As it turns out, a tersnik is not something that I had back on earth, or anything close. As best I can describe it, a tersnik is a roughly 3 foot tall kangaroo looking creature with thick white and brown fur that blends in incredibly well with its natural surroundings. Its tail is incredibly thick, and even longer than its body, with a large bony end perfect for clubbing a city rat like myself to death with a single swing. It has nasty, yellow teeth that drip with saliva, and a hungry, mean look to its face.

It had taken us a long time to track the thing through the forest. Every time we would get close, it would spot us and dive deeper in, using its natural camouflage to blend into the trees and slip away. I could track it with kinetic vision to an extent, but the ability didn’t help me to see through its nearly perfect coloring, and once I couldn’t identify it myself, the ability to track motion stopped giving me information. It was a useful ability certainly, but I kept finding more and more ways it could be countered. Well, at least I knew about the weakness this time, before it bit me in the ass down the road.

“So you're telling me the villagers keep these things as livestock?” I asked, panting as we chased it through the woods once more. It was moving faster now, running instead of hiding as it had done before. Ophelia and I had both come to the conclusion that if it got too far, we would never find it again, so we just booked it.

“Yes! The fur is very nice for winter clothes!” Her words were broken up with the sound of her breathing as we both tired out just a bit from trying to quickly move through untamed woodlands.

Frankly, I was just glad that we were close enough to the plains that the terrain was mostly flat. And while this forest had underbrush, it had little in the way of vines or uncovered roots. Rather, the ground was mostly dirt and old pine needles littered about. “You are kidding! How do the farmers not get killed every time they tend to the animals?”

“They cut off the tails when the creatures are young, and they are mostly domesticated. Can we talk about this later?” She asked, growing a bit annoyed as we were both starting to pant, and talking was getting more difficult.

“But it’s insane! They needed to hire outsiders just to hunt one, how do they manage a field of them?”

She gave me a sharp look, and looked like she was about to tell me off just a bit. Normally, Ophelia didn’t mind my incessant questions about this new world, but I was finding out that even her patience had limits. And those limits were much lower when she was trying to focus on something.

But before she could tell me off, our quarry stopped making sound. We both stopped in our tracks, listening and watching to see where it had gone. The woods had grown thicker while we had been running, and it was hard to see far in any direction. Movement was getting more difficult as well, and there wasn’t a place you could stand where you couldn’t touch two different trees by stretching out your arms.

“Its den?” I asked, all business now. We both watched where we had heard the sound of it from last, eyes peeled and alert.

She shrugged, a common gesture for her I was finding, and pulled out her sword. I didn’t bother with my spear this time, as it wouldn’t be much use in these tighter confines. Instead, I readied myself to use my barrier spell, and pulled out my tome so I could channel mana through it if needed.

“How do these things nest?” I asked, wondering if we should be looking up instead of down.

“They like to find burrows, dig out holes under old tree roots, or even take small caves, that sort of thing.”

We advanced slowly, her in front, me a few feet behind her. After the goblin attack, we had discussed tactics a little more and came up with a general battle plan. Ophelia was more mobile, and had a lot more power to put on display offensively, while I could make her nearly invincible against any opponent of the same strength, provided I didn’t get attacked. So we wanted to take advantage of that, and have Ophelia draw attention by being as aggressive as possible, and force enemies to respond to her instead of trying to pick me off.

That said, group tactics were a whole ‘nother deal compared to basic training, and while she was quite good with weapons, neither of us had ever fought as part of a group except for in the castle, and that hadn’t gone great.

“Look, there, past the bush…” She pointed with her sword, and I squinted my eyes, trying to see what she was directing me too.

The entrance was almost completely concealed by a thick, thorny bush, but there was an opening beneath the roots of one of the thickest trees, where a creature had obviously dug out the dirt and turned it into a burrow of sorts.

“I’ll toss a force bolt in, on your mark, yeah?”

She nodded and inched closer, until she was just a few steps away, sword ready to catch the creature as it jumped out. I channeled mana through the tome, glad for the gift for the dungeon. It was a savior in a way, giving me a weak but effective tool to fight from a distance. Against anything tougher than a goblin, it wasn’t much more force than a shove or a good kick, but I could see all kinds of uses for it, like collapsing a small burrow.

I fired out the bolt of force, channeling the mana down my arm and into the tome. The magic rose from the pages, taking a bare second to congeal, then flew forward, crashing through the entrance of the burrow and exploding inside. The force of it collapsed the dirt that had formed the roof, and the tersnik came barreling out like a cannonball, right at Ophelia who caught it through the chest on the point of her rapier.

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“And that's it for the tersnik. The listing only mentioned the one, right?” I came up beside her, getting a close look at the thing. In death, it didn’t seem nearly as frightening. Rather, it almost looked cute. Almost. Perhaps if its fur wasn’t matted and its mouth wasn’t covered in blood from a recent meal.

“Just the one.” She answered, her sword disappearing as she pulled out a knife and carved off the tip of its tail. Proof of the kill. We left it like the goblins, as food for the scavengers, and took a few minutes to catch our breath after leaving the vicinity.

