Chương 272: 302 - Swift End to the Hunt

The werewolf tore through the underbrush in its wild attempts to get away from those who were hunting it. It could hear its pursuers closing in on it, which only increased its frenzied attempts to escape. Any intelligence it once had long since vanished from the ravages of lycanthropy and from its sheer terror. But it was only a third-tier monster, and there were eight fifth-tier knights almost within striking distance. As he led the knights, Grim finally caught sight of their prey with his magic senses.

Sparing only the time it took to smile as he identified the werewolf as barely being the estimated third-tier, he summoned an ice spike and launched it through the trees directly into the back of the monster's head. The werewolf fell with a muted yelp and didn't move again. The knights surrounded the fallen creature, covering it in their magic senses and watching for any sudden movements. Even a third-tier werewolf could still spread lycanthropy, so they kept a reasonable distance from the monster.

But there it continued to lie, unmoving, as its lifeblood soaked into the ground beneath it from the massive hole in the back of its head. It had clearly once been a young man, with wide shoulders and relatively short legs. His dark brown hair had grown long and had begun to sprout further down his neck and back, while his nails lengthened and hardened, forming sharp, vicious claws.

His back was slightly arched, and his nose and mouth protruded from his face in what would've been a snout had the lycanthropy spread further. His lifeless eyes were still open in shock, his left eye still appearing human with bright blue irises, while his right iris had grown to fill his entire sclera and turned pitch black.

"Cyricus," Grim said, glancing at the old knight.

"Keep your distance, even a drop of its blood can spread the curse." Cyricus nodded in understanding, summoned a fireball, and tossed it onto the motionless werewolf. Its corpse didn't even twitch as it burst into flame.

"Hot damn, you killed it in one shot!" Lothar cried as the fire consumed the body and the knights subsequently relaxed.

"Lucky shot," Grim said with a sarcastic smile. He and the rest of the knights breathed deeply with their mission complete, though it was a terribly anti-climactic ending, even given what little they had done that day.

"I guess that's it, then?" Fara asked as she adjusted her brown ponytail that had almost come undone during the run. The knights were so supremely confident that helmets wouldn't be needed that none of them had bothered to put them on in the first place. Still, if the need arose, then their helmets could be summoned from their soul realms in an instant.

"I guess that's it," Grim replied with a shrug and a half-suspicious, half-accepting look.

"I guess Sir Caelestius was right, we were far too much for a single werewolf…" Olympia muttered.

"Kind of a waste of our time to come all the way out here just for this…"

"I suppose…" Grim agreed, and he almost gave the order for them to return to the village when Leon suddenly approached the werewolf's corpse.

"Careful there, Ursus! Don't touch that thing until that fire has thoroughly cleansed it of its curse!"

"Mm," Leon hummed in acknowledgment, but he didn't back away. The fire had almost completely consumed the werewolf, and peaking out through its blackened skin was something shiny that had caught his eye, something that radiated dark red light. He almost didn't see it within the red-orange flames, but see it he did, and it piqued his curiosity. Leon crouched down and grabbed a stick, then began poking at the burning corpse.

"What are you doing?" Lothar asked in shock, and the rest of the knights stared at Leon, silently asking him the same question.

"There's something in there," Leon answered as he managed to dislodge the glowing object from within the werewolf's ribs.

'From where its heart should be…' Leon noted. The object was perfectly spherical, about the size of a strawberry, and now that it was free of the werewolf's torso, it pulsed with a red light that seemed quite familiar to Leon. In fact, the werewolf's orb bore a strange resemblance to the core of the ice wraith that Artorias had used to power the ritual that awakened Leon's blood years ago, though the ice wraith's core was an icy blue, not dark red.

"What is that?" Olympia asked in disgust as she took a few steps back.

"Don't touch that!" Grim shouted as he pulled Leon away from the red glassy orb.

