... [Meritios POV] ...
I sadly got back with the hunter's pack with a wound on my left arm.
A lookout howls at our arrival and Tamiri comes running to me. She scolds me when she sees my wound.
I got hurt by a branch I didn't realize in the way as I chased a deer.
When she got close to me, she voiced her complaints with irritation on her voice.
-Again? So careless.
I could only sigh at my mistake and accept the healing, she puts more of her mind into it, making it burn a little more than the usual, making me close my eyes.
When I open them, I see a wolf I never seen on the pack with Amataz, our pack's first Sage class. She was beautiful with her dark blue and white fur and crystal clear blue eyes and almost the same height as me.
Soon enough, my brother and Mari called her to the Great wolf's cave entrance.
One of our tribe members brought the Nature's crystal we all used to get a call. It is not a real name because it's Nature that gives us this name. Only humans with magic power equal to us can bind us with a name. Although my brother says that, every use of the crystal, some of our mana gets pulled towards it. But I don't question it since I don't know much about the crystal myself.
It seems the pack was waiting to name this wolf. As she didn't need to participate in a hunt to get a call or Brother forced them to let her get a call before sending her to one.
She touches the crystal, and the name appears as "Amy", the pack begins to celebrate the occasion, but she looks displeased with the name, and the box containing the call nature gave her, begins to fail.
And as the pack gets a little disturbed with the occurrence, the name changes into "Ammy" and she seems to be satisfied with it.
The pack is terrified and confused at this event, and without thinking, I begin to howl. And the pack follows me, howling at the event, with some of them still being in fear and confusion shown in their howls.
The hunters pack which is made of me, Kilitio and his brother Bas, Kaz and Limely bring over the deer corpses, with me on the front to represent them.
Although I am the younger brother of the elder, I am not suited to lead. So the pack is uneasy whenever the topic is about the future elder.
My brother tells me to not to worry, if needed, someone will rise to lead us.
While I am making my way towards the elders, I watch Amataz run towards the female who just got a call, and he begins to use telepathy in her.
I feel displeased at the scene of Amataz getting happy for the first time in front of the pack with the cause being the female. Passing the two of them, I sit in front of my brother and elder Mari with the deer corpses behind me.
My brother begins to get closer to me and I begin to wait for my scolding. He must have seen the wound that I had when we arrived.
But instead of scolding me, he hugs me while speaking in a calm voice
-Don't be ashamed my brother. As long you understand your mistake and learn from it, it does not matter. So don't give up if you make the same mistake twice.
I hug him back and answer him.
-Shut up old wolf, who said that I was going to give up?
After separating from my brother, I go besides the deer corpses and use [Fire breath], cooking the meat.
This spell is something that I just learned and its tradition to show how much you improved in a hunt. While the spell consumes a lot of mana and stamina from me, I had to show to the tribe.
I almost went asleep with the enormous mana consumption, but my brother catches me before I hit the ground.
After checking that I was alright, Mari howls, and the pack begins the feast.
I won't eat since I am full from the Red berries that I found on my way back to the pack. I asked Mari for permission to eat it and went a little overboard, filled myself up with them.
I notice that Ammy doesn't join in the feast, she looks around, and sneaks away into the forest with me following her without her knowing.
After a small walk into the forest, she stops.
... [Amataz POV] ...
The elder gave me a mission. To accompany his brother Meritios, Camio the lookout leader and the hunter's pack member Kilitio into the Great wolf's cave. When I questioned him, he said that a monster grew too strong from Pomeri reports, the caretaker of the newborns.
Pomeri is stronger than Bas, Kilitio's brother, if he says that the monster grew too strong to him to deal with, then this is a problem needs to be dealt with as fast as it can be, so I understood why he sent us.
We enter the Great wolf's cave and after walking a bit, we come across Pomeri, as Meritios is waking him up, I put my paw on his arm and begin to use my less used spell, [Telepathy] to not wake up the newborns.
