“Urghph!” I grunted as a human-shaped projectile barreled into me and knocked me onto the floor. A moment later I felt a weight on my stomach as two hands reached down and grabbed me by the collar and began violently shaking me back and forth.

I normally would have been a lot more stressed out by the sudden assault but the visage of the red-haired girl that was currently shaking me senseless made it nearly impossible to retaliate. After all, she did look rather upset.

“A-Ascilla! Why- are- you- sha- king- me?!” I asked, she was rocking me back and forth so violently it was hard to speak. Her face twisted in anger and her eyes narrowed. To my horror she started shaking harder…

“Why shouldn’t I shake you up a bit! You deserve this!” She said. I very quickly ran through a laundry list of things that I could have possibly done to deserve this but honestly the only thing I could think of was getting us both stuck in this whole mess, but she already said that she didn’t hold a grudge because of that…

“N-no ser-seriously! Whad- what did I do?” It was surprisingly hard to get a word in, but eventually she stopped and let me fall onto my back.

“If you were okay this whole time then why the hell didn’t you respond to any of my messages! I thought those fuckin’ knights had caught you again or worse, and then out of nowhere you just walk through the front door like nothin’ even happened!” She said.

O… oh yeah… In the panic of running away I’d completely forgotten that the whole reason I’d even woken up in the first place was because Ascilla had been spamming me with messages…

“I uh… I saw them, but before I could read them my door got kicked in and then I got ran out of town… Sorry!” I said, in all honesty I was pretty grateful to her for that. If she hadn’t woken me up then there was a good chance I wouldn’t have made it…

It seemed like my answer was acceptable and Ascilla let out a deep sigh. “So they did wind up going for you too…”

Oh yeah… I guess the only way that Ascilla would have known that would have been if it had already happened to her as well… But unlike me, there was no way that someone would wake her up to warn her.

“How did you even know what was going on?” I asked. There was a chance that she just woke up and ran out without thinking but… I couldn’t even imagine pushing past those knights. Honestly if my room wasn’t as big as it was then I would have been in real trouble even if I had reacted quickly.

“To be honest it’s kind of embarrassing.” She said with a shrug. “I was up late talking to Nell about stuff and got hungry so I went out to the street to grab a bite to eat when I saw those knights march into town. As soon as they saw me they started yelling and chasing me around. I thought I wasn’t gonna make it, but then that spirit showed up and, well…” She trailed off, I could guess what happened next.

“Let me guess, it led you to a dead end and then made you jump off a cliff?” I asked. Ascilla gave me a wane smile.

“I take it you were the same, then?” She asked. I let out a dry laugh.

“I guess you could say that? Your messages woke me up about ten seconds before one of those knights kicked the door to my inn room clean off the hinges…” I said with a thin smile.

“Seriously?!” Ascilla said, her eyes went wide.

“Yup! He even declared me dead on the spot and lined up a sword skill! The exact same one that I used on you in our first duel, in fact.” I said. I was talking with an odd amount of bravado for someone who quite nearly wound up as some sort of kebab.

“How the hell did you get out of that?!” Ascilla asked, leaning in.

“Jumped out the window!” I said with more pride than I probably should have. “Right out the window then ran all over town with those green-cloaked bastards chasing me! They even shot at me too… though somehow I was able to get by…” I sighed. To be honest, even though it had only taken a couple of minutes to get away, that chase still gave me chills. The definition of too close for comfort.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Just when I thought there was no way to escape, that spirit popped up and I gambled on it being the right way to go…”

“Even when it led you off a cliff?” Ascilla said with a smirk.

“Especially when it led me of a cliff.” I said, that got a laugh out of her.

“When I’d landed down in the forest I was so focussed on what was going on around me that I totally forgot that you’d sent me all of those messages at the inn… sorry I never replied, and thank you. If you hadn’t there’s a good chance that right now I’d be…” dead…

“D-Don’t mention it.” She said, it was at this exact moment that I’d realized that for the last five minutes Ascilla had been using me as a chair. I guess the nerves were still getting to me. I could definitely still feel the adrenaline coursing throughout my body. I let out a deep breath.

“So uh, can I maybe stand up now?” I said, painfully aware that Ascilla was still sitting on my stomach. She sighed and shook her head.

“I was worried about you, dummy.” She said, punching my chest lightly before pulling herself to her feet and offering me a hand. I graciously accepted and let her pull me to my feet as well before looking around the well-lit room that we’d found ourselves in.

“So… what… where even is this?” I asked, finally taking the time to look around the perfectly square room. It was pretty big, probably the same size as the temple from yesterday but a little bit shorter and with less offshoots. From what I could see there were only three doors leading out of the main room. One to the north, east, and west. Of course, there were the massive double doors behind us leading back out to the surface as well.

The space was well lit by torches and a large chandelier hanging directly in the center of the square, and the floor was once again made of polished marble.

All of that was secondary though… there was one thing in the room that I was shocked I didn’t notice sooner, well, six things to be exact…

Sitting on pedestals in the four corners of the room were four pure-white wolves. But unlike the ones outside, these ones looked significantly bigger. They all sat in silence, tracking the two of us with four pairs of glowing yellow eyes.

If I was being honest, they were actually really cute. Oh! That one just yawned… ok, that wasn’t the important bit here, though…

“What are wolves doing in a place like this?” I asked. Ascilla shrugged and walked back into the center of the room.

“My best guess is that they’re guarding this place.” She said. “They were here when I arrived, and they’ve been staring me down like that the whole time… the bastards.” She clicked her tongue in irritation.

“… bastards?” I asked, looking back over to one of the wolves. It yawned and laid its head on top of its crossed paws.

“Yup. As soon as I got here and you weren’t responding I’d planned on going back out to look for you, but these dudes wouldn’t let me get near the door. If you try to leave they aggro on you and drag you away from the door before laying back down… I wouldn’t recommend it…” She said with a shiver..

“Great… so we’re trapped again… is this whole quest just a whole bunch of prison escape missions back to back?!” I said, exasperated. Ascilla hung her head.

“Somehow I doubt it.” Ascilla said. “The way I see it there are three real options. One: We’re supposed to kill those guys and get out of here ourselves. Fair warning, they didn’t have health bars even when they were dragging me back into the room kicking and screaming. Two: This is some sort of puzzle that we have to figure out in order to leave. Or Three:”

No sooner than she had started her sentence, the wolves that were sitting around the room all stood to their feet at once and gazed towards the door. They lowered themselves off of their platforms and slowly walked their way across the room. Watching them move made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end… was something… coming? I put my hand on the hilt of my sword, but Ascilla just started to laugh.

“Or three. We’re supposed to be waiting for something.” She said.

Almost as soon as she’d said it, the large doors slowly began to open. As they did, they revealed the largest wolf I had ever seen as it slowly descended the staircase and pushed into the room. It stood at least four meters tall and two meters wide. Its face was pure white with a jet black stripe going straight through its forehead and ending in a point on its nose.

It was flanked by no less than two dozen of the wolves that had been sitting inside of the room. The four that had been with us joined the pack and turned to face us. I instantly felt every cell in my body freeze as the gargantuan wolf stepped into the room. I could still see Ascilla smirking out of the corner of my eye.

The wolf opened its mouth but it did not speak. Instead, it felt like a voice was coming from inside my own head. Like I was having someone else’s thoughts placed into my mind.

“This one is Lapina. Goddess of the hunt, and defender of these woods. Human travelers. This one has need of you. Come forth, and accept your task.”