Chương 34: Winter Wolves

"What's going on?" asked Jonny.

"Winter wolves," said Igrette.

"I can handle them on my own, but you'll die if you stay. Here, grab on." She knelt down and held out her arms, and he stepped forward, allowing her to pick him up. A moment later, they were racing across the snow, moving as fast as she dared with him in tow. Despite knowing he was an adult man on the inside, he felt so small and fragile in her arms. No different from a child. An oddly muscular child, but still a child. Is this how the others felt with past Visionaries? she wondered.

"Are winter wolves that dangerous?" Jonny suddenly shouted. Igrette winced at the loud voice right in her ear. She understood that he could probably barely hear anything over the wind, but it still wasn't pleasant.

"Not individually," Igrette replied, creating a shell of mana around their heads so she could be heard without shouting.

"But they generate blizzards around them, so when they gather in a pack, it's dangerous for people who can't protect themselves from extreme cold."

"Oh," he said at a much more normal volume.

"I don't know what they're doing in this region. They're supposed to have been wiped out everywhere where humans live. It shouldn't be an issue for now, but I'll have to do a more thorough investigation to make sure there are no more in the area, because they pose a danger to the entire town. Just stay indoors until I return. The orphanage has good weather protection, so you'll be safe there."

"Alright." A few seconds later, they were flying over the fence and into the orphanage's back yard. Igrette landed feet first in the snow, and slid into a walking pace as she strode toward the shocked children and nuns near the door.

"Igrette?" asked Helen.

"What happened?"

"Winter wolves," said Igrette.

"Get the children inside. I'll handle it."

"Winter wolves? Here?"

"Yes."

"Well that's no good. Margaret, ring the bell, please. Children!" Helen turned toward the children as the other nun rang the large bell hanging on the side of the building. Igrette set Jonny down and gave him a slight nod before turning away. Less than a second later, she was back in the forest, racing toward the sounds of distant howling. A minute or so later, she came across the first of the wolves.

They were taller than her at the shoulder, and their eyes glowed an eerie blue as their mana swirled around them, chilling the wind and making snow condense in the air. The first did not even have time to acknowledge her presence before it was beheaded, and the second barely glanced at her before it too died. The others in the vicinity only saw her a split second before she killed them too. None of them were powerful enough to pose even the slightest danger to her.

Once the wolves there were dead, she ran further into the woods to where she heard the crunching footsteps of even more. She soon came across a second group, and slaughtered them just as easily, but she was nowhere near the end. Why are there so many of them? Igrette had killed at least thirty winter wolves by now, and she heard dozens more howling all around. The cold did not bother her in the slightest, but the snow was frozen solid, which made good footing hard to find.

She dashed to her right, beheading five more in a flash, then went further to try and kill the rest in that direction. Something's wrong. Even aside from the fact that they were far too close to the town, there was something very strange about the group. The kingdom of Antaria had threat classifications for magic beasts, ranging from one to nine, corresponding with what layer a hunter should be in order to take them out. A single winter wolf was only a grade two threat, but a pack of twenty was grade four.

A pack of fifty or higher was classified as low grade five, but this pack had to have close to one hundred. A pack this size could not form on its own. Winter wolves did not reproduce at high enough rates, and they were too territorial to combine packs. The simplest possibility was that a beast king had emerged. It did happen occasionally, when a high grade magic beast that was also a pack animal managed to add a layer to their cores. But she did not sense any such beasts.

Every winter wolf she killed had been fairly ordinary, and there didn't seem to be any center of their movements. In fact, they seemed to be coming in discrete groups, implying that there were old pack structures still intact. And that could only mean one thing. Someone drove them here. But why? She zipped through the snow, beheading wolves wherever she went, but even after she slaughtered an entire pack of two dozen, there was still more howling to the side.

She glanced in the direction of the howling, then looked deeper into the forest where the wolves were coming from. The town wasn't that close, and she was much faster than the wolves. They had to have been driven by someone, and that person couldn't be too far away. Igrette hesitated only a second longer before turning away from the remaining wolves and sprinting further into the woods. It took less than a minute to find the source. It was a female mage dressed all in black and wearing a mask.

She noticed Igrette too, but not in time. Before she could react, Igrette was already upon her, and had cut her legs off.

"I surrender!" the mage screamed as she hit the ground.

