Dagger

"Err... h.e.l.lo?", Ivan greeted Anna.

"h.e.l.lo.", Anna replied back with a calm tone.

"Wear your mask.", Allen threw a mask to James. The latter caught hold of it and wore it immediately.

"Well, I"m going now, bye everyone. Bye James!", Ivan left the shop at once.

"You"re late, kid.", Allen separated his sight from the book and gazed at James.

"I"m sorry mister, I woke up a bit late today.", James scratched the back of his head and could only smile due to shame. He just broke a common rule of work ethics: Never be late for work.

"I"ll deduct your salary for that.", Allen straightforwardly stated while looking away from him.

"Hais, alright.", James made a sad sigh. "What a ruthless shop owner."

"I"ll be leaving with somebody, I won"t come back until an hour or so before closing time. You and Anna would be managing the shop, alright?", Allen said.

"En!", James and Anna both nodded in response. They didn"t ask for more information as it wasn"t needed.

"Edwin, come on down now, we"re leaving!", Allen called out. The boy immediately came down. Afterwards, Allen pulled out two white robes from his satchel and pa.s.sed one onto Edwin.

They both wore the white robes and left the tavern.

Seeing that Allen has left with Edwin, Anna suddenly got an idea and looked at James, "Want to do something fun, James?"

"If it involves leaving the shop or entering other rooms in the building or destroying anything, no thank you!", James said.

"Of course not! Do you want to know about it?", Anna asked while tapping her staff with her fingers.

"Umm... alright then!", James nodded. Well, it was indeed a bit boring to just read the encyclopedia for most of the day, specially now that there weren"t many customers this winter.

"Good, let"s go to the plant at that corner.", Anna pointed towards a small sprout on a pot by the corner of the shop.

***

Several minutes later, both Allen and Edwin has reached the bottom of the mountain. At a normal human speed, such a feat was impossible, however, Allen helped the boy on going down towards the mountain to save time.

"Where are we going, Allen?", Edwin asked.

"Near the Monarch Forest. Do you know where is that, kid?", Allen asked.

"I think is that forest I saw from afar.", Edwin guessed.

"Maybe, now your first training session would be going towards the north side of Monarch Forest and arriving by noon... alone.", Allen said while handing a map over to Edwin. "Try to avoid the road, as the destroyed caravan might have already been found by the patrolling guards. So expect checkpoints there."

"Wait, I"m going there alone?", Edwin asked.

"Yes, and watch out for some monsters along the way.", Allen added.

Before Edwin could say anything else, Allen was suddenly tens of meters away from his former position, and slowly disappeared from the boy"s sight.

"There are monsters here?", Edwin muttered. He suddenly remembered why the smugglers" caravan has so many guards and mercenaries that were surrounding it, he concluded that it"s because of the potential monster attacks. Though of course, it was also due to Allen.

However, Edwin furthermore tightened his resolve and marched forward. At the same time, the snowfall has started once again.

...

After a few minutes later, the winds became a bit stronger, signaling that it wasn"t a simple snowfall anymore, but a blizzard!

"d.a.m.n it!", Edwin cursed. He was going against the strong wind, if it gets any stronger he might not be able to continue walking due to the danger of the landscape of potentially stepping on a deep hole. Luckily, the robe mostly protected him from the cold and ensured that he won"t freeze to death.

At some point of time, he suddenly felt that the wind noticeably got weaker, but he didn"t know that it was due to the effect of the robes, which also strengthened his body overtime. Afterwards, he wasn"t even affected by the wind anymore.

He started jogging on the way to reduce the time needed to arrive at the Monarch Forest, he didn"t stop until he saw numerous boulders and stones on the land in front of him. The boy took out the map and saw that the boulders he was seeing was part of a location called "Monarch Stone Patch" based on the map.

He also looked at the Monarch Forest on the map, which was somewhere south-southeast from his position. After which, he didn"t hesitate to enter the patch.

Edwin navigated his way through the stone patch. He saw some boulders with different kinds of shapes and sizes that looked like statues of some sort, there were also some precious gems stuck on them, he wanted to pluck them out but refused that notion as it would take a lot of time, so he only continued his journey.

Several minutes later, now, he felt that he was near the middle of stone patch. He kept looking around in awe as he saw different kinds of valuable metals and gems on the boulders. He was almost tempted to pluck out one, but he still didn"t do so in the end.

Edwin closed his eyes and muttered, "I just want to train to become stronger... and find out who killed my father... and kill him! This is just a waste of time." He walked away from the precious metals and gems and muttered, "But why is there still a lot of valuable metals and gems, when this location is near the main road?"

He suddenly stopped walking, and saw a boulder with some sort of strange markings. He approached it and tried to recognize what it was, but he wasn"t educated in the first place, so he ignored it and went around the boulder.

