Starting two weeks before the hunting competition, Rowan went out with hunter Geric. This leisurely world didn't make appointments down to the minute or even decide things by the hour. Everything was slow and long at the same time.
Two weeks before the competition, Rowan had to adjust everything to Geric's schedule. He was from a hunting family that had continued for countless generations, and their lifestyle patterns were basically law.
Rowan, as a modern person, had to match everything about Geric for an extended period.
From wake-up time to breakfast menu, the weight of boots used, and which mountain paths to take first—it was detailed to an insane degree.
'Damn it.'
Rowan felt like he'd landed in one of those military units with all the worst shitty customs, but he matched everything with Geric. Because he was a thirteen-year-old greenhorn. Sure, he had Rakson's backing, but that didn't matter.
Rakson had provided Rowan's labor to Geric, and Geric was just using it by his own standards.
"This crow found you wolves?"
"Yeah. His name's Kaiya. Smart bird."
"Crows are hard to tame. Even raising them from chicks often fails. They're so clever that when the time comes, they just up and leave on their own."
Even watching the bird peck his hand and fly up, Geric was unfazed. He'd tried training crows before. Being smart meant they were useful, but it also meant they were cunning.
"You're ready now. Our rhythm's pretty much synced, so let's follow the crow."
After two weeks of drilling everything from consistent stride to hiding habits, Geric finally took Rowan out for their first real action. Tomorrow was the hunting competition, and already near the forest you could see quite a few villagers gathered in groups, shooting arrows.
Some interested women were there too, so it was pretty lively.
'The forest doesn't even feel like a forest.'
Rowan thought that as he skillfully followed the hunter. The two had different builds but moved similarly.
'The hunter's movements and habits.'
Hunter Geric was a real hunter. The eldest son of a traditional hunting family. Geric's second and third brothers had gone to the city or become farmers. They couldn't endure the hunting family's brutal training and gave up.
That's how valuable Geric's movements were. Every single habit carried the meaning of the hunting family.
For example, why deliberately make noise while going through brush? The forest was noisier than you'd think, and with frequent winds, it was easy to mistake it for forest wind. These forests were way denser than modern ones, practically bursting with life.
Most importantly, humans as bipeds were the most vulnerable species in a forest where vision was pretty limited. Naturally, you had to deliberately push through the brush and erase your presence.
'Precious know-how.'
Hunter Geric was just doing what his father before him had done, but Rowan understood it all intellectually.
"Caw. Caw-caw."
The crow Kaiya came close and cawed softly. While Rowan poured grain powder onto a leaf he'd plucked and flipped to make it concave, hunter Geric had already moved ahead stealthily. He wanted to see first.
Then he held his breath.
Three wolves—big ones too. An unusual number to see in this area with basically no natural predators.
'Must be grouping up since Rowan's been killing one a day lately.'
Some people say beasts are empty-headed and purely instinctual, but that's completely wrong. To survive in the wild, you need solid survival strategies. Stupid ones don't survive.
Species with poor survival strategies just die out.
"That's quite a few."
Geric covered Rowan's mouth with his finger and looked behind them before slipping away carefully. Right then, the forest wind changed direction, brushing past them toward the wolves. A startled Geric drew his bow.
"One, two, three."
Rowan and Geric's arrows lodged into the wolves who were sniffing around. One hit the thick upper part of a leg, the other hit a paw, probably from miscalculating distance. If they'd been unlucky, it would've missed.
"Kyaang! Kyaaang-kyaang!!!"
The wolves split left and right. The one hit in the leg was limping. Geric shot an arrow precisely into the slow one's throat.
"Kyeee-kyaang!!!"
Meanwhile, the other wolves jumped in from both sides. Without the distraction of a healthy wolf darting around in front drawing attention, the ambush failed—the leg-shot wolf had gotten an arrow in the throat too quickly.
"Hah!"
Rowan's confidence had grown a lot since the real combat with goblins. He lunged forward without hesitation, leaning to the side to dodge the wolf's head while stabbing his dagger into its ribs as he passed. The wolf's sharp claws grazed Rowan's cheek.
Crunch! Slash!
He felt pain but didn't care.
"Whew."
Geric whistled as he watched Rowan handle his wolf, having just shoved his arm bracer, made of several layers of thick boar hide, into a wolf's molars and pushed it over.
Rip!
Geric sliced the belly open with his dagger and ripped out the intestines, bringing the heart with it. The panting wolf died within seconds. Meanwhile, Rowan needed one more stab to finish his wolf off.
He'd pierced through the ribs and torn through, but didn't reach the organs because of the ribs.
"When'd you make that bracer?"
"In places with lots of wolves, boar bracers are the best. This one's four layers thick."
Geric bragged. Then he finished off the wolf that was staring at him, ready to kill, blood pouring from its mouth where the arrow had pierced its throat. Arrows weren't like bullets. A wolf hit in the throat didn't die instantly.
The windpipe was just blocked. Geric put his hand on the wolf's eye and slit its throat with a dagger. A grotesque sound flowed out.
It was creepy.
A terrible, brief struggle—less than three seconds of life thrashing. But Rowan was unfazed. Goblins had been three times worse than this. The melee was instantaneous, and though the goblin subjugation lasted less than a week, the situation there hit Rowan so hard he sometimes dreamed about it.
They gutted them right there. Rowan kept watch since his butchering skills were worse than Geric's.
Geric skillfully tucked the wolves' tails between their legs and wrapped them around to prevent excrement from flowing down. They didn't have time to drain the waste and blood.
