Ferilina woke up early in the morning. From her bed, she could hear the voices of some older women crying from a neighboring household. In the previous few weeks, this scene has become more common. These weeping stops distracting her that much like before.
She knows the reason behind the cry pretty well. For the last few weeks, the entire village was experiencing a living hell. The head of this small settlement could not stop the crisis.
Erling, the proud village leader, and a credible warrior, can do nothing in front of this foe, which has spread mayhem in this village. They can't fight if they can't see their nemesis.
The cause of the havoc is easy to guess, but impossible to resist. And Ferilina knows that well enough. The whole folk of this village fell sick of an unknown illness. The village herbalist was one of the first casualties. He was the teacher of Ferilina. The situation has developed so badly that no one can do their daily activities. The fact of going out of their home makes them petrified.
But waiting won't end this, and she realizes that, without knowing the source of this sickness, it'd never stop naturally. Everyone was praying to God to save them, but that was futile. No God gonna help them if they can't help themselves.
Ferilina suspects this whole sickness incident is not entirely genuine. The sudden spread of this epidemic doesn’t look natural to her. But she doesn’t have any evidence to confirm her hypothesis.
She is the daughter of the chief of the village, knowing their village's suffering so gravely hurts her so much. She learned the art of herbs and medicine from the village elder herbalist. But that knowledge isn't adequate to cure this illness. But as she practices her skills daily, with enormous effort to find the solution to this problem, she manifests her second ability "remedy creation". Which is a rare ability. By studying any sickness after a complete research, she can create a remedy. Even for very horrible illnesses.
But her father won't allow her to get near any sick person, so she doesn't have a chance to study the illness. She becomes so angry at her father, but Erling remains unfazed.
But the condition changes when her younger brother falls into the paws of the horrendous disease.
Erling, after losing his two sons in battles, he grows mentally fragile. His fatherly affection for the two surviving offspring of his surges in leaps and bounds. After watching his son at death's door, his intellectual reasoning capability gave up. He crumpled in the bed as the ground below him felt like disappearing into the abyss.
Seeing her father in this state unnerves Ferilina, but she uses this chance to examine her beloved brother's disease. She adores him so much it pains her to look at him in this
state. But she finished her work somehow. Her brother, the boy who's always clinging to her, now can't even recognize her. He looked at her with a blank stare.
After analysis, she discovered a great deal about the disease, which made her jump in shock.
Though she doesn't know the name of the illness, she deduces the fact that it's spreading through the water from the river. And by further analyzing the structure of the illness, it becomes somewhat familiar to her.
Then she launched her best ability from the arsenal.
Remedy creation.
It took some time, but it worked. She got a blueprint to make a medical potion to encounter the illness. Her mind is now filled with hope and a sense of relief, but only one thing worries her. The "Yokota" herb, it's only available on the opposite side of the river. But her father never allowed her to go there. But she shakes that feeling from her head. Now's not the time for that. Now she can save her adorable little brother and everyone in the village. No matter what, she has to do it.
Then he instructs the servants in her room not to use the river water for now, and if they must, they have to purify it by heat magic. After that, she left her house to search for the ingredients for the potion.
She had been traveling for half a day now, gathering particular herbs from indifferent niches of the wilderness for the remedy potion.
All the herbs required to prepare the potion are not so rare except for one, the “Yokota” herb. It grows on the other side of the river bank. Her father never allowed her to cross the river, since she was a little girl. Her father avoided the question when she asked for it.
It isn't the time to think about it. She could have asked for help in her village. But that’d make her father aware of her activity, and all the routes for her collecting ingredients would have been closed. For this reason, she can't let anyone know about her plans. After assembling all the herbs and using that to create the potion, she'll let her father and other elders of the village. It has to be done no matter what. She cannot afford this mission to fail. At a very young age, she lost her mother. Now she can’t afford to lose her precious little brother, too. With that firm resolution in her mind, she turns towards the other side of the stream. Unaware of the fact that this very day will change her fate.