"That thing is filled with demonic magic!" Instantly, Leon knew why the thing seemed familiar: the dark red light that shone from it gave him the same feeling as Xaphan's dark red demonfire. [You paying attention here, demon?] Leon shouted at Xaphan as he took a few more steps backward. [Hmm? What?] Xaphan asked in a slow, sleepy cadence.

"Why in all the fucks does this thing have a… what is that, a demonic core? Why did it have a fucking demonic core within it?!" Lothar shouted as he made like Olympia and backed away from the orb.

"Who can say?" Grim muttered as he summoned a glove and a small wooden box—both covered in runic glyphs—from his soul realm. The knight removed a gauntlet and replaced it with the glove, then gingerly picked up the core and placed it in the box. Once he closed the box, he said, "This box was built for handling sensitive materials but isn't really designed for demonic objects, so let's hurry and get back to the capital! This thing needs to be properly quarantined!

No telling what it can do or how dangerous it is, but if it was in the body of a werewolf, then it's undoubtedly dangerous!" [Hmph, not an unwise strategy, but that box won't do a damn thing to help,] Xaphan murmured with some amusement. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. [You know what that thing is?] Leon asked. [Of course, I do, it's a demonic core,] Xaphan replied. [It seems to have been torn from a weak demon, though, so it's hardly powerful.] [If you don't think it's dangerous, then why is it wise to quarantine it?] Leon asked as he unconsciously lowered his center of gravity in anticipation of a fight. [Didn't say it wasn't dangerous, I said it wasn't powerful. The core has runes embedded within it, like those runes that were beneath the platform back at the Cradle,] Xaphan answered.

It took Leon a moment to realize what the demon meant, until he remembered that the platform in the center of the Cradle's rotunda had been like a mirror, only the reflection showed runes floating above Leon that weren't there—or at least, that he couldn't see. Though now that Xaphan mentioned it, Leon guessed it could've just been an optical illusion due to seeing both the runes and the reflection at the same time, but he hadn't the requisite knowledge in enchanting to say for certain.

[Can you guess what the purpose of it was?] Leon inquired. [Could be a number of things, maybe someone was trying to make that thing stronger? Maybe that thing was trying to cure its curse back when it was still lucid? I've no idea.] Leon sighed as he wracked his brain trying to think of a reason for a demonic core to be planted in a werewolf. Moreover, it was in its chest where the werewolf's heart was supposed to be.

Every possibility he could think of was just as unlikely as the last, and without studying the core itself, he didn't think he'd ever know why the core was there. [Hey, watch yourself, boy,] Xaphan said with a hint of warning in his voice. [Demonic cores don't just materialize out of nowhere, summoning even a weak demon would require resources that I don't think some random werewolf out in the country living off poached pigs would have access to. So just… watch yourself…] [I'll keep my eyes open,] Leon said as he quickly examined the immediate surroundings with his magic senses. He didn't notice anything strange, but with Xaphan's warning in mind, it did make sense to him that the werewolf might not be working alone.

"Leon, what's up?" Grim asked, noticing Leon releasing his magic senses.

"Just a bad feeling," Leon said. He then relayed Xaphan's warning, though he phrased it as a mere suspicion of his rather than advice he received from a demon. He felt Xaphan's frustration and slightly wounded pride that Leon was making it seem like it all came from him, but the demon decided to stay silent unless something actually came of it. His pride demanded credit, but he didn't want to take any blame if his and Leon's suspicions were wrong.

"I've never known werewolves to run in packs," Grim said as he thought about it.

"They're pretty solitary creatures, so I can't imagine this one had any accomplices. Hells, even when they spread the curse, it's usually accidental…"

"The Valemen that attacked my first post were accompanied by a werewolf that seemed fairly in control of himself, enough to work with the raiders," Leon mentioned.

"I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if this guy wasn't alone…" Grim frowned, but he nodded and said to the rest of the knights, "Be on your guard, just in case." The knights nodded, but Leon noticed that it was only Cyricus and Olympia that seemed to actually be more alert. The rest continued to relax with the werewolf dead. Leon sighed once more, but he didn't say anything else.

