An angry pair of Wolves

"Okay," Charak sighed, "but what do you want to do with them?"

Aiden looked at Charak and declared, "I will just set them free."

"Huh? Set them free?" Mado snickered even before Charak could respond, "Do you have any idea how many soldiers had died to capture them? And you want to set them free?"

"Stop it, Captain." Charak stopped him, yet he kept glaring at Aiden. Charak, on the other hand, calmly looked at Aiden, "That will be a problem. I don't think I can let them go."

When Aiden looked at him, Charak explained, "We're currently trying to extract the essences from them. It will be hard for us to get hold of those beasts alive again. To catch them..."

Charak could not finish his sentence when Aiden hurled something towards him. It caught him off-guard, but Charak still caught them.

"This?" Charak inspected the thumb side blue crystal. The intense cold and the bloodlust triggered a shiver down his spine.

"These are essence crystals of jagged wolves." Aiden explained, "If you have to grade them, they will be 'B' grade. If you can find suitable people, I will help you with the absorption process."

Listening to his words, Charak tested the four crystals in his hand again. Even if he hadn't checked with the instrument, he was sure that it was just as Aiden had said. He couldn't help but take another glance at Aiden.

Whether it was their mutated animal or the wild beast, all the essence crystal they had produced until now were murky. But the ones in his hand were transparent, bright, and giving off an intense cold.

He was quick to hand it over to the other assistant who was standing behind them and opened the lab door. There was a description of eight laboratories on the door.

The first beasts that greeted them from the first lab were five snow goblins as soon as they came in. Looking at their drowsy eyes, Robin could understand that they had drugged the goblins.

There was a dwarf in the next lab without his armor. When Aiden checked, he realized that it was sleeping.

The next lab was a little different. As if they had merged two adjacent labs to contain the giant body of the two-headed ice troll. However, it didn't have two heads anymore. Someone had cut off one of its heads and legs.

A couple of researchers were collecting samples from the beast. They nodded at Charak and continued to extract samples from the sleeping beast.

"I don't think you will be able to contain them if it wakes up." Robin said, "After all, its magic is too strong."

Charak smiled at him, pointing at the vent that was emitting steam like smoke in the room. He explained, "That's why we're not letting them wake up at all."

There was a jagged wolf in the next room. It was moving in the enclosure as if the wolf was inspecting its territory. As soon as it found that a group of people was staring at him, it lunged. But because of the chain, it failed.

It glared at them as it continued to growl. Aiden had no trouble understanding what it was trying to do. But finding it made him more shocked. Glancing at Charak, Aiden asked, "Fire mana?"

"Oh!" Charak was just as amused. He nodded, replying, "Yes. Even though the fire mana was weak against water, it's powerful against ice. It also affected their ability to use ice mana. Otherwise, it would have been difficult to contain them."

"But to think you would realize it with one look..." Charak continued with a nod, "No wonder you were able to survive one month in the wilderness."

'That's enough to surprise you, huh?' Robin looked at Charak, trying to suppress his laughter, 'Only if you saw him fighting Chenoo.'

Charak, however, didn't know what was going through Robin's mind. He explained as he walked, "They caught these wolves even before I came here. But something changed after I came here."

"Change?"

"Yes." Charak nodded, "According to their record, they were weak when the troops caught them."

"But one night their fur changed. At first, they had grey fur. But after that night, white patches appeared on their paws and head."

Charak pointed at the pair of wolves that were staring at them and said, "In just one night, they regained their vitality. Even if we couldn't accurately measure the mana in their blood, we estimated that the mana in their blood increased by ten times."

As Charak was speaking, the wolves stood up without removing their eyes from Aiden and walked close to the protective glass window.

"Wow!" Their reaction made Charak more excited, "Do you have something to control them? They have never shown such a reaction to anyone."

The wolves bowed to Aiden as he spoke. Observing this reaction, a few researchers came to check.

"Open the door," Aiden said. "They will not attack you."

"No way." One of the new researchers who came in, saying, "Are you mad? Even though they're behaving like that, they are not your pet dogs. They are far smarter than you think."

"Yes, they must act so we can let our guard down." That was the only conclusion they could reach.

"So why haven't they done anything so far?" Robin asked.

