011

Life of a merchant isn’t that exciting.

This is something that Aagon firmly believed. He knew what he was talking about, after all he was one. A second generation merchant running a business that his father had started years ago, but still a merchant.

Now, he wasn’t going to say that a merchant’s life wasn’t interesting; meeting new people, going and visiting to new places, all of it was good. It was just that it was too tame for someone like him.

This feeling was intensified by the fact that he was born with a very rare skill of [Fire Manipulation].

He was quite young as well, with a strikingly handsome face and well-kept body and to top it off his maroon coloured hair, all of it made it impossible to scoff at his looks.

Thinking all of this, a sigh couldn’t help but escape from his body.

“Sigh…”

Seeing this, the hunter party following him couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

These people have been here from his father’s generation, they have been around Aagon ever since he was a kid. So they knew exactly what he was thinking about.

“What happened Aagon, this trip isn’t exciting enough for you? And here we thought you liked going to the Outpost.”

“Come on, don’t say it like that, the commander wasn’t there this time, of course little Aagon would be bored. Hahaha”

The two bickering hunters were right, he liked going to the Outpost and for one reason only, the commander. The commander was someone who was a good friend of his father, so the kingdom had given his company the right to supply rations for the place. This meant every time they went to the outpost, they were treated like guests.

The biggest advantage that he had of all of this was that the old commander would let him see the guard’s training and would even let him participate sometimes. This would make the trip to the outpost that much more exciting for him.

But all of this changed today, the old commander had retired and in his place a new one had come to take over. Now this wasn’t that bad, but this new commander, when Aagon first saw her he couldn’t help but be a little put off by her, she was as cold as ice and wouldn’t even respond to him let alone treat him like a guest.

Even when the guards who knew who he was tried to make conversation with him, they were sent back to train.

Now, he knew that she didn’t know him, so it wasn’t her fault, but in his entire life that he has spent as an apprentice merchant and now himself as one that he has met someone that unapproachable.

And from what he heard from the guards the commander had quite a temper too.

So they just made their routine delivery and left.

Aagon knew the hunters were making fun of him but he couldn’t do or say anything about it, they were right after all.

Seeing him sulk, the leader of the hunter group, Kyle came over and said.

“Don’t be like that, I’ll take you to see the hunters training ground after we reach back, what do you say?”

“Really Mr. Kyle, do you mean it this time?”

He had to ask, because they have pulled his leg on this topic multiple times, so he had to be careful.

“Of course, I genuinely feel bad for you this time, hahaha”

‘Your laugh makes it very hard to believe…’

Aagon wanted to retort. But he kept it to himself. He was just about to say something when he heard it.

“Arrgh!!!”

A loud scream in the distance. He immediately stopped his horse-drawn carriage. The horses neighed as the reigns were pulled roughly.

The hunter team was well experienced so they knew what to do. Kyle and his three teammates got off and were about to head in when Aagon stopped him.

“Wait. Take me with you, keep Gina and Walter here to guard the carriage.”

Kyle didn’t argue with him and told the two to wait while he and Aagon went to investigate the scream with his remaining teammate, Jacob.

They immediately rushed into the thick stretches of trees along the side of the road to the place where they heard the voice.

They weren’t too far from the edge when they reached the location. What they saw there left them speechless.

A man, almost naked in this bone-chilling cold, surrounded by hundreds of snow wolfs and to top it all off, they were being led by a Silver Wolf.

Things couldn’t have been worse even if they tried.

Aagon didn’t wait for Kyle to say anything, he immediately put his hand in his pocket and took out a bright crimson pill.

Kyle knew what he was going to do and was honestly impressed at his reaction.

‘Looks like I’ll really have to take him to the training grounds this time.’

He and Jacob moved back. Kyle prepared his shield and Jacob also took out his sword.

The pill in Aagon’s hand glowed and a powerful flame was born out of it, but this flame didn’t seem to hurt Aagon even one bit as he raised his hand holding the pill in the air and commanded the flame to spread out in the direction of the wolves, the heat passed by Grant’s body as he was laying there holding his stomach.

