Chapter 1

The stench of charred flesh filled the frigid air of the cave as the still burning carcass of a dire wolf fell in front of Soul. Breathing a sigh of relief, he hung his staff on his waist. The garnet gemstone embedded at the top of it was still smoking from the flames it had unleashed.

This particular species of dire wolf had a weakness for fire. It was something that Soul, even with his inexperience in magic, had made sure to take advantage of.

Soul had lured the wolf to his location near the entrance by using a cut of bloody meat and ambushed it with a spell when it appeared. The fireball he had casted, a simple spell that focused more on power than finesse, had certainly done its job and sent the wolf staggering. This had given him the chance to barrage it with spell after spell all to ensure that it would go down before it could even retaliate

Still it was a bit too close for comfort him, he had used up more aether than he had originally anticipated.

Normal wolves were dangerous but dire wolves were another thing altogether. Easily standing up 180 centimeters high and over 240 centimeters long, the dire wolf was an intimidating beast. They were quick, ferocious, and had very large sharp claws that could cut up a horse in seconds. This coupled with their thick and tough matted fur made it a very bad idea to ever fight one of them things up close.

This was especially true for Soul who was barely half of its height when it was on all fours. He was a Levin after all, one the shortest of the sentient mortal races in this world. Right now, he was only 116 centimeters, four centimeters below the average size of the race. Hopefully he'd grow a bit more in the year or two before he hit adulthood, but according to Eirwen that wasn't very likely.

If that first spell had failed to take it out, then it probably would've ended badly for him. A little less power in it then the wolf would've landed right on him, crushed him with its body, and torn him to shreds until he was nothing but a bloody smear on the floor. It was something to think about when he got home.

Soul checked on the corpse. He was worried that the fire would render most of its fur and meat unusable. All he needed for proof of its death was its skull, but it would be nice if he could utilize more of the parts of its corpse. Thankfully as luck would have it the claws, fangs, and tongue had been left fairly intact and there was still a decent amount of fur, hide, and meat that had been relatively unburnt by his spell. He'd have to harvest them later once the corpse had cooled down from the heat of the flames.

He dumped the rotting meat he had used as bait near the carcass. Once he had finished his exploration and gathered what he needed he would have to make sure he burned up everything left in that pile into ash. Left here for too long the scraps would attract monsters to this which was less than desirable considering how close this cave was to town.

He lit a torch and took a good gander around the area. There was a path that led deeper into the cave. It was likely it was some sort of underground complex, quite common to find in Foral. He decided to go in a bit deeper even though he already acquired his bounty. It was mostly due to a sense of curiosity toward how deep the tunnels went and wouldn't really have another chance to explore them after this. The entrance to this cave system would be collapsed once he reported it to the authorities in town for the safety of the townsfolk.

The floor further in was covered in a smooth, thin layer of ice. There probably was a source of water nearby that froze over during the winter. Thankfully the ice did little to hamper him due to the spiked boots he had worn. The metal spikes left clear indentations onto the floor with each step that he took.

After a few minutes of walking in silence he eventually he reached a large open chamber where the wolf must have dwelled. Claw marks covered the floor and walls, there was a pile of dead wood in the corner caked in dried blood, and there was much to be said of the potent smell left by the beast's bodily fluids.

It was enough to almost make him gag. It was a really strong smell. Something that seemed a bit too strong for a single dire wolf to make alone. He knelt down and examined the floor. There were plenty claw marks and paw prints left on the thin ice, too many in fact for a single wolf. Once he looked closely, he was able to discern a set of them that were distinctly different from the rest.

"Gods damn it," he muttered to himself. Soul knew he had made a big mistake.

His long-pointed ears perked upwards just as the distinct roar of a raging wolf could be heard behind him. There was another tunnel in this area, likely where the wolf would be coming from.

The Levin faced that tunnel and casted a spell through his staff as quickly as he could. A glyph would appear in front of it. This was the matrix that magicians had to create first to use magic, it gave their spell shape, structure, and form, and it would activate once he pumped aether into it.

A dire wolf came out of the tunnel. This one was a bit smaller. 230 centimeters, but still much larger than he was. Needless to say, without initiative the odds were not in his favor.

He fired his spell. Ice spikes would shoot from the tip of his staff. They pierced the fur and created small bloody wounds on the wolf's head and eye, however that wasn't enough to stop its charge.

Soul didn't have the time to cast another spell and he had little aether left from his previous exertion. He stood his ground. Direct confrontation with dire wolves rarely ended well, but he had no choice on the matter considering how fast it was barreling toward him.

"Tch"

He threw his torch onto the ground in front of him and held the length of his staff with both of his hands. He was used to fighting in the dark and he would need them to do what he was about to do next.

He quickly took a stance, his staff held over his shoulder and his knees bent, just as the four-hundred-pound mass of fur, claws, and flesh stamped out the torch.

For a brief moment the cave was covered in darkness, until a pulsating blade of flame appeared at the end of his staff and lit up the area around him. With the blade on the end of his staff, it took on the form of a scythe. It glowed brighter as Soul jumped away from the wolf's jaws and swung it upwards with all his might.

It had been a long time since he had swung a scythe, but it was still familiar in his arms. The blade sliced through the wolf's outstretched neck, cutting through its thick fur and charring its flesh. As it recoiled, Soul swung again this time landing a light blow across its side. Neither of the blows were fatal to it though and it immediately retaliated by trying to slash at him with its claws.

