Chapter 10: Gray Wolf Defeated!
Max wiped the floor with Axel for another 3 hours until dusk fell upon them. By the end of a few bouts, Axel seemed to absorb the blow of 'Counterattack' much more efficiently. He was no longer getting knocked out with his butt on the floor. However, in terms of having learned the skill, he was about 50% complete in the training process.
"Let's call it a day for today. You're a fast learner kid, you might catch up to me one day!" said Max. In his days at knight school, Max remembered that learning a skill could take an exorbitant amount of time, and even a simple one like 'Counterattack' took him and his knight classmates about a period of 1 month to learn it completely. Axel's progress seemed out of the world for Max, who was a 10-Star Mythril ranked adventurer. He had sensed the hidden potential in the young teen in front of him, and he would be an important asset in adventure jobs in the future. This had been a wise investment indeed.
"Got it Master! I'll be on my way then! See you tomorrow around the same time!" said Axel cheerfully as he headed towards the pasture near the Tir Chonaill Moongate.
As he transversed south of the Tir Chonaill school, and passing a bridge to reach the pasture before him, he saw many wolves in the distance. There were several gray wolves roaming freely about 1000 meters away from him. White Wolves also lingered around, a stronger breed of wolves than the black wolves Axel escaped from also resided in the area, but Axel was not impudent to the point to challenge these monsters yet.
As he eyed a gray wolf to his right., he slowly picked up a rock and threw it at the wolf to lure it over to him. Since there were no boulders this time to hide for cover, he just put up a defensive stance as he did when he battled with the black wolves, and waited for the wolf to initiate the attack. It seemed that in this world, one could use the skill to a certain extent even if they had not learned it completely like having to rank up the skill in the original game of Mabinogi.
After circling around Axel for a while, the wolf decided to use 'Smash', and this could be easily detected as his hind legs seemed to bundle up like a coil ready to release forward. Naturally Axel focused deeply and used the same stance as his Master Max, right foot forward and his crude dagger in front as well. After a few long breaths, he managed to get into a state of overdrive, and activated the 'Counterattack'.
Activating a skill in this world was completely different from using a skill in the original game of Mabinogi. If one just pressed keyboard hotkeys to activate skills in the game, Axel would have to perspire and clench his muscles in a certain form and adjust his breathing so he would be able to hold the stance that was required to maintain the duration of the skill.
Axel's arms and calves felt like they were burning. Since he had not fully learned the 'Counterattack' skill yet, the toil on his stamina was immense, and he could not hold this position for a long time, as it was a skill that required one to reflect an enemies' attack as if they made their own body into a flexible rubber band.
Luckily, the gray wolf took no pauses and attacked Axel immediately with 'Smash'. Right as the wolf was about to deliver a strong headbutt at Axel's chest, Axel's dagger fired off in a beautiful crescent motion and flicked the wolf's body back as if it was like a small pea. The wolf whimpered and was laying down on its side, with almost no energy left to spare.
At this moment, Axel rushed forward as he wouldn't take any chances of it getting back up, as it was disadvantageous for Axel if it had come to a drawn out battle. In a single motion, Axel sliced the wolf's neck, and warm floods of blood gushed out like fruit juice. The wolf gave out one last cry and its life ceased to exist.
"Hmm, having a skill really makes a big difference in battle." Axel whispered to himself as he put his hand on his chin. This battle almost seemed too good to be true, and then he looked around in a hurry. The stench of a new corpse had attracted all of the gray and white wolves nearby and they were on the move. Axel's heart was flustered and his heart seemed to pump like a machine gun on the inside. He quickly picked up the dead wolf and threw it over his shoulder. Then as fast as he could, he jogged towards the river near the bridge connecting to the Tir Chonaill School.
The crowd of wolves were following him closely, but they were not madly chasing him yet. It was as if they were observing an intruder that had killed one of their own kind. Wolves, obviously played by the rules of survival of the fittest, and did not care if another fellow wolf had died. It just meant that they were too weak to survive until the next battle.
Seeing that the river was close, he threw the wolf corpse into the river, and also jumped in himself right after that. If his bet was on the money, he would be able to escape from the encirclement of the numerous wolves from the pasture.
To his delight, all the wolves retreated back to the pasture as if nothing had happened.
"Yes!!!" Axel exclaimed as he hugged the wolf corpse. In the game of Mabinogi, players could not usually walk inside the river, much less swim in it. However he utilized the rules of monsters having to stay in their own spawn field and went to what would be called a "glitched" area in the game that normally could not be entered. However, this was a real world unlike the game, and Axel could feel everything with his five senses. Entering the river was a piece of cake, and the pack of wolves did not dare go inside the river.
After staying there for a few minutes he swum ashore to the other side of the banks towards the direction of where the Tir Chonaill School was located. He carefully peeled off the pelt with his new dagger, and found that it was a much cleaner job than when he had to use his bare hands to rip off the pelts by using pointy rocks to cut them apart slowly.
After storing the pelt in his inventory box, he took the wolf meat and headed towards the grocery store. Unlike the foxes he had hunted in the past, a wolf meat could be traded for a decent amount of gold as normal non-combatant humans in this world often did not have the combat ability to fight gray wolves.
After trudging north to just a bit south of where the healer's house was, he saw a bunch of stores around the Tir Chonaill Square, most of them resembling cottages in rural villages back in his life on Earth.
To his left, was a store that labeled, "Caitlin's Grocery Store". Aside from the staple meals eaten in his time at the healer's house, he had not eaten anything supple since he had left Dunbarton. Even a loaf of bread filled him up more than the rice porridge Dilys served during his recovery period.
As he opened the winding door to enter, he heard a sweet mumbling voice say,
"Umm, welcome..."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone