‘Damn … how I wish I could enjoy my childhood like this!’ Alex thought to himself.

Even though technically this was his fourth childhood, he didn’t feel good about the ‘dog’s’ identity at all. Still, the surroundings, the view and the simple life he currently had somehow brought a piece to his mind.

Currently he and Reino sat on a cliff deep in the academy woods and enjoyed the sunrise. The two discovered this spot few days ago and since then for some reason ran here every morning.

To Alex especially refreshing was the lack of feeling of someone watching him. Since his owner joined the academy, an elder or their pet were following him at all times, but lately they either became more skillful in hiding or decided to finally leave him alone.

The latter part could also be true since Alex decided to give up on the idea of escaping. In fact, it was a fools dream to escape when every elder here had several spiritbeasts at their disposal and few of them were experts in tracking. He wouldn’t be surprised he would be found if they began the search a week after he left, since even he, almost a regular dog, had the ability to find old tracks.

‘I wonder what is the average lifespan of a wolf in this world?’ Alex thought and looked at his owner, ‘And I wonder what heights will you achieve, kid.’

Lately he began to appreciate the talent Reino had and especially the amount of work he put in self improvement. And he was only ten years old!

Suddenly Alex felt every single hair on his body stand on end. A horrible premonition washed over for a split second paralyzing him and because of that he was a tooth’s length short of catching Reino by his leather jacket as the boy stumbled down the cliff.

‘F*ck!’ Alex cursed to himself, but then immediately darted towards the academy.

There was no way for him to go down to check on Reino’s condition and even if he could – how in the world he would provide the first aid while being in a wolf’s body? The only option was to call for help and hope the attacker would not get down to finish the boy off.

Alex recognized the ridiculing laughter as well the silvery flash that came in a speed of lighting and pushed his owner over the cliff’s edge. Unfortunately he was not confident in his strength and didn’t want to take on a human who most definitely made the necessary precautions. Thus he could only run.

He ran and continued to curse himself for being too complacent and careless in the wild world he was currently in. Even the ten year old kid knew he had to become stronger as soon as possible, but he, a grown man, intended to rely on that child’s protection for the rest of his life.

Indeed, that was the real reason Alex could not forgive himself. Even though he was born a pathetic dog, it was his own fault and he had to overcome it like the grown man he was! But under his nose that, in fact, had to be extremely sensitive, a small child was, possibly, killed.

‘Damn you, kiddo! Don’t you dare to die there!’

Alex had never ran so fast in all his lives. In fact, he ran so fast he only saw a blur and could barely maintain the general direction only based on instincts. He didn’t feel the tingling and afterwards the burning sensation that overtook his body – he only ran.

The moment he reached the academy grounds he understood why the attacker chose this time and day – there were no people around, none at all. Alex realized Reino didn’t have any lessons today either and that could only mean the elders were busy with something else.

Alex suddenly got an idea and after gathering all the force of nature in his body he howled as loud as he could. Indeed, a split second later he heard some dissatisfied chirps, barks and growls.

‘Alright! There they are!’ He immediately dashed in the direction the sounds came from. He guessed the obvious – the favorite spiritbeasts would always be somewhere in their master’s vicinity.

Already during the first days in the academy he noticed that despite everyone around here having at least one and sometimes even a dozen spiritbeasts, animals mostly restrained themselves from making unnecessary noises and even ‘did their business’ in specially designated spots. The order was impeccable, but the beasts were still beasts in their nature even if they were high ranked and instinctively reacted to someone’s aggressive behavior.

A minute later he charged in through an open window in a large hall where, probably, all the elders of the academy were present in addition to some scarilyy strong people. But Alex chose to ignore the chilly killing intent he felt and directly dashed over to elder Fata.

Even though she was a moody lady, she was not stupid at all. The moment Fata saw Alex jumping through the window, she understood something was wrong. After he only barked once, what sounded very much like cursing, and left the same way he entered, she immediately dashed after him. Similar to the headmaster who followed her, she knew the pup wolf, who for some reason was suddenly rank four, was as smart as a human and never played any games or fooled around. Thus – this was definitely an emergency!

Headmaster had a similar train of thought and after seeing the direction the wolf ran to, he called his favorite spiritbeast, Neo.

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A split second later, while running at full speed, Alex saw the draco flying over his head and only when it was already in the distance, he noticed the stature of the headmaster sitting on it.

‘You showoff! You better find him before I get there!’ Alex thought and increased his speed even more.

Another minute later he already saw the draco flying back as fast as a lighting bolt. Luckily the headmaster was holding Alex’s little owner in his hands and the wolf could heave a sigh of relief.

“Why are you stopping? Show me the exact spot! We need to investigate!” Suddenly an angry shout startled him.

