Nila remained seated on the ground, her legs numb after the swift confrontation that had ended in Arthur's favor not the red-necked bats'.
Ovend extended a hand and helped her up. She rose with effort as Ethan joined them, approaching slowly while scanning the giant bat corpses scattered around. He quickly noticed Ovend's stunned gaze, fixed on Arthur, who stood just a few feet away, already skinning his latest catch with methodical focus.
Using a small, finely crafted dagger, Arthur carefully slit the throats of the red bats, well aware that their wool fetched a high price in hunter markets.
Nila, impressed by his combat skills, couldn't help but admire his technique aloud. She praised him for a full two minutes, while Arthur listened quietly, offering only brief replies, never letting her words distract him from his work.
Feeling a pang of guilt, Ovend apologized for having doubted Arthur earlier, especially after learning he had no mana. Arthur looked up briefly, then shrugged.
"You're not the first to say that, and you won't be the last."
Back in his homeland, Sunset Valley, he had seen many wager on his failure the moment he left the stone crevice where he once lived with his only sister. When he walked away from the Sunset Lands—those cracked deserts of Western Arentia he was just a clever boy chasing big dreams. Now, he was still clever, but older, and with hard-earned experience to match.
Arthur welcomed Ethan's help in skinning the bats and cutting the meat, commenting that it tasted delicious. The others, however, were appalled. They called him disgusting, horrified by the idea of eating meat from a cannibalistic predator.
Their preparations complete, the group ventured deeper into the ancient cave. The vegetation grew thicker, moss spread across the walls, and glowing stones became more frequent. Bones littered the floor in increasing numbers.
After Ethan and Ovend made several wrong guesses, Arthur clarified that the bones belonged to a colony of red-necked bats.
"Did they die of disease?" one of them asked.
Arthur ruled out starvation these bats were highly resilient and disease seemed unlikely. He suspected another predator might have wiped them out.
There wasn't much time to dwell on the mystery. They soon entered a short stretch of grassy meadow, where the air felt crisp and clean, and clear water trickled nearby. Arthur pointed out a distant slope to Ethan, where clusters of red garnet flowers shimmered with an enchanting glow.
Ethan quickly called out to Nila. She looked at him in amazement, then dashed toward him with surprising speed, followed closely by Ethan, still startled by her pace.
Nila began picking a handful of the vibrant flowers, already imagining how she might grow and hybridize them to impress Mr. Camilla in the next class. Ethan tried to help her collect the rest, while Ovend stood nearby, ready to assist as well.
Arthur remained still in the wide open space, his thoughts still on the bones they had passed. He reasoned that creatures like those wouldn't have perished so easily unless something more fearsome had taken their place at the top of the food chain.
When he caught movement in the shadows, he let out a low growl, fully alert. The sound of cracking bones beneath his feet snapped the others to attention. Without needing a word, they all rushed to prepare, drawing their blades. This time, even Nila stood ready without hesitation.
At first, the creature refused to show itself, as if it sensed an intruder trespassing on its domain. But eventually, it answered the unspoken challenge, emerging from the shadows and baring its massive, sharpened fangs.
In a flash, it lunged toward Ethan, who was walking ahead of Nila. He didn't have time to react his reflexes sluggish in the moment. But Arthur was already there, intercepting the attack with his high-grade blue dagger, stopping the silver wolf's jagged, horned jaws just in time.
As its name suggested, the Silver Horned Wolf was no ordinary beast. It was a creature listed in hunter and adventurer encyclopedias, ranked among the most dangerous, its level marked by the number of red stars. And this one was worse still an adult.
Arthur had no idea how such a formidable predator ended up in this cave, especially since wolves of this kind typically roamed mountaintops in small packs. But the mystery of the scattered bones was solved. Even if the wolf hadn't done it alone, it was clearly responsible.
With no time to hesitate, Arthur drew his pistol, keeping the dagger steady in his other hand. Vapor pressure hissed from the weapon, thickening the air around it, primed to fire.
The demonic wolf's fangs crashed down against the dagger just as Arthur aimed, but he had to leap back suddenly as huge fireballs erupted behind him. The flames didn't touch the majestic beast but they came dangerously close to Arthur.
It was Nila's desperate attempt to help. She stood protectively beside Ethan until Arthur unleashed a volley of shots that forced the wolf to retreat, snarling and bristling, its silver fur flowing like a silken river under the cave's dim glow.
With a roar, the wolf charged again, and this time the fight closed in. Arthur met the beast head-on, calm but relentless, holding his ground as he blocked and countered. Two more shots rang out one hitting the creature, the other ineffective. Realizing his bullets weren't enough, Arthur knew the dagger would have to finish the job.
Unexpectedly, Ethan stepped in to help despite not reinforcing himself with mana. He stabbed at the wolf with all the strength he had. The wolf recoiled, then pounced again, swiping with its massive claws. Ethan barely escaped the strike, saved by a sudden gust of wind Ovend's spell, weak but timely.
Arthur noticed something odd. The wolf wasn't moving like the ones he'd fought in the past. It was slower. Less aggressive. Wounded.
That explained everything. The creature was clearly struggling, barely able to keep up with them despite being in a completely different league. Nila stepped forward to protect Ethan and Ovend, summoning a seemingly delicate bubble that shimmered, yet held firm against any strikes.
Arthur raised his gun and fired two precise, heavy shots. The wolf stumbled back, its hearing likely lost in one ear. Ethan had been injured, but Arthur wouldn't allow another student to die on his watch.
He closed in, his dagger flashing once—striking true. Straight through the chest.
It was over.
The wolf collapsed with a heavy sigh, her body battered and broken from the earlier battle against the red-necked bats. Now, as Arthur looked closer, he saw clearly those wounds hadn't come from him.
Ethan stared in silence at the fallen creature. Her dimming eyes stared upward toward the glowing stones on the ceiling, a faint, weary gasp escaping her lips before she went still.
Arthur knelt beside her and quietly explained, "She was dying either way. She fought to the end against the bats, and maybe for something she believed in. I didn't see it until now."
Ethan didn't understand why he felt such a deep sadness. Was she just a predator defending her home? That thought alone was enough to shake him.
Nila wasn't as overwhelmed, but even she couldn't ignore the quiet sorrow that crept in. This creature, after all, had attacked them but maybe not out of malice.
Once Ethan and Ovend were patched up and Arthur had finished his cigarette, it was time to leave. Their mission the red garnet flowers was complete.
As they made their way out, the group heard soft, muffled whimpering behind them. A sound like tiny cries. Arthur turned swiftly and saw a handful of pups near their mother's body, playing innocently, unaware of what had happened.
He stepped closer and reached for one its fur as black as midnight but the little one flinched and backed away. A second pup, silver-furred and more familiar-looking, approached instead, eyes wide with curiosity.
Arthur sighed. "It's always like this… Every cave hides lives that didn't ask for the pain they're given."
Nila murmured, "Like these poor pups… They just lost their mother."
Arthur considered ending their suffering quickly so they wouldn't grow up in fear or hunger but Ethan intervened.
"They're innocent," he insisted. "Let me take care of one just for a day. Let's see if it survives."
He knelt and picked up the black pup, the weaker of the two. The silence that followed was heavy. Arthur's eyes narrowed, unreadable, then he turned away and exhaled.
And so they left the cave not just with their prize, but with the tiny survivors in tow. They didn't bring death to the innocent. And after hours of walking beneath a darkening sky, they returned to the academy.