"I surrender! Please don't kill me!"

"Why are you doing this?!" demanded Igrette, pointing her blade at the mage's throat.

"P– please," cried the mage.

"Please, I surrender."

"Tell me why you're doing this!"

"I was just doing what I was told! Please!" Igrette stabbed her sword into the snow right beside the legless mage, cutting so close it drew a line of blood from her neck, then reached down to tear off the mask. The face beneath the mask belonged to a plain-looking woman with a face contorted in pain and fear. Igrette had no idea who they were, but she felt better being able to see the other woman's face.

"Who sent you?!" Igrette asked.

"I don't know, I don't know! I never saw their face!"

"You don't need a face to have an idea who it was."

"I don't know!" Igrette gritted her teeth. Something was still off. She found the source of the wolves, but was no closer to having any answers. Was the mage forced to do this? Did she accept a job to do it? Who would even want to do this and why? The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. She thought about it more, and realized that there was something strange about even this interaction. The other woman had surrendered far too quickly.

The words were already exiting her mouth before she even hit the ground. Before she had time to feel any pain. Either she had inhumanly quick reaction time… or she had been expecting Igrette to show up. But if she was expecting Igrette, she should have known that this plan would never work. Winter wolves were dangerous, but Igrette could handle even a pack of this size without issue. They were not a serious threat to the town with her around.

Even the town's hunters could handle a few of the wolves on their own, if Igrette had not been out in the woods already to notice them before they arrived. That meant that the only reason the wolves could be here was–"You're a distraction," said Igrette.

"You never meant to succeed. You just wanted to lure me out."

"W– wait!" shouted the mage. Igrette did not wait. With two swift slices, she cut off the woman's arms, picked her up by the neck, and carried her half a mile away. She was tempted to kill the woman, but it was better to keep her alive to be interrogated later. And if it turned out she was under duress, or was otherwise undeserving of such a fate, the cold would preserve the limbs well enough that Helen could reattach them later.

The mage was crying when Igrette set her down, but she was well-trained enough to be able to stop her own bleeding, so she wouldn't die if left alone for a little while. Igrette covered her in some snow, then pushed her body to its limits as she sprinted toward the orphanage. The winter wolves were still going to be a problem, but she would resolve it later. Whatever these people were trying to distract her for was more important.

Hopefully the hunters can– She suddenly stopped in her tracks as she realized that the howling had stopped. She enhanced her hearing, but even with it so sensitive she could hear miles away, she could not hear any wolves. All she could hear was the mage crying beneath the snow, and wind whistling on steel as something moved through the woods toward her. She raised her sword toward the source of the noise, and grimaced when she saw who emerged.

"Ivan."

"Igrette." The man across from her was dressed in plate mail that covered his entire body, but it was armor she was very familiar with. Black steel with the white regalia of the church emblazoned on the chest, and a sword taller than he was resting on his shoulder.

"What are you doing here?"

"The same as always," he replied.

"Demon slaying."

"There are no demons here."

"The pope says there are. Are you saying he is wrong?" Igrette gritted her teeth. She knew this couldn't be good. Where Ivan went, people died. He was a virtuous man, but also a ruthless one. If the pope declared someone a demon host or demon summoner, Ivan killed them. A good ally to have, but a terrifying presence in a place such as this. Especially this time. And he was not someone she could afford to stand against.

"No, of course not," she replied.

"You seemed to be in a hurry," he said.

"Was it related to the wolves?"

"Yes."

"Then don't let me keep you," he said.

"I have taken care of the rest of the winter wolves, but this clearly is still urgent business, and I believe I may be able to assist. Shall we?" He gestured toward the orphanage, where she had been going. Igrette scowled, but had no choice but to agree.

"… We shall. Let's go." Jonny joined the procession of children pushing inside. The nuns tried to get them to form into an orderly line, but their efforts were mostly in vain, and Jonny ended up shoved and jostled all the way in until he was finally able to separate from the others as they all headed for the classrooms. Many of the children were nervous, but most calmed down when Helen explained that there was a blizzard coming. The orphanage had experienced blizzards before.

Hunkering down indoors was more than enough to keep safe.

"Will Sister Igrette be okay?" asked one girl whose name Jonny didn't remember.

"She'll be fine," said Helen with a smile.

