The sound of hooves faded along the stone path in the twilight.
Qiu Meng hid behind the bushes beside the road, gripping the grass with both hands as she cautiously peeked out half her face.
Qiu Meng’s slingshot hung from her waist as she ran forward through the grass alongside the road.
Dante wasn’t riding very fast; after all, the road toward High Wall was rugged, and he had to stay alert for unexpected situations. Even so, keeping pace with a horse was still extremely difficult for Qiu Meng.
After a small jog lasting about fourteen minutes, Qiu Meng’s breathing had already grown rapid.
Ahead of her, Dante gradually disappeared around a bend in the road, swallowed by the shadows of the trees.
Qiu Meng’s heart tightened.
‘No good… I’m going to lose him.’
She clenched her teeth, about to speed up, when a low growl suddenly rang out from afar.
Qiu Meng’s body instantly froze.
A gentle breeze passed through the woods, and the leaves rustled softly.
She turned her head to look at the forest on the right side of the road.
That was the Hunting Forest owned by Border Count Tate.
According to her mother’s Leather Handbook, this forest wasn’t truly wilderness.
It was located inside High Wall, patrolled year-round to clear dangerous beasts, with regular checks for residual mana to ensure no monsters had slipped in.
In just two more days, this place would host the annual traditional festival—the Hunting Festival.
Around this time every year, various factions, adventurers, and townspeople would come to participate in the hunt, trying to rank high enough to earn some Natural Essence.
‘This place… shouldn’t have any monsters at all.’
She took a half-step back, looking for a place to hide.
The next moment, rapid footsteps sounded from within the forest.
The speed was considerable, and the intervals between footsteps hitting leaves and twigs were too close together. At this speed, it was probably some small animal, not a large one.
Qiu Meng spun around sharply, her eyes locked onto the direction of the sound.
A grayish shadow flickered through the bushes.
Its body wasn’t particularly large, but its fur was dull gray.
‘Is that… a wolf?’
If it were a wolf… it shouldn’t be here. This was a forest inside the wall, and it was patrolled daily…!
The gray shadow suddenly burst out from the undergrowth.
That gray furball was incredibly fast, baring its fangs directly at Qiu Meng.
She had almost no time to think—perhaps due to her training in previous years, her body moved before her brain. She twisted to the side, diving toward a thick tree trunk beside her. The wolf’s claws grazed past her clothes, striking the ground and kicking up a spray of damp soil and broken leaves.
“Ah…!”
Qiu Meng braced herself against the tree trunk, her chest heaving violently.
Her heart was pounding too fast.
‘Haah… calm down… I have to calm down.’
‘If I hadn’t dodged just now… I would’ve died right there…’
‘No, the more desperate things get, the more I can’t run with my back to it…’
Qiu Meng coughed twice quickly.
‘If I remember correctly… from a survival show in my past life… wolves are afraid of fire…’
The wolf slowly circled the tree, its nose twitching to confirm Qiu Meng’s scent.
Qiu Meng smeared mud all over herself and pressed low to the ground, observing the wolf. She noticed something strange about its eyes.
The look in its eyes gave Qiu Meng the feeling that it knew exactly what it was doing. That wolf was toying with its prey…
Qiu Meng’s hand groped along the ground and found a jagged stone.
She stared into the wolf’s eyes, her fingers gripping tight.
‘If I can hit its eye… I should be able to run.’
The next instant, she lunged out from behind the tree, loaded the stone into her slingshot, and fired with all her might.
Smack!
The stone didn’t hit its eyeball; it smashed into the bone around the wolf’s eye socket.
The wolf let out an enraged howl, lowering its body further. Its gray fur bristled like needles. Its hind legs kicked off the ground, and its fangs rapidly enlarged before Qiu Meng’s eyes.
Qiu Meng’s mind went blank. A wave of fear slowly enveloped her.
But at that moment, her father’s scolding words from the training ground echoed in her ears.
—Hesitating on the battlefield means death.
She bit down hard on her lip. The pain stabbed into her nerves, followed by the taste of blood spreading across her mouth. Then her body barely managed to react.
She rolled across the ground, barely dodging. The wolf’s claws scraped past where she had been, tearing three deep gashes into the tree bark.
“Hah… hah…”
Qiu Meng scrambled to her feet, her knees scraped raw and her palms bleeding from the gravel.
But she had no time to feel the pain.
The wolf turned its head and fixed its gaze on her again.
Just then, the sound of hooves came from a distance.
