"Why the hell did you bring us here at the crack of dawn!?" Carlos's sleepy and wheezing voice echoed off the damp walls of the cave and returned. He was rubbing his eyes, wrapping his coat tighter with fingers numb from the cold.
Hakan was examining the wet walls of the cave with the puny torch in his hand. The flickering light of the flame barely illuminated the surroundings. "It should have been here somewhere," he muttered.
Suddenly, he stopped. He stuck his nose in the air and took a deep breath. His face twisted in disgust. "Did you catch that smell too?"
Carlos paused mid-yawn. "What smell, man? I could be snoring in my warm bed right n—" His sentence knotted in his throat. Bile rising from his stomach caused a sour expression on his face. He covered his mouth with his hand. "What is this! I'm gonna puke!"
"Rotting corpses..." Hakan said, lowering his voice. "And they've been waiting a while."
Both grimacing, they walked toward that nose-burning stench of death.
Impatient, Carlos pulled the massive torch from the bag on his back and lit it. When the flame suddenly flared up and bathed the cave in crimson, the light in Hakan's hand remained as helpless as a dim matchstick.
The illuminated scene was both fascinating and nauseating.
"Holy shit..." Carlos's voice came out not with disgust this time, but with pure admiration. His eyes were sparkling with the reflection of the flames. "Look at that gold, man! I told you we should come here; see, I was right!"
"I was the one who called you..."
The floor of the cave resembled a slaughterhouse. Human bones and torn carcasses of Four-Toothed Hyenas were intertwined, white maggots swarming over them. Yet, right in the middle of this savagery, the gold in the open sack on the ground shone like stars under the torchlight.
Hakan suppressed the nausea in his stomach and stepped forward seriously. "Now listen well, Carlos. Take your eyes off that glitter. We need to give this gold to Aiden. This isn't ordinary treasure; there are compressed spiritual energy pathogens inside. If he eats these, he will be much stronger for the war with Holyland..."
He couldn't finish his sentence. With an agile move, Carlos had already shouldered the large sack of gold and started running, laughing maniacally.
"Alright, I'm out! HUHAHAHA!"
Hakan's eyes nearly popped out of his head with rage. "GET BACK HERE, YOU BASTARD! THAT'S PART OF MY PLAN!!!"
Swinging the torch in his hand, Hakan chased after Carlos. In the narrow corridors of the cave, Carlos's echoing "HUAHAHAHA!" laughter and Hakan's shouts mingled together.
Just as they approached the cave entrance, Carlos stopped as if he had slammed on the brakes. His joy was cut short instantly. Running behind him, Hakan was caught by Carlos's strong hand before he could understand what was happening.
Carlos covered Hakan's mouth with his huge palm and pulled him roughly behind a medium-sized rock. "Shhh!"
When they both cowered behind the rock, that thing appeared at the cave entrance.
The ominous spiritual energy it radiated consumed the oxygen in the air, turning breathing into torture. Walking on two legs like a human but with an anatomy straight out of nightmares, this monster was none other than the Gariran Wolf.
The creature's shadow fell upon them. While their heartbeats thumped in their ears, they listened to the creature's heavy and chilling breath. They couldn't move until the Gariran Wolf moved away from the cave entrance and disappeared into the darkness.
When the danger passed, Carlos let out the breath he was holding with a loud noise. "Hakan... You bastard, this is what happens when you drag us here in the morning! We almost died for nothing!"
Hakan, soaked in sweat from fear and running, looked at Carlos with an expression that had given up on speaking. His pulse still hadn't settled. "By the way..." he whispered. "What was that monster? I've never seen it before."
Carlos looked in the direction the creature had gone, toward the fog outside. There was a rare seriousness on his face. "That dog is named the Gariran Wolf. Since no one who sees it survives, not much is known about it. It's like a legend."
Hakan frowned, forcing his logic. "If no one survives... Then how did we survive?"
At that moment, time froze.
The air in the cave suddenly turned to ice. That dense, suffocating, and ominous energy they thought had moved away was not coming from a distance this time, but from right on their necks.
A hot, wet breath smelling of death reached their scalps.
The Gariran Wolf hadn't left. It was right behind them, looking down.