Ena swallowed down a mouthful of fish before she looked up.

Lurking within the shadows of a rather large bush was a hunched figure with triangular ears.

There was one… no, two… more than that… there were several individuals present.

The leaves rustled. Silence filled the air. For a moment, Ellis thought that they might just run off and leave, but he was quickly proven wrong.

A quadrupedal creature stepped out into the light. It had a thin frame and large tufts of fur covered its entire body. A black snout and sharp, pointed canines. Golden colored eyes and to top it all off, a set of triangular ears.

It was a wolf. After the first one came out, the others quickly followed. They were also wolves. From the looks of things, Ellis was dealing with a wolf pack.

“Oh, that’s new…” He slightly widened his eyes, while he thoughtlessly stuffed his face with a piece of fish.

What surprised him was their size. Ellis had grown used to seeing large animals. On average, most of the creatures that he had encountered in this forest were bigger than him. Some could even completely squash him underneath a single foot. In short, big monsters no longer surprised him.

The wolves before him, they were small, even smaller than the wolves from Earth. Round faces and limbs containing slight traces of baby fat. They gave off a feeling of recklessness and mischief, not at all like the ferocious and bloodthirsty impressions that the rest of the creatures within this forest gave off.

In all, they were probably just a little bit bigger than a certain nine-tailed fox.

Were they puppies?

It was indeed quite rare to find young animals within this forest. Up until now, the only one he had come across was Ena herself.

As if in response to Ellis’s probing gaze, the wolves bared their teeth and growled. Cute.

“Well, puppy or not, these things are giving me a seriously scary looking glare…” He mumbled to himself half-heartedly.

Just as he was about to get up and do something, Ena suddenly patted his shoulder.

“What is it?” He turned around and raised a brow in surprise.

The little fox hit her own chest. “Leave it to me!” was what her playful eyes seemed to say.

Ellis hesitated for a moment, but by then, it was too late. Ena sauntered forward. He might have been mistaken, but there was a seriously impudent expression on her face.

“Kyu!” Ena chirped out.

The lead wolf, a creature with dark black fur and a noticeable white discoloration on its left ear, stepped forward. It let out a bark of its own.

What followed next was an exchange of noises between a small wolf and an even smaller fox.

Barks, howls, growls, and cries. To most people, it would have sounded like utter nonsense, but Ellis felt like he could almost understand what they were saying. Well, almost.

At some point, communications seemed to have broken down because the wolves suddenly attacked.

Ena exaggeratedly shook her head. A sigh leaked out from her throat. This brat was putting on quite a pompous display, even her jaw seemingly twisted into a sneer. Her expression, her mannerisms, everything about her was saying something along the lines of “It can’t be helped. Don’t blame me for what happens next.”

She walked forward.

As expected, the resulting fight was purely one-sided. Ena quite literally toyed with the wolf pack.

Ellis watched this all with dim eyes. After a few minutes, all the wolves were splayed across the ground. Their faces screamed exhaustion. Ena sat proudly on top of the wolf leader’s head. An aggrieved look morphed its face, but it was too tired to do anything about it.

Seeing such a scene, Ellis could only shake his head. “Just eat your damn food already…” He muttered underneath his breath before he picked up another piece of fish and stuffed it into his waiting maw.

****

Later that day, Ellis found himself caught up in another peculiar situation.

A pack of seven preadolescent wolves were currently kneeling in front of a certain haughty little fox. Ena was normally quite the ruthless little thing, especially for someone her age. For some reason, unlike with the other creatures that they had previously encountered, she did not immediately kill the wolf pack.

Did she take pity on them because they’re around the same age? Ellis was slightly curious, but truthfully, he did not really care. In fact, if they had really died, he would have found it a pity. The wolves were quite cute. They reminded him of tiny huskies.

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Ena suddenly nudged the wolf leader’s head. A few seconds later, two creatures, one fox and one wolf, stared up at him. Ena had an expectant expression on, while the wolf leader looked slightly troubled.

“What is it?” He raised his brow in curiosity.

“Kyu!” Ena barked out. She patted the wolf leader’s head before she pointed towards him.

A moment of silence passed. The small wolf barked back.

To his surprise, it suddenly lowered its head.

Ellis’s lips slightly twitched. T-that… wasn’t this a kowtow? This thing is seriously kowtowing to me!

The wolf was indeed seriously kowtowing. It did not dare raise its head. In fact, even its tail drooped low to the ground.

“What exactly is going on?” His face unconsciously scrunched up. He was still somewhat confused, but a general idea of the situation slowly formed in his head. The wolf pack, for some reason, they were now Ena’s subordinates.

Was that the right word to use? Subordinates? They were acting more like servants… or maybe Eunuchs from ancient times.

As Ena’s master, that also meant that Ellis was now the grand-master of a bunch of baby wolves.

Wait. Am I really Ena’s master? He didn’t really remember establishing that sort of relationship with her. In the first place, he had been there for her birth, so didn’t that kind of make him her father? Then again, it was weird for someone his age to have a child. After all, despite how he looked, Ellis was still technically just over a year old.