He just kept a close watch on the surrounding forest to ensure that they weren't going to be attacked by anything hidden among the trees and foliage. He'd said his piece, if the knights wanted to relax, then that was their prerogative. After a few more minutes and another blast of fire from Cyricus, the werewolf's body was reduced to little more than a half-melted skeleton and a few small pieces of charred meat.

There was no blood left to pass along the curse, meaning the corpse wasn't any more dangerous than the ground it lay upon.

"Regardless of anything else, we've done our job. If the villagers continue to have problems, then we'll just come back," Grim stated.

"We can't stick around and protect them all the time, we can only make sure they know to keep alert for anything werewolf-y for the foreseeable future." The rest of the knights, including Leon, nodded or otherwise communicated their understanding. It was a reasonable position for Grim to take, even if it might not quite feel right leaving the village when there was the possibility of another werewolf running around in the forest.

But since this werewolf was so quickly killed, no one was going to insist that they stay with the village until they could confirm that there wasn't another monster out there, assuming it was even possible given their low numbers.

"Now, then," Grim said, "I think we've all had a nice, relaxing day-long vacation in the country, but it's time to get back to the capital!" A few of the knights chuckled at how easily the mission was completed, and the group began their journey back to the village to report their success to Clodio. Leon, however, remained on relatively high alert the entire way back.

Lewis could only sigh when he finally found the corpse of the werewolf an hour or so before sunset.

"Oh, Etienne, you really shouldn't have run off like that…" the tall, thin, and inhumanely pale man muttered in grief.

"Now I'm going to have find a new research subject! And summon a new demon!" He spent another few seconds silently contemplating the werewolf's death, then began to poke around in its scorched corpse, clearly looking for something. He was unable to find what he sought, though.

"Where did it go?" he asked himself out loud. From years of living alone out in the secluded forests of the Bull Kingdom, he had taken up the habit of talking to himself, and despite having become marginally more sociable of late, he hadn't quite gotten around to dropping it.

"Where's my core? What happened to it?" he wondered before he suddenly realized what had happened and felt like an idiot.

"Whoever killed you took it, didn't they?" he asked the charred corpse, though he at least didn't expect an answer. Lewis gave a resigned sigh and said, "I guess it's gone now, no use drawing attention to myself trying to get it back. Probably better to simply acquire another." He clicked his long, sharp teeth and began to walk back into the forest, though he effortlessly covered so much ground between each step that he almost seemed to be skipping.

Mere seconds after he left the corpse behind and right before he forgot about Etienne's existence entirely, Lewis came to a startled stop and looked back over his shoulder.

"Why should I go back for it?" he asked as if expecting an answer from the silent forest around him. His eyes narrowed and he leaned back against a tree as if listening to something inaudible, then clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction.

"I don't need it, if you don't like what I do, then take it back! I am not about to announce my presence in this Kingdom by challenging a group of knights from the capital just for a third-tier demonic core! And certainly not because you ask me to!" Lewis went silent again as he listened.

"But I don't need you, you barely give me any power at all! And the 'advice' you give me is barely even worth what I have to do to get it!" Again, he listened.

"This sounds personal, why do you want these ones dead? And that one in particular?" Silence followed, and the voice that Lewis was hearing didn't break it.

"Fine, don't tell me! But if you want me to go and kill a squad of powerful knights, you'd better be giving me more than just orders!" This time, after the whispers in his ear stopped, Lewis' mouth turned upward into a broad smile, but it quickly vanished as he thought about the problem ahead of him. For decades, he had avoided any attention from the Kingdom's officials, and attacking this group of knights would more likely than not render all of his caution moot. Still, the price he was offered was tempting.

"Very well," the extraordinarily pale man said, "if that's the price you're willing to pay, then I will kill these knights for you."