“So, people really do farm those?” I asked again after a few moments of silence.

“Yes, they are a pretty popular animal for this climate. They can handle the winter fairly well, and eat just about anything, meat or plant. The fur is warm, and they can be butchered for food too, though the meat is tough and tends to taste a bit gamey.” She glanced west as she talked, and I could tell her mind was already on the following steps, planning out what we should do next.

I wanted to call it crazy, but thinking about it logically, it made sense. There wasn’t the same technology here to keep buildings warm, so any creatures raised would need to be able to handle the cold. And it wasn’t like farmers on earth didn’t keep dangerous creatures. Hell, a bull could kill a man without a second thought. We just didn’t really raise carnivores for food much, though perhaps that had more to do with the taste of the meat than the danger? I wasn’t sure, I hadn’t been much of a farmer after all.

“Well, if it works…” I said finally, following her gaze west. We were currently south east of the village, relatively deep into the forest where the villagers hadn’t gotten to clearing yet. It was untamed land. The last hunt we might do, the dire wolf, was almost directly due west. We’d travel past the trail and continue on west until we entered its territory, then begin our search from there.

“Do you think we can handle the wolf?” I asked, feeling more than a little nervous.

“If we can pick where we fight, I think so. I don’t like that this one is so far south. They normally make their homes to the north, in the mountains. It's likely this one is a reject for one reason or another.” She seemed hesitant to go still, and I was planning to trust her judgement either way. I didn’t particularly want to get myself killed fighting a beast we weren’t ready for. On the other hand, with that much gold we would be able to hire a carriage to take us north, and have money to spare, instead of needing to just get supplies to camp out.

“A reject? Are they smart enough for that?” I asked as we started walking west. Apparently, she had decided that we could take it on.

Ophelia’s head bobbed. “Yup. Dire wolves aren’t quite sentient, but they have a level of animal cunning. They will kick out members of the pack that are either too weak to survive, or have some odd quality to them that the pack leader doesn’t like.”

“This is just getting better and better…” I said, the sarcasm obvious in my voice.

She gave me a look, like she just smelled something bad. “Don’t do that in front of my family. It's… unbecoming. If you have something to say, just say it.”

I blinked in mild shock. That was the first time Ophelia had commented on my mannerisms in any way. I suppose she was getting a little more comfortable around me perhaps. “Yeah, sure. I can manage that.”

The rest of the journey was made in relative silence. The sun was beginning to fall, giving us perhaps two hours until dusk when we made it to the dire wolf’s territory. It was fairly obvious when we made it, as the trees were scarred from thick claws. Furrows dug through nearly every trunk in one way or another, and thick gray fur had been caught in various plants. Sometimes, it was even high above my head.

“Hey, Ophelia? How big are dire wolves?” I asked, feeling a tad of apprehension behind to tingle down my spine.

“They can get up to 8 feet at the shoulder.” She answered simply, her eyes following mine, to where a tuft of fur was caught on some pine needles overhead.

“How does this thing even move in this forest? It should be far too larg-” I let out a strangled scream as something heavy smashed into my back, bowling me forward and onto my stomach. I could feel something attempt to bite down on my head, but my large hat got in the way, and the teeth simply shredded through the fabric instead.

My back was not so lucky. I could feel the my bones bending as pain ripped through my body. A paw the size of a tv dinner tray was next to my face, and another was on my back, pushing me into the hard packed dirt.

Perhaps the strangest thing was that the wolf didn’t make a single sound. Not a growl, howl, or snarl. It was eerie how quiet the attack had been, and not at all how we had wanted to start the fight.

Thankfully, Ophelia was aware of the attack, and she darted forward, rapier in hand. It plunged forwards towards the wolf, who jumped off my back and to the side. I screamed as its weight nearly snapped my rips, and its claws dug into my back through the jump. I could feel hot blood running down my skin, and the little outline of a person in my vision immediately changed, the torso shifting from green to a dark reddish orange.

Active effect: Bleeding - Healing abilities will be less effective until the bleeding is stopped.

Unlike with the encounter with the bandit lord, the wolf didn’t do me the favor of burning the wounds shut, so we had to finish this fast. I fought through the pain and stood up, moving to hug a thick tree. Ophelia was dancing with the wolf, darting in to try and attack, but being forced back by its teeth and claws. In spite of its enormous size, the creature moved through the woods nearly bonelessly, weaving between trees like a snake and making less sound than I would have thought possible. On occasion, it even seemed to disappear, showing up a distance away and forcing Ophelia to dash to catch up.

I tried to scan it, wanting to see if the PSD could provide any useful information.

[Dire Wolf] - Magical Beast - Level 1 - A direwolf that somehow gained magical power. Normally a pack creature, this individual has been shunned for its ability.

* Ability: Shadowstep - Disappear into shadows for a brief moment, becoming intangible and invisible. Can only be used in shadows.

Well fuck. This was going to be a lot more difficult than we originally thought.