Chapter 13: Giant Wolf

Kennen and the others continued in their exploration after getting both Amelia and Frank to ten crystals.

The beach was empty and continued along the way as they visited a few restaurants.

A bit further was a park.

There was quite a bit of distance between him and the park but he could see that the park was infested with monsters.

While the US embassy was crowded with pig orcs, the park was packed with wolves.

The wolves were the weakest monsters they encountered. It was just a slightly bigger, faster and stronger version of their wolves but the attack pattern was one dimensional with a lunge and bite. Their reaction speed wasn't bad and could dodge projectiles if it was too slow or came too far.

However, they weren't very tough and their predictability made it easy for Kennen and his friends to kill them.

"Do we reroute or do we fight them?" Frank asked everyone after Enzo notified them that there were four wolves at the park's entrance and more deeper in the park.

"If it's just wolves then, it's easy money." Evan was fully confident in the team's power, especially with nearly everyone at ten crystals.

"I don't know, it'll be bad if our fight attracts all the wolves in the park and they all come at us." James was hesitant.

"We should just go elsewhere." Brandi was of the same mind.

"They outnumber us by quite a lot so it could be dangerous." Rafael also gave his opinion but he was actually leaning toward giving it a try.

Kennen looked around and more especially at the jewelry stores and restaurants at the opposite of the park.

He generally would avoid taking risks like that, especially when they were accompanied by Jordan and Nina. However, they could give this a try if they hid a building while the rest fought.

"Mmh, we can use those buildings to our advantage." Kennen pointed at the jewelry store and restaurant.

"Damn, you're right! We can use the surroundings to our advantage! Get the high ground!" Enzo pointed at the roof of the two buildings.

The two buildings only had the ground floor so the roof wasn't that high.

"Nice plan! We can just snipe them all up from there!"

"Let's get up to the roof from the other side so the wolves don't see us!"

With a plan of battle, they sneakily climbed to the jewelry store and restaurant's roof.

It was hard for everyone to climb onto the roof without any ladder except for Frank and James but they managed to do so in the end with a bit of teamwork and wall running.

Frank, James and Evan stayed on ground to fight the wolves and also to bait them in while the others members stayed on the roof to support them and away from harm.

"Go bait them in!"

Kennen signaled the ground unit that they were ready and they could start.

Everything was in place and looked good for a successful hunt. Even if there were more wolves than expected and the ground units were overwhelmed, they could easily retreat into the building and lock themselves in a room.

With the signal given to them, Frank approached the park and threw a rock toward the wolves near the entrance.

This resulted in Frank receiving growls from the wolves and being chased by them. Well, he barely had to run 20 meters before help came.

Three of the six wolves fell to well timed arrows and javelins within five second thanks to the crowd control that made sure the wolves couldn't dodge.

Two others were killed by the ground units with Evan overpowering one with Frank and James ran circles around their target and quickly finished it off.

The last one that lagged further behind immediately stopped its charge as it seemed smart enough to know he was charging to his death. That didn't stop Enzo from firing an arrow at him but that wasn't enough to kill it in one shot and gave it enough time to howl loudly before it got killed.

A dozen of seconds later, more wolves ran toward them.

Kennen could see at least twenty of them from his vantage point. He was tempted to call off the hunt right there and get the ground unit to run into the building or jump onto the roof.

More than twenty wolves coming at them was a very intimidating sight.

As he was hesitating on what to do, the goblins and Enzo kept chucking their attacks on the wolves the moment they entered their range.

Even if the wolves were packed together, some of them still found the wiggle room to dodge the projectiles.

With so many of them, the crowd controls were just used to slow the charge of some of them.

Those affected by Amelia's disorientation wanted to slow down and stop their charge but they got pushed around by the wolves coming from behind and bounced like pinball.

While Rafael binded the legs of some wolves and tripped them, which caused them to trip some of the wolves behind that couldn't jump in time.

So they killed off one third of the wolves and delayed another third before they could get close to the ground unit were.

Seven of them made it and Kennen got worried for them as seven was still too much for the three to handle, especially James.

"Focus those going toward Frank and James!"

Kennen's yell immediately prompted the goblins to shift their targets. The wolves being closer also helped with their aim as they took down two while Enzo's power shot made a hole on the belly of a third wolf.

Frank, Evan and James should be able to handle four on their own so Kennen had his goblins shift his focus toward those further back.

Evan was able to crack a wolf's skull in a couple punches or straight up kill them with a stab to the head while Frank and James could easily dodge the lunges with their superior agility.

They were about to further trim down the number of those who lagged behind but the surviving wolves stopped approaching and just howled.

The wolves were too far away for them to effectively hit them with the arrows of javelins since by the time the projectiles came up to them, they could have already dodge it so none of them bothered.

Kennen started to have a bad feeling as the wolves continued to howl.

As if confirming his hunch, the boss came.

It was a huge wolf that was twice as big as the other wolves here with black and red furs.

Kennen estimated it was at least two meters tall and four meters long. It was a horse sized wolf.

He was not feeling this at all.

"Prepare to retreat!" Kennen yelled to the others.

They had no idea what this giant wolf was capable of, maybe they could do it, maybe they could not. At the very least, they must be prepared to run away.

"Jodan, Nina, go hide in those restaurants!"

Kennen pointed at the several restaurantes at the beach just behind them.

