During this one week, after having proven my abilities to Vornir, the fenrir I saved, by hastening his recovery and purifying the numerous impurities in his flow of mana. We had a long discussion on the exact term of our contract where I dozed off half way due to exhaustion. Fortunately he didn’t feel too offended and treated it as a mark of my effort in healing him. I even got praised for my hard work which made me quite happy, even if he said it in an annoying way. When I woke up, we resumed our discussion and agreed on the following terms.
First, Vornir and me will be bounded by the contract until we both accomplish our objective or until one of us dies.
Second, Vornir will be prohibited to harm humans or fellow familiar that may serve me in the future, unless if I permit so of course. In the same way, me or my familiar will be prohibited to harm any fenrir unless permitted so by Vornir.
Third, We shall both provide help to the full extent of our capacities toward the realisation of the goals we have fixed. Doing otherwise will be considered a breach of contract. The goals are exacting revenge on the human empire for me and attaining a realm of power normally inaccessible to fenrir for Vornir.
Finally, even if it pains me, I am prohibited to ride on Vornir back, stroke him or pet him in any way as it would hurt his pride as a fenrir to be treated as such by lowly human. That point was probably the hardest to agree upon because I kind of really wanted to.
Once the terms decided, it took me 2 days of preparation to ready a magical contract and put it in activation. If one of us doesn’t respect the terms of the contract at any time, tremendous pain shall ensue till the contract is respected or till the one’s receiving the aforementioned pain dies in tremendous suffering. Needless to mention that, the contract being linked to one’s inner thought, even the intent to breach the contract will bring the aforementioned pain.
After that I removed the string that bounded his movements and tended Vornir’s wounds during four more days to ensure a quick recovery. While I tended his wound we had various interesting discussion on fenrir and human customs. We also had a long discussion on the identity of the young man that saved me and defeated Vornir.
Apparently, Vornir hadn’t even noticed its presence before being sent flying by a hit in the stomach. When I mentioned that he was a swordsman, Vornir also speculated that the young man in question went easy on him and used the back of his sword. If he hadn’t went easy, Vornir would have probably been cut in two on the spot.
Finally, we agreed upon a period of three month during which he would be free to rest in the cave and heal his wound. During that time I would go back to Dailya and get everything ready for the long journey that would ensue.
And here I was readying my backpack in the early morning, waiting for the floor to be sufficiently bright before departure. To alleviate my boredom as I still had around an hour to wait, I then started a new discussion with Vornir.
“Vornir, may I enquire about your combat abilities ?” –Aila
He raised his head and grinned, showing his yellow fang.
“Glad you asked human, I specialize myself in close combat. I can control mana to strengthen my fang and claw enough to cut rocks like butter. My control is also perfect enough to allow me to pour mana in my claw only when needed, allowing me to sustain long term combat. In my top form, I can even shoot pure mana from my claw to hit out of range opponent” –Vornir
Vornir held his head high while Aila couldn’t prevent herself from releasing an impressed “Ohhhh”.
“Considering my defenses abilities, they are also beyond normal. I can concentrate mana instantly on any point of my body, making my fur sturdier than steel. That said, if i am unable to detect the opponent as with the young man that saved you, they may inflict damage as I cannot afford to permanently wear a defensive layer of mana” –Vornir
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“In term of human power, you would be no less than a rank eight berserker from you mana control alone, truly impressive” – Aila
Vornir grinned once more as he was praised but couldn’t restrained himself from commenting.
“Please don’t compare me to lowly human, you will only hurt my pride doing so” - Vornir
Or so he said, but to me his pride didn’t looked wounded at all. That wolf really held too much pride after all. I so decided to give him a piece of reality using the information I had gathered so far. A mischievous smile soon appeared on my face.
“Now that you said that, I can better understand why you were defeated back when you were leader of the pack” –Aila
The wolf looked at me dumbfounded for a moment but I didn’t stop there
“Even though your abilities are impressive, you have some significant weaknesses. When I tended your wounds, I had numerous chances to examine them and I deduced that they were caused by elemental magic. Given your strength, the fenrir that defeated you must have attacked you with magic from a distance, keeping himself from harm during the whole fight and wearing you down little by little.“ -Aila
“…” - Vornir
“His attitude wasn’t worthy of a proud fenrir but he still defeated you fair and square and you had no choice but to step down as a leader of the pack. He then banished you to ensure he wouldn’t be defeated in the future, as he was probably no match for you in a normal fight” –Aila
“Silence human, one more word and I will snap your neck in a single bite” – Vornir
At that point Vornir seemed pretty pissed but, as the magical contract hadn’t yet activated, I knew his word were nothing
but empty threat. I decided to go directly to the point before the intent to snap my neck really came to him.
“As lowly creature that we human are, we have developed many counter to this type of threat by controlling the distance between us and the opponents. In fact, we even have an entire magic system called the ‘control magic system’ specialized in controlling the movement of our opponents. It would be easy for a proud fenrir like you to learn such magic and remove his own weaknesses.” –Aila
Vornir looked at me with a bored expression before responding.
“Humpf, It may be so but if I used the magic of lowly human my honor would be forever tainted” – Vornir
I immediately started to think that I may have gone too far but, having gone so far, I couldn’t stop there and let everything go to waste.
“I believe your honor would be more tainted by being unable to do what us, lowly human, can” –Aila
At that point, Vornir started glaring at me with a complicated expression.
“… I will give it some thought in the future, but I won’t guarantee anything. Now get out of my sight, I had enough dealing
with you for today” – Vornir
I smiled as I thought that, deep down, Vornir was a surprisingly good guy. Looking at the entrance of the cave I realized the floor was already bright enough for me to go. I paid my respect to Vornir and excused myself for having been rude
before departing to Dailya.
“Truly, what an interesting human, to see through my weaknesses with so much ease …” –Vornir
Having said that to himself, Vornir went back to sleep with what could be interpreted as a happy expression. Promising himself that he would inquire about her abilities when given the chance to meet again.
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Final chapter for today, I will probly post another tomorrow but it depends on how much i can write.