After he lent Grisella the book, Ellis then went over and sought assistance from a certain nine-tailed fox.

According to the witch, in order for him to use magic, he first needed to learn what it (mana) ‘felt’ like. Grisella had tried to help him in this regard, but she simply wasn’t strong enough to accomplish anything.

She mulled over the situation for a bit longer before she then mentioned Ena as his potential savior. While Grisella’s mana might not be enough to fulfill the needed requirement, the little fox was different. Ena had a significantly larger mana pool than she did.

Grisella was not overly hopeful of his chances, but doing something was still better than doing nothing.

It took a while for everything to get rolling. but, in the end, even Ena was not enough.

If Grisella was comparable to a drop of water, then Ena would be something like a cup. Regardless of either one, it still wasn’t enough to upturn a raging whirlpool. It was certainly a hopeful attempt, but nonetheless, it ended in failure.

Ellis went to bed that night thoroughly submerged in his own disappointment.

****

The very next day, Ellis immediately initiated a new plan. It was something that he had come up with after last night’s conversation. Rather than call it a legitimate plan, it was more along the lines of a distant goal.

He called this new endeavor the ‘Evolution Transformation Extravaganza.’

… the name was still in the works, but the basic goal of the plan was to help the kids achieve human form.

Grisella had talked about it before, but in this world, monsters were able to transform into humans. Of course, like with everything, there were prerequisites that needed to be met before they could transform. According to the solitary witch, it all boiled down to three factors: strength, wisdom, and mana.

Strength was already a given. Even now, the group constantly searched for new methods of improvement. He figured that he would probably do more harm than good if he were to get involved this late into the stage.

As for mana, that was one subject that he completely did not know how to tackle. Ellis knew next to nothing about mana or magic in general. In fact, he was unable to even feel it, much less train someone in its usage.

It was better to leave that department to the experts. More specifically to the well-learned Grisella and the young prodigy Ena.

That only left wisdom.

Ellis figured that the wisdom Grisella talked about was not actually an accumulation of information, but rather an increase in mental cognition. It was a difference between crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence. The former dealt with raw knowledge, while the latter involved more abstract concepts such as problem-solving and abstract thinking.

He once took a psych 101 class, so he knew some things regarding the topic.

If his thought process was accurate, then he needed to increase their fluid intelligence.

In short, he wanted to make his companions smarter. In this case, the more thinking they do, the smarter they’ll become.

Ellis immediately came up with an answer. It was a method that he was already quite familiar with; board games.

Board games were the perfect tool for increasing fluid intelligence. Luckily for him, there were a plethora of games to choose from.

For now, he did not immediately implement chess. Chess was arguably the most obvious answer to his predicament, but Ellis felt that it was somewhat too high level of a game. At least, for the current wolves. Instead, he decided to go with Othello.

Othello was simpler than chess but a bit more challenging than checkers. It was the perfect middle ground.

He wasn’t overly familiar with the rules of the game, but he had enough knowledge to replicate most of it. For the things he didn’t know, it was fine if he just made up new rules along the way.

Actually, creating the board and the pieces was surprisingly easy. In fact, he didn’t even have to do anything. This was where the dexterous Grisella came into play.

A job that would have taken Ellis multiple days and multiple attempts, only took Grisella less than thirty minutes to complete. The end result was an eight by eight board and 64 dual-sided pieces. They made five sets in total.

Once all the preparation was completed, he then taught them the rules. As thanks for all of her effort, he also taught Grisella. She was quite intrigued by the setup. Unlike checkers, Othello was a completely foreign game to the people of Lull.

As for the wolves, they were quite eager to play any new game. And like Checkers, they soon got hooked.

For the most part, Grisella also enjoyed the game. Outside of the times she spent reading the Compendium, she would play Othello with the others.

What surprised him the most was not her enthusiasm for the game, but rather, her perseverance. Without mincing words, Grisella was getting absolutely destroyed by everyone else. After the first three or so losses, her eyes burned with drive. After twenty straight losses, her gaze dimmed a bit, but nevertheless, she still threw herself headfirst into the fray.