To cross the river, the people of the dwarf village use an old and half-destroyed bridge. Though only adults may venture on the opposite side of the river. She knows that it’s dangerous to go there alone, but she doesn’t have a choice. She can’t allow the news of her crossing the river to spread in the village. That’s why she doesn’t even ask Julide, his childhood friend, for his help. He is a village warrior now and she can trust him. He can protect her in the woods, but the circumstances are different. She can’t afford to take any risks here. She has already collected most of the herbs and if she collects this, there’ll be no problem any more. Identifying herbs is like second nature to her, and she also knows the locations of vast amounts of herbs. Her friends sometimes call her “flower Princess” for fun as she occasionally smells like the arbitrary herb flowers if she works with an herb with a compelling fragrance. Like just now, the herb “Durba” she picked up has the strongest noxious odor she’s ever experienced from any earlier herb. She stacks the bunch of “Durba” herbs in the bottom-layer of her pouch so that she can minimize the leaking of its smell.
After crossing the river, she went deeper into the woods. The shrubs and vines are thicker here. This path omits an ominous vive, and she can feel it, with the trees and leaves providing cover from the outside realm. The woodland is alive with the sounds of the animals and birds and the other unknown creatures. It scared her a little, but fortunately, she didn’t encounter any of them.
The forest here looks like a death trap to her. She understands a little why her father always prohibits her from entering here. Trees and bushes surrounded everything, and the undergrowth of vines, branches, and leaves wrapped around the trunks of the enormous trees. Dark, dense, and wet, this forest really was a living nightmare.
She can’t go back now. Her brother’s face flashes before her eyes. She steeled her nerves and advanced. She needs the “Yokota” herb for the potion. And she’s willing to risk her life, as if she succeeds. She can cure not only her brother, but all the villagers. And it can overcome the disaster. She'll try the drug despite the possibility that it won't work. She always liked to help people, and for her good nature, the villagers loved her. Her father also depends on many things and takes her advice. Her uncle Thorkell praises her for her natural talent for problem solving and manners. She is like the crown princess in her group of friends. They always have so much fun together and now all of them are facing this vicious danger. She has to do something. No fear is allowed.
After a while, she glances at the herbs beside a small boulder. That herb, though she has never seen it before, she recognizes it. Its features are visible here, which matches the detailed description of the books. The most prominent feature is the red mark in the center of each leaf. A sigh of relief came out.
Ok then, I just need to pick them up. And get back from here. It’s such a relief that nothing dangerous happened. Looks like today is my lucky day.
She gathered the herbs and stored them in a pouch.
As she almost finished the job, she heard a sound coming from behind her.
She was so satisfied with the quick discovery of the herb that it made her relax. As she was in a relaxed state, her “danger detection” ability didn’t work the way it should have. Otherwise, she’d noticed a life-threatening danger from a far distance. Now it’s too late for that. She can feel a sinister presence, but can’t do anything about it. The danger surrounded her, preventing any path to escape. That was a pack of wild gray wolves. A single wolf isn't a very dangerous threat. Ferilina could take one down with ease if she had the time to prepare. But they always hunt in groups and they can perform reasonable teamwork and that makes them a troublesome adversary to beat.
She knows it well enough; defeating them is never an option. She has to escape no matter how. If she dies here, the solution to cure the disease will be gone with her and knowing that she can never forgive herself. She contemplated a way out of the scene.
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But the situation got worse. The wolves have now appeared in her field of vision. Until now, they were hiding to determine their enemies’ strength and organizing themselves by surrounding their target. Now they're aware of the situation, there’s no need to hide anymore. She is an easy target for them.
Ferilina tried to come up with some plans. But everything she thought, seemed to have no particular merit to them. She can not use any half-hearted effort and won't be helpful in this situation. Also, she doesn’t have any weapon with her, not even her favorite bow, in which she can depend on situations like this. She isn’t bad at fighting, as she is the village chief’s daughter. Learning how to fight is a tradition in their village. And she’s especially good at ranged weapons and projectiles. But right now, she only has her small herb harvesting knife. Even she isn’t sure that it can be enough to kill a gray wolf or not.
The wolves now surrounded her and nonchalantly approached her. They are pursuing with extreme caution even though they outnumber her.
"They are tough to slay when in groups. I am in a such awful luck today,"
She can't do anything but grumble. The plan she came up with was to survive, so that she can only escape in the river's direction, otherwise if she flees in any other path, the wolves will pursue her and then kill her.