The smell of blood was never good.
Stab! Stab! Splash splash!
He stabbed the dagger sheath into a tree stump twice, poured water to make mud, and smeared it on the bloody spots and the wolves' bodies too.
"Let's go before other wolves swarm. Seeing three grouped up like this, they're pretty riled up."
"What does that mean?"
At Rowan's question, hunter Geric spoke while carefully stepping away.
"What do you mean, what? The hunting competition's done for. We've provoked the wolves too much."
"Is it because I hunted wolves?"
"You killed them one at a time, but how would they know it was humans? It overlapped with the decreasing wolf numbers and humans constantly entering the forest."
Rowan frowned. It seemed like they were just scared of some wolves.
"Canceling the hunting competition just because of some wolves?"
"Why so many questions from someone who worked at the ranch? Wasn't the ranch the place that got hit by wolves more than anywhere?"
Geric snapped and shut his mouth. Only then did Rowan realize how serious the situation was. The wolves he'd killed daily and the commotion from humans had combined to get the wolves worked up.
But still, they're just wolves.
Hurrying back, Geric loaded all three wolves onto Rowan's shoulders.
"Ugh."
Since the blood and waste hadn't drained, it was seriously heavy. These were wolves that made medium-sized dogs look like a joke, so it felt like carrying three bags of rice. Even with all the guts scraped out, that's how much it weighed. Rowan dumped the wolves on the ground.
"I'm going to Rakson. You handle the butchering. Keep the big one for yourself and put the other two in front of my house."
"Yes, sir."
Geric disappeared at a quick pace, and Rowan borrowed a cart. Obviously not free—a hind leg got ripped off right then and there.
"Use it well."
He roughly threw a rag on the cart and loaded the three wolves. He got home, but nobody was there. There were only three people at the ranch: his father Haldanak, eldest brother Sernhac, and Rowan himself.
He cut off the tails to drain the waste, then cut off the heads to drain the blood. He could've delivered them like this, but he meticulously did the butchering work.
'Guess I'm doing the youngest's job one more time, whatever.'
This was John, who'd done it once in the military and changed jobs three times in civilian life. He was in Rowan's body, but he knew how to be the junior better than anyone.
He cleaned everything up nicely, put the butchered meat inside the wolf hide, and delivered it.
'Will they really cancel the competition right before tomorrow?'
Rakson had pondered this for a long time, so that probably wouldn't happen. He was a retired veteran and pretty stubborn. The problem was that Geric seemed pretty scared of the wolves.
'Is it because they're suddenly traveling in packs?'
Rowan didn't really know. Rowan went to bed early, and hunter Geric came looking for him before dawn.
"What's going on?"
Rowan yawned, one eye still closed. He was still tired from yesterday.
"The hunting competition's going ahead as planned. Rakson says you and I should handle the wolves."
"What if five wolves start traveling together?"
Geric shrugged. He looked confident he could get himself out. Hunting failures were something even human hunters experienced pretty often, so he had no fear of failure. Rowan thought about it. But he'd already taken the silver coin, so refusing felt awkward.
"We should at least have a plan though."
"Traps might work. We'll need to go out to places where people rarely go."
Saying that, he rushed Rowan to get ready. Rowan had no choice but to prepare to leave. He instantly changed clothes and put on leather armor. He slung his bow over his shoulder and fastened his dagger at his waist. Along with the dagger, he also hung a shortsword on his belt.
"A shortsword? It might get in the way in the forest."
"I'm used to it."
Geric didn't argue. Already at the village entrance was a leather sack full of traps. They each shouldered one and went deep into the forest.
"Nobody will come this deep, right?"
"Who knows. Let's walk another ten minutes."
Geric said people would never notice the traps if they went deeper, so they needed to set them farther out. Rowan didn't like it but went along. Then a cool breeze blew.
'Ah, that feels nice.'
While thinking that, Rowan smelled a rank odor that stung his nose. Following Geric's movement as he crouched and set the leather sack on the ground, Rowan did the same.
"..."
"..."
They heard sounds of brush moving, but couldn't tell if it was wind or beasts. It came from all around.
Rowan raised himself slightly to scan the area. Black fur immediately caught his eye. Like a cat bristling in anger, the completely raised black fur was sticking out of the brush, moving.
He swallowed dryly. It was huge. The dense forest's thick brush was good for humans to hide in, yet black fur was visible through it. Bigger than a large dog.
'Like a small bear.'
Its body length was already about the size of a human.
A quiet time passed. The wind had basically protected them. The thing wandered around, scratching trees with its claws and leaving droppings.
"What is it?"
"Mavros lyko. A black wolf."
The black wolf—Lyko, which had terrorized the Mavros region with its fearsome reputation as the ultimate man-eating wolf.
"Why the hell is something that nasty in these mountains?"
Rowan asked, and Geric shrugged.
"Maybe we went too deep."
The two hurried to set traps in various spots, then traveled a long way down the mountain. They got down around early afternoon, and in the village center, they were holding a ceremony to launch the hunting competition.
Rakson was fired up, talking about building strength to kill goblins, and the villagers who'd seen the goblin corpse or seen the mercenary group all had their own sense of alertness.
"The first-place winner will receive three silver coins!"
"Whoooo!"
It was a festival for the first time in a long time. Pretty rowdy too. But Rowan couldn't be happy. He was hit with a feeling that something was about to explode.
'Black fur.'
Something felt ominous. Even if they'd gone pretty deep, seeing a man-eating wolf like that was strange. Starting with the goblins, incidents seemed ready to keep happening in succession.