He ducked down away from its claws and jumped onto the frozen surface of the floor. His feet slid along it and he used the momentum to slide under the gap of the wolf's legs. He landed a quick cut on one of its ankles on his way through. Once he was on the other side of its body, he picked himself up and leaped at the wolf with his scythe raised.

The wolf swung its sideways entire body in retaliation before Soul could swing. It was a hard and strong blow further accentuated by Soul's small figure. Despite him blocking the brunt of it with the shaft of his staff, it still sent him flying and bouncing on the ground until he collided with a thick pile of rocks.

Soul groaned. That was going to leave a bruise in the morning.

The Levin quickly jabbed his staff into the ground and pushed himself back up. He looked ahead of him and saw that that the wolf was immediately charging towards him again, the sound of each step thundering along the cave walls. Thankfully the momentum of that blow he received had created significant distance between the two.

That distance gave Soul enough time to close his eyes and release a flash of light from his staff. He then clumsily jumped to the side hoping to avoid the wolf. He was lucky, it flew right over him and slammed into the wall above.

Soul got back up and faced the wolf as it began to recover from its collision against the wall

It was impossible for Soul to outrun it and he couldn't be dodge it for long. Once it caught it him it was going to tear him apart. In that situation he could only hope it would go for his neck and spine instead of carving out his guts first. It would be much less painful that way.

Left with little recourse, he reached into his coat and took out a wooden block, one of its sides wrapped in a magic seal. Eirwen had been given it him on the condition he'd only use it for emergencies. This certainly counted as one.

The one bit of good news from all of this was at least he could see what it finally did. He had always been curious about it.

Following the instructions he had been given, Soul pointed the wrapped section of block at the wolf and quickly ripped off the seal. What transpired next showed him why using it in an enclosed space might not have been one of his brightest ideas.

He watched as a giant boulder, easily nine meters in diameter, barreled out of the block and crash into the wolf point center. He almost felt sorry for the beast as wolf and boulder were carried off through the cave. It destroyed everything in its path before eventually crashing into a wall. The very force of the impact caused the entire section ahead of the cave to collapse onto the giant rock and bury the wolf with it.

After the dust settled the entire area in front of him was now nothing but a piled-up rubble of rock, ice, and snow.

Soul, mouth wide open, took a moment to look at the carnage before him. After his mind processed what he had just witnessed the Levin looked at the box he still held in his hand. He gently put the seal back on, set the box down on the floor, and quickly scrambled away from it.

Though Soul had expected a lot of things from something given to him by a witch, that was not one of those things. He would've preferred to leave the weapon of mass destruction in the cave if he hadn't promised to bring it back with him after using it.

Soul took a step forward. He lightly tapped the box with the end of his staff before hopping back in fear. Nothing happened. After a few tense moments he reached forward and carefully grabbed it. He then put the box onto his belt making sure to point the sealed off area away from his body. If he had known that was going to happen, he would've fought the wolf head on and risk getting torn to pieces. As he looked around the cave Soul realized that he was quite lucky he hadn't brought down the entire place with him.

***

Soul swore to himself that that was the last time he'd ever take on a job to hunt wolves, as he did his best to readjust his hat and scarf. The scarf was simple enough, but he had issues getting the hat on properly without his dark chestnut hair getting in the way of his vision. He really needed to get haircut when he got home. His hair had a troublesome tendency to get wild when it got too long.

Once he adjusted his hat Soul stepped out of the cave into the frigid and windy of the air of the outside. Foral was a large town located in the north western end of the continent that lied on top of a cold and harsh peninsula. It was cold here on most days, with only short reprieves of warmth in the summer. Thankfully it hadn't snowed too much recently. It made travel a lot easier, especially by horse.

It was rare for him to rent a horse, but the distance from the cave to town was considerable by foot and he figure he could use the animal carry some things back. Putting his spoils on the horse's saddlebags though was much harder than he'd have liked, though. This horse clearly wasn't bred for Levin's in mind. This was the smallest horse they had available, and it still easily towered over him.

Being a Levin made getting anything done in Foral difficult for him, pretty everything there had been designed for humans.

He wondered if he should've brought a sled or something to be pulled by the horse. It would've been the best way to bring back the entire corpse of the wolf at the entrance. There was more useable material on it than he had originally thought despite the fire. For obvious reasons the other wolf wasn't something he could get his hands on at the moment.

For now, all he could fit on the horse's saddlebags was a head, fangs, claws, and scraps of hide. It was a shame he had to leave so much meat behind. It was tough and gamey, but it would've sold for a decent price at a butcher.

At the least the head would be proof of the bounty while its claws, hide, and fangs would make good reagents or tools for magic. Even if he had only started learning magic recently and wouldn't be able to use them yet, they'd at least be good gifts for Eirwen.

It was strange though. Even though that cave had been connected to a much large underground complex Soul hadn't expected to run into another wolf so soon. Dire wolves, unlike their smaller counterparts, were normally very solitary creatures. They rarely formed groups…

Except when mating that is

Soul looked at the cave entrance again. He stared at it for a few seconds before he sighed. He was cold, hungry, and it was going to be a long trip home, but he had little choice but to scour the rest of the cave. There were some places that he hadn't checked yet.

He could only hope that his intuition was wrong.