Now she had a plan.
The wolf in front of her is the most treacherous. Its gigantic body can boast its enormous strength. It is even outlandish for an elder gray wolf to be this powerful.
" It must be a wolf king. There is no limit to my dreadful luck today."
a bitter smile came out of her.
“No, I can't give up hope just now. They're cautious, and I can use that against them.”
She looked at her surroundings with a careful mind. One of them is in the river's direction. She has to do her absolute best to make her plan work.
She'll only get one opening. First, she'll act like she is going to attack the leader of the pack with her knife. As these creatures are overly cautious, they'll try to make a defense formation for their leader and at that time, she'll use her next weapon.
As she thought of these, the wolves began their moves.
Ferilina stood up from her position, took out her knife with her right hand, and put her left hand inside of her pouch. The wolves stopped moving by seeing this and took their position to counter their enemies’ moves.
She advanced towards the king wolf, and after that, in an instant, she thrust something towards the wolf. It wasn't the knife, but the bundle of "Durba" herb she picked up earlier. But it worked according to her plan. Wolves are creatures with a strong sense of smell. When the stack of herbs hit the wolf's face, it panicked. The extreme noxious odor of that herb creates a sense of danger in its mind. Its survival instinct told it to avoid it, and this fraction of the time was enough to execute the latter part of her plan. With their leader distracted, they can't attack her for this small amount of time and that's precisely what she wished.
With a sharp, smooth swing, she throws the knife in her right hand with outstanding perfection. It landed on its victim with flawless accuracy. The aim was the wolf's eye. That wolf was overseeing the left side of her and blocking her escape route. With this chain of incidents, she constructs a slight opening. This sudden attack puzzled the wolf king, and the wolf on the left was apparently dead. With the wolves distracted, this provided an ideal opportunity for her to escape. She rushed as hard as she could in the river's direction. With full throttle, she finally managed to break free from the wolves' formation. Their coordination is in turmoil right now. They are somewhat delayed in their pursuit of her, and that makes a chance for her to escape. Now she's so close to her destination. A light of hope flashed inside of her mind. She can leave them behind in a few seconds. They can't cross the river because of their fear of the stream. She needs to jump into the river.
But all her hope turns into despair in the next single instant. Her leg was stuck in a pit in the ground as she ran at a ridiculous speed. That's all it took to crush all her hope. Because of her momentum, she collapsed to the ground almost instantly. The fallen tree leaves camouflaged that pit. It's difficult to spot it in a situation like that. It wasn't her fault, but it sealed her fate.
Her strategy, which worked flawlessly, got crushed by a simple hole in the ground. She doesn't want to accept this reality because it feels unnatural. No, there's nothing she can do to survive anymore.
In the next moment, the wolves approached her, and one of them jumped into her. She was defenseless, without a weapon, in front of a crowd of wolves. They'll now devour her alive. The reality was so harsh.
She tries to resist the wolf with her bare hand, but that's useless. The wolf in front of her began a violent swing with the entire force of its frontal limb at her. The paws strike her left leg as it took all the inhuman force with no means of evading it.
"Go away from me,"
She screamed as she showed little resistance.
In front of her own eyes, her left leg got ripped apart from her torso and blood flowed profusely like river water. Her intellect now stopped working, so she didn't feel any pain at that moment. The later grand stroke of the wolf landed on her left hand, but somehow it could still stay attached to her body somehow.
Now she feels like everything is meaningless in this world. She's going to die here without being able to help her village, her brother. Her life was a complete failure. She wanted to be like her mother, a great herbalist. After her death, no one would remember anything she did.
The wolf lifted its paws in front of her one more time. Most likely the next target now in her head. The final blow? Is this the last moment of her life?
She closed her eyes and waited, but the moment never arrived.
She heard something dashed in-front of her. In the next instant, the wolf made a loud noise in front of her.
She opened her eyes only to experience an unimaginable sight. There's a boy between her and the wolves. He kicked the wolf in front of her. The vicious wolf couldn't stand up after being hit. And it falls to the ground.
She looked at the boy in disbelief. She never met him before in this surrounding neighborhood. And he doesn't even have a single weapon with him. What is he thinking? Without a weapon, he jumped in a battle with a wolf to help her!