Well, it doesn’t really matter. He shook his head. Since Ena was acting like this, then he probably was her master. If that’s how she considered him, then so be it.

He thought about it for a moment, before he nodded. “Alright, if this is how you want to do it, then I’ll play along,” so he said.

In response, Ena nodded her head while the wolf leader looked at the two with confusion.

“First of all, let’s name you guys.” He walked over to the rest of the wolf pack. Ena and the wolf leader quickly followed. “The first one will be… uh, One? That should be good. One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Seven. That’ll be your names.”

Ellis nodded in self-satisfaction.

“Kyu!” Ena hit him on the foot. Her expression showed her disapproval. It was as if she was saying, “Please be serious here.”

He awkwardly coughed. “Fine, fine, I’ll give it some more consideration.” With that, he properly thought up their names.

The group of wolves consisted of five males and two females. The leader of the wolf pack was a girl. She was the wolf with the black fur and the white discoloration on her left ear. He had decided to name her Wight.

The rest of the names were as followed: Umbra, Cinder, Cobalt, Plush, Tangerine, and Cocoa.

At first, he really did try to give them serious and cool sounding names. He even slightly based them off color. Wight was for white, Umbra was for black, Cinder was for red, and Cobalt was for blue. Unfortunately, his motivation kind of plummeted. Or rather, his mind got derailed.

Plush was supposed to be related to purple, but he got distracted by how chubby this particular wolf was. He looked exactly like a stuffed animal that a teenage girl would have in her bedroom. As for Tangerine and Cocoa… well, he got hungry.

By the way, Cocoa was the other female wolf. She was named Cocoa because she was the only wolf with brown fur.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Even if they are slightly weird, they’re still names regardless.” He convinced himself. Besides, it’s not like these guys know the real meaning behind the names, so I’m safe.

Luckily, Ena was satisfied with the names and the wolves did not seem to particularly care. With all the formalities out of the way, Ellis returned to the fire pit. He handed out food to the wolves. Even though the fish was so big and the wolves were still small, they still managed to eat everything clean.

After the meal, the group of one homunculus, one fox, and seven wolves continued their journey down the river.

****

Quite some time passed.

As expected, the group encountered quite a number of monsters. Ellis quickly learned that the wolf pack that he had picked up were actually quite weak. In fact, they were basically useless in combat.

To be honest, he half expected this outcome. Ena was an obvious outlier to this rule, but you really can’t pit children against actual adults. The wolves were no match for any of the stronger and much larger creatures.

In the end, Ena felt quite embarrassed. To her, having such weak subordinates was shameful. What’s more, their weakness was in full display to her master. She seriously wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

Stemming from that sort of complicated sentiment, a new pattern began to emerge. After every disappointing fight, Ena would bully the wolves in combat. Officially, it was post-battle training, but in truth, it was just Ena’s way of venting her anger.

This continued for a number of days. In the end, the wolves were in a very miserable state.

After every ‘training session’, they always appeared beat up and on the verge of death. In that sort of state, a single flick of the wrist was all it would take to send them to the underworld. Unfortunately, they weren’t allowed to die.

As it turns out, Ena also possessed the ability to heal. It was probably a skill derived from the ‘life’ element, but then again, ‘healing’ itself might be an element on its own. He did not really know how they classified things here on Lull.

In either case, when her tails glowed green, a healing light would emit from Ena’s body and heal her surroundings. Ellis also wanted to experience what it felt like to be ‘healed’, so he nicked himself in hopes of getting healed. Unfortunately, his injuries regenerated so quickly that it did not even give Ena a chance to use her ability.

Still though, even if it was useless to him, that wasn’t quite so for everyone else. For the wolves, this meant that Ena could beat them up as much as she wanted without having to worry about the possibility of death.

For the past few days, the wolves lived quite the pitiful lives. It wasn’t inaccurate to call their experience a living hell.

Seeing them in such a state, it was impossible for him not to feel sorry. Ellis would stroke their fur, give them extra food and generally just indulge them. The end result was that the wolves grew quite attached to him.

Well, Ellis did not really mind. Their affection was welcomed with open arms.

One time, he wanted to give them a treat. He thought about it for a while before he attempted to give them dragon scales. Since Ena loved it so much, they might like it too. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the wolves were unable to eat them. They simply could not bite through the scales.

As an alternative, Ellis gave them extra dragon spice flavored meat. Luckily, they liked it just as much as he did.

Also, even if they were incapable of eating the scale, there was still one other use for it.

What’s that use you might ask? Well, it’s simple: frisbee!

Ellis threw a yellow colored scale into the air. It rapidly flew through the sky. The wolves frantically chased after it. Eventually, one of them caught it in mid-air. It quickly returned to him, while the rest of the pack expressed their indignation.

The wolf with the frisbee was actually Wight, the female leader. She was a cute child who often liked to play around. Unfortunately, she was the one who got bullied the most by Ena.

He patted her head, retrieved the frisbee, then threw it again. The wolves quickly chased after it.

Watching such a scene, he couldn’t help but sigh.

A single thought popped into his head. Dragon Scales… they really are quite versatile.