Unfortunately, Darien was unable to visibly witness the fight between the merchants and his rescuer, for he was still trapped in a dark box within the carriage. All he could hear were groans from the merchants and the grunts of the mage as he dealt pain in the unforgiving nature of fire.
Darien saw this as his only chance to escape, if, by ill fortune, the merchants somehow emerged victorious. The box was his quagmire, but Darien realized the ropes binding his limbs proved to be an even greater adversary.
'If they could manage to hit the carriage, all the boxes including me will topple over!'
But Darien knew he couldn't wait around, so he decided to begin rousing restlessly as much as he could. Perhaps this could unsettle the arrangement of the box, ultimately causing the fruits to spill and everything to crash onto the loamy forest soil.
The moment Darien started to see progress in what he once thought were futile actions, a long, harrowing sound tore through the trees and shook every single branch surrounding them.
Awoooouuuuuuhhhhh!
It sounded like a wolf, a tormenting night-cry that made the air even chillier and stale.
Bennin and the merchants recognized that kind of primal howl, especially how it echoed off every thick tree trunk. They knew a monster was coming for them, drawn by the scent of blood. But being unprepared, they had no defense when the wolf's enormous vestige tore through the throng of forest leaves and hurled itself at the larger merchant.
BWHAM!
Darien was still perturbed by that bitter howl. What he never expected was to be hit in the face by a 300-pound man!
The force of the wolf's attack sent the merchant flying, and crashing into the carriage in a spinal-shattering travail. The horses neighed in fright and bolted away, while the entire cart tumbled. All the wooden boxes split into planks, and a colony of fruits scattered, carpeting the forest ground.
Darien was safe and finally freed from the box's bondage, but at the cost of a blow to the head.
He lay on the cold, silty earth, groaning silently in pain as he tried to recover his weak body. However, Darien realized the merchant was still sprawled on top of him.
'Get off, you whale!'
"Arghhh.."
Both of them grunted at once.
"If you hadn't come nosing around, we'd be out of this godsdamned place by now. That thing smelled the mess you brought!"
The merchant, who was just rising from Darien, heard what his colleague cursed out to Bennin. He joined in after wiping the blood from his mouth.
"We don't tussle with beasts like you do, ser. We deal in coin and cargo. You slowed us down—now look!"
Bennin, who was caught in an action pose that squared him directly against the beast, paid no attention to the men. He had already seen the little boy who exploded out of the cart, so he held no guilt.
"This beast might not be much of a threat. I could strike it down before it draws again."
Bennin's expression was serious as he spoke. He and the first merchant had subconsciously teamed up and were now circling the monstrous wolf from opposite ends.
"But if I fail, it'll tear through you before your legs remember how to run. And should I succeed… then you two would do well to fear me more than the creature ever deserved."
While the second merchant rose from atop him, Darien noticed the sharpened glint of a blade at the man's waist. The steel caught the glow of the perfectly halved moon, and Darien's magnificent ocean eyes flowered with awe and interest.
'A knife! I can use it to cut myself free from these tight, dense ropes!'
Like a thief, he stealthily slipped the compact weapon from the man's waistband as the man went to join the others. His theft was messy and the blade pratfalled onto his torso. For a moment, he thought the man noticed, but adrenaline was running so high now it was hard to notice anything that wasn't trying to kill you.
Quickly, Darien began to chisel himself to freedom while the humans fought the beast. Fortunately, when the merchant had crashed into him, the rope gagging his mouth had miraculously loosened. Now, all he had to focus on was freeing his wrists and ankles.
Taking his first glance at the monster, Darien was flashed with the interface of the system.
(Monster Wolf)
(Rank 2 Stray!)
[Monsters from Rank 0 to Rank 2 are Strays. From Rank 3 to 5 are Plagues. Ranks 6 and 7 are Calamities. Finally, beings in Rank 8 and 9 are World-Enders.]
Seeing this, Darien knew he had to cut faster and flee from here. There was no way he was going to encounter a Stray monster, likely at its Intermediate level, while he was still at Rank 0, with no skills, no strength, and barely any stamina!
