle-aged man was squatting on the ground, holding a Dried Fish in his hand?
“Meow~”
The missing Cat was rubbing against the man, happily eating away.
At the noise, the man turned his head. In that instant, Elent felt as though he’d been locked onto by a beast a hundred times more terrifying than the Direwolf; every hair on his body stood up, and he nearly dropped his Broad Sword.
However.
“Priestess, get behind me, now!!”
Even though his voice trembled noticeably, Elent still stood protectively in front of Celia.
“Huh?”
Celia was momentarily stunned.
She was just a newbie who couldn’t even beat a rabbit.
And yet, he was willing to protect her?
For a brief moment, something hard in Celia’s heart seemed to loosen a little.
She had to admit, Elent looked rather manly right now.
But the thing was, she knew the mysterious man up ahead!
……
It’s over.
Elent closed his eyes in despair.
A monster who could hunt high-level monsters in the Black Forest this late at night had to be some ruthless, cold-blooded underworld Strongman.
Looks like tonight, both he and the Priestess were doomed to die here.
At the very least, he had to buy a bit of time for the Priestess to escape.
Just as Elent steeled himself to die here—
“Yo, isn’t this Miss Celia? What brings you to the forest so late, and with company?”
The middle-aged man smiled as he raised the Dried Fish in his hand, as if the massive wolf corpse behind him was nothing but a meaningless backdrop.
“Ah, what a shame about the wolf’s hide. Tearing it ruins the price—my wife’s going to scold me to death when I get home.”
“Huh?”
Before Elent could react, Celia had already walked right past him.
The girl didn’t even glance at Elent’s heroic stance, her eyes fixed firmly on the wolf’s corpse as she swallowed hard.
“Can I have that wolf meat? I want to make some braised wolf steak.”
“And, Uncle Ariel, what are you doing here?”
Grandpa Bagla had said that Ariel hadn’t been home lately—she hadn’t expected to run into him in the dangerous depths of the Black Forest.
“You know, I’m a Hunter. Of course I’ve got to bring my talent to the forest.” Ariel answered with a beaming smile, popping the last bit of Dried Fish into the Cat’s mouth.
“Oh, that’s true. Gotta feed the family, after all.”
Celia nodded, seeming to accept the explanation.
She didn’t dwell on how an ordinary Hunter could kill a Direwolf in a second, or why Ariel was in the Black Forest so late at night.
For Celia, as long as there was good food, nothing else mattered. She’d found the Glowing Mushrooms, the Cat was back, and now there was even unexpected wolf meat—time to call it a day.
“All right, since there’s nothing else, let’s head back.”
“Wait, is this okay?”
“Why are you so calm, Priestess?! That’s a C-Rank Monster!”
“Doesn’t matter if it’s C-Rank or S-Rank. Once it’s dead, it’s just an ingredient.”
Celia replied.
“That’s not the point at all!”
“In any case, anyone who can defeat a Direwolf is definitely no ordinary person. This guy is a huge problem! Priestess, you have zero sense of danger!”
Celia stopped in her tracks, gave Elent a look like he was a fool, then turned to Ariel.
“Say, Hero, is it possible that… you’re just too weak?”
Pfft.
Priestess, how vicious your words are!
Elent clutched at his chest. Though deeply wounded, he stubbornly straightened his back:
“No, impossible! The Silvermoon Direwolf is the most powerful monster among all C-Rank creatures. Anyone who can defeat it so easily has to be a deeply hidden Strongman!”
With that, Elent gathered his courage and looked at Ariel. “Are you really strong, Mr. Ariel?”
“Me? Not at all.”
Ariel waved his hand dismissively.
“I’m just a regular Hunter from the Village. I usually hunt rabbits.”
“Then how did you kill the Direwolf?” Elent pointed at the corpse, utterly incredulous.
Ariel didn’t answer right away. He simply patted the fishy smell off his hands and stood up.
Just that simple movement, and the insects that had just started chirping fell silent again.
“Just lucky, I guess. It hit its head on a stump and fainted, so I finished it off.”
“…”
Elent opened his mouth, wanting to ask more. The next moment, behind Ariel’s friendly smile, there was a flash of coldness in his eyes.
“Gulp.”
Elent swallowed hard, his neck stiff as he nodded, forcing a smile that was uglier than crying:
“Yes, you’re really… really lucky. Ha, ha, so lucky.”
“All right, enough. Quit standing there grinning like an idiot—it’s late, we should get back to the Village.”
Celia cut the two of them off.
“Ha ha, true. I haven’t been back to the Village in days. Let’s go together.”
“I don’t mind.”
……
On the way back to the Village.
Though the crisis had passed, Elent clearly hadn’t recovered from the earlier shock.
He walked at the rear, his whole body tense, so nervous that he once again started moving his left hand and left foot together, right hand and right foot together, in a bizarre, awkward gait.
Left hand, left foot; right hand, right foot.
It looked utterly ridiculous.
Celia, walking up ahead, turned to look and nearly burst out laughing.
Though that idiot had looked almost impressive standing in front of her earlier, this ridiculous sight was his true nature.
A mischievous idea suddenly popped into Celia’s mind. She decided to tease this idiot a little.
She deliberately slowed her pace, fell back beside Elent, and poked him in the back with her finger.
“Wah!”
Elent jumped in place in fright.
“What is it, are we under attack?”
“Hero, what happened to that fearless aura you had when you stood in front of me earlier? Now your legs are shaking in perfect rhythm.”
Elent’s face instantly turned the color of pig’s liver, but he still stubbornly craned his neck, trying to preserve his last shred of dignity:
“I wasn’t shaking! That was a tactical warmup to be ready to unleash my power at any time!”
“Sure, sure, tactical warmup.”
Celia nodded perfunctorily, then added another jab.
“Then, Master of Tactical Warmup, could you walk a bit faster? Stop shaking with every step.”
“I’ll walk faster, just stop pushing me!”
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Somethings going on.