(Thump)

The corpse of the last wolf was gathered a top a small mound of 5 wolves that had just been killed, the last wolf in question was the alpha of the pack the rank 1 gray saber wolf who Gabriella took easily with one decisive swing of her sword slashing the back of its neck.

Beneath this alpha were 2 other dead wolves, one being stabbed numerous times before seemingly dying from the concentration of trivial wounds and the other possessing a few holes on its body seemingly been shot by 3 arrows in total before the last arrow did its work through the wolf’s left eye.

The expression of these two wolves seemed to the closest human interpretation as shocked and frustrated, clearly having died with misgivings, but dead none the less.

Avian’s party stood beside this pile of wolf corpses, only 2 people were on the ground breathing hard which were Cornelia and Deborah, they were also the only people who suffered some minor injuries like cuts and bruises, their equipment was also messy, with blood sprayed all over them, Cornelia’s short sword especially was dyed entirely in blood while Deborah’s right hand was dipped in blood, they both shared the same pale expression as if they had just overcome a major battle, but overall they were fine.

Avian didn’t watch them concluded their fight as he was more interested in the wolves and dismantling them as Ogra came along wanting to help since she wanted Avian to make food as quickly as possible.

Gabriella though had watched those 2 fight until the very end, watching them fight was far more stressful then her fighting the rank 1 gray saber wolf who she killed easily, if she had to judge their fight then she would give them a passing grade even though it was very messy, though honestly she couldn’t expect much from beginners who hadn’t even trained to fight properly, the fact they even managed to kill their opponents in the first place was praise worthy enough.

To sum it up, Cornelia who was a [Thief] specialized more in ambushes and sneak attacks then direct confrontation, she must have forgot about that since she completely abandoned her strengths when she directly charged at the weakened wolf with her short sword and started to engage in a melee with it.

She was quick and agile as a [Thief], even though Gabriella didn’t know what blessing Cornelia had, she did notice her impressive dexterity and agility as she was capable of dodging almost every hit the wolf was making and when she couldn’t dodge she at least reduced the blows into glazing strikes all the while chipping away at the wolf with her short sword not making any decisive slashes or stabs but rather small and surface level cuts that accumulated as the wolf quickly started to get weaker and weaker the more its wounds stacked up.

Such way of fighting could be considered extremely vicious since it looked more like Cornelia was torturing the wolf instead of ending it, but Cornelia had no such thought in mind as she wanted to absolutely kill it as fast as possible, the reason she fought in such a peculiar way was because she didn’t want to give the wolf any chance to hit her back when she hit the wolf, even though she was giving it her all and putting up her courage she still kept herself safe ultimately killing the wolf in a slow and painful manner as it died with cuts and stabs all over its body.

And as for Deborah, she was slightly better than Cornelia when it came to her fight, but not by much, Deborah immediately began the fight with her short bow, planning to pepper the wolf with arrows from a distance she used one of her [Hunter] abilities.

As a [Hunter] Deborah had 3 abilities at the beginning, [Tracking], [Aimed Shot] and [Skinning].

These were all self-explanatory in terms of abilities, [Aimed Shot] was the only ability offensive ability a [Hunter] which was the ability Deborah used to deal with the weakened wolf, what it did was simply increase the power and accuracy of Deborah’s next shot, this wasn’t limited to her bow either as any all things under the ranged category could be used in combination of this ability making almost anything a [Hunter] held in his hand a formidable ranged weapon.

The thing was this skill was more suited for long ranged sniping since it had the downside of needing to charge momentarily before releasing, the wolf was weakened so it wasn’t entirely up and ready, but it still charged at Deborah the moment it saw Deborah raise her bow against it.

Deborah kept her calm and shot her arrow, firing her first arrow she hit the wolf square in the side when it attempted to dodge slowing it down, but now killing it as it stood back up and attempted to charge at Deborah again.

Readying her second shot, with the wolf coming ever so closer, she hit that one as well, still not killing it as she ended up hitting its hind leg disabling it essentially.

Unfortunately, it was a bit too late by then, the wolf had jumped for a pounce the moment Deborah released her second arrow, no longer needing to walk to get an attack in, it was directly going for Deborah’s neck all the while losing blood and looking crazed from being shot by 2 arrows which it was likely going to die from anyways even if it did manage to kill Deborah, but be it for one reason or another the wolf still wanted to take Deborah with it to the grave.

Gabriella had been watching this all the while keeping the pack alpha in check, seeing what was about to happen her eyes widened as she thought that she should do something before something terrible would happen from their practice.

But miraculously her worst fears weren’t realized as Deborah kept her calm even when the wolf had pounced at her, letting it collide with it, Deborah dropped her short bow and drew an arrow from her hip quiver, normally an arrow wouldn’t be useful without a bow, and in this instance a dagger would have likely been more useful, but this was when Deborah’s quick thinking shined as she did what she did reasonable thinking.