(-Let me go first, since I have light, when the others have the smell or sight of it, you can pass by me.)
I only request this because of [Ilighito] that I cast before going into the cave, as our pack's wolves has no member's with Night vision, as it was a specific characteristic of the Moon Wolves.
The Moon wolves are a recent dead pack that got ambushed by some greedy humans because they have a beautiful blue fur. And without noticing the slaughter that was happening in their cave, their hunter's pack got back and they got ambushed and killed too.
I only heard that the elder made way towards their cave on that bloody sun, because he needed to trade some supplies with them, but he said nobody was alive when he arrived.
The Moon's wolves were our allies, even though they can annihilate us by waiting till the moon is out, when most of our pack is asleep and tired.
I never met a Moon wolf myself, because when they got killed, I was training my mind spells on rocks, and I never was suited for hunting, so I never hunted with them.
But for the first time I saw one. When I got to where the newborns are and got surprised that at the top of the mountain of newborns, there was a newborn with blue fur dark like the moon's sky.
I glance at Pomeri, who's clearly used to the fact that a newborn Moon's wolf was between our pack's newborns.
I and Meritios looks surprised at the little wolf. I turn my head around and question Meritios while whispering.
-Is this a Moon's Wolf?
-Yes, look at his fur and you know that you are seeing one.
Although I never saw one, Meritios saw them when he followed his brother, the elder in a trade with the Moon's wolves pack.
I playfully try to use [Telepathy] on him, but with no hope in me since newborns usually never had a strong mind to answer.
-Hello? Can you understand me?
And quickly, a female voice answers my question.
-Yes!
Surprised, I back off from the newborn and glance behind me expecting to someone come out and admit that they interfered with my [Telepathy] by putting their paw on me. But nobody was touching me and I am left with only the newborn as the responsible for the answer.
I am amazed at this Newborn since it was able to communicate with me through telepathy at such stage of birth.
The question in my mind is "who left this newborn here". Since she is surprisingly capable of answering me, I will question her.
(-Little one, do you know your mother?)
(-No.)
Disappointment takes over my surprised mood, and it shows in my voice.
(-I understand…)
(-Is… there something wrong?)
Knowing that this newborn has the brain power to talk in [Telepathy] and acknoledging my disappointment in a moment could only further make me surprised. But it almost immediately goes away as I had to give it a bad news before it could even walk.
(-You see…)
This newborn read me like a book, even though half the pack doesn't understand my decisions, especially when I decided to train without pause on my mind spells and support spells.
She didn't mourn over her pack's death, probably because she never interacted with them, I understand that much. I let my happiness out because I won't need to support a child that doesn't even have the force stand nor understand our reality.
I glance towards the sleeping Pomeri and call him in a low volume voice.
-Pomeri. Get up.
He gets up and glances at me and understands me without the need to explain.
He puts the newborn in his back and passes her to me. And we make our way towards Kilitio and Camio without another word as I continued to use [Telepathy] on it.
While we walk deeper into the cave, she makes various questions and I answer them.
Kilitio and Camio gone ahead of us, probably because they found out about the monster whereabouts and want to finish their work quick, then do their things.
Soon we came into the scene of the battle between Kilitio, Camio and the insect type monster.
Meritios joins them and they successfully kill it.
We leave the body behind since it's an insect type, and it obviously had poison in its veins.
But this newborn is special, she surprised me more, when she gets tired and yawns, she consumes my [Ilighito]…
…
After two suns, Pomeri came out of the cave and talked to me about the fact that the newborn we met didn't cry for food all this time. I had a theory about it, but I didn't say anything to Pomeri, since he sneaked back to go back to sleep, he didn't witness the newborn eating my magic.
With a serious tone of voice, the elder spoke with me about his unusual decision as I came to pass the report to him about the newborn.
-Make this newborn take the test.
Surprised I scream out my anger accidentally.
