The wolf on his left let out a whimper as it fell, having been stabbed in the neck by his sword, while the one on his left tried the same maneuver, only for it to be batted away by the flat of his sword. Kimsung looked around and saw the rest of the horde close by, approaching at a relaxed pace, led by a much larger wolf. That one had to be their leader, he assumed.
Typically, if a group's leader were removed, the group would fall apart. But in the rare case they do not, their cohesiveness would be abysmal compared to when they had a leader. So Kimsung decided to target the wolf leader before dealing with its minions. The wolf leader, as if figuring out his intentions, barked, and its minions surrounded it in a defensive half-circle.
'Damn. I'll have to think of something else. It seems like this wolf in particular has some intelligence to it.' He thought, a bit troubled by the reveal. It wasn't that he was worried, except that he'd be spending a lot more time trying to kill it than he'd need to if it weren't intelligent.
Kimsung retreated temporarily, wanting to test the limits of the wolf's capabilities. If it sent its minions to chase him immediately, it meant it had minimal intelligence; if not, it was far more dangerous.
Meanwhile, with Keido, two wolves, similar to the ones Kimsung was occupied with, lay dead at his feet as Keido stood over them, blood dripping from his blade.
[You've slain an F-rank Mutated Wolf, you've gained +1 EXP]
[You've slain an F-rank Mutated Wolf, you've gained +1 EXP]
The wolves attempt to sneak into their little camp and attack them, but he notices their intent in time, catching them off guard and killing them both in the same swing of his sword. Keido was lucky that their throats were exposed, the cut would have been too shallow, and they could've killed him quickly.
'Crap. Where did these wolves come from?' Keido thought they could have simply just been a patrol of wolves, but since they had nearly snuck up on him, that was not likely to be the case. It wasn't of much help that Kimsung had wandered off somewhere, likely to raise his EXP, not that Keido could blame him.
"Keido, is everything good now?" Heidi asked, having hidden in the tent for natural reasons.
"Yeah, everything should be fine. There were only two of them." He said, relieved there weren't more. The attack of the wolves had been far too quick, and he hadn't been able to summon his Worm of Doubt quickly enough to distract them. He'd need to practice with it more, the expenditure of his mana reserves was insufficient for what he wanted.
Gabriel had only given him one hundred and fifty EXP, which equaled 1:1 with his own mana reserves. Except when he summoned the Worm of Doubt, it spent ten whole mana to summon it. Luckily, it didn't deplete his reserves to use its abilities, which allowed him only fifteen uses of it before he was out of mana.
Such an expensive usage of mana was worthy of being a Z-ranked skill. After all, skills used as much mana as they were ranked, with F-rank using only one mana point from use, and Z-rank a whole ten. Perhaps it was a way to balance the difference in power between all the ranks. For now, he could only use the Worm of Doubt sparingly and in cases where he truly needed to use it. He was aware of a method to increase his mana, but it was only written in the novel, and its description was quite vague. Perhaps he could ask Kimsung to teach him once he returned.
Now, that was the disgusting part. He took out a cleaver Kimsung had given him, along with other items for butchering the wolf so that it could be moved. It was never good to have a corpse nearby, as it could attract even more monsters. First, and with great struggle, he began to hack at the first wolf's limbs, its skin and meat tough against a mere unenchanted cleaver, but he managed. After two whole hours, he finished half of the wolf just as Kimsung was running through the forest.
With Kimsung, who'd been running through the forest, using hit-and-run methods on the wolf pack, he was evading four wolves as they chased him through the forest, bobbing and weaving between the trees to catch up with Kimsung. He panted, his body already tired despite using mana to enhance his body.
This was the third time he had done things, and it was always taxing on him, no matter how many resets he'd been through. Some things did not change, just as his body's inexperience with such long and tiring escapes. The rest of the wolf pack, or at least what was left, numbering at only six or seven wolves, counting the wolf leader and the four chasing him, were lagging, taking their time to chase and tire him.
Ironically enough, this was a method used by early humans to hunt animals over long distances, with one group hunting the prey across a long distance and the other group keeping pace, waiting to replace the first group when they exhausted themselves.
As he jumped over a fallen tree, he spun around and grounded himself, waiting for the right moment. And soon after, the opportunity presented itself, with one wolf leaping over the tree and landing right into his range to swing his sword. Kimsung wasted no time, swinging and killing the wolf, before backing up as a second jumped onto the fallen tree and pounced on him, only to be impaled on his sword the moment it closed in on him.
[You've slain an F-rank Mutated Wolf, you've gained +1 EXP]
[You've slain an F-rank Mutated Wolf, you've gained +1 EXP]
The last two wolves circled the fallen tree, chasing after Kimsung as he retreated further. Due to the obvious fact that they were wolves, he was at a great disadvantage, being in a forest.