6 And yet more women

"Wow, it's like you're a natural at this. Did your master really never teach you body reinforcement?" Asked the astounded woman.

"If he had, i'd ask to train with weapons right away. It's not like i want to waste time just because my teacher is a beauty. If you think i'm ready though, i will just make some metal blades and we can go at it." Turns out, blood magic includes body reinforcement universely, so it's actually a very common school of magic that mostly everyone practices, but it is universely agreed that beasts are more talented at this exact category.

Aki wasn't sure, but he was willing to bet that the human learning bonus, the beast learning bonus and the magic learning bonus were multiplicating his ability to learn body reinforcement.

From his point of view, that was so great, he decided to try other kinds of reinforcement. Turns out that blood and arcane magic go great together, but arcane and space magic are just too unstable to mix. Nature didn't have such a great effect and was practically negligible when mixed with blood and elemental energies could reinforce certain attributes, including light and darkness, but the cost was quite big and turned anything volatile. Considering their bonus was addictive and not multiplicative, Aki considered it a good idea to invest lots of time in said technique.

"Aki." The driad formed right in front of the pair, frightening Ela, who let out a girlish scream while holding onto her weapons.

"Werewolf, humans, a festival, a special cub, what is it?" Aki imediatly asked, both used to the idea of teleportation and the driad's semi-omnipresence.

"Werewolves. A female with two younglings in her arms just entered my forest." Aki's heart skipped a beat at that, but he focused again right after. "Truly, i'm starting to question wheter thou has been cursed. Normally things don't happen at such pace."

"They do, it's just that you are either sleeping and don't notice or something eats the potention target of interest before they can show themselves. If you really want to pass more time on doing something, than stop taking those day long naps and just admit you are bored. Now, where can i find our new guests?" Aki asked, getting a frown out of the perfect specimen of a woman in front of him, followed by her pointing in a seemingly random direction. He did think it strange how he somehow didn't actually find her attractive, he just knew she was, but the feeling of attraction just wasn't there. Before leaving, he asked Ela to go back to the cave and wait for him to come back.

She didn't really question why, since it was obvious what kind of reaction the werewolf would have if she was there.

Getting rid of her remaining scent, Aki proceded to sprint off.

*****

Looking at the battered woman growling at him, Aki's heart couldn't help but ceaselessly beat with the fury of a godly drummer in a festival. An amount that would problably cause a human on earth to pass out really. The elf had specially long ears, sharp features, a skin tone even whiter than his and dirty blond hair. The little girl in her arms wanted to help her mother with the intimidation, but taking after said woman and being of tender age, that was quite impossible, she only made herself cutter. The ten or so year old boy behind the elf wanted to put himself against the stranger and his family, but his mother wouldn't let him pass.

He always had a soft spot for children. And widows. And woman with strong maternal instincts. And muscles. This one had all of those boxes cheked.

"Do you speak common?" Aki asked with a sweet and untreatening tone.

"I do half blood, what do you want?" She responded with fangs still barred. Be it from her elven ancestry or Aki being a degenerate, he actually felt attracted to her strong voice, he even imagined her rocking her baby while sigging lullabies for a second. 'Beaches, mosquitoes, stubbing your toe, ten page long essays, that one teacher that looked like an egg...' He was trying really hard not to show it though, even using magic to simulate more normal bodily functions.

"The spirit of this forest has asked me to look into your reasons for being here. Where is your mate and pack?" He didn't really want to ask that, but he actually needed to.

"Dead." She said with spite. "Hunted down like dogs."

"How far away do you think those hunters are?"

"Not much. I didn't have time to hide our trail so well." She was calmer now, but didn't let her guard down.

"I will dispatch or mislead them away while you run. There is a lake with a rocky formation spouting a cave to that direction. I live there. There currently is a human in there, but she is an outcast like me. Loyal enough that she will help if something tries to attack the little ones. I keep some smoked meat in a pot near the end of the cavern, help yourselves to it." He said and dashed away from the woman.

He was going to fucking murder the bastard hunters who darred hurt such beautiful creature! Aki didn't need those damn animalistic instincts to reach that conclusion either though.

*****

Anna had been suspicious of the lone half blood and the human, she wasn't an idiot who would believe him emissary of the forest without proof either.

The human had not just been harmless, but offered herself to do first aid in their injuries. She was just too tired to reject or resist, so she didn't struggle and just ate the dried meat while frowing.

Magic beast meat.

'It would be much better if it was raw, but I can see why he would preserve it. So much game, it would be easy to feed ten just with the small animals, nevermind two people. If only our pack had found this place... The hunters!' Imediatly standing up and holding Elladan's hand, the werewolf left the surprised human behind while bolting to the exit, only to find a bloodied Aki carrying the head of the leading hunter.