Two fully armed guards were galloping along the road toward High Wall. Like grabbing a lifeline, Qiu Meng immediately shouted at the top of her lungs:
“Guard sirs…! Help! There’s a wolf here!!!”
Her voice trembled with fear.
“There’s a wolf in the Hunting Forest!”
The two guards sharply reined in their horses.
The red-haired youth in front was stunned for a moment.
‘A wolf in the Count’s private Hunting Forest?’
The other guard, wearing a helmet, frowned and quickly swept his gaze across the forest.
The gray wolf sensed the approach of two adults. Instead of blindly attacking, it decisively retreated, slipping back into the woods and vanishing in an instant.
Qiu Meng stared at the direction it had fled, an even deeper sense of dread washing over her.
‘This…?!’
‘That wolf understands… human shouts…?’
The red-haired guard dismounted in one fluid motion, walked up to Qiu Meng in a few steps, and lifted her up.
“Miss…”
His tone was a mix of urgency and exasperation.
“Why did you come out here alone? I heard from a colleague that you were training with the Captain, and then someone went to tell him something happened at High Wall…”
“Surely you know it’s dangerous to be out right now, right?”
He set her down on his horse. Qiu Meng’s face still bore the look of shock.
“I’m sorry…”
She said quietly.
“I just… wanted to see Father fight.”
The red-haired guard clearly wanted to scold her some more.
But before he could speak, the other guard in the helmet suddenly changed expression.
He stared into the depths of the forest, his voice shooting up.
“Look out!”
The red-haired guard turned on instinct.
But it was too late.
A gray wolf shadow shot out from the darkness, swift as an arrow leaving the string. It lunged fiercely onto the red-haired guard and bit down hard.
A scream tore through the air. Blood sprayed from his shoulder.
Qiu Meng shuddered all over.
The horse was jostled by the falling guard, its front hooves rearing high as it let out a panicked whinny.
Qiu Meng was nearly thrown off. She instinctively clutched the reins, flattening herself against the horse’s back.
“Wait—!”
But the spooked horse was already beyond control, bolting along the road toward High Wall.
The wind rushed against her face, and dust blew into her eyes, nearly blinding her.
She clung desperately to the horse’s neck, her palms slick with sweat. The screams and beastly growls behind her quickly faded into the distance.
What she didn’t know was that the two guards left behind in the Hunting Forest were already close to death.
The red-haired guard clutched his shoulder, blood seeping endlessly through his fingers. He stared at the gray wolf, his voice hoarse as he shouted:
“Linse… this wolf is wrong. Go tell the Captain… this thing—”
Before he could finish.
The gray wolf lunged again, its fangs cutting off his words.
“Grint!”
The guard named Linse roared, drawing his sword and charging forward.
But the moment he took a step, two dark shadows shot out from either side. A red wolf and a yellow wolf flanked him from the woods, their claws precisely pinning his shoulders, throwing his stance off balance.
Linse’s pupils contracted.
This wasn’t an ordinary wolf pack… and these wolves were massive.
They even knew how to target a person’s center of gravity and sword-fighting posture.
He suddenly realized—these wolves were from the Northern Domain.
Biting back the pain, he drew his sword and slashed horizontally.
Just as the blade was about to strike the red wolf’s neck, the gray wolf, still stained with Grint’s blood, slammed into his knee.
Crack.
The sound of a broken leg bone made Linse’s vision go dark.
The next moment, a Northern Domain-made recurve knife thrust out from the shadows, piercing straight through his throat.
Linse’s last thought was to see the face of his attacker…
But the last thing he saw was a pair of eyes that seemed both beast-like and human.
***
Qiu Meng didn’t know how long she had ridden.
Maybe ten minutes, maybe twenty.
“What do I do…”
She gritted her teeth, fighting back tears.
“No, I… I have to pull myself together. I have to tell Father. There are very strange wolves in the forest. Those are definitely not ordinary beasts…”
She didn’t dare look back, afraid the wolf pack was chasing her, waiting for her to turn around so they could sink their fangs into her neck.
At the end of the road, the outline of High Wall finally appeared on the horizon.
No matter when she saw it, this wall always reminded her of the wonder known as the Great Wall in her previous life.
The outer layer of this wall was forged from black steel, the middle layer was an alternating arrangement of stone bricks and Defensive Magic Devices, while the innermost pure white stone wall was densely carved with countless runes.
When Qiu Meng’s gaze shifted to the city gate, she found her father standing just inside, locked in battle with a massive monster.