Both of them couldn't fight so there was no point for them to stay here when the situation could quickly get out of control.

Now, only Enzo and him remained on this roof while Rafael was with Amelia and Brandi on the jewelry store's roof.

Everyone was feeling tense as the giant wolf howled loudly and charged at them.

There were seven to eight wolves following behind the giant wolf but everyone instinctively attacked the biggest target.

Amelia's disorientation or Rafael's binding barely made the giant wolf wobble slightly but that was enough for Enzo and the goblins to hit the big target with their shots.

Enzo's power shot to his head indeed drew blood, even a lot of blood, but it couldn't penetrate the bone and that infuriated the giant wolf as it stared at Enzo.

The javelins touched it but the javelins seemed to lack power as it stucked at the surface of the skin before it was completely shrugged off by the wind as the wolf ran.

Their only hope of doing any meaningful damage to the wolf was that Enzo touched somewhere without bone with his power shot or Frank and Evan succeeded in stabbing the giant wolf's weak point with the javelins they got from the goblins.

That was the best case scenario but Kennen's leg wanted to take off because that wolf seemed to charge right at them.

His instincts were on point. The giant wolf ignored the three at the ground as it jumped the moment the distance was right.

"Run!"

Kennen instantly turned around and jumped down the roof without care about whether he would break his ankles at the landing.

Thankfully, the ankles were fine even though the landing wasn't smooth.

He turned around his head to see how Enzo was doing. Enzo had the time to jump off too but he stuck his landing and had a hard time to pick up the pace to run again.

The giant wolf on the roof was ready to jump on him and it would have jumped right on Enzo if it wasn't for the globins that jumped on it with their dagger drawn.

They stabbed the dagger into the giant and used as a crutch to hold onto the wolf.

Amelia was helping them while Rafael helped those down below dealing with the other wolves.

This all gave Enzo time to get some distance and shoot back at the giant wolf.

However, this was all equivalent to being stabbed by toothpicks. Painful, sure, but nowhere near deadly enough.

Enraged, the giant wolf shook his body like a dog would when it was dripping wet and that was enough to flung the goblins away from its body.

The target of its ire this time were the goblins.

Sadly, the goblins were agile and pesky green men so they were very hard to catch, especially with the help of Amelia and Enzo distracting it.

This prompted the giant wolf's aggro to shift toward Enzo again.

Without the goblins to annoy it this time, the wolf pursued Enzo down and quickly caught up to him.

Kennen was hiding behind a car watching the event unfold. He didn't know what to do or what he could do. He felt like a spectator and useless but he was just a summoner and this was how a summoner was, what else was he supposed to do?

Just as Enzo was about to get chomped by the giant wolf, Evan came out of nowhere and intercepted the wolf with a shoulder bash.

The normal wolf monster would have been sent flying but the giant wolf just staggered a bit.

Kennen could see his friend bleeding from his right leg as part of his jeans were ripped off but he seemed to be able to move just fine.

However, Evan wasn't as fast as the giant wolf. The wolf retaliated with a bit to the hardened arm of Evan and flung him around like a rag doll.

Seeing that the bit couldn't penetrate the skin, the wolf threw Evan who crashed into a car and howled loudly again as more javelins and arrows came onto him.

Even if it was like being stabbed by a toothpick, the damage would start to pile up with enough stabs.

And the giant wolf seemed to also have enough of this.

After the howl, it just ran away and back to the park.

Kennen could see two or three wolves following after it.

"Shit, he got away!" Rafael tried to bind it in hope to stop it but the giant wolf just easily broke out of it as it ran away.

Enzo and Kennen quickly ran up to Evan's side.

"How bad is it?"

"You alright?"

Enzo and Kennen asked Evan who sat on the ground with the car on his back.

"I don't feel alright…" Evan weakly replied with clutching his stomach.

"Can you feel your legs?"

Kennen was worried that his back got injured with that slam to the car.

"Yeah, I'm not a paraplegic yet…"

Evan barely lifted his leg by one centimeters.

"How about internal bleeding?" Kennen asked again after seeing some blood at the corner of Evan's mouth.

"How the fu.., cough, would I know if I have internal bleeding or not!" Evan felt like slapping him.

Kennen really didn't know what to do.

There was no medical care anymore and they didn't have any nurse or doctor in their group. Any injury was potentially deadly.

"Stop worrying Ken, I'm a big boy. Just get me to the bed and an ice pack," Evan groaned as he tried to get up.

"Hey, don't recklessly move." Enzo quickly went to help him get up.

"What about Frank and James?" Kennen asked as he sent the goblins to collect the crystals.

"Frank got bit but he's fine, just bleeding a bit like me. James is fine since we did the heavy lifting."

"Let's leave before they come back."

Evan wasn't in position to continue their expedition anymore who knew if that giant wolf would come back.

Kennen went to get Jordan and Nina from their hiding spot before joining with the others.

Frank's injuries were mainly on his arms but thankfully it wasn't that bad and the bleeding would stop with a bit of bandage and time but before all that, the wounds must be disinfected with the whisky they got from the beverage shop.

"Too bad it got away, should we chase after it?" Rafael suggested after he slowly got off the roof.

"Chase your mom, let's dip before it comes back with more of his runt." Evan admonished him.

They quickly assembled the stones and left.