"Are you insane?"
She pleaded her thoughts out loud, but it didn't seem like the boy had picked up her question.
A wolf sprang forth and jumped at him with insane agility, but the boy evaded it with a slender bending of his torso. Then seized the opportunity to launch a jab on its head. That move worked effectively as the wolf fell to the ground and stopped moving.
She glanced at him properly for the first time. Her whole body hurts so much she can't even see things with a clear vision, but now she tries her hardest to observe the boy.
Her heart skips a beat for the first time in her life as she looks closer.
His white hair had a rippling quality, a dazzling scenery. His clothes are unusual, resemble the dresses from big human settlements, but in a way different from them. He stands in between her and the vicious wolves. His elegant posture resembles ancient heroes, just as she used to imagine when she heard stories of them from her mother. She was a little girl.
Then he turned towards her for an instant.
"Hey, you are in pretty terrible shape. Let me take care of these bunch of dogs, okay, if you know some healing magic? Cast it to yourself, don't die on me,"
After saying that much, he makes himself ready for the battle ahead.
At least I realize this is the final moment of my life. No matter what happens, survival isn't possible now. The primary elemental healing magic won't be enough to heal wounds of this magnitude. My left leg is torn apart. My left arm is barely in contact with my body. The amount of blood loss is tremendous and there's no hope for life anymore.
But this time around, my reasoning ability returned to me. Fear of death is gone from me after witnessing everything.
I looked at the boy in front of me, like in many legends. A hero protects a helpless girl from a treacherous threat. I always wondered if being helpless was a good thing. As it seems like an enormous burden to me. To be a self-dependent individual is always my top priority. However, at this moment that earlier mindset of mine betrays me, and a new direction of opinion becomes visible. Sometimes, being powerless is the most beautiful thing. But I can't marvel at these thoughts in this situation. Now the thought of him getting injured because of protecting me occurred to my mind. That'd be the most terrible thing. I hope that he, the hero who is defending me, doesn't get hurt. With the little time left, I want to see my savior with all my heart.
She glanced at him from the sides and observed him with a marveled feeling. His aquiline nose and his prominent cheekbones portraits him handsomely in an understated way. Though he appears as a boy of her age however, his basalt jaw and worrier-like shoulders spoke of strength. It Seems he enclosed a latent power and always walked with purpose and an air of authority around his surroundings.
His most attractive feature was his entrancing, wayfarer-blue eyes. Sloe-shaped, they shine as bright as the evening stars.
I laughed at myself. I am gonna die. It is sad that he can't speak to me right now. There were more than a dozen of the wolves, excluding the one I killed. By the time he’s finished them all, I’ll “be long gone” to the afterlife.
A warm drop of tears pours through her eyes, thinking of her little brother, her father and of her village. She won't be able to see them again. She won’t even get the chance to know the name of this mysterious person who came to save her.
Her chain of thoughts came to an abrupt end when the wolf king advanced towards the boy. This wolf is a monster. From that far, she can sense the enormous, ominous aura emitting by the creature. Her survival instincts are screaming to run away from this place. She can only pray for his victory.
The boy doesn't seem to be worried. He stands in front of that vicious creature unfazed, with a confident gesture despite the presence of the demonic beast. The amount of his aura is surprising. It’s so little that his vital force is comparable to a newborn baby.
Is he that weak?
No, it can’t be. He killed those two wolves.
Her mind is a total mess now.
The boy raises his hand towards the wolves nonchalantly. And the next moment…
“It can’t be possible. Am I dead and imagining these things in my mind?” It's hard to accept the scenery that unfolds a mere second ago. The boy did not even move, only pointing his middle finger toward the wolves. The next moment… the entire pack of wolves falls to the ground without a sound.
She can’t detect any sign of vital force from the wolves anymore, so she knows they are dead.
What the hell!! The event which transpired in front of her destroyed the whole sense of strong and weak.
Who is this person? She wanted to scream in utter disbelief. Now she desperately wanted to talk with him, but her body went numb. She cursed her luck. Today is the worst day of her life besides the day of her mother’s death.
However, the surprises don’t stop there. On later dates, this day becomes one of the precious days of her life.