That monster was several times larger than an ordinary brown bear, its back arched high, and spiky crystals were embedded under its fur. Dark muscle tissue clung to the roots of those crystals, and with each flash, electricity spread along the creature’s spine.
When she got a clear look at the person fighting the monster, she saw it was her father.
He was using magic infused into his blade to clash with the monster’s claws.
Her father’s expression was grim and weary.
“Stop… stop!”
Qiu Meng yanked frantically at the reins.
But the horse didn’t stop.
Its eyes had lost their luster, as if drawn by the crystals on the monster’s back, charging straight toward it.
Dante’s gaze swept over and caught sight of Qiu Meng on the horse’s back. With no time to think, he shouted:
“Qiu Meng! Jump off the horse!”
But the moment his attention wavered, the monster’s claws seized the opening, sweeping across at him.
He raised his sword to block, but the force knocked him back half a step.
The monster then opened its mouth and roared at the horse. She had no more time to hesitate.
Qiu Meng clenched her teeth, wrapped her arms around her head, and threw herself off the horse’s back.
The ground slammed into her shoulder. Gravel tore into her arms and face.
“Father…”
She struggled to her feet and shouted:
“Don’t worry about me for now…!”
As she spoke, the out-of-control horse had already reached the monster.
The monster opened its twisted, massive jaws, and a deep blue light gathered deep in its throat. The next instant, it bit down.
A sound of bones crunching and flesh tearing mixed together.
The horse collapsed to the ground, its body still twitching as the smell of blood quickly spread.
Qiu Meng realized half of the horse’s head had been bitten off. Her stomach lurched violently.
Pushing herself up, she immediately turned and ran to the side.
‘I have no magic. If I stay here, I’ll just be a burden to Father…!’
But the monster didn’t chase her.
It spun around and charged toward the city gate.
The crystals on its back emitted a blinding light and a surge of electricity again.
Qiu Meng caught this out of the corner of her eye, and a chill ran down her spine.
“No…”
The monster had clearly seen her, and her father was right in front of it. Yet it prioritized attacking the gate…
If it were a wild beast, even a mutated one, it should have dealt with the immediate threat first. But this monster’s behavior wasn’t like a beast at all—it was more like it was following some kind of order.
‘Could someone really be controlling it?!’
Then the monster’s massive claws slammed heavily into the gate’s crossbar.
Clang—!
The thick iron bar bent and twisted out of shape. The sound of metal breaking echoed across the entire gate area. The guards on the watchtower were jolted in shock, and one even dropped his crossbow.
“Father!”
Qiu Meng gathered her courage and shouted:
“In the Hunting Forest, there’s a very strange wolf! It’s not an ordinary beast—its eyes are weird, like it’s enjoying itself! I feel… I feel like all of this is being orchestrated by someone!”
Dante’s pupils narrowed slightly.
He didn’t answer immediately, but said in a low voice:
“Don’t come out…! Hold the gate!”
The guards who were about to rush down from the tower halted.
“This might be a trap. Everyone, hold the gate. Don’t come down from the tower. Crossbowmen, keep an eye on the outside!”
The guards immediately understood his meaning.
If the enemy’s goal was to break the gate, charging out recklessly would only leave the gate area defenseless. So the guards on the tower raised their weapons again, aiming outward.
Dante stepped forward, his sword plunging into the monster’s flank.
The monster recoiled in pain and immediately turned to attack him.
Dante lowered his body, slipping beneath its claws, and said to Qiu Meng:
“Go somewhere safe. If this is a conspiracy, they’ll target unarmed children like you first…!”
Qiu Meng was about to run toward the tower when her eyes caught a glint of light from the distant woods.
Without hesitation, she dropped flat to the ground.
Swoosh!
An arrow skimmed past the back of her neck and embedded itself in the stone floor.
From the shadows in the distance, someone cursed under their breath.
“Is that brat a soldier too?! What the hell has the Border Count been training?”
“Father! There’s someone shooting arrows from afar!”
Dante glanced at the arrow, then at the forest shadows.
His expression didn’t change.
The next second, he pulled a small bottle from his belt and smashed it against the monster’s face.
White dust exploded.
Lime powder mixed with grit blinded the monster’s eyes. It let out a pained roar, its movements going wild.
“Telaika!”
Dante slashed at the joint of the bear’s front left leg, throwing it off balance.
“Open the door! Let my daughter in!”
The side gate of the tower opened immediately.