Since the earliest morning hour, I’ve been expecting my charming elven companion’s arrival in front of the guild hall. The entire town’s completely silent, it’s not even raining for once. Too early for anyone to get up and work, I suppose.

Well, all except us.

‘You’re late,’ I tell my new friend Aleiana as she approaches me, seemingly still half asleep. Seeing her like this makes me question my decision to invite her to join me.

No matter, I don’t really need her to come with me as long as she has signed the contract.

She finally stops right next to me and rubs her eyes: ‘Good morning.’

‘You don’t have to come with me. I can just do the job on my own and once I return, you get a hefty share of the reward.’

The elven lady shakes her head: ‘I’m going, after all I’ve signed up this contract as well.’

In all honesty, I did think that would convince her to just stay and leave me to finish the job all on my own. After all, being given a bag of gold just for laying down low for a short while is a pretty good offer for her and I could just do my thing undisturbed.

‘Fine, just make sure you don’t stay behind.’

As I say that, me and my half-asleep companion begin the adventure. This thing’s off to a great start.

The first several hours have been quite relaxing – Walking through an entire dense forest known for being inhabited by various dangerous beasts was quite nice.

‘It is quite strange that nothing has been attacking us, isn’t it?’ the familiar high-pitched voice resounds.

I simply nod in response as she continues: ‘It’s almost as if there’s something keeping them at bay… Is that your doing?’

‘You could say so.’

Naturally, I can’t tell her it’s my aura that the beasts feel and get scared of. To her I seem like just an ordinary adventurer having fun while making a name for himself by slaying a legendary dragon. Honestly, I find it quite hard to believe that an elf trained in the ways of magic cannot sense my aura at all despite my best efforts to dampen its effects on my surroundings.

Just to clarify some things; The term aura refers to the amount of magic power any living being emits from themselves that others can detect. It is usually proportional to one’s potency as a mage, thus it also enables those who can sense it a way to gauge their opponent’s strength. The ability to feel one’s aura is tied to the degree of mana control, thus only mages or beings of magical nature can really see and feel auras.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

However, few have become skilled enough to feel auras of living beings unable to control mana and, as such, use magic. Luckily for me, I was born with a great talent in terms of mana control, allowing me to sense pretty much anything that has a beating heart.

‘Something’s coming for us,’ she quickly states while already reaching for her bow and an arrow to place in, ready to draw at any time. Seems like her ears can really be useful at times.

Soon after, an enormous black wolf-like beast with its body almost entirely covered in some unknown glyphs appears. Its blood red eyes are fixated on me, growling in impatience to attack.

An arrow is shot, aiming straight for the beast’s head. Upon contact, it merely breaks without even scratching the glyph-enhanced skin on the wolf’s forehead. It turns its gaze at the elf, who seemed surprised by her attack not dealing any damage whatsoever.

In only a split second, our foe’s claws were already reaching out for my companion in a deadly lunge. Aleiana has reflexively dodged towards its point blank, getting another shot ready and almost instantly firing.

Unsurprisingly, even the second arrow didn’t deal any damage, making her use the time to retreat a little bit. She’s fast and apparently smart, too – I could already sense the focus on finding a way to harm the opponent when its entire body is enhanced to the point where normal weapons cannot hurt it.

Once again, the wolf attacks, but even faster than last time. It seems annoyed by the fact its prey has escaped and started taking this fight seriously. Several attacks evaded and retaliated against, but the results have been the exact same – neither of the combatants have suffered any damage.

As soon as the elven ranger has created a small bit of distance in between them again, she prepares another arrow and draws. This time, however, she whispers some inaudible incantation as her weapon gets engulfed in a cloud of blue fire-like looking energy.

Finally, she starts using magic.

Releasing the bowstring, the projectile flies so fast a human eye wouldn’t be able to see it, landing in the beast’s front leg. It did pierce through its defences, although causing only a flesh wound.

The wolf howls in pain and turns into a raging state, attacking my partner without a break. She keeps retreating step by step, until hitting a small rocky cliff with her back. The beast has her cornered and prepared for a fatal blow. It growls as if to celebrate its victory and jumps straight towards her. Aleiana closes her eyes, awaiting her death.

A cracking sound can be heard as I pierce the thing’s skull with a conjured sword. It stops moving and slowly begins to fade away, leaving nothing but traces of mana behind.

Conjured beast. And one this resistant to physical attacks. It seems there is a potent summoner somewhere around, but the question is why they would attack us. We haven’t exactly caused any harm that would make the locals turn against us, so could it be someone else trying to claim the dragon’s head and intends to eliminate any competition beforehand?

‘How did you do that?’ the familiar female voice breaks me out of my thoughts. I raise my eyes to meet with hers, filled with fear and astonishment as she looks down at the sword I have conjured to slay the beast and then back at me.

She seems a little less knowledgeable than I had initially believed: ‘The glyphs on its skin made it resistant to physical harm, but not resistant enough, apparently.’ That didn’t seem to satisfy her curiosity at all, as more questions followed right after.

‘What was that thing even? I’ve never seen a beast like that in my life.’

‘I wouldn’t even expect you to. Every summoner calls upon different beasts depending on their power and personality. For now, it might be best if we find a safe spot where we can take camp, night’s coming soon.’

This adventure might be a little more fun than I had expected.