Today was a gloomy day. Above the tree-tops, heavy rainfall blanketed the skies, while underneath, a misty fog enveloped the forest floor.

“Hah…”

Ellis breathed out a long, wispy sigh. He looked up at the creature standing in front of him.

A sturdy body cladded in muscles. Brown tufts of hair covered almost every inch of its skin, most notably on its chest and lower arms. It somewhat resembled a burly lumberjack, except it was naked and had a god-ugly face.

The face was probably its most noticeable feature. For one, it looked completely like a pig, snout and all.

Since it looked like that, Ellis had taken to calling the thing an Orc. While there was a slight resemblance, over all, it looked vastly different from the orcs that he had originally imagined.

As for the current situation… well, it was something along the lines of a life-or-death battle.

Ellis planted his feet firmly on the ground. He raised the tip of his spear until it pointed directly towards the creature.

The Orc instinctively flinched, but after less than half a second, rage soon filled its face. Its pale skin took on a pink luster while wisps of steam exuded out from its pores. The creature let out an ear-deafening roar. It was a sound similar to a pig’s squeal, except several times more guttural.

To Ellis, its voice sounded just a tad bit frustrated.

The Orc stomped on the ground once, before it sprinted forward. Ellis felt the oncoming pressure. It was like facing off against a charging boar. Considering the situation, that sort of analogy wasn’t far off from reality.

Ellis remained still. He waited for the Orc to draw closer. Just before the moment of impact, he took a sudden step back. A massive force passed through his entire body. Ellis was violently launched backward. Fortunately, by angling the spear just right, he was able to lessen the momentum.

For a moment, he was like a feather loosely drifting through the air. After a few seconds, he landed back to the ground with a deafening thud. Although his stance was somewhat stiff, for the most part, he was unharmed.

At this point, Ellis breathed out an exaggerated sigh. “Good, this time I managed to stick the landing.” He wiped off the single bead of sweat that dripped down his forehead as he looked back up at his opponent.

The Orc let out another angry bellow. Again, it furiously stomped on the ground, a look of absolute frustration morphed its face.

If it wasn’t already apparent, Ellis was currently using the Orc as a practice partner. Most of the time, he let the Orc attack, but occasionally, he did the attacking. Like this, a routine had somewhat developed, of course, completely against the Orc’s will.

How long has it been since this all first started? Ellis wasn’t one to keep track, just that… it’s been a while. The feeling of passing time bogged down his thoughts. Was it thirty minutes? Half a day? Eighteen Hours? He didn’t know, and to be honest, he didn’t really care. No matter how much time passed, every second was precious.

For Ellis, this was valuable training, but for the Orc, it was nothing short of torture.

Being subjected to such never-ending torment, the Orc naturally felt indignant. For the first few hours, it attacked Ellis rather energetically. It was hell-bent on killing him. Its enthusiasm was praiseworthy. Unfortunately, that energy eventually vanished. Soon, its indignation was replaced with frustration. A part of it wanted to just turn around and run away, but it didn’t. It single-mindedly attacked.

If anything, its persistence was admirable.

In the end, three days of this shit passed.

The Orc eventually fell. It collapsed onto the ground. Its entire face was pale, while all four of its limbs resembled splayed noodles. If one were to look closely, then one would notice all the light scratch marks that littered its body. None of the wounds were fatal, but added together and they caused for some serious blood-loss.

Despite its current situation, the Orc still did not know when to give up. It wanted to get up, it certainly tried to get up, but it couldn’t.

The creature had collapsed from pure exhaustion.

In comparison, Ellis was perfectly fine. His face wasn’t even red. He stretched out his back and breathed out a soft sigh.

“I’m getting better, right?” He mumbled to himself.

By now, he was certain that he had mastered the art of holding back. Even after fighting such a weak monster, Ellis had somehow managed to keep it alive for three consecutive days. That was an incredible feat and a clear show of progress for him.

Aside from that, there was the matter of his spearmanship. His progress in that avenue was still somewhat up for debate.

Within a year’s time, he had learned not only how to thrust and cut, but also how to block. Other than that… actually, there was no other than that. Rather, was there anything else to the spear aside from those three aspects?

He shook his head, “It should be fine with just this…”

Over a year has passed since they first stumbled into that tree tower. Did Ellis feel that he had sufficiently grown up? No, not really.

His body did get stronger though, but at this point, it was difficult to measure just how strong he had gotten. He only had a vague impression that he was somewhat stronger than in the past. It was the same sort of reason as to why ten-year-olds don’t really think much about being stronger than their five-year-old selves. It was a natural progression of growth.

Was this normal for homunculi?

Either way, it didn’t really matter. There was nothing wrong with growing stronger. In fact, the stronger he grows, the more convenient it’ll be for him. After all, there were heroes living out there in the real world. He certainly did not want to be the cannon-fodder to any of their stories.

Then, there were his companions.

After the fight had ended, Ellis jogged forward. He followed the river further upstream. After a few miles, he finally reached them.

Currently, a mountain of corpses lay scattered by the river bed. It was a sight of pure carnage and devastation. Those with a fainter heart probably would’ve passed out by now.