When Edwin was in the exact opposite side of the boulder, he felt like that he stepped onto something, he looked down and saw that it was a skull!

Surprised and frightened at the same time, he kicked it away from his feet at once.

He immediately went away from the boulder, however, after doing so, he unconsciously looked back behind him, and saw a headless skeleton just around the corner from where he came from! That"s not all, he also noticed scratch marks on the stone exactly where the headless skeleton was, and a rusty sword near it"s location.

His intuition told him that there was something wrong in the stone patch, which also corresponded with the questions within his mind like: Why were those expensive metals and gems not yet taken away from here? Why was there some sort of strange markings on the boulder? Why was the main road not built on this place, when it could directly lead towards Horizon Mountain, but why was it instead curved around it?

As he was about to run away, a howl echoed out. Edwin"s scalp turned numb and hid behind another boulder immediately. He took a peek from where the howl came from, and saw a white wolf with very thick fur, a pair of fangs growing out of it"s mouth and it"s exceptionally white pupils! He has never seen this kind of monster before. Actually, he has never really seen a monster yet.

If Allen was here, he would"ve recognized that it was a Winter Wolf! The strength of the said wolf was almost twice that of a Bloodthirsty Wolf from the Crescent Town Woods. However, the Winter Wolves were almost extinct due to myriad of reasons, and they only go out of their dens during winter while they hibernate during the other seasons.

The Winter Wolf was also larger than a normal humans, which greatly intimidated Edwin.

The Winter Wolf suddenly looked towards Edwin"s position, either apparently sensing his gaze or noticing his smell. It walked slowly towards the human. The boy immediately tried not to avert his gaze away from the wolf, as the monster might take it as a sign of weakness.

However, the boy underestimated the Winter Wolf. Unlike the Bloodthirsty Wolves, who focuses more on their strength than it"s sense and brain, the Winter Wolves both had wisdom and strength! Not just a bit of wisdom like a Stone Boar, but true wisdom!

Seeing the boy"s gaze, the Winter Wolf stopped for a moment and gave a curious glare at Edwin. The latter was stunned by the show of wisdom of the creature, he started sweating profusely due to nervousness and unconsciously backed off.
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When the wolf saw Edwin backing off, it pounced over to the boy. However, rather than hitting the boy, the wolf skipped over him and landed behind him.

Edwin was caught off guard yet again as he fell to the ground, he backed away from the wolf in panic, but the wolf slowly approached him, until the boy felt that his back was already touching the boulder!

He tried to take hold of his daggers through the holes on his robes, but the wolf suddenly unleashed a breath and ice formed on the boy"s hands, rendering him from taking out his weapons! Not only did the wolf had wisdom, but also intelligence to cast a spell! Yes, it wasn"t just any ordinary breath, but was an ice spell!

The boy"s face paled as he saw what was happened. Now, the wolf was less than a meter away from him. He could already feel the monster breathing upon him!

The wolf looked closely at Edwin, however, rather than getting killed and eaten, which the latter expected, the wolf suddenly sniffed the white robes he was wearing!

"Do you know somebody by the surname of Morgan? You better not be lying, my eyes could see through lies.", the wolf suddenly spoke, further proving it"s high wisdom.

"Yes, I do.", Edwin answered without even taking into accord how the wolf could talk. He already knew that Allen"s surname was Morgan when he heard James" loud greeting earlier in the shop.

Hearing the boy"s answer and seeing that he wasn"t lying, the Winter Wolf further asked, "What is he to you?"

"M-my teacher.", Edwin stuttered.

"Your teacher?", the wolf asked again.

"Yes...", Edwin nodded at once.

Suddenly, the monster opened his mouth wide. Edwin immediately closed his eyes and prepared for the worst.

-pew- -pew-

Two chunks of ice shot of out the wolf"s wide mouth towards Edwin. The latter was forced to open his eyes due to getting hit by the chunks of ice.

Edwin closely inspected one of the chunks of ice on his lap, there, he saw a lotus which also looked like a crown inside of it!

The wolf closed it"s mouth full of pearly white teeth and said, "I have found these two Blizzard Crown Lotus during my hunt last night in the Monarch Forest. They"re valuable, but not for me. Take those to your teacher, I"m sure he will find a way on how to use them."

At the same time, the wolf destroyed the ice on both of Edwin"s hands with a flick of it"s claws. Afterwards, it walked away, getting a bit of distance away from the boy, as if the wolf remembered something, it turned around towards him and said, "And also, please tell Alchemist Morgan my thanks for curing my whole pack. Those two Blizzard Crown Lotus aren"t enough yet to repay him. He didn"t want anything in return, so do give it to him."

"I-I will.", Edwin was still frightened by what was happening.

Hearing the boy"s reply, the Winter Wolf suddenly started to sprint away, Edwin could only process what just happened when the monster was already a white blur from far away.