"She left to warn the rest of the village about the blizzard." The older children who recognized that the direction Igrette had gone was not at all the direction of the village were wise enough to keep their mouths shut. Helen stuck around to say a few more words, then pulled a few of the nuns away to help double check that all the windows were closed and things like that. The children were soon left alone with the Margarets and Lucy, who immediately got busy working to keep the children entertained.

The Margarets went for the toys, while Lucy grabbed a picture book to read aloud, and soon, the blizzard outside was all but forgotten. Jonny imagined Igrette outside, slaughtering magical beasts, and decided he didn't want to waste any time sitting around and playing when he was still so weak. He was probably stronger now with his mana than he ever had been on Earth, but compared to what this world had to offer, he was still weak.

He wasn't even strong enough to stand near the battle that Igrette was in, let alone participate in it. He made his way to one of the corners of the room and immediately started doing the same breathing he had been doing with Igrette outside, letting the mana suffuse his entire body. He didn't want to go against what Igrette had told him and overdo it, so he kept the expansion minimal so it wouldn't put too much strain on his body while still infusing it with mana.

And since he wasn't going at full force, he was able to sit up while doing it, instead of being forced to relax his body completely. He was interrupted not even a minute in when he heard a knock on the door, followed by someone whispering his name. He cracked his eyes open to see one of the nuns—Marianne—walking toward him with a nervous smile. She was one of the youngest nuns in the orphanage, and mostly worked with the youngest children, so Jonny had rarely interacted with her.

It was weird that she was coming toward him. When she reached him, she crouched down beside him, and leaned in to speak softly in his ear.

"Abbess Helen wants to talk to you."

"Abbess Helen?" asked Jonny.

"Why?"

"Sh– she didn't say."

"…Alright." Jonny noticed her hand was trembling, and narrowed his eyes, but he still got to his feet and followed her out of the room. He stopped in the hallway, facing the direction of Helen's office as Marianne closed the door behind them, but instead of leading him toward the office, she grabbed his wrist and started pulling him toward the staircase.

"Abbess Helen is upstairs," she said, not making eye contact. Something weird's going on … thought Jonny.

"Okay," he said, wrenching his hand from her grasp.

"Let's go." He followed her toward the staircase, then up to the second floor, then the third, then the fourth, all the way until they reached the door of the attic, at which point Jonny finally balked. Helen never went into the attic.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"H– Helen is r– right upstairs." Marianne tried to smile at him, but it never quite reached her eyes, and despite the cold, there was a bead of sweat on her temple.

"No, she's not," said Jonny.

"What are you doing?" She reached for his wrist, but he took a step back out of her range. Her lip began to tremble as she looked down at him.

"P– please," she said.

"Please just go up. If– if you don't–" She jumped as the door to the staircase suddenly slammed behind them.

"Well, you tried," said a new voice. Jonny spun around to see a figure dressed in black walking toward them, twirling a knife with a ring-shaped pommel on his finger. Their face was covered by a flat black mask, but it was clear from their build and voice that it was a man.

"Wh– what are you doing?" asked Marianne.

"Where's Eliza?"

"Asleep," said the man.

"Temporarily. Don't worry. She wasn't the target. And neither are you, so step aside."

"Y– you said you wouldn't hurt him!"

"Well, I lied," said the man with a shrug.

"It's not personal."

"I won't let you!" said Marianne, stepping in front of Jonny.

"HELP!"

"Nice try, honey, but they can't hear you right now," said the man.

"This is your last warning. I'd rather not hurt you, but if you keep getting in the way…" Marianne responded by gathering mana in her palm and firing it at the man, but as soon as she did, it was obvious it wouldn't do anything. Even Jonny could tell her attack was pitiful. Even Tommy would have done better. The man in black swatted it aside with a casual backhand, and it bounced off the wooden wall behind, barely even leaving a mark.

"Jonny, run!" shouted Marianne, charging up a second attack while the man stopped spinning his dagger and gripped it by the handle. Jonny stood in place. His mind was racing with countless thoughts. Who was he? Why was he here? Why was he after Jonny? Did his uncle find out about him somehow? In the end, though, it didn't really matter. There was a man trying to kill him. There was a poor girl trying to sacrifice herself to save him. He doubted he would be able to escape if he tried.

That really left only one option. Fighting. At least that was something he was good at.