By the time Darien was at the last thread of the rope binding his wrists, that part of the forest had already been partially caught on fire due to Bennin's efforts. Bennin noticed this and, instead of continuing to cast, decided to draw his sheathed sword. He coated the entire shaft with fire, a flame that burned endlessly, and wielded it with lethal intent to deal more decisive blows.
But the wolf remained unfazed with a halo of bloodlust steaming off its bulky frame, even though it was already marked with numerous injuries of scorched flesh and deep cuts from both Bennin and the merchants.
The merchants themselves now lay defeated, bruised and half-dead, marked by crimson claw streaks that bled freely and burnt sizzling skin from their earlier clash with Bennin.
'This wolf must be defeated! This guy smeared some of his blood on my arm. If i run while it lives, it'll hunt me down!'
Darien placed all his hope in the lone samaritan mage who was now fighting with sheer resolve. The wolf was faster, stronger, and more feral, imposing more barbaric moves, but Bennin was measured and calculative with his body movement to counter and attack where needed. The forest echoed with their battle cries, both man and beast, and Darien couldn't help but fear the arrival of another Stray.
Unfortunately for Bennin, his gracious fighting had arrived at its limit.
In a blur of motion too vile to trace, the beast shattered his balance with a swipe of its clawed paw across his ribs. The relentless mage finally crashed to the ground, the wind driven out of his lungs, brought low by the tenacity of the monster.
Darien, who was now free from his fabric chains and fully prepared to flee for his life, stood frozen as the wolf loomed over its triumph. Then, without a pause, it raised its bloodied claw and tore it down across Bennin's shoulder.
"Arghhh!!"
Flesh split at the wolf's command, and the mage cried out in raw agony. Darien, on the other hand, stood trembling at the sight, frozen with dread as he speculated on what to do because he was undoubtedly the next victim.
'This mage is going to die? If I leave him and run, this thing will chase me and I can't outrun a Rank 2 beast with this body.'
Darien clenched his teeth as a wild thought seeped into his mind. He glanced down at his hands; one was conscientiously gripping the small blade he'd stolen, the other was greedily clutching an apple and an orange from the hundreds that had spilled all across the ground.
'If I sneak behind it… stab it in the neck…'
'Hey, don't blame me because if I run, I die. If I try, I might die. But if I kill it…
I'll be rewarded with 200 Skill Points alongside other possible rewards. And I'll survive another day!'
Darien cursed his own reckless mind, inhaled and lowered his frame into a hunter's crouch pose. The fruits slipped from his fingers, rolling away as silence gripped his focus.
The monster hadn't noticed him, so he crept forward as voiceless and also as fast as possible. Until it was too late, the wolf's cyclopean frame remained risen above Bennin.
Aoooou!
It cried like a pathetic dog as Darien leapt onto its back with all the strength he could muster and plunged what was actually a dagger not a knife, into the side of its thick, furry neck.
Aoooou!
The beast howled in pain, the loudest yowl so far, one that seemed to awaken the forest entirely.
'Stay put!'
Darien held onto the dagger with one hand, driving it deeper, while the other hand gripped the beast's wild mane as it thrashed violently to throw him off. Darien's body almost succumbed like handkerchief.
Bennin, who wasn't dead yet, opened his eyes and saw the opportunity now laid before him. With blood running down his temple and pain stretching across his battered face, the mage clenched his trembling hand around his fallen sword.
His teeth gritted as he forced his body to roll upright. And with every last drop of strength he still possessed, he drove the blade upward and straight through the monster's underside.
The bloody tip of the sword missed Darien's knee by inches!
whine! whine! whine!
Darien made sure Bennin didn't steal his kill. He kept driving the dagger deeper into the beast's neck while it released its final wails. The furry body convulsed in a violent tremor and then collapsed to the earth. Bennin collapsed, too. And so did the sword, while Darien landed hard on his buttocks.
'Urgh… the beast is dead?'
A heavy heap of corpse before him answered his question, in the silence of death and destruction that surrounded him.
This portion of the forest was now completely demolished, trees smouldering or broken, and the only seeming living thing was a white-haired boy sitting alone in the center of the moonlight.
[Ding!]
[Congratulations! You slayed a Rank 2 Beast]
[You get 200 Skill Points and 10 Attribute Points!]