For the time being, Villin decided to go diagonally. He quickly got to the ice wolf that he had called ‘Fang’ for the time being and they were soon on their way.

Villin had to admit that riding on Fang was rather fun. He expected it to be extremely hard and painful, but he had been pleasantly surprised. The ice wolf didn’t move much vertically even when moving through the forest.

There were only two real negatives with riding the beast. The first was that he wasn’t touching the ground with his feet, he felt a lot more comfortable when his feet were touching stone or dirt, it helped him feel at ease knowing he could easily change the environment.

The second negative was that concentrating was harder. Casting spells while riding the wolf was quite difficult, Villin used the time they were moving wisely though, and continuously practiced casting and aiming spells while riding. To make things easier he also transfigured a lightweight saddle that would help him a little in keeping stable when his hands were up.

Since there was a mission board at D4 and the ice wolf seemed somewhat tired, Villin decided to make camp there. He could’ve of course slept in the tower of ‘Athena’s Forge’ before moving, but he decided that getting used to setting up and sleeping in the wilderness was a positive thing.

Since everyone that came here would most probably head to the middle of the tile to check on the missions or teleport away, Villin decided to set up camp on the edge of the tile.

He used a basic ‘Wind Blade’ spell to gather some wood and transfigured himself a small hut. Getting food was easier than expected as well since even though these mission tiles didn’t hold any creatures that would attack humans it still had a bunch of edible animals such as rabbits and skunks.

After cooking up some food for himself and giving fang a couple of rabbits to eat as well, Villin closed himself into the stone hut using transfiguration and cast ‘Drowse’ on himself, going to sleep.

He was later woken up by a sound.

------------

“Hey! Max! I found something!”

When Max heard this, he mentally sighed, but he kept a confident smile on his face as he looked at the boy that was coming his way.

Max led this branch of ‘The Shielding Lions’. This was a small branch over in D4 where the new recruits would be sent to. If they did well they would get sent to the main branch further into the forest.

Here, Max would be responsible for creating discipline, after all, ‘The Shielding Lions’ was a military guild, they were fighters.

The boy that approached him was one of the scouts that was supposed to patrol the border, making sure no attacking force would come close to them.

“What did you find Felix?” Max asked, acting professionally.

“There’s an Ice Wolf near the border! It seems very strong! I think it must’ve followed somebody into the area!”

Hearing what Felix said, Max became more serious.

Even though a lot of the information he got from these new recruits was useless, he knew the importance of listening to his subordinates. Something like seeing an ice wolf was unlikely to be a trick on the eyes. At worst it would just be a normal wolf, even though this wasn’t a big threat, it was still sufficient for him to go out and have a look in case there’s a pack of them.

Soon after, Max gathered a group of five and followed Felix to the place he saw the ice wolf.

Looking around, they didn’t see anything yet, but Max still decided to investigate properly. Thanks to that, they found a track and so they began following it.

-------------------------------------------

“There it is! And you’re right, it does seem to be an ice wolf! If we can kill it without damaging its pelt too much, we’ll be able to make a pretty penny from this!”

It was to these words that Villin woke up. A group of people had snuck up, they seemed to be using Villin’s artificial hut as cover, they hadn’t seen the airholes and simply assumed it was an oddly shaped hill, possibly created by a student long ago.

When Villin realized they were going to try and kill Fang, he felt cold. As long as the beast was his mount, he wasn’t letting anyone kill it.

Villin listened attentively as the magi discussed their plan. It was pretty simple really, one of the boys in the group would act as bait, it would move up and when the ice wolf noticed it and chased him, he would run back here. The other students would be waiting behind the wall and use their strongest spells on the beast, they decided to use those that didn’t cut but smash instead, this way they could keep the pelt intact.

If things went properly, the beast would be killed right there, but it wouldn’t be surprising if they had to send another volley of spells at it.

Villin was about to make his move and take these students out when Ashera spoke up, ‘Wait, don’t attack them. Just as a mount can revolt quicker if you do things that go against their instincts, you can also increase the time by doing things it appreciates. If you just take these students out now, nothing will change. But, if you save Fang just as he would be getting killed, he would be extremely grateful to you.”

Hearing the Kitsune’s words, Villin was rather surprised. He never thought of her as a schemer, then again, it wasn’t like they talked all that often either.

The one thing he had noticed though was that when she said something, she was generally correct.

And so, Villin obviously decided to follow her advice. Underground tendrils of magic power seeped into the ground creating magic tunnels, then it slowly began expanding, letting him ‘see’ what was going on around him without making any big movements.

From what he heard thus far, this group shouldn’t be all that powerful having to resort to a sneak attack to take care of an ice wolf.

If it was a single person or maybe two, Villin wouldn’t have thought this, but the difference between them and a team was massive. Teams could have different people focus on different things. These five could have two people focusing on keeping the ice wolf back, then another one would focus on defending against any potential ranged or magical attacks while the final two could focus on doing damage. If it turned away and tried to run the roles of the two that were supposed to keep the wolf back would reverse.

It was like that that a normal team would defeat a basic magical beast such as the ice wolf.

Since they didn’t Villin knew he had multiple ways he could fight against the group. He even had a decent bit of confidence he could defeat these five by himself. If he couldn’t he should still be able to protect himself and run away with Fang.

With this in mind, Villin waited as a group of people was talking just a thin wall away from him.

After a few more minutes had passed they finally made their move. Felix walked away from the cover and walked a few meters closer to the ice wolf. He was sweating seriously, ready to turn around and bail at any moment, but the beast hadn’t woken up yet.

Felix nervously thought of what to do as he didn’t want to get closer, after a bit he raised his wand and cast a spell toward the beast. As soon as he began casting the spell and magic power was gathered, Fang woke up and looked around.

His gaze was met with a red streak that was heading for his face but he narrowly managed to avoid it. Then he turned toward his attacker and growled.

Felix, upon seeing the beast’s furious gaze, immediately turned around and began running back towards the fake hill.

The wolf was right behind him as they had planned and chased him quickly, it was faster than they had expected and so it almost reached Felix, he only barely made it to the ambush location before he got eaten up.

When Fang reached the ambush location, it could feel something was wrong, it immediately took in the situation and noticed five spells coming at him from the side. But it was too late, he was mid-sprint and wouldn’t be able to turn in time, at most he could dodge one of the spells.

If the beast could curse, it would as it could only look at the spells as they closed in on him. Yet, just when the situation seemed hopeless, a stone wall rose out of the ground, protecting its flank, then a hole appeared in the ground and a single man came out of it.

“BOOOM!!!” the thin stone wall was blown to bits as soon as the spells reached it and shrapnel shot out. Even though some of the shrapnel still hit the ice wolf, it knew how lucky it was that the spells themselves hadn’t, the small cuts he had wasn’t anything in comparison.

As for Villin, he used ‘Obiectus Prohibere’ to stop the stone from reaching him, when the dust cloud finally settled, the six opponents could tell what was going on.

In front of the ice wolf, stood a single man. He had armor that seemed to be made out of rocks and a stone mask on his face that depicted the visage of a fox.

All they could see of their opponent were his clear eyes that seemed to be staring straight into their souls.