As Rudolph burst through the window, three werewolves followed suit, leaping effortlessly over him and cutting off his escape. The werewolves stared at him, noticing his hand pressing against the shattered glass on the ground. Rudolph wasn’t afraid of the glass shards; rather, he had sensed something off when he landed—the sound wasn’t right. The ground beneath him was hollow.
A cellar!
Before the werewolves could pounce, Rudolph finally found the cellar's handle. He yanked it open and swiftly dived inside. Outside or in an open fight, he knew he had no chance against the werewolves’ superior agility and strength. His only advantage was in tight quarters, where he could fully utilize his revolver.
The cellar door was instantly shattered into pieces by a swipe from one of the werewolves. Their claws were even stronger than Rudolph had imagined. At the last second, he successfully dropped into the cellar. Tonight had been nothing but a series of falls—first from the second floor, and now from the ground into the cellar.
In the darkness, Rudolph ejected the spent cartridges from his revolver and reloaded it by feel, using his speed loader. The crisp sound of empty shells hitting the ground echoed in the confined space. The cellar wasn’t large—only five steps brought him to the far end. Leaning against the cold, damp wall, he panted heavily.
The werewolves hadn’t come in yet. Rudolph guessed they were hesitating. He had alchemical bullets, and even werewolves feared death.
Moonlight streamed through the cellar entrance, and as time passed, his eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness.
Suddenly, something cold pressed against his throat!
In the dim light, a dagger rested against his neck. He had been so focused on the entrance that he hadn’t even noticed someone was beside him!
“Wait, wait! Cold! The blade’s too cold!” Rudolph could feel the blade shifting against his throat as he spoke. “There are werewolves outside! You know what a werewolf is? Big, terrifying, and very capable of biting people’s heads off!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the one holding the dagger was a girl with long, disheveled hair. The moment she heard the word “werewolf,” the blade moved at least three millimeters away from his throat.
Rudolph knew he had struck the right chord—only a shared danger could defuse this bizarre and sudden conflict.
“Werewolves are terrifying beasts. One bite, and they can crush a person’s skull. One swipe of their claws, and they can shatter bones. Werewolves are all—”
Rudolph froze mid-sentence. He wanted to take back his words.
The girl beside him was changing.
Her hair turned into a mane of white fur. Her facial features elongated into a wolf’s snout. Her once-slender limbs thickened into powerful appendages, razor-sharp and deadly.
Unlike the werewolves Rudolph had encountered before, her fur was white.
A white wolf?
The dagger clattered to the ground, but the cellar was so narrow that Rudolph could feel the heat of her breath on his face.
“I might’ve been too hasty with my words. I apologize. Not all werewolves are bad. Look at you—you’re different. Your fur is—”
The more he tried to explain, the more awkward it became. There was a werewolf hiding in the cellar with him? Just his luck.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
At that moment, another werewolf leaped into the cellar.
The white wolf turned away from Rudolph, completely ignoring him.
Then came a bloodcurdling howl—sharp, ear-splitting.
In an instant, the two werewolves lunged at each other.
The white werewolf was still small, about the size of an ordinary wolf. She was merely a wolf thrall, not yet a full-fledged first-tier werewolf. Just as Rudolph was merely a sorcerer’s apprentice, not a first-tier sorcerer. Her strength was weak in comparison.
Her opponent was a true first-tier werewolf, clearly larger in stature. A battle between a wolf thrall and a first-tier werewolf had an obvious outcome.
Rudolph could judge the situation with ease: The enemy of his enemy was his friend. If the white wolf was fighting the werewolf, then helping her meant helping himself.
But the battle was fierce, and the cellar was too cramped. He couldn’t find an opportunity to intervene.
The difference in strength was too great.
The first-tier werewolf slammed the white wolf against the wall with a powerful swipe and sank its fangs into her throat. Blood spurted out, making an eerie gurgling sound.
Yet, even as she bled, the white wolf clawed at her foe, refusing to let go.
That was when Rudolph fired.
A single alchemical bullet pierced the first-tier werewolf’s skull.
The wound sizzled, glowing red-hot as the bullet’s magic burned through flesh and bone.
The werewolf howled in agony, finally releasing its grip on the white wolf’s throat.
But instead of retreating, the white wolf snapped forward like a rabid beast, sinking her fangs into the first-tier werewolf’s neck.
And then, something strange happened.
She was drinking his blood.
As the fresh blood flowed down her throat, her body began to change.
Her frame expanded, her bones grew, her muscles swelled—she was transforming.
The white wolf was evolving into a first-tier werewolf.
That was how werewolves ascended—brutal and straightforward.
Kill a stronger werewolf, drink its blood, and rise in rank.
The first-tier werewolf gurgled weakly before finally falling silent.
By then, the white wolf had already grown to a towering size.
Rudolph watched as the wound on her throat healed at an unnatural speed—one of the werewolves’ signature abilities.
Her body trembled, either from exhaustion or from the transformation.
She staggered to the back of the cellar, as if the wall gave her a sense of security, then slowly collapsed at Rudolph’s feet.
And right before his eyes, her body shrank, her fur receding as she shifted back into human form.
She was a young girl, likely sixteen or seventeen—just a year or two younger than Rudolph.
Movies had lied to him.
When monsters transformed back into humans, they didn’t magically regain their clothes.
Great. What kind of test was this supposed to be for him?
But before he could dwell on that any longer, another werewolf leaped into the cellar.
That snapped him out of his daze.
Rudolph realized he needed to deal with this threat quickly—otherwise, what if the girl caught a cold lying there like that?
He raised his gun—then another werewolf jumped in.
Damn it. They were really bad at timing.
Rudolph took just one glance at the werewolf and immediately knew that it was the offering Claude had prepared—this werewolf would be enough to satisfy the town’s Red Priest. The sheriff was truly formidable, still having the foresight to secure a sacrifice even in such dire circumstances.
Seeing Rudolph, Sheriff Claude let out a sigh of relief. "Rudolph, I didn’t expect you to survive again. Listen to me, you still have a lot to do." He pressed a hand against his shoulder, which was soaked in blood. "I was bitten by a werewolf... I’m infected with lycanthropic poison."
Rudolph froze for a moment, then his face twisted with grief as he drew his gun. He hadn’t expected that his last bullet would have to be used in such a situation. "Sheriff! I understand! To prevent you from turning into a werewolf and wreaking havoc, for the sake of Lyman Town, I’ll put a bullet in your head! This way, your honorable name won’t be tainted by becoming a monster!"
"You little bastard!" Sheriff Claude cursed before snapping, "Apostles don’t turn into werewolves from a werewolf bite! Only regular people do! You really need to fill that empty head of yours with some proper knowledge. Now put the damn gun down!"
Rudolph was startled—he had genuinely been about to put a purification bullet in the sheriff’s skull. His understanding of the world was still too shallow; he had nearly made a grave mistake.
"I’m really sorry, Sheriff! I swear, I’ll go back and study the knowledge of Apostles properly."
"You’d better! I’m begging you—just go learn something!" Sheriff Claude was still shaken. He had fought his way through a horde of werewolves, only to nearly die at the hands of this idiot who had actually convinced himself with his own noble, righteous reasoning.
"Rudolph, I won’t be able to hold on much longer. The wolf poison will put me into a coma for a while. From here on out, you need to follow my instructions exactly!"