11 Starting the Hunt

As days passed watching the pack Z was able to learn only a few things while staying in the building. Mainly just which wolves tended to group together and which ones did not. Also how the alpha wolf seemed to be to lazy to gather its own prey. Of course this was not anywhere near enough information so Z decided to take some time scouting different houses in the area. He decided to use the two story house as a base and maybe for hunting the alpha. Anyways there was much to do before that point.

So Z decided to take some days to explore and figure out where the different hunting parties tended to travel to. Honestly, he lost track of how much time he spent doing this. He knows he would take a few days to follow the packs from a safe distance doing his best not to be detected and he had a few close calls at time. Often brought from the wind shifting to where he would be suddenly upwind of the wolves. Z really almost got hunted by the groups he was following at one point but ironically the death bird flew nearby making that pack go into hiding themselves and he was able to successfully hide in a nearby building. Of course this was a hunting party that went quite far from the pack's resting grounds so that would explain why death bird only showed up once.

For what he figured out from the observations were quite a few things. First, and least important for what he is currently doing, he has absolutely the worse sense of time ever. It was bad when he was alive sure but still he didn't think it was so bad he would lose track of how long he was here after just a few days. Now that he thinks about it though he really was only manage to keep track of the days because of all the electronic devices that did it for him. Plus he job basically always had him going in even on his days off for last minute "emergencies" that he was somehow the only one "qualified" to do. Ok now that he though about it Z agrees he was never good at keeping up with time.

Now for the things with the wolves themselves is the groups are very seldom consistent but there are some patterns. The easiest to spot is that the hunting parties number from three to five wolves at a time with the larger parties going further from the alpha. The next thing is that certain color wolves did not work together and even seemed hostile if not for the alpha being in charge. Though it was really just the red and blue wolves that showed this hostility openly. Another thing is that Z was able to confirm how some of the color patterns are related to elements the wolves use. Red, orange, and yellow were fire, blue was water, brown was earth, and green was wind just like most games. These were always the primary color of the wolf if it had more than one while the ones that were mixed of these seemed to be like subspecies. An example was a brown and green wolf with tinges of purple that seemed to wield poison and a white wolf with tinges of sky blue being able to wield ice. This made Z wish he had taken art classes to identify the exact shades of colors better.

Another thing to note is that while from afar the wolves that were a mixed color seemed to have only one horn they in-fact had two just the second was little more than a pointy stump. Also there was very few of these and they only left when the pack sent a party of 5 out. These were definitely going to be the biggest problems after the alpha when it came to hunting if it wasn't for the fact the other alpha showed up. Yeah the four horned was just one alpha, the male, this pack had an alpha female that only had three horns and was pure black. Z only found out about it because it returned from the direction away from town by itself with what looked like a bird and a turtle put together. It was weird and not in great shape plus being so far away hard to really get a lot of details on.

Anyways today Z was following a small pack of wolves with two that are black and grey and one that is brown and grey. He is going to start his hunt as these three went farther than they normally would. The only reason Z could think of was now that both alphas are in the pack there isn't enough food so they have to find something other than the rabbits that are literally everywhere. And here I though slimes were the most common thing in these types of situations.

Z's plan for hunting these three is quite simple one arrow one kill but in the ever so likely case that doesn't work he has his spear to kill what he can while running the fuck away. He nearly died the last real hunt he went on because his brain stopped working and this time he was fully aware of the fact he will not win a straight up fight. Of course if he is lucky he will kill all three with an arrow each and retrieve the arrows in perfect condition. Like that will happen.

So after spending over half a day to where the sun is getting close to setting the wolves actually begin gathering to go even further after finding nothing but a single rabbit. The funny part is while these wolves at times seem smart at other times they seem really really dumb, just like some pet dogs. No bad Z these are wolves not someone's former pet dog, very viscous skeleton eating wolves. Steadying himself Z carefully gets into a tree ahead of where the dogs seem to be heading by cutting through a building they are going around.

In an oak tree that has the wolves coming in front of him if they go immediately around the house and not go in a new direction. Somehow our little bonehead got lucky and after a few seconds of getting in the tree the wolves come right where he thought they would moving slowly. There was thankfully no wind today so the chances of being smelled were smaller. Z took aim trying to go for the bigger one of the three, the brown one. The reason is that the earth ones when they were in fights would layer there fur with rocks and thus armor themselves. So instead of again fighting an armored foe he could not hurt Z decided to try and kill it quickly. No reason to go out of his way to make life harder on himself.

Drawing the arrow on the bow he had acquired, Z takes aim waiting for a clear shot at a fatal point. The wolves were moving cautiously at this point, one sniffing slightly ahead of the others that were straining there eyes and ears for anything. What our delightful skeleton friend did not realize was that the wolf he was aiming for had another ability from its element, tremor sense. So it knew that something was moving around here just a little while ago but he got lucky that something in a building fell over masking him getting into the tree. Thus when he loosed the arrow towards the wolf it was not looking at his tree but towards a building ahead of where they came out of. It did not sense the danger nor any bloodlust when it felt the pain of the arrow entering its body. All it was capable of doing was letting out a yelp before the life in its eyes left it. The other two immediately became alert and confused by how the big one died all of a sudden but the one that was sniffing found a strange scent that came from the arrow that also lead to the tree. Sadly right as it discovered this the other wolf let out a similar yelp with an arrow sticking out of its eye.

This caused the last wolf to panic and charge the tree. Its monstrous instincts to destroy any threat and grow stronger took over countering any survival instincts it had from before it changed. Fortunately for it this caused it to move faster than ever before and unfortunately for a certain skeleton caused the arrow to miss its intended area and instead land right on this wolf's rear giving it a second tail. That was all this wolf needed to find the one that killed its companions and more importantly nearly took off its tail. Sadly for this wolf it made the wrong choice and decided to destroy the tree itself instead of trying to get to the thing in it. After all this is what the bigger wolf would do for the big rats with fluffy tails that climbed trees always did to knock them out. And the thing in the tree did come out when it hit the tree it just happened to be right above it, with a pointy stick.

Impaling the wolf as Z leapt out of the tree when it rammed into it. He saw what it was doing just a second before hand and it made his footing risky so instead of trying to stay in the tree he just decided to go direct. While he wasn't comfortable with a confrontation against multiple wolves his instincts told him he could take on a lone wolf. Of course he would try and kill it in one go and thus why he went for a falling assassination style kill. This somehow by the hand of fate worked way better than he thought. The wolf actually stunned itself hitting the tree as hard as it did and the spear passed through its neck in the perfect opening. The downside being that his spear cracked and he snapped the arrow in the wolf's ass. Though bright side he was fine and has three wolf carcasses to butcher. So he did just that but he only got one core out of the brown one. He did get the two arrows from those wolves but the horned tips were chipped at the tips and had cracks in them. So the arrows were just barely strong enough to kill these wolves great. Though he now just managed to get three new stronger looking horns. So with that Z started getting ready for more hunts and making more weapons with the better resources now at his disposal.