Jennifer picked up her mop and pointed downstream toward the town. The stealth user of the group appeared next to the hunter gathering. With a brief exchange both Sarah and Soup Bowl nodded.

The group moved along the stream, making as little noise as possible. They kept their guard up as they moved. Jennifer repeatedly cast the force field bubble on each of the members of the group. The protective barrier would blink out after around a minute. This time needed to be different, it would go better and she wanted the group to be prepared.

Soup bowl vanished in neon smoke as Jennifer saw a green-gray wolf just as large as before. The group was ready for this beast. Jennifer could feel herself smiling. It was not a smile of joy or happiness, it was from her nerves. She did not want to be smiling, she was scared and a pang of guilt at the thought of taking the animal’s life. Even with this creature attacking them, she reminded herself that she needed to defend herself. She wished there was another way.

The animal with the gray-green fur circled the group. Jennifer knew from the markings this was the same beast. The wolf seemed to eye each member of the group. It occurred to her that this one was being more cautious, possibly choosing its targets before jumping into action.

Jennifer watched as the aggressor stalked around them. The last attack was a surprise. Now they were prepared, and she had a couple of fresh surprises in store for this lupin.

Jennifer counted aloud, down from three, to indicate when they should attack. Sarah nodded in her peripheral vision. While at the same time the beast’s right ear twitched at two. When she got to one, she cast her dark pulse. Jennifer’s chances of that attack hitting was low, so she used it as a distraction. The wolf jumped out of the way only to be hit by shots from Sarah’s gun. But it moved in time for the laser to barely singe its fur. Large Soup Bowl yelled out his sneak attack and reappeared. The wolf’s teeth found the ninja’s arm while his blade met only air.

The force field protected Soup Bowl at first, but the field went down as the beast shook its head, trying to tear the ninja’s arm. When the field blinked out, the wolf’s eyes brightened as he bit down hard.

Keeping her breathing steady, Jennifer knew her only option was to protect or to strike. “Summon Undead.” As much as she wanted to protect, taking down the beast and passing out a healing potion after would be more effective. The words spoken battled against what she wanted. a wolf skeleton appeared, its head raised to the sky, with the jaw making small movements. With no flesh, no blood, only bones. the world went cold at the soundless howl. The clean-boned skeleton charged its own origin. The wolf’s eyes went wide, at the animated undead thing that came at him.

The skeleton took large bites out of the living wolf, but it took damage from the wolf as well. Sarah and Large Soup Bowl both attacked as quickly as possible, and Woozle jetted in to take a bite before jetting out again.

Jennifer cast Dark Pulse but focused her attention on the health of her teammates and the integrity of the skeleton. The skeleton lost integrity fast. When the skeleton dropped below a quarter of its hit points in the health bar, Jennifer dismissed the summoned skeleton back into her inventory and cast Repair. With every point of repair, she used a point of stamina.

The wolf pounced at Jennifer. In that moment, where action should be, she froze. She was the deer in the eyes of a hungry predator. Before she could brace for the pain to come, a ninja stealth attack threw the wolf off course. She immediately handed the ninja a healing potion and cast a force field on him. She had used far more mana than last time and was under the bottom third of her mana bar now.

The gunshots and laser beams weren’t enough, The wolf shook its head and body, letting out a soul chilling growl. The beast charged, catching its target.

Large Soup Bowl, to his credit, did not let out a sound of pain. The force field vanished with the wolf’s bite, and Soup lost a third of his health. But he was not the intended target. The creature had the potion’s container in its teeth. Letting the vile drop to the ground, the wolf broke the vile underfoot.

A second black section now hung on Jennifer’s stamina bar along with a new weeklong timer counting down. She was now limited to two healing potions at a time. Jennifer was more prepared for this attack. She had a plan going in, but it was the beast who was winning.

Her health bar was full, Sarah’s health bar was full, and the ninja still had more than half of his health bar. But the hunter gatherers stamina was almost entirely grayed or blacked out, and her mana was less than one third of Soup Bowl’s. The neon teammate had a bleed effect. She had to finish this fight now. The wolf charged at Jennifer, and she cast Summon Undead, costing Jennifer the last of her mana.

Their movements were oddly mirrored, as they both jumped at one another. The undead wolf met a living wolf in the air,

The skirmish did not end, and it wasn’t like she could take a break. Jennifer held her mop defensively in front of her, hoping her mana would regenerate fast enough for her to cast a bubble around the skeleton.

