On the second floor, Rudolph cleared out two rooms, placing Sheriff Claude and the wolf girl on separate beds. Then, he got to work as ordered by Sheriff Claude.
“Wolf saliva! You must collect every bit of it—it’s very valuable!” he recalled the sheriff’s instructions. Finding several jars, he began gathering the saliva the sheriff needed. Werewolf saliva is extremely viscous and laden with their lycanthropic poison. When a werewolf dies, it secretes a final dose of this poison—which, because the creature is dead, loses much of its toxicity. This was exactly the wolf saliva the sheriff required.
First, Rudolph dragged all the corpses from the second floor down to the first and then began collecting the saliva. He pried open one werewolf’s mouth and discovered inside a disgusting, slimy, blood-streaked, gray—almost like thick phlegm. Rudolph didn’t spit it out; he hadn’t eaten in so long that he had nothing to vomit. Just as he hesitated over how to extract the saliva, it suddenly vanished. He quickly closed his eyes—and to his surprise, in his mind the wolf saliva transformed into a shooting star that soared into the night sky.
“Scorpio: 2/14.” Along the constellation line of Scorpio, the penultimate star at the tail—Scorpio K—lit up. From Scorpio K, three floating stars descended, giving Rudolph a choice of reward: a Rank-1 lycanthropic poison potion formula, a method for crafting a Rank-1 night-vision orb, or a set of Rank-1 wolfskin armor.
Wolfskin armor didn’t seem very useful—after all, Rudolph’s shotgun could tear through a werewolf’s hide. Alchemist weapons were simply too powerful; he figured that for a long while he could manage with just his revolver. The night-vision orb, on the other hand, looked quite handy. As a patrolman at the station, he was nothing more than a workhorse and spent many nights on duty—so enhanced night vision would help him during nocturnal operations. The lycanthropic poison potion also sounded promising, considering his main foes were werewolves, but he wasn’t yet sure what exactly it did. Unable to decide, Rudolph opted to set it aside until he learned more. Since that batch of wolf saliva had disappeared—and the sheriff didn’t even know how many werewolves had come—it was simply counted as a loss.
Rudolph then came into contact with a second batch of wolf saliva. Unfortunately, it seemed that relics from the same apostle could only light up one star. He remembered the second-tier werewolf; surely it must have had a stronger relic. But after a moment’s thought, he quickly dismissed the idea—pilfering a Rank-1 batch wouldn’t raise any issues with the sheriff, but taking a Rank-2 one was unthinkable.
Shaking his head in disgust, Rudolph closed the mouth of the werewolf corpse and glared at his own hands before going to wash them off. After cleaning up, he returned to the corpses. Then he remembered his Tooth of the Undead. It activated again—a werewolf corpse, still in human form, staggered to its feet. Controlling it required very little star energy. This animated corpse then worked in place of Rudolph, gathering chunks of wolf saliva and storing them in jars.
The second-tier werewolf corpses were left for last, as the sheriff had insisted on handling those personally. The idea of collecting relics from that corpse was tempting to Rudolph, but after much hesitation he decided to follow the sheriff’s orders. He liked his current status as a rookie patrolman and didn’t want to jeopardize it through greed—at the very least, that position provided him with free alchemical bullets.
Following the sheriff’s instructions, Rudolph had the corpses of all the Rank-1 werewolves piled onto a stack of firewood. He doused them with kerosene and set them ablaze. Even the werewolf corpse that had just been animated by the Tooth of the Undead obediently walked into the flames. As for the two druid corpses, Rudolph left them in the yard, waiting until numerous birds descended upon them, pecking here and there, and then flying off. According to the sheriff, this was a special druid signal—soon, other druids from the Elk Tribe would arrive.
After finishing all his tasks, Rudolph returned to the second floor. The werewolf impaled by an alchemical dagger was barely clinging to life, but Rudolph paid it no mind. Sheriff Claude was still unconscious; Rudolph examined his wound—it was oozing pus and emitting a foul stench, the result of a werewolf nearly crushing his shoulder—and there was nothing he could do.
