We were running towards the South through the grass field. I had my shield and the two-handed sword with me and of course, I was in full armour and gear. For my enhanced body it felt light, but I still remembered how it felt when I was running in full gear back during the war. It was never a good thing when you had to run but I had to do it more often than I liked. A good situation could turn shit in a few seconds, so you always had to be ready to move.

I wanted to feel the burn like I used to so I made myself heavier than I could finally feel all my muscles starting to strain. My heart started to beat fast, and I wished I was going into a fight but instead I was leading others into a fight. I did not enjoy that, but I knew it was necessary.

I wasn’t using my movement skill otherwise I would have outpaced the wolves too much, so I was just running. Even though the wolves are a lot weaker than me I suspect if they pushed themselves more, they could outpace me even when I was fully pushing myself.

I looked towards them as they moved up and down changing positions as they kept pace with me. Having four legs really was too much of an advantage. Up in the sky, Goose was flying ahead of us keeping an eye out as we were making quite a lot of noise running so fast.

It took a lot of concentration to keep going and I hated whenever I had to run through a puddle or a small stream as my boots splashed water everywhere. That reminded me of a couple of pairs of socks that were in my backpack. Always have dry socks. Absolutely the best advice whenever you go hiking or into war.

We had only run for a little bit before Goose informed me that some sort of animal herd was up ahead. It took me a few moments to interpret all images I was seeing to understand it was the horse herd near the village.

Right the horses. I had forgotten about them, again. I hope I remember this time to try to start domesticating them again. We would need a lot of them. We ran past them quite fast, but the lead horse always kept an eye on us but when he saw me, he relaxed a bit, and he relaxed even more when we just ran past them.

Our run continued for quite some time before we finally get close to our target location. I had to curse a bit about how big the nation's land was but there was nothing I could do about that. Well, I guess I could let monsters take parts out, but it just wouldn’t feel right. The wolves got some water and let their bodies dissipate heat so they could be ready for the fight ahead. I could feel that they were nervous but also reassured that I was there.

I could probably kill the beast with one hit but how are the wolves going to develop and get stronger if I did that? One thing that I was enjoying was how finding the monster was quite trivial as I knew exactly where it is. Goose was scouting and already had laid eyes upon the beast. It took me a bit to understand what I was seeing but soon I figured out what the beast was doing.

At first, I just thought that it might be destroying the ground as it was angry but soon patterns emerged and after a bit more scouting it was clear that it was building a den so he could probably start reproducing or something like that. While monsters did have some instincts from their former animal selves the monster core often twisted those instincts into something else.

Through observation, I have also noticed that not all monsters were as crazy and there seemed to be quite a large difference between every individual. It would be interesting to observe this phenomenon more closely, but it will have to be on the passive side for now. I simply don’t have the time or the need.

Another idea came to me and perhaps this explained why this beast was threatening the borders while others weren’t. If it was truly making a den or something like that then that would mean it would want permanent habitation in this area. Perhaps that was the reason, but I couldn’t confirm it as I would need a lot more examples or a book explaining these things.

The wolves were finally rested enough so we headed out towards the monster. It had long ago noticed Goose keeping an eye on him but this fight wasn’t going to be a sneak attack anyways so it wouldn't matter if the boar was suspicious. It wasn't at first rank yet, but he was close. If he was first rank, then I would have needed to take care of the monster myself, but the wolves should be able to handle him.

Freya was the one in lead and all the others followed. They started to split off so they would be able to surround the monster. It didn't take long for the boar to figure out something was wrong and when it finally noticed the wolves started to make noise to scare and confuse. The stare-down took quite a while.

The battle started because of Lucky. She stepped on a branch that snapped too loudly which made the boar start its charge. It was fast and I could see the earth helping it move better. It seemed to have some earth elemental powers, but they seem to be more passive than active attacks. The charging boar was easily evaded by all the wolves as they were a lot nimbler, but that overconfidence almost led to disaster.

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While the boar couldn't change direction while it was charging when it finally stopped. Its movements were quite fast and agile when he wasn't charging. Because of that Bingo hadn’t expected the boar to turn around so fast and he almost got skewered by a tusk. What also aided the boar was the ground. It was moving a bit causing the wolves to be unsteady on their feet while the boar was rock solid.