A little bit away from such a scene, there stood his companions. Seven familiar figures bathed within the river. They were currently trying to wash out the blood that plastered their fur.

A certain white-eared wolf suddenly turned its head and barked loudly.

“Woof!”

The first to greet him was Wight. She leaped out of the water and ran towards him, all the while wagging her tail.

Ellis rubbed the crown of her head. A gentle smile floated to his face. “You guys worked hard too, huh?”

Like him, Wight and her merry band of siblings had also grown stronger. Not only that, but they also grew in size. Well, it was to be expected. After all, a full year had already passed.

By now, they were already fully grown. Still though, they were a lot smaller than the average monster that roamed this forest. Their size was probably a characteristic of their species.

For reference, Umbra was only a little bit larger than a normal wolf from Earth. The rest of the pack were of similar size… well, with the exception of Plush and Wight.

Plush, that fatty, he was considerably larger than his other siblings. He was twice their size, no, maybe even a bit more than that. These days, he resembled a round exercise ball with limbs. It was honestly quite ridiculous.

On the other end of the spectrum was Wight. She hardly grew at all. Right now, she resembled an adolescent husky, just a little bit bigger than an actual puppy. Wight was still very much an adorable child.

Despite her size, she still retained the title of strongest wolf. She had gotten so strong, in fact, that her strength was nearing Ena’s.

Speaking of which…

“Where the hell is that brat?” He raised his head and looked around his surroundings. Amidst the mountain of corpses, he could not find a single trace of her.

He shook his head, a rueful smile stretched his limbs. Truth be told, her absence was normal. Ena had developed a habit of disappearing. She would often run off somewhere, only to come back a few hours later. Her longest period of absence was two days. Back then, she eventually came back with matted fur and haggard eyes.

Ellis did not know where she ran off to, but he wasn’t really concerned. No matter where she went, she always came back. Plus, these days, the wolves hardly ever got injured. At least to the point where Ena had to step in with her healing magic.

That was partly due to Ellis’s own efforts.

After their little stint at the tree tower, he realized that these brats did not know how to relax. In their minds, the only thing that existed was combat and even more combat. As a result, their stress continually piled on. They became more aggressive and brash. Even during fights, they developed this unhealthy habit of recklessness.

He needed something that could take the edge of the blood-boiling excitement of battle. Ellis thought long and hard for a solution.

In the end, he boiled the issue down to a difference between physical activity and mental activity. The wolves were developing too much physically, but not enough mentally. As such, he wanted to balance out their uneven growth. He needed a mental activity that wasn’t so fast-paced and intuitive as combat.

His solution was board games.

Board games were the perfect past time that focused more on mental acuity instead of physical prowess. It would force these impulsive brats to learn how to actually think before they act.

Of course, luck-based games were pointless and games like chess were impossible due to their complexity and the general lack of pieces. As such, Ellis decided on checkers.

Checkers was a simple game with simple rules and a clear goal. Practically anybody could pick up the game and play it. The wolves were no exception.

They were not simply mindless beasts. In fact, the creatures of this forest all possessed some form of intelligence, some more than others. The wolves really were as smart as a child and luckily, even children could learn how to play checkers.

Setting everything up was easy. For the board, he did not actually need a physical board. Instead, he simply drew one out on the ground with a stick. For the pieces, he used small pebbles. One white set and one black set. One comprised of the normal pebbles, which he labeled as the white pieces, while the other pieces (black pieces) were pebbles that Ena had burnt with her fire until they took on a black sheen.

Basically, normal pebbles vs burnt pebbles.

Teaching them how to play took a bit of effort, but after the ball got rolling, it never stopped. With Wight at the forefront, the wolf pack eventually grew to love the simple game.

These days, whenever they were out of combat, they passed the time by playing checkers. The image of a bunch of wolves crowding around a game of checkers will forever be imprinted into the back of his mind.

As an added bonus, it also made them somewhat smarter.

The wolves learned how to think and not just recklessly attack. Well, this was probably only normal. After all, checkers, despite its simplicity, it was still an intellectually stimulating game. It was natural to get smarter after playing it day in and day out.

The wolves weren’t so battle-minded anymore… although they do seem a bit more competitive nowadays

Even today, as they were winding down after the battle, the pack began setting up their own individual games of checkers. Due to the uneven numbers, Ellis was dragged into the mix.

The current line-up was as followed:

Umbra vs Cocoa

Plush vs Cobalt

Tangerine vs Cinder

Ellis vs Wight

A bead of cold sweat ran down his forehead. A goofy-looking expression filled Wight’s face, but all he could see was a grim reaper staring down at him from above.

Wight, this girl, she had gotten very good at the game. Just like in real life, she was also the strongest at Checkers. It was to the point where she had come incredibly close to beating him on a number of different occasions. In order to maintain the illusion of a perfect master, Ellis needed to keep winning. Unfortunately, doing so got harder and harder as the days passed.

Just as he was plotting how to escape, something suddenly landed on his head.

Ellis looked up, only to see a familiar red-furred fox looking at him with an overly eager expression.

“Ah…”

Then, there it was. His path to salvation.