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Rudolph then went to the wolf girl’s room to check her injuries. He unzipped the sack that had been used to cover her—there was no time to find a clean blanket, so earlier she had been covered with the sack. When he removed it, he saw that her wounds had already healed. Werewolves aside, their bodies regenerated remarkably fast. Just then, the wolf girl woke up. With the faint light of dawn already on the horizon, Rudolph’s hand holding the sack froze mid-air.
“Listen, let me explain—I just wanted to check your wounds, not ogle your body…” she said, snatching the sack and trying to dash toward the window. But her condition was poor; she only managed a feeble struggle on the bed before half of her collapsed onto the floor.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry—I mean you no harm.” Seeing her state, Rudolph moved to the window and, in a gentlemanly manner, opened it for her.
“Farewell, beautiful Miss Wolf Girl,” he said.
The wolf girl looked at him with terrified eyes, her voice trembling. “Aren’t you a patrolman? Don’t you want to kill me?”
“Not at all…” Rudolph shook his head. “I know you’re pitiable too. I’m sorry—but your home is gone.”
He then went over to her, helped her sit up, and laid her back on the bed. Next to her he placed a family portrait—a happy picture from when she wasn’t yet a wolf girl, when the farmer’s family had all been smiling. “If you ever want to leave, you’re free to go—I won’t stop you. Good luck, Miss Wolf Girl.” Rudolph had carefully prepared an explanation to show he wasn’t a pervert, but now his words meant nothing; she was too distraught to care.
Rudolph left the room and closed the door frame—though the door now had a large hole in it, likely made by one of the werewolves. The wolf girl burst into tears, and her sobs echoed through the gap. Helpless, Rudolph scratched his head; he had no idea how to comfort her. Every now and then, as she cried, she would glance at his back—he was the only source of safety she had at that moment.
Rudolph stood outside for a long while until her crying finally subsided, then he left through the doorway and returned to the sheriff’s room to wait for dawn.
It wasn’t until noon that Rudolph saw through the window that five druids had arrived at the farm on horseback. He hurried downstairs to find the druids gathered around the corpse of one of their companions, examining the wounds. Noticing his patrolman uniform, the lead druid stepped forward.
“Sheriff Claude is injured and unconscious; he asked you to help tend to the wounds left by the werewolves,” the druid said.
The elder nodded and followed Rudolph upstairs while the other druids went to inspect the charred werewolf corpses. The druid elder briefly examined the sheriff’s wound before producing a small bottle. He administered the potion to Claude, and to Rudolph’s amazement, the wound began healing at a visibly rapid pace—the last time he had seen such recovery was on a werewolf. As the elder drew closer with curious eyes, he explained, “Young man, this is a lycanthropic poison antidote. It can rapidly heal wounds and neutralize the poison.”
Rudolph couldn’t help but nod. “Good stuff.” Without hesitation, he decided to choose the antidote—it was nothing short of a miracle cure for external injuries. Among the three floating stars, Rudolph touched the one representing the method for crafting the lycanthropic poison antidote.
Soon Sheriff Claude awoke. After drinking some water and regaining his senses, he said, “Elder Tag, forgive my bluntness—even though several druids from your tribe have perished, this was your mistake. Had I known there’d be over a dozen werewolves, I would never have come so hastily. I only brought Rudolph with me—this is far too dangerous.”
Elder Tag, whose tribe never exceeded twenty druids, looked sorrowfully on his recent losses—three druids in a row, all because he had failed to control his territory and was unaware of such a massive werewolf pack.
“Sheriff Claude, I’ll investigate this matter as soon as possible and send you a report,” Rudolph offered.
Claude nodded. “If necessary, I’ll request reinforcements.”
“Rudolph, bring over those jars with the wolf saliva,” the sheriff ordered. Rudolph gathered all the jars he had filled. After some friendly bartering—money discussed without hard feelings—the sheriff and the elder agreed: twelve portions of Rank-1 wolf saliva went for 48 silver shields, and the second-tier werewolf corpse sold for 5 gold shields. The druids would take the wolf saliva to brew the lycanthropic poison antidote, which, because it rapidly healed wounds, could fetch a good price. As for the second-tier werewolf corpse, it was a rare prize for a druid tribe; how they would process it, no one knew.
After some further negotiation with the sheriff, Rudolph ended up with 30 silver shields—and he secretly tucked away three extra portions of wolf saliva for himself.