In her mind, the quiver with her arrows was simply closer than her daggers, judging that she had no time drawing her daggers she instead drew a single arrow from her quiver and inched backwards to fall to the ground on her back as the wolf came above her putting its heavy body on her.

Predictably, the wolf landed onto Deborah with its heavy body, the wolf’s head facing Deborah’s, the fight seemed to end right there as both of them stopped moving.

But it was the wolf that slumped down first as it became like a doll with its strings cut.

Gabriella became impatient at that, feeling like this fight was over, she made a quick decision as she quickly killed the wolf she was fighting with one swing of her sword.

Almost everyone came to Deborah to see what just happened, luckily Deborah was completely fine as she didn’t suffer any injuries and upon seeing closer everyone saw that the wolf she faced was dead with an arrow in its eye piercing its skull.

And just like that their first ever fight as a party had ended.

Cornelia and Deborah overcoming their fears as they felt themselves become stronger and more determined, they also recognized their own faults and weakness as soon as the fight was over, Cornelia especially realizing that she should have gone into [Stealth] the entire time while Deborah thinking that she should have readied her arrow.

There was much to think about as the fight was over and they rested carrying the wolf carcasses back to their small camp where the Earth Lizard was waiting for them.

-Let’s eat!

-I wonder can you even eat wolves?

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-Master you can, but they don’t particularly taste good, they also have worms in them so it’s dangerous to eat them if you don’t cook them through.

-Alright, let’s have some wolf stew then.

Deciding what he would cook, Avian spared no time to skin and butcher the wolves as fast as he could.

He asked Deborah and Ogra for help, as Deborah had the [Skinning] ability that would likely shine here while Ogra was generally enthusiastic and likely to be much more of help.

Avian himself had already read through the entire book about skinning and dismantling animals and monsters, he had some general knowledge now he only needed to put it into practice.

He also had his [Blood Control] ability, helping the dismantling process even more as Avian could both drain the blood form the wolf and cut it easily with a blood reinforced knife.

Dahlia was with him too, predictably, but she was in Deep Meditation recovering her mana as this wasn’t going to be the end of the hunting for today, it was good that she was in Deep meditation since she wouldn’t witness anything peculiar up close if she was unconscious.

Deborah who had the [Skinning] ability worked separately from Avian on a different wolf together with Ogra, but when she saw Avian working much faster, smoother and cleaner than her even this was supposed to be her domain as a [Hunter], she couldn’t help but feel both impressed and inferior as she deeply realized how having the right ability from a blessing and having actual skill was 2 both different aspects entirely, she didn’t even think that Avian possessed a blessing like the [Chef] with his ability ever since she witnessed him dealing with a wolf as easily as chopping vegetables, in her mind Avian had not only turned into a mysterious master, but a strong mysterious master.

Either way, Avian noticed already way back when he was dealing with meat when he was cooking that his ability to control blood was actually very useful, draining the blood from meat was very trivial to him and made the resulting piece of meat extremely delicious.

This was the first time Avian was working on wild dead animals, and when he used his [Blood Sense] over them, he quickly noticed something even more fascinating.

-(There are small animals living inside the carcass)

That’s right Avian could see small long worms within the flesh of the wolf carcass he was butchering with his [Blood Sense], these worms were likely similar to tapeworms, Avian certainly didn’t want to eat that and as if moving by instinct he used his [Blood Control] on the tapeworms watching as he was easily able to control them before pushing them out of the dead wolf carcass completely cleaning the wolf from any worms as the worms disgustingly wriggled on the ground seemingly surprised that they were somehow pushed out of the carcass without input.

Avian became extremely curious about what he just did, what he essential had done was control another creature through their blood, something he had never done or was capable of as any blood he attempted to use from a still living creature was extremely difficult to control or not even possible to begin with.

These worms, weren’t on the same level as ordinary creatures, they were bugs so weak in fact that anyone could squish them under their foot, concentrating on these worms, Avian clenched his fist before witnessing the worms collapsing into a disgusting fleshy ball made out of their own blood, the blood of these worms wasn’t like usual red blood, it was more yellow and brown, but it was still blood nonetheless, the worms died under the pressure of their own blood encapsulating them into a ball, it was a disgusting sight, but one that deeply made Avian aware of the potential of his blessing if strengthened enough.

Looking back at the wolf carcass Avian originally thought that he had cleaned it up from all the viruses like the worms, but looking closer and focusing more on the carcass he became deeply aware of how still unclean this wolf was or at least how unclean it looked in his eyes.

Clearly there were many more disgusting creatures on the wolf carcass, if it wasn’t for the worms who were big enough, Avian would have not noticed or thought about looking for them as he made it his goal to remove and every single one of them.