-What!?
-I know that this decision is strange, but she needs to pass this test early since she is the last Moon's Wolf around.
I made a pained expression as I watched his serious expression, trying to look through it and continued to talk with anger in my voice.
-So she is a Moon's wolf.
-Yes. She is one of them. Her mother came to me in her last breath and asked me to raise her as one of us. Mari was feeding her in secret since we didn't know if our pack would accept the fact that a different pack's wolf was being raised by us. When you and my brother spoke to me about her, I expected to get scolded by that fact…
The elder looks at me with pride and says.
-But instead of scolding. What I got was, the excitement of a new member and praise from my brother when I explained her reason of being here. Then you surprised me by saying the capabilities of this newborn. And the most surprising fact is that she can eat magic.
-I see… But this not a reason to test her! She can barely stand and much less kill anything. If you throw her into the testing grounds, you are going to kill her!
He turns the pride in his expression into acknowledgement as he looks away at something.
-I know. But like I said, she needs to be strong since she is the last one. And she won't die, I am sure of it.
Confused I ask.
-How can you be sure?
The elder looks at me then he looks down while thinking about something.
-I heard that you never met a Moon's wolf pack member.
-Yes, that is a fact.
He looks at me with excitement.
-They are the most ferocious wolves around this forest. The humans only killed them because they were outnumbered and they used high level spells to paralyze and finish them off. Even though they got a surprise attack off, the Moon's wolves took at least thirteen of the forty-eight. We were at their mercy when we asked an alliance with them. Even if we noticed that they would attack us, they would still annihilate us.
Surprised at that fact, I envision the image of her in my mind in fear.
-There's no need to have fear Amataz.
I look back to the elder with a questioning expression as he says.
-Although they could have ruled the forest if they wanted, they are a race who value those who respect them and befriend them without any other reason than to not make enemies with them.
-I see… but are you sure that she will pass and not make us her enemy?
-I am sure of it.
I look down and imagine her at my feet, looking at me confused. Then the elder asks me.
-If you are so worried about her, then you can watch her in the test.
-Are you sure? Camio usually does it.
Camio would test if the newborns pass the test by staying far away with his perception increase skill. He would watch if they would just sleep the entire test, ran or fought the monsters that are made to be low level by the hunter's pack.
-You can do it, just accompany Camio and let him use his skills on you.
-Okay.
-Go my friend and watch the birth of a new member of our pack.
…
I and Camio make way through the cave and go through the previous place where the hunter's pack and Camio fought the monster, we come into a part of the cave that has magic stones discovered by Mari.
I picked up the newborn using telekinesis and put her down on the ground.
Camio backs off, and he turns partially invisible with the help of the skill, Stealth.
I walk towards the sleeping newborn and wake her up…
…
While me and Camio waited in his [Stealth] as he had [Stealth share], the Gravity gems runs out of mana.
She gets up and begins to walk deeper into the cave without thinking twice about escaping. This new born has a courage that even, I am jealous of.
After a while, she comes around a Fur ball that is habitant of this cave. They feed off magic and evolve into different monsters. I never saw the extent of their evolution because they can range to Spiked Newborn lizard to newborn goblins in this dungeon.
They aren't strong here, since we are deep inside the cave, the wind that they need to attack doesn't reach here.
It tackles the newborn, and it looked like it did nothing. After three attacks, she grabs the fur ball with her paw and the fur ball struggles a bit and escapes, then tackles her two times and the third time she grabs with it her mouth and bloods splashes out of her mouth and after a while she began to bite it repeatedly and continues to walk deeper into the cave.
…
Some time passed since she stomped on a Fur ball and left it at as it was, and soon enough she finds a Spiked Dragon lizard and after dodging a lot of his attacks, the Spiked Lizard gets angry and does a rolling attack and cuts the newborn's cheek. She almost couldn't dodge the lizard's attack completely, so I almost stepped in, but Camio stopped me before I could do anything.