After a full day of nothing but defeat, her expression blanched. If he looked closely, then he would notice her hands slightly trembling. Still, she kept playing.

Ellis really did have to praise her. If it was him, he would have given up from the very start.

Like this, the group continued along the river. Time passed and it was already close to a month into their journey.

Ellis abruptly stopped.

A deep frown morphed his face.

“What’s wrong?” Grisella noticed the change in his expression.

“No… well, it’s the wolves.” He mumbled. “They’re starting to get a bit antsy.”

“What?” Invisible question marks floated above her head. What the hell was this man suddenly saying?

“You know how we haven’t run into any monsters lately? Well, it’s been bothering everyone, so…”

He too was secretly worried.

It had been a month since they left Grisella’s cottage, and in that time, they had yet to run into a single monster.

Usually, whenever there were no monsters within the area, it signified the presence of a Boss class monster. Those damn things radiated an aura that naturally repelled weaker monsters. Of course, not all Bosses were the same. Some had a system in place that was nearly opposite of that. They would gather monsters to their side and use them like a personal army.

Ellis wasn’t really worried about the existence of the Boss itself. What made him feel uneasy was the fact that they still hadn’t encountered anything yet.

What exactly was going on?

As a result of this conundrum, the wolves were constantly on edge. They acted normally on the outside, but inwardly, their guard was up nearly 24/7. Such heightened awareness caused their endurance to rapidly decline. Even Ena was starting to get tired.

After Ellis explained all this, Grisella simply said, “Ah, that? Don’t worry about it. It was all because of this thing.” She pulled something out from her pants pocket.

It was a tiny metal ball with holes covering the entire surface. It somewhat resembled a re-imagined version of swiss cheese. Looking closely, he saw invisible wisps of smoke leaking out from every orifice that dotted its surface.

“It’s monster repellent.” She explained. “It constantly lets out an unpleasant gas that drives most monsters away.”

She turned to the wolves. “You guys don’t need to worry. You sort of got used to it when you stayed over at my place.”

“Either way, as long as we have this thing, we won’t have to worry about running into any monsters.” Grisella thumped her chest in reassurance. The monster repellent was her own special little concoction. It was one of the primary reasons for her long-term success within the forest. She was actually quite proud of it.

“Ah… so that’s what happened…” Ellis nodded to himself in understanding.

A somewhat conflicted expression colored his face.

The lack of monsters was certainly a good thing. Because of Grisella’s preemptive measure, their progress along the river had been much faster than they originally expected. Traveling without constantly being attacked was a truly novel experience for him. He would be lying if he were to say that he did not enjoy the peace and quiet.

On the other hand, the monster repellent effectively took away their most valuable resource. The wolves viewed most of the monsters that they encountered not as enemies, but rather, as potential training partners. Although weak monsters did not allow them to go all out like they would have normally wanted, the constant battle kept their senses honed and their bodies ready.

At this point, it was like daily radio calisthenics for these guys.

It’s a bit troubling… Ellis recently discovered another side effect: their current situation made it impossible for the wolves to vent. Despite how smart they had gotten, at their core, they were still monsters. They needed to let out all the pent-up aggression that had built up within their hearts.

As a result, their behavior slightly changed. They were acting uncharacteristically more aggressive and uncharacteristically more rebellious. They were like pent-up teenage boys on a family vacation. Like those poor unfortunate souls, the wolves had no way to vent out all their repressed emotions.

“Is something the matter?” Grisella noticed that his expression had actually grown darker.

“No, it’s nothing, just that…” He did not have the heart to tell her the truth. After all, her good intentions were the current cause of this problem.

A moment of quiet contemplation later, he eventually came up with a solution. “Let’s do some sparring.”

“Sparring?”

“Yeah, between the kids.” He paused for a moment. “If you want to join in too, then just say so.”

Ellis was slightly curious. He wanted to know just how strong she was. Grisella did not seem weak, but at the same time, she did not give off all that great of an aura, at least compared to monsters like the Hydra. She was not weak, but she was not strong. He couldn’t quite classify her.

Her ability stood out amidst the blockheads and wall crashers that populated this forest.

