It was not great.
Claude was sprinting through a frozen tundra with an unwanted voice in his head, dead father, forced racial trauma, loss of friends and a growing urge to commit violence. And cannibalism.
The good thing was he had Frosty.
And they suddenly had a scent. A new scent. One stronger than months old tracks belonging to an abducted girl.
They veered off their path of vengeance for a family they didn't know.
Frosty abandoned his humanoid form with a powerful leap off the snowy hilltop they ascended. In a flash, he tore through his clothes and unbuckled his armor to morph back into his quadrupedal god-eater lupine form.
Claude jumped along with him, maintaining his form and fitting of stolen canine-designed armor.
They hit the base of the snow bank in a burst of flakes and ice that got the herd of snow-bison stampeding through the steppe.
First step of hunting stampede style prey was to disorient.
Don't let them get the confidence or edge to attack. Catch them on the backfoot. Force them to flee and then find the feeble.
Frosty cut left and ran alongside the bunch of sixty strong. They were massive white furred beasts with white horns and black hooves. Frosty barked and snarled, keeping them tight in their flight.
When the few broke off and tried to trample him, he grew to their size and shoulder checked them back into the mass.
Claude unsheathed his spear and held up the distant rear with his eyes peeled. His canine mask stopped snow blindness with its slimmed visors. Not that he needed it as his senses magnified and zeroed in on an old male with bad joints at the back right corner.
It was massive and scarred all over with bald spots and cracked horns that spoke of a life spent in battle.
A life waiting to end.
Claude felt the world humming beneath his feet. He felt it rise and break up the snow as small flowers and bush beginnings grew from the frost in his wake.
Mana flows cloaked his freehand. He swung it up towards the sky and nature followed.
On the left side of the old snow-bison, thick snow-crusted wooden spikes and arctic evergreen plants exploded out from under the snow and sent it sprinting away from the rest of the herd.
Now singled out completely, Frosty abandoned the remaining herd.
All of Claude's senses suddenly hyperfixated on the old bison. He couldn't look anywhere else. He dropped his spear from hands stuck in a tearing motion. His nails darkened and sharpened into claws tipping thicker leathery skinned fingers.
His speed increased. His mind went blank as he closed in, transfixed by the sound and smell of its hot breath.
Closer.
Closer.
He could taste its musky fur.
He j—
A massive weight smashed into his side, he saw pure white as his ribs cracked and ungodly pain wiped his predatory mind clean.
As soon as the hit connected, suddenly he could hear again.
As he flipped through the air, he could see the younger aggresive stray snow-bison running back to its herd that now faded in a gust of risen snow.
Claude hit the ground hard and sank beneath feet of light snow. The cold on his newly exposed skin snapped him back to reality and allowed him to think outside the pain.
[67% HP Remaining…]
"[Mate, you with us?]"
Frosty's face pushed through the snow, loudly sniffling and blowing waves of snow all around with his heavy exhales.
"I'm good. Im…."
Frosty lunged beneath the snow and bit down on his pauldron before yanking him to the surface.
"ACK!….. my ribs…. Please, Frosty." Claude groaned.
Frosty huffed and licked his face.
"What the hell was that?" Claude asked.
"[Instincts.]"
Claude shook his head, "I know instincts. I'm a Beast-Tamer."
"[You fractions of instincts made by mana. What you just felt was entirely you. And by the design of many.]"
"By the design of many?"
"[You're not there yet. Sorry.]"
"I probably wouldn't get it even if you did explain it. So this is why I can't fight smart creatures. If they learn to expose my overwhelming instincts, I'm good as dead."
"[Exactly.]"
"Then let's fix that on the way to this mission." Claude stood up. He held his hand to the floor. His mana ignited like verdant fire.
"[What? You can't just overpower your instincts as a side hustle, mate. There were High-Alphas who still couldn't stop themselves from chasing a squirrel on a good day!]"
"You said I'm different, right?" Claude guided the wooden roots and vines out of the frozen soil and wrapped them around his midsection, making a caste for his broken rib. Or three.
"[I did—]"
"Then let's hold me to a different standard. Makes this all easier." Claude bounced on the balls of his feet. Testing his manueverability before groaning with a hand on his side.
Frosty barked, standing beside him at horse size. He shook his backside, motioning for Claude to climb on.
"….fuck."
Claude hopped on Frosty's back. "Follow their scent. We're trying this again."
***
They rode for miles. Arne could've protested but he knew in having a mission one could lose themselves.
And he was sure that's what Claude was doing. Losing himself in the work. Getting away from the horrors of reality by placing his efforts elsewhere. Less on what was behind and more on what ran ahead.
After two hours, he taken down one bison and gotten no better at handling his instincts.
In his wake, a wooden spike with forced branches held up the beasts quartered remains so they wouldn't go to waste.
Claude and Frosty rested up in a cave with a fire burning and a snow-bison pelt drying over the fire.
"[How are you feeling?]" Arne asked.
"Tired."
Frosty sat across the fire from him gnawing on a snow-bison femur bone. He stopped to look up at Claude.
"How are you feeling?"
Frosty huffed and nodded slowly.
"[Do you know anything about Kobolds in glacial regions? I don't know if you're old enough for the biome variants yet.]"
"I know about them.—"
"[Then we can skip that altogether. How do you feel your instincts training went? Or should I say, anti-instincts?]"
Claude bit a chunk of cooked bison leg off the bone and cleared his throat, "It's…. hard. It's like I get kicked out of the drivers seat everytime something runs. Or smells afraid. I was only able to dodge the aggresive one the second time because I had my eyes closed."
"[So, you planning to fight the kobolds blind?]"
"Yea."
"[HAHA…..]"
"….."
"[Youre being serious—]"
"Man, no."
"[You scare me.]"
"I'm a kid."
"[You're an endangered species with murder fresh on your mind and all the potential to unleash it. I've been there. I was a scary bastard.]"
"Why was murder on your mind?" Claude asked.
"[My sister. She was stolen from me. I tried to get her back. I needed power. Power came to me in the form of a well dressed man with the teeth of a wolf.]"
Claude eyed the fire. "Did you get her back?"
"[No, Claude. I did not.]"
Claude and Frosty suddenly shot up to their feet at the same time and looked deeper into the cave.
From the shadows, a massive shape loomed. It chuffed like a dog and groaned as it shook off dirt and water.
It neared.
Claude flexed his claws.
Frosty barked.
Into the light stepped a gigantic steppe-bear.
It sniffed at the fires and food with a head the size of a boulder. Unlike the bears Claude was used to seeing back in SkyHaven's wildlands, the Steppe-bear was much more canine in build with a longer snout— for better scenting ability, and sharper longer ears resembling a fox. Built to hear in the harsh winded tundra. It's eyes were pure white.
"[Well don't be a twat, it's his house, give him a bite!]"
Claude would've. But he hesitated a while longer as he scented the bear— realizing why he didn't smell it sooner.
"The girl."
"[What?]"
"The girl. She's been here….. I smell her on the bear."