‘Right! With the monsters that academy elders are, they’ll find that motherf*cker for sure!’ Alex inwardly grinned and began to run again at full speed.

Unfortunately things didn’t go as smoothly as he expected.

After arriving at the cliffside he could not find anything that would point out the direction the attacker fled to. Confused he paced around the place and somewhere around the spot where he heard the annoying laughter coming from earlier, he found a few footprints, but without any scent at all!

From one of the books Reino read him, Alex learned that in this world beastmasters had their special ways to conceal their presence and their scent during hunting, but not leaving any scent at all seemed to be impossible.

“Did they attack from here?” Elder Fata asked and came over while carefully observing the surroundings.

Alex glanced back at her in confusion. Was she really expecting a real answer from a wolf?

Seeing the wolf’s look she said, “This is a serious situation – someone attacked my student under my nose! We have played around long enough and I know you can understand me. Don’t you think the time has come for you to help out? So I’ll ask you again, did they attack from here?”

‘I don’t really want to reveal myself … but I guess it was a fool’s dream to hope they would be stupid enough to not figure out themselves. In addition, maybe she has the ability to catch that bastard.’ Alex thought.

Even though he was concerned about Reino, he was even more concerned about him being born as a human in the next life. While he had many ideas how to achieve it, one was to start to act more like a human.

Elder Fata saw the wolf sighing and nodding. Normally she would’ve been overjoyed, but for now she had to deal with the situation here.

“Alright. How many attackers were there? One? Two?” She asked again, but then realized who was she talking to and said, “Let’s go step by step. Was there one attacker?”

Seeing the wolf shake his head she continued, “Two?”

When Alex nodded, elder Fata said, “Good. Two people, then male or …”

She didn’t finish the question when saw the wolf shaking his head again.

“No? So one attacker?” She became increasingly irritable when she saw wolf shake its head again.

“Then two?” She asked and Alex nodded.

“Ok. So two attackers. Where those two males or …” Elder continued, but Alex immediately shook his head.

‘For god’s sake! Everyone in this world has their spiritbeasts! How can you not understand that? Should I write it down for you?’ He cursed, but then got an idea.

With few strikes of his paw, he drew a primitive silhouette of a person and, before elder could say anything anything, he added another waved line at the side.

“Oh, right!” Elder’s eyes lit up. While holding back her excitement about the wolf’s intelligence and the future prospects of her research, she continued, “So a person and a spiritbeast! A snake or a serpent?”

When wolf shook its head, she thought for a bit and asked, “Maybe a flying spiritbeast?”

‘Finally!’ Alex thought and nodded.

“It doesn’t look like a bird at all! It looks more like a snake.” Elder pointed at the waved line and said in self defense.

‘What the hell is wrong with you? All breasts and no brains? Try to draw with a paw yourself!’ Alex inwardly cursed. He did consider writing a couple of words, but for now he wanted to keep at least part of his abilities for himself.

“Ok, ok!” Seeing that wolf intended to go away she quickly said, “A person and a flying spiritbeast. Did you recognize them?”

Alex nodded in confirmation and she continued, “Oh? Do I know them as well?”

When Alex nodded again, she thought for a minute and asked, “A student?”

After seeing another nod, she hissed, “Bullco Deriva?!”

‘Didn’t take that long after all.’ Alex thought and nodded again.

Elder Fata suddenly made a few strange gestures with her palms and then softly shouted towards the direction academy was at and a couple minutes later one after another spiritbeasts three arrived. One was a large bird Alex didn’t recognize, another was a fox four times his size and the last – a giant snake, who knows how long, but as thick as a tree. The most distinguishable thing was that all three spiritbeasts were pitch black. That and the fact that Alex instinctively felt incredible dread when they looked at him.

As soon as the beasts arrived, elder put her palm on their heads one after another as if communicating and the beasts soon disappeared without a trace.

“See?” Elder Fata said, “It would be so much easier to communicate if you allowed to …”

But seeing Alex snort, she sighed and said, “Alright, let’s leave it for another day. As you probably know, there are multiple ways for a beastmaster to hide their tracks, in fact, some are so advanced no beast could find them.”

‘No wonder I can’t sense anything. Let’s hope the higher ranked spiritbeasts will be able to.’ Alex thought.

Unfortunately after a short period of time all three beasts returned and from the grim look on the elder’s face she had after communicating with them Alex could tell they didn’t have any luck either.

“Let’s go back and see how Reino is doing.” Elder Fata said, “You don’t have to worry, if he was still breathing when the headmaster found him, he’ll be alright.”

Even though it sounded more like she was saying it to herself, Alex nodded in understanding. In this regard she was probably similar to him – while she took Reino as a student only because of a chance, during the past weeks she began to like the talented boy.