"How did you..." She was completely flabbergasted and didn't even finish her sentence.

"Magic. An ambush. Lots of terror. Now, I need to sleep, if you would please look for salvageable supplies in the remains of the battle field, I'd be very thankful." He said after approaching a bit more. Then gave her the head and proceeded to pass out near the entrance of the cave.

Telling her son to hold his sister and help the half blood get to the pile of furs she'd seen inside, Anna decided to follow the young man's command.

She wasn't worried for him though, she could tell most of the blood on him was the hunter's and that all his wounds had scabs.

It wasn't hard to get to the site where the combat happened either, Aki stunk, and he'd left a trail very easy to follow.

When she actually got there though...

What greated her was the smell of massacre.

Body parts were all around the battle field, but could mainly be found in four places where small balls of... Human, had made small craters on the ground.

Some palaces were burned, some frozen, some were sludges of what she could only call poison and rotten meat.

Overall, it was quite easy to imagine that none of the thirty or so hunters had escaped with their lives.

The weaponry enchanted specifically to kill werewolves didn't seem to have stopped the half blood. Nor the three xamas that walked with them, since she could only see two of them near one of the strangely compact balls, both with their heads cut off.

She suddenly felt glad she had not done anything rash.

Bringing anything salvageable was going to be hard, but several hunters had pouches and bags that would work well for transportation.

*****

Waking up the next day, Aki found out he breath or see. He didn't really panic since he could tell by smell what was weighting on his face.

Carefully tearing the baby away from his face, Aki found himself besides two big mounds of soft flesh.

The baby's intent registered before he could have reaction to the naked woman sleeping besides him, but that was mostly because it started crying and awoke everyone.

Aki imediatly sat up and started holding her against his shoulder while rocking her to the best of his ability.

A brain fart later, he noticed he should probably give the baby back to its mother instead, who readily took the little one to her breast and feed her.

"There goes two boxes off my bucket list." Aki mumbled in english while massaging his eyes. After a yawn, he stood up and noticed that he too was naked. That was fine.

"Is the baby..." Ela, who was also readily awoken, paused the moment she saw Aki in his birthsuit.

"Baby is fine, just eating. Good morning everyone. Boy, we're taking a shower outside, come." Exclaimed Aki, acting completely unfazed. Not even looking to see if the child was following him.

Luckily, the boy was.

Instead of drawing from the river, Aki simply made stolls, a small border for the water, and some ice cold water. Telling the boy to clean himself with water he summoned out of thin air, Aki started taking care of his hair, which were extra dirty, but somehow didn't have any kind of pest on them.

Aki was so focused on undoing knots of dirt, that he only noticed the approaching female cast after they were mere steps away. Looking down, Aki noticed the boy had already finished cleaning himself and was just waiting for him while swinging his feet on the stool.

Using some magic to control the water, Aki finished the boy's hair and encapsulated himself in cold water for a moment before washing himself super fast.

"You're here. Boy, go get dressed." Aki said before drying him over. "Give her to me while you clean yourself." Anna just grogilly nodded and gave him the baby. "Do you think she has finished digesting already?" He asked and got a grunt and a nod. Making more stools and a small basin with water, Aki proceeded to make bubbles with rainbow lights to distract the baby while he cleaned her.

A bit far away from him.

"Isn't he a bit too good a this?" Asked Ela, who wasn't even looked at when she appeared naked.

"You mean taking care of the little ones? Aren't all teached to care for the young?" Asked Anna with some confusion.

"Nope, specialy not orphans raised by wizards." She was imediatly refuted though.

"Is that why he seems so... strange?"

"I would assume so."

They were talking like that, but their conclusions was completly diferent from each other. Anna still felt she should ask.

"Do you think he will take me before or after hunting?" To that she got a completely surprised woman staring at her and Aki imediatly getting up, putting the baby down and surrounding her with more bubbles.

"We don't even know each other's name yet, i'm not doing things like that!" Aki whisper shouted at her after approaching.

"I'm Anna. It means 'gift' in elvish." She expressionlessly said.

"I'm Aki. It means 'autumn' in japanese. Nice formally knowing you, but that's just not how i work. Look, i was thinking you three would become my pack or something, sure, but i'am not just taking a woman like we're common animals. I believe in love, for hell's sake!" He tried to explain, but even Ela looked strange at him, though for diferent reasons. Turning to her, he gave her the finger. "Look, i'm trying to say that i won't be taking women who aren't my wives because i won't need to for my goals, can you accept that?" He asked while looking directly in Anna's eyes, who nooded at him even though she couldn't imagine how else he intended to get a larger pack.

Sighing, Aki slowly floated the baby to them, who started to shout in glee. Softly smiling at the little girl, Aki gave her to her mother, dried himself, and got dressed before catching the boy and going hunting.