“Ah, n-no thank you.” She immediately shook her head and denied his offer.

Ellis shrugged his shoulders. “Suit yourself.” Regardless of Grisella’s decision, he would still go on ahead with the sparring session.

Since they were all so pent-up, this was the perfect opportunity for them to blow off some steam.

With that, the midday sparring session officially kicked off.

****

“W-what sort of hellish scene is this?” Grisella’s face was almost entirely pale as horrific image after horrific image flashed in front of her eyes.

It was hell. That was the best way she could describe it. Hell.

Today’s sparring session featured a free-for-all of sorts. Everyone against everyone. At least, that’s how it was supposed to be. In actuality, they all formed teams.

Wight by herself was one team and Ena by herself was another team. Plush and Umbra combined also made up a team, while the rest of the wolves grouped up into the last team.

In total, four teams.

The result was a battle unlike any other.

The ground was charred black. Broken stone and scratch marks littered the surroundings. The final topping was the splatter of random blood that occasionally stained the floor.

All this was amazing in its own right, but this was not what surprised her. She came in with expectations of their strength. While it was definitely greater than she originally imagined, that was still secondary. What truly shocked her was their ferocity and intensity. In short, this did not look like a simple sparring session. Rather, it looked like a legitimate battle to the death.

Injuries covered their bodies from head to toe. Some looked mild and benign, while others spurted out blood like a broken water fountain. There was at least one-life threatening injury on each challenger. Plush had over five.

“S-should we stop this?” she worriedly whispered to Ellis.

“No, it’s fine.” He blandly responded. He stared at the battlefield with his arms crossed in front of him.

Unlike Grisella’s over the top reaction, Ellis acted a bit calmer. He was quite desensitized to the whole thing. To him, this scene was just another ordinary day.

Besides, even if I wanted to, they won’t let me interrupt.

It looked very dangerous, and it was certainly very dangerous, but that’s just how they liked it. The wolves were not born special. They did not eat some magical fruit to make them stronger, nor did they possess a cheat-like power that allowed them to triumph over everyone else. It was only through this level of intensity that the wolves were able to reach their current level of strength.

It was a bit cliché, but basically, hard work.

While Ellis wasn’t so obsessed with increasing his strength, he could somewhat sympathize with the wolves. In a world like this, you either get stronger or you die trying.

That was also where Ena came into play.

The little fox’s rough treatment was vital to their progress. Ena… that kid, without him noticing, she had developed a rather terrible personality. She played the role of the bully, the demon that everyone wanted to surpass.

Her actions spurred everyone else on. Ellis believed that a part of their minds instinctively understood this. Still, they played dumb and continued with the little charade.

For the most part, Ena never really did anything bad to them. Even when she acted out, it was usually under the guise of training. Whatever it was that she did, all of her actions directly or indirectly contributed to the group’s growth.

Even though she was like that, that little fox was acting properly as their boss…

At this point, wouldn’t it be better to just call her the older sister?

Almost immediately, Ellis chuckled at his own words. I’m certain that if I were to call Ena their sister, then the wolves would definitely protest. They might even attempt to silence me.

Ena was the only one who could properly play the role of villain. It wasn’t as if Ellis had never tried to ‘save’ the wolves from her tyranny. In truth, the wolves did not want to be saved.

Ellis once tried to participate in their training sessions, but he wasn’t very helpful. Whenever he sparred with the wolves, he would end up holding back too much. It was to the point where fighting with him became purely detrimental. Only Ena was cruel enough to fight without holding back.

Her ruthless ferocity seemingly rubbed off on the rest of the kids. Even against each other, the wolves learned to no longer hold back.

A slight smile formed on his lips. He felt somewhat proud. These guys, they got this far purely because of their hard work.

Off to the side, Grisella discreetly glanced at Ellis with fearful eyes. The young homunculus was staring rather fixedly on the battle. Along the way, he would occasionally break out into laughter, or smile to himself.

It was seriously creepy.

She subconsciously shivered. Grisella clutched the Compendium close to her chest as she took a step back away from Ellis.

Scary… all these guys are too scary!