The skeleton was back under one third before her mana regenerated enough for a force field. The team was not being idle, using their attacks. If they were to defeat the animal, it was death by a thousand cuts, each cut causing only slight amounts of damage, but the beast was going down. Each hit cost a tick of health while the wolf’s bite took larger chunks out of whoever found their way between its jaws.

This time, it was the ninja who scored the last hit.

Jennifer fell to her knees, let out a long breath, and looked over at her team. Sarah was on her back, breathing heavily while the Soup Bowl was posing with a large V over his head. He was the victor, but his health was still going down, with less than a tenth of health left. Jennifer tossed him a healing position. “I am going to need the vile back.” She was too tired to be polite.

This time, the wolf left five steaks, one pelt, one heart, and one skeleton.

“Sarah, can you cook some of that meat? My stamina is way, way down after that fight.” In spite of not taking a single hit, Jennifer was exhausted. The beating of her heart seemed too fast, and her hands shook uncontrollably. She didn’t dare attempt to stand.

Jennifer let her zoned out sitting on the ground, letting the world pass around her. She had no way of telling how much time had passed. What felt like a blink had been enough time for the wolf meat to be prepared. It was now hanging from a stick in front of her. She ate the meat as fast as she could, bringing her stamina up to around twenty percent. “I’m sorry, my stamina is at like one fifth. I’m going to need to eat more to be ready if we’re attacked again.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Sarah and Soup Bowl appeared at one another wordlessly. The ninja moved toward Jennifer and passed all of his food to her. Jennifer pressed her lips together, feeling wetness build around her eyes. “Thank you.” After finishing the meal, she was able to have full stamina after refilling her health potions and casting Mend on the skeleton in her inventory. Her stamina was green and black. Leaving no gray, this was as much stamina as she could have.

After giving his part of the meal to Jennider, the ninja was back to moving under stealth around the group. Sarah sat still eating a salad. Jennifer did not know where the salad had come from and thought it would be too impolite to ask. Instead, she moved to where the wolf had fallen and laid down a few flowers, mimicking the words Large Soup Bowl had said over the body of the first wolf. “We thank you for the offerings of your body, and we apologize for the way your body was taken.”

She took the skeleton into her inventory for the purpose of summoning undead but felt an odd resistance this time, as if she was opening a heavy door. The same amount of mana was used, and she could not explain the difference between the last time and this time until the notification appeared.

You have summoned the skeleton of a defeated foe against his wishes, but an offering was made to summon this undead. These two actions balance each other out. Your alignment has remained unchanged. The best effect is sometimes no effect at all.

Understanding dawned on her about why it was harder to summon the second skeleton. The wolf was still out there. She cast force field on the group including her familiar, and a pet. Her mana had bottomed out with the multiple casting but recovered quickly. “The wolf’s still out there.”

Stirred to action, the group continued to gather healing moss and other useful items while hurrying their way up stream back to the village. Thanks to the group, Jennifer was well over halfway done with her gathering quest, this was with adding in what her spider was able to gather before.

When another howl split the air, the group froze. The ninja vanished. Both skeletons stood on guard as Woozle bolted up a tree to wait and ambush the twice defeated wolf while Jennifer and Sarah waited, scanning the landscape for any sign of the beast.

On a positive note, only one wolf to fight. On the downside, the wolf was strong. He was not getting stronger, but the group was running out of tricks to defeat it. If this fight was the same as last time, Jennifer would only be able to repair one of the skeletons during the fight, so she needed to be very careful. The last attack lowered the number of healing potions she could use at any one time and stretched her stamina nearly to the end.

The group waited a long tense time. Sarah spotted the animal first and simply pointed at the wolf. How could this creature continue to return after each encounter? Why was it not leaving them alone? The thought filled Jennifer’s mind.

This wolf eyed Sarah, Jennifer, and the two skeletons. Its right ear twitched as it approached the group.

An idea popped into Jennifer’s head, and she blurted, “I have a crazy idea, but if this goes wrong, everyone attack them.” The chance of the plan working was slim, but something inside her told her it was better than just fighting again.

The list of things a parallel could do far outweighed what Jennifer was capable of as a team leader. Yet if her insane plan worked, it would stop the fight before it started and keep everyone alive.