The one thing that snow wolves hated the most was heat, so a flame this powerful was repulsive to them as the entire crowd was scattered in mere seconds, none to be seen after the flame died down.

The only one remaining was the Silver Wolf, it wasn’t a low levelled creature like the snow wolf, and it had evolved from that primitive stage a long time ago. A little fire couldn’t scare it now.

Kyle and Jacob looked at each other and weren’t surprised in the least.

“Aagon, take the man and leave, he looks like he can still be saved. We’ll hold off the wolf.”

Anger could be seen in the Silver Wolf’s eyes as the intruder in its land and the man who had injured it to this extent was carried away right in front of its eyes.

After Aagon carried Grant away, it was then that Kyle and Jacob both noticed the wolf more carefully.

“Does its jaw look mangled or is it just me?”

Asked Jacob.

“Nah, I see it too.”

The wolf, in its anger activated a few more ice spikes and threw them over to the duo.

But Kyle easily blocked them using his Shield. An aura of brown covered his shield as he ran towards the wolf.

When Kyle moved, Jacob moved behind him, the shield rammed into the wolf but it wasn’t as easily moved and it pushed him back.

But with Jacob getting the perfect opportunity to attack, he stabbed his sword which was glowing a faint blue.

The wolf didn’t see it coming and was stabbed in the neck, but it had missed its vitals very closely.

Seeing no more way to win, it activated its wind magic [Swift Movement] and a hard wind blew over and the wolf was gone in the opposite direction, the wind had destabilized the duo and they couldn’t chase after it.

“It got away.” Muttered Jacob.

Kyle didn’t respond but was curious.

‘Why did it run?’

Surely the hit that Jacob did was good but it had missed its vitals, and he hadn’t done anything that would injure it that badly. Was its previous injury that bad?

This wasn’t making any sense to him.

Did the man hurt it? That question popped up in his mind but he didn’t dare answer it.

A Silver Wolf was no ordinary creature, it was an evolved beast, something only seasoned veterans are allowed to hunt. Even Jacob here wasn’t qualified to hunt it.

“Let’s follow the trail, I want to know where he came from and why he was being hunted.”

Jacob just nodded and followed.

They had to walk for quite a while, maybe more than two hours before they came upon a discovery.

“Um, Mr Kyle…”

“I know.”

Scattered around them were the bodies of roughly twenty snow wolves. All of this was around a small fire that was now put out, a piece of meat could be seen being cooked over it, but it had been left there uneaten and covered in dirt.

“Looks like he was attacked while he was resting. The smell must’ve triggered them.”

While Kyle was busy examining the site, Jacob moved around the wolves and checked each and every one of their bodies.

“A clean stab in the head, no mess, no struggle. But what did he stab them with, this wound doesn’t look like it’s from a knife.”

“With this.”

Kyle said as he threw over a shiny white blade made from some beast’s horn.

Jacob caught it and he was immediately surprised.

“This is..!”

“The antlers of a White-blade Deer. The meat that was being cooked also looked like it belonged to the same.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The antler looks new. It feels like it adorned the head of a deer just yesterday. And look around you, doesn’t the camp look like it has a lot more blood spread around than there reasonably should be?”

Jacob nodded and Kyle continued.

“I bet the body of the deer was carried away by some beast that happened upon this camp before us.”

Jacob was so surprised that he didn’t have anything else to say. But Kyle did.

“Not just this, think about it, if he made knives out of the deer’s antlers, what did he use to hunt the deer? Not only that, when we travelled here, we took almost two hours to do so, but all the tracks that we followed were running tracks. He ran all the way from here to there where he was finally caught. The man seems much more skilled than he looks like.”

The question of whether the man had hurt the Silver Wolf popped up in his head again, but this time, he couldn’t dismiss it.

‘Just what was he doing in a place like this…?’

“Jacob, take the snow wolf’s claws and let’s leave.”

“Why the claws?”

“The man didn’t look like he was carrying anything, the claws might earn him a few gold.”

Jacob nodded and did as he was told. They returned back not long after.