Lost in his work, Avian spent only over 10 minutes on the wolf before he finally saw the result of his handiwork, the original dark flesh of the gray saber wolf immediately turned a slightly lighter color as it looked much fresher and stopped smelling offensive, there was still a wild smell, but not too overpowering and actually sweet, the result of his work amazed Avian as he didn’t think he could produce such a great change through his blessing.

Either way Avian became much more inspired with this, on top of that he felt he had also made great progress with his [Hemomancer] blessing doing the same thing for all 6 wolves as he gave Deborah and Ogra some other work to prepare for cooking.

Time passed and Avian had pretty much finished cooking the wolf stew with the other supplies they brought along such as vegetables plus his many spices.

The smell of the stew he was cooking had been on the mind of everyone present as the delicious smell of the wolf meat roused their spirits, half the time the girls couldn’t even concentrate on their training nor rest and would always glance at Avian as he cooked near the bonfire where a huge iron cauldron was put under a fire cooking the stew emitting a beyond delicious smell.

The cauldron was big an amount this much would usually be enough to feed over 10 people and then some he made all this in consideration of the big eaters which were Ogra and Dahlia.

An entire wolf was butchered for the stew, everything that wasn’t butchered Avian loaded into the carriage to be used for later, because of how excellent of a job Avian did with draining the blood, the meat would stay fresh for a very long time at least enough for the week.

Normally hunts like these would force hunters to leave some of the things they killed to rot in the wild, but Avian refused to waste any food, already he was making preparation to turn the wolf mea t they had into smoked jerky since they were going to stay here until the next day anyways.

-It’s done! Come eat.

-HAHA!

Ogra obviously being the first to rush in, immediately ran towards Avian as she couldn’t wait to eat again, everyone else followed, clearly excited as well as the food Avian had been cooking was nothing like did before because of the special method he used to process the wolf meat making this very special as the smell alone told everyone how delicious it was.

Ogra was the first to get a bowl, and without even looking or waiting for the stew to cool down she downed the entire bowl without spilling a single drop before asking for another which Avian gave without a fuss.

Everyone ignored Ogra like usual and got themselves a bowl as well, Gabriella and the rest actually looked at what they were eating as they saw with utter amazement good the chunks of wolf meat looked, simple contact with their spoons broke down the meat showing it was extremely tender while the stew itself was a mix between sweet, spicy and bitter, the color was a light brown mixed with red while a few chunks of carrots, potatoes and some other minor vegetables decorated the plate, a simple spoonful of the stew made everyone feel as if their stress was being relieved, the spiciness and hotness were simply superb making them think it was really worth all the effort coming here and fighting the wolves.

Still while eating there were some things the girls were still thinking about, Gabriella in particular still had the question of what Avian’s blessing was, she had the opportunity to ask dozens of times already, but because of one reason or another she couldn’t putting her in her current uncomfortable state as she ate Avian’s delicious wolf stew.

Cornelia too was brooding as she ate, after the fight with the wolves, she felt she gotten closer with everyone, and thinking about how she was the only one who hadn’t revealed her blessing yet, she felt bad as decided she couldn’t keep it like this forever even if they didn’t spend a lot of time together.

-Everyone…I’d like to say something…I…my blessing, my blessing is the blessing of the [Thief], I am sorry I didn’t say it earlier as I had some reasons, since we are now one party and fought together, I wanted to tell you no matter what, again I am sorry.

-Eh?

-I see, don’t fault yourself its only reasonable you would hide something like that.

-Cornelia [Thief]? Ogra didn’t know…will Cornelia still eat that?…

-Ah…spicy…but still delicious…

-I told you to eat more slowly.

Other than Deborah, everyone else didn’t seem to care a lot or even pay attention, seeing this Cornelia felt slightly stupid as she couldn’t help but realize that there was no reason to hide this in the first place considering who these people were, feeling dejected she slumped her shoulders before continue to eat her bowl of wolf stew much to the disappointment of Ogra.

Avian too had been listening, but he already knew such trivial info long ago, but while listening to her, he immediately remembered that he actually didn’t tell everyone about his own blessing either.

Not noticing Gabriella’s stares who also thought that this was a good opportunity, Avian turned to everyone before speaking.

-Actually I also forgot about telling you guys my blessing; I am actually a [Monster Tamer].

And with that Avian made a brief whistle with his fingers before a Crow flew down from a near tree and nested onto Avian’s shoulder demonstrating his ability.

This time everyone had a much bigger reaction compared to Cornelia’s reveal as Gabriella even stood up in shock.

-A…a…[MONSTER TAMER]?!

-Today there are all sorts of surprises huh…

-Ah! Black bird! The most delicious!

-Master’s blessing…is very cool…

Only Cornelia sat without reacting as she already knew this, but seeing their reaction, she couldn’t help but feel even more dejected as she started to think that being a [Thief] was not a big deal after all.

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