Jennifer sent a group invite to the wolf that was gearing up to attack them.

The wolf stopped and sat back on its haunches like it had just been told to sit.

“No one attack,” Jennifer hissed, the tension edging her voice.

The wolf’s head tilted as if in thought.

Kevin has joined your team.

“What the flying flocking flamingo?” The words came from the direction of the trees in monotone that the team recognised as Large Soup Bowl’s. The wolf turned his head to the noise and let out a bark. The wolf’s bark was not one of aggression but more a mark of recognition. The new party member turned his massive head back to Jennifer.

Not dwelling on why such a fearsome beast was called Kevin, Jennifer put down her mop. Not wanting to startle the beast, she slowly approached him.

“Kid . . .” Woozle cautioned her.

She did not know what to say or where this was going. “So far so good . . .” She let her words hang in the air.

When Jennifer got within arm’s reach of the wolf, it was sitting on its haunches, eyeing Jennifer. She held out a hand for the wolf to sniff as she took in a deep breath and kept it in, never taking her eyes away from the beast.

The wolf sniffed Jennifer’s hand with deliberate and slow movements. Kevin huffed, stood up on all fours slowly, and circled Jennifer, sniffing all around her.

Once satisfied, the wolf gradually moved towards Sarah. The wolf’s ears were pointed up, and the tail hung down as he sniffed her. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Sarah's voice cracked with nervousness as the beast circled her.

“I have no idea,” She was astonished that not only had Kevin accepted her invite but that this had not already broken down into a third skirmish.

Sarah glared at Jennifer for a moment before going back to watching the beast sniff and circle her.

The wolf barked again, this time in the direction of where the ninja was hiding. Large Soup Bowl 14 appeared next to the beast. Startled, the wolf yelped and jumped away before growling at the ninja with its ears flat against his head. Regardless, it was to the ninja’s credit that he reached out his hand for the wolf to sniff. At this action, the wolf’s ears went back up, this time with a small tail wag.

Kevin circled the ninja, taking in his scent with deep breaths. This time it lasted longer than both Sarah’s and Jennifer’s sniff tests combined.

The force field bubbles had timed out on everyone. Jennifer knew She did not have time to recast them if this went wrong. Kevin could do some actual damage with his attacks. She pulled up his stats in the group’s interface menu. Kevin was listed as a level eight Great Forest Wolf.

Apparently satisfied with the ninja, the wolf turned and moved back toward Jennifer.

Woozle jumped down from the trees to stand between the wolf and Jennifer. Although, whether he did it to be counted as one of the group or to protect Jennifer, she had no idea.

Kevin paused but eventually moved to sniff the much smaller lynx-shark. They met nose to nose, sniffing one another. After a moment, the wolf made a very human gesture of nodding and moved to stand beside Jennifer. He pressed his body into Jennifer. Him just leaning on her almost caused her to fall over. She steadied herself and pet the wolf.

“How can a wolf be a parallel?” Sarah asked no one in particular.

“I had no idea that was even an option,” the ninja replied.

“Either way we have found our fourth party member,” said Jennifer.

“First a half giant, then cows, then ninjas, and now wolves. What’s next, dinosaurs?” Woozle grumbled.

“Oh, stop being grumpy. Even you must’ve realized things weren’t going well.” Jennifer reached down and gave Woozle a comforting scratch.

After showing the wolf a bit of the healing moss they were searching for, the group gathered everything they needed in half the time. Kevin was able to sniff out the moss far faster than the group could spot it. When the sun was a few fingers above the horizon, the group made their way back to town.

They had gathered more healing moss than was needed for Jennifer’s quest, but she and Soup Bowl wanted to see if she could craft healing potions without activating her power.

The warm bright glow of the day had transformed into the night, with the only light coming from the two moons, when the group got to the gate house. Jennifer bent down to make eye contact with Kevin. She pointed with both hands to herself, then with both hands at the town. She then pointed at the wolf with both hands, then one hand towards the town and one away. Hoping the wolf would understand.

After a moment, the wolf nodded as a cartoonish shield appeared above his head. Jennifer took this as a question if it would be safe. Jennifer turned to face at Soup Bowl, and asked, “Can you do that shield thing?” Was it just another thing fragments could not do.

A shield appeared above the ninja’s head. The wolf nodded and led the group to the guardhouse.