She's smart by facing the Spiked Dragon with the wall behind her, she can hopefully make the lizard do a rolling attack and make it crash into the wall. But sadly The Spiked lizard already fell into that trick, but he survived it, as some of his spikes on his back are missing.
The dragon stops in front of her and she does what nobody tries to. Charge it.
She turns him upside down and uses his spike as a weapon and begins to stab it, the lizard dies on the third stab, but maybe to be sure because the lizard can still move his body even after death, she continues to stab the lizard.
She stops beating the dead lizard's corpse and begins to eat it through the wound she made. And after satisfying herself, she walks away from the rest of the lizard and goes to sleep.
Watching her sleep made my worries go away, and I use [Telepathy] on Camio since I don't want to wake her up.
(-I want to go back. I got what I wanted.)
(-Alright, but I will stay looking after her, so don't worry.)
We pass by the spiked lizard's corpse and I leave Camio behind and make my way out of the cave.
…
While training my [Telekinesis] while laying down next to the Great wolf cave entrance, the elder approaches me and begins to speak in a calm voice.
-Still worried?
-No. But since I lost the chance to join any pack to collect resources, I am training while waiting for them to come back.
-I understand… Well if you have any questions, you know where I am.
He turns around and begins to walk. But I stop him by getting in front of him.
-I do have a question.
-Do say it…
Surprised by my sudden move, the elder then sits down to calm himself and I begin to question him.
-What will you do about the part that she can't understand us?
He begins to think for an answer. It looks like he didn't think about it.
-Why don't you accompany her whenever you can? So you can answer any questions she has and use [Telepathy] so she can understand anybody who tries to talk with her. Then after she comes back, we do the usual thing and you will go with her on the hunter's pack.
-Are you sure? I don't have any combat prowess. All I have are heals that can't heal a big injury and since Tamiri specializes in it she's better than me.
-Yes I know. But I need you to use your [Telepathy] so Mari can pass any strategy to her.
-… I see...
-Any more questions?
-Yes…
-…?
I take a deep breath and say.
-What we do about her history? She doesn't seem to care about her pack since she never interacted with them. So what I want to say is, what if she questions that I can't answer for example... What happened to her mother? Or, how did she end up here?
Rapidly the elder answers while looking at me with expectation.
-You answer her of course.
-Are you sure? She may want to hear that from who was the one that brought her.
-Don't worry, on the sun she makes this question you will be her most trusted person in this pack.
-I see… at least I hope I am one.
I begin to walk back to where I was and continue to train my [Telekinesis] but without the same motivation as I was in deep thought.
…
As I am sleeping with the pack to warm myself a tremor hits us and almost everybody wakes up, some turn to face each other and the lookouts glance towards the cave entrance, waking up my worries.
Later into the sun, the tremor repeats but this time is much stronger than the last one and wakes the rest of the pack.
All the lookouts are looking at the cave and my worries begins to come back to me and I try to enter the cave, but the elder stops me. And he begins to warn me.
-Don't go in there. If you go, then her test is going to be immediately stopped, and she is going to be abandoned by the pack along with you.
-But…
-No more! I don't care if she fails or not the test anymore. You are the most important person on this tribe because of your class, you are a member of the pack already and a friend. So please, just lay back down and go back to sleep.
I back off and go back to the pack that is looking at my exchange with the elder. He begins to bark at the pack and everybody goes back to sleep, including me.
…
The sun is up and I am sleeping more than normal to quiet my worries. But I woke up to the howling of a lookout. But since I thought that it was the hunter's pack or the resources group coming back, I go back to sleep.
But I am met with a surprise. A wolf came to wake me up, a young wolf who I was filling my mind with worries.
She has a beautiful dark blue with white fur with crystal blue eyes.
And without thinking, I do the usual [Telepathy] method that I used on her when she was a newborn, and notice the surprised looks of my pack behind her.
…
