Prologue 3 – The Wolf’s Liver and First Remuneration (Last Part)
It was when the sun was at it’s highest point of the day. Yuuto and the three Musket siblings were having lunch as per schedule. That said, it was quite a modest fare.
The contents: jerky that was preserved for use, dried fruits as well as biscuits that were no less than hard and bread that had left out the liquids. This so-called “Hardtack” was much too hard to eat and had to be soaked in coffee to make it soft.
Despite that, it still felt hard….
“H…. hey….”
“Hm?”
“Your teeth, are they cracking?”
Yuuto was making a grinding sound without change as he ate. It sounded as if he was eating rocks. Yuuto, with a nonchalant look, chewed, then swallowed and drank the hot coffee in one gulp.
Nevertheless, it is a beautiful meadow, Yuuto thought. The wind blew the vegetation, gently stroking it, the pleasant sensation of the sound pa.s.sed through his ears.
After a while, the three brothers who were annoyed by Yuuto with his rock crunching that could be considered hara.s.sment finished their meal, got up and once again started to head to the hunting grounds
“….1….2….3….4….5….”
However, just as Yuuto was counting, towards the 3 brothers he saw a lot of wolves suddenly appear. Then, Yuuto continued to count. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11….
Then, after he counted 15, Yuuto started to roll his shoulder, clicking his joints. The second brother who was irritated with the suspicious behavior said provokingly.
“Hey! This isn’t the time to be messing around! Get on with it, you stupid brat!!”
“Ah, sorry about that… by the way, how many were we supposed to hunt again?”
“Huh?! It was 5 of them, 5!! What about it!”
“Well, it’s no longer necessary now.”
Huh?! The second brother roared at Yuuto’s att.i.tude and then realized. In the gra.s.ses on the plains here and there were some dark shadows and because of his voice, he didn’t notice the small and faint growls. Yes, the wolves had surrounded all of them.
At the abrupt situation, the second brother tried to fire his musket…. however.
“SHI-!!”
The bullet wasn’t loaded, on the contrary, there wasn’t even flint on the firing hammer. The first and third brother seemed to be the same, and this was the result all three brothers having been negligent in their preparations.
Furthermore, to adequately prepare would take time. Attaching the flint, loading the bullet, filling the gunpowder; The wolves would not wait for that. From the thicket, a wolf agilely leaped at the second brother.
In those few seconds that felt like several tens of seconds had pa.s.sed, in the scenery that was slowed down, the second brother frantically thought. He hid behind the musket to as he tried to protect himself.
No matter how he thought, a “good idea” to get out of this rough situation wouldn’t come to him. He just stared blankly, as he could only accept those fangs coming towards him.
Near his field of view he saw his older and younger brother’s shouting figures, he wondered if they would be his final view. As the fangs approached his throat, the wolf’s mouth gripped tightly like a puzzle piece that fit perfectly, then…..
“GYAAAAAaaaaaa…….. Huh?”
The wolf didn’t bite down, there was no feeling of something sharp piercing him, on the contrary, the wolf wasn’t acting violently at all. However, there was something that he realized: Was a wolf always this light? Then he understood the sight before him.
The wolf didn’t have a body.
“Hiiiii!!!”
For the second time today, the second brother let out a miserable scream as the decapitated head of the wolf lay on top of him. However, inside the madness, he saw it. The first and third brother also saw it.
Before anyone noticed, Yuuto was standing there with his sword drawn, red blood dripping off the naked blade after making a horizontal cut. Nearby was the wolf who had seemed to attack, it’s body convulsing and continuing to spurt out blood.
“14 left….”
Shaking off the wolf’s blood still stuck to the blade, Yuuto confirmed the number of wolves left inside his head. Their numbers hadn’t increased, but it seemed having killed one had angered them.
The reality here was they could retreat temporarily, but Yuuto could see in his head the wolves catching up to them and making a meal out of them. Now they had no choice but to fight to survive. He held his sword loosely in right hand.
Then from the front, two wolves charged at him. Yuuto had waited for that timing before he started running as well. Then the moment the wolves leaped at him, as he pa.s.sed through the gap between them, he swung his sword in a circle.
A red band of blood appeared as the two bodies landed with a thud. Following that, he released a side kick to the one leaping at him from the left which was accompanied by the feeling of something being crushed underfoot and the sound of something breaking. The third one died without so much as uttering a sound.
“11 left.”
This time, aiming for a surprise attack, the sounds of 4 wolves rushing towards his back came. Yuuto immediately turned to face them, as two advanced along the ground while the other two threw themselves onto him, aiming for his throat!!
“Too slow!!”
As Yuuto cried out, he first smashed the face of the wolf leaping at him with a high kick, then for the second and third running along the ground, using the force from the high kick, he twisted his body and slashed out with all his strength using the drawn sword in his right hand, bisecting both of them at the same time.
The last one, he grabbed by the neck and slammed into the ground, stabbing it in the neck.
“7 left.”
From Yuuto came the confirmation. However, in a flash, the remaining wolves spread out and charged at Yuuto. But as they were just animals, they couldn’t understand that it was a foolish move.
Yuuto sheathed his sword and took a low stance. Then, the moment when the wolves entered the optimum range, he advanced without stopping! Starting with the first leaping at him, he severed its head as he drew his sword.
“6!”
Furthermore, stepping forward grandiosely, he laid to rest the second and third, blood splashing over his body. Paying no mind to that, for the fourth, fifth and sixth, he cut upwards in a reverse slash.
“5! 4! 3! 2! 1!!”
After that, the final one he also dispatched cruelly, like pa.s.sing through it, he cleaved it in two with a single strike.
“0!……..”
In only a few minutes, those fifteen wolves bodies ended up as a mountain.
The three Musket brothers had no choice but to stand there in blank amazement. As a mercenary, they had stepped onto the battlefield before. However, in their years, as well as pa.s.sing their knowledge of the limit of strength, they had never seen the event the boy in front of them had made into reality.
“….And, that’s that.”
In front of Sack’s Guild, the receptionist sighed when he saw Yuuto. After that Yuuto, leaving the three Musket brothers who looked like they couldn’t even stand properly for a while, gathered the corpse of the wolves by himself and returned to the village.
The curio shop that was the requester was a tad put off at the amount which was more than requested as he left a bag filled with copper coins, then tiresomely carried away the corpses one at a time. However, that was was not the reason he sighed.
The receptionist originally intended to have the three brothers teach him about how rough the work here was, but that ended up backfiring. He didn’t want a young boy like him that wasn’t even an adult yet to be taking on jobs from the guild.
“For the time being, I’m going to be in the care of this Guild.”
Saying that, Yuuto with wolf’s blood still stuck to him, went towards the inn to clean up.