"Who knows? Nobody knows what is going on in their mind."

A more intelligent researcher responded, "Until now, they may be too weak. Now that they are stronger, they want to get out of here."

Aiden ignored the others, looking at Charak, said, "Open the gate."

"Shouldn't we at least take precautions?" Charak's hesitation was reasonable, "They are monsters, after all."

"Believe me, they won't attack you," Robin comforted him, but it was nowhere enough.

"You know, I can open the door myself." Aiden walked towards the door, "But it will be too messy."

"Stop it." Mado aimed his firearm at Aiden, "Or I will shoot."

"It is better not to do that." Robin, however, didn't even touch his gun. He just stood at a distance, as if he was enjoying the show.

But even Robin didn't expect the things that happened next. Out of nowhere, a pair of ice wolves lunged at Mado from the floor and *Bang* Bang*

Mado instinctively fired at the wolves, and both bullets went right through their heads. Then the mouth of the gun was about to turn to Aiden, but the wall behind him lit up with several mana circles before he could fire again.

Before anyone could realize what was going on, there were a lot of ice wolf heads that emerged from those mana circles. Too many ice wolves were pouncing on him at the next moment.

Soon the entire area plunged into chaos. Frightened screams soon enveloped the corridor. Some of them fled towards the entrance, some to the dead-end of the hallway.

If he was too frightened or too shocked, Robin did not know, but Charak did not move from Aiden's side.

Robin's first reaction was that it was Aiden's ice wolf spell. But when he found that Aiden, too, was staring at the wolves behind the protected glass, he understood everything.

"Stop," Aiden raised his hand unhurriedly and said. To Robin's surprise, Aiden spoke to the ice wolf, who was holding Mado's neck in its jaw. Soon he understood the reason.

When the ice wolves began to disappear, the ice wolves transformed into a grey wolf with a white patch.

Robin was quick to search within the protected glass to find a pair of ice wolves tied with long chains.

"As expected." Robin looked at Aiden and asked, "They could swap the position between their clone, right?"

Even if Aiden nodded, Aiden knew it wasn't that simple. These wolves wouldn't have been able to escape the room so easily. The intense presence of mana fire inside the chamber also robbed the ice mana of them.

However, the presence of Aiden had changed everything. At such proximity, they were able to draw mana from Aiden even before he could react.

Otherwise, no matter how healthy they were, they had to remain in captivity just like the jagged wolf.

And to Aiden's surprise, the mana expenditure wasn't too small. Mraz explained, "it's as you have expected. If they weren't so close to you, this wouldn't have happened, but you need to learn to control it. Otherwise, you will dry up soon."

The wolf, on the other hand, didn't release Mado but looked at Aiden in conformation. With Aiden's nod, they let Mado go and sat down beside Aiden.

"You shouldn't have aimed at Aiden," Robin spoke as he went to help Mado up. While he was inspecting the wound on his neck, Robin noticed that the pair of wolves had shown no mercy on him.

'If Aiden didn't call at the right time, they would have killed him.' After checking, he realized that the bleeding was showing no sign of stopping.

He put on the pressure in the right place and shouted, "Quick, he needs medical attention."

Only then did Charak react. Even if he was a doctor and a professor, he didn't have a quick response like a soldier.

The sudden attack was too shocking for him. But now that things had settled down and he overcame his initial shock, he took action.

"It's him. He did it." When they were checking on Mado, somebody shouted while pointing to Aiden. There were at least half a dozen soldiers holding weapons, standing behind the junior researcher.

They soon found that their captain was lying in a pool of blood, while a pair of wolves were sitting beside Aiden. They had no trouble guessing what was going on here.

"Stop."

"Stop, if you don't want to die."

Before they could aim their guns at Aiden, both Robin and Charak cried at the same time.

"Quick," Charak cried again, "help if you want to save your captain. He is in immediate need of surgery. Call Dr. Nux. Arrange a room, quick."

The sudden chain of command surprised both the junior researcher and the soldiers a little. But they soon came to help.

They carried Mado out of the corridor. And taking their chances, all the researchers have fled along with them.

"Won't that create any problem?" Robin asked as he was about to leave to clean his blood-soaked hand.

"Don't worry about it," answered Aiden with a smile. "They're going to leave soon."