It took five different rounds until the first blood was spilled. Lady got its claws into one of the legs. That made the boar angry and made it charge after the wolf which gave other opportunities to strike. After that, the boar didn't charge again rather it held its ground.

The fighting continued and slowly the wounds started to accumulate but the boar wasn’t the only one to get hurt. Some of the wolves had gotten hit luckily not by the tusk but still, the hit from this massive beast would hurt.

As the fight went on, I was glad to see that the wolves started to display their own unique talents. Slowly but surely I could see the changes. Some were hitting stronger some faster, but others started to show special abilities.

Gomet the one who could hide anywhere and was the one to hit the most constantly started to occasionally do a lot more damage. The reason was that sometimes his claws had a black outline that extended the claws out further and made it easier to get through the tough hide. I could see him slowly understanding his new powers better which made him a lot deadlier.

The biggest surprise came when Freya got hit badly while saving Lucky. Lucky had slipped on an unfortunate rock while she was taking a small breather, but the boar instantly saw it and took advantage.

The others were able to get to boar away from Freya and Lucky. I started to move to give her a health potion, but it turns out I didn’t need to. Lucky glowed lightly with blue and white patterns and when she touched Freya her wounds healed, and she started to move like she wasn’t hurt.

I stopped my movement, all the wolves stopped their movements, and even the boar stopped as we all looked towards Lucky. I was the first to be broken by the spell thanks to Goose who had also frozen in disbelief while halfway through his wing beat which caused him to start tumbling before he could regain control. I think I would have laughed out loud if I also wasn’t dumbfounded by this turn of events.

The boar was the one who continued to fight and now he knew that he was in trouble. While Lucky's next heal was a lot weaker it still got Pearl into full fighting shape. She wasn't able to make the healing happen every time just like her litter mates with their powers but like every wolf here she was slowly starting to understand her new powers.

When the boar was starting to get desperate I had to eat my words as it seems that it did have an active ability to use earth manipulation or perhaps even he was advancing during this fight. The boar reared back balancing for a few seconds on its back legs and then crash down causing a shockwave to move like a water wave through the earth causing everyone to lose their footing.

But it was too late for it to properly take advantage. If that attack was at the beginning of the fight, it might have been able to kill one or two wolves but now it was too slow and only caused itself more wounds as the wolves attacked it even fiercer.

The bus-sized boar still put up a long fight, but the blood loss was too much, and it passed out. The wolves were then able to get to its throat and kill it quickly. The fight had exhausted the wolves so much that they didn’t start to eat the meat for quite a while. This gave me an opportunity to properly butcher the beast. When I found the monster core I know that the wolves would want to eat it to boost their power but I was a bit selfish. I grabbed a hold of it and started to feel for the elemental spark that the core should be holding.

I found it quickly thanks to my trait as it was almost begging for me to pull the spark into myself. I didn’t fight the need and soon I could feel the small elemental seed starting to grow inside me that will eventually give me access to the earth element.

I looked at the core that was a bit dimmer and noticed the wrong in it that made the monster a monster. Would it really be good for me to feed this to the wolves? The most important part for them is just the energy and everything else was impurities.

Thinking on this a bit I decided to use my energy manipulation to grab hold of the energy inside the core and started to pull it out. It put up a good fight, but the core wasn’t stronger than me although it was close. I slowly pulled the energy out forming a small ball the same size as the core but now free of it hovering above my palm. All the wolves were interested in what was going on and had gathered around me. As I looked at them all their attention was focused on the ball with desire clearly reflected in their eyes.

This was a team fight and now that the energy was outside the core it was a lot easier to manipulate although I was still burning through my energy reserve quite fast holding it together. If I wasn’t exerting control, it would just expand outward and soon be absorbed into the surroundings.

I split the ball into 8 equal parts and moved them towards the wolves who greedily swallowed the balls and soon the energy was absorbed by them. That made them energetic, and they started to eat the meat that I had cut for them.

They ate a lot more than they should have been able to but I guess I knew the feeling as I could eat quite a lot more than my stomach should accept. Everything left over was carefully packed and stored in my seed backpack so I would have a chance to bring everything back. On our way back we didn’t run as fast, but we still ran and by nightfall, we were back at home. The wolves crashed as soon as we made it to the farm sleeping where ever, they laid down.