The next morning, Cadmus awoke with several questions. Clearly something was afoot in this village, aunt Bea and chief Roger’s conversation last night had hinted as such, but what exactly that was was still unclear.

He wondered if he should just confront aunt Bea, but then decided to shelve that idea: if things ended with nothing happening, he too would gain nothing. The quest might be cancelled, and all Cadmus would be left with was a waste of two days.

So he would wait, and watch, and if opportunity arose, he would take it. He had gained far more points than he would have normally due to Everett Praesse’s attack in Lorem forest, was it really a stretch to think the same could happen here? The responsibility of assigning this quest with a hidden agenda contained within still lay with the Academy, after all.

Alice and Gelida awoke pretty much just after Cadmus, and once the three cleaned themselves up, Gelida asked, “Ready to go?”

Neither had brought any luggage with them, so after checking that Alice was indeed secure in his breast pocket, Cadmus nodded.

Aunt Bea bid them farewell, and the nervousness on her face was even more apparent today than it was yesterday. However, perhaps this was only more apparent to Cadmus due to his newfound knowledge, because Gelida did not seem to notice anything, and waved back cheerfully.

They made their way to the edge of the village, on the opposite end of where they had entered from, and found chief Roger waiting for them there. He smiled at them, “It seems you’re both raring to go.”

“Yep!” Gelida affirmed, “By the end of today, you’ll be able to strike wolves from your list of worries!”

“That’s very good to hear,” Roger said, “I’ll let you be off now, but I hope your time away hasn’t led you to forget, Gelida: stay clear of the Bone Crags.”

Gelida nodded, “Don’t worry—I remember.”

With a nod of farewell, Gelida made to enter the forest, but Cadmus stopped suddenly.

“Wait.”

Roger froze, and Gelida looked back at him confusedly.

“You didn’t tell us where the wolves are,” Cadmus said.

Roger blinked, and then he laughed, the tension almost visibly draining from his body, “Oh yes, of course… silly me… Um—one second…” he searched his pockets frantically and pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment, “Ah, here we are! We’ve marked the approximate location of the wolves—please make sure to approach them carefully.”

“Of course,” Cadmus said, taking the map off his hands.

With directions in hand, Cadmus and Gelida finally entered the forest. As they walked upon the rough path, stepping through greenery and passing the tall trees, Cadmus asked, “‘Stay clear of the Bone Crags?’”

“It’s a superstition,” Gelida explained, taking the lead along with the map, “I told you, didn’t I? My dad befriended a dragon when he was young, and that dragon used to live in the Bone Crags. It’s not like the people of the village didn’t notice the signs of its presence, even generations ago. But they couldn’t be sure either, so they developed a superstition of just staying clear of it. That hasn’t gone away in all this time.”

Cadmus looked down the path they were walking. So, somewhere far beyond the end of it lay what once used to be a lair of a dragon…

They continued walking for a bit more before swerving right and abandoning the path as per the map. Now fully in the thick of the forest, Cadmus found it difficult to find his step. Stumbling and unsure, he continued following after Gelida.

Suddenly, Gelida stuck out her hand, “Tread lightly from now on. A wolf’s senses are far sharper than a human’s.”

Cadmus tried to emulate Gelida’s careful walk as they continued on their way, but even he could tell he was performing rather poorly. Nonetheless, a short while later, a howl echoed through the trees, startling them.

They quietly headed towards it, their pace slow due to Cadmus’ clumsiness, and finally found themselves on a short ledge. More trees and greenery blocked their sight underneath, but then Gelida pointed, “There!”

Her voice was a tiny whisper, but her excitement carried all the same. Cadmus looked and saw a tiny hint of grey. It was moving and rippling, a sign of life he would never have spotted on his own. Did Gelida have experience in hunting?

“Now… how to handle this…?”

“What’s wrong?” Cadmus asked.

“Well, worst case scenario, that wolf isn’t alone. Two we can handle, maybe even three or four, but any more beyond that and things could get bad,” Gelida explained, “We’re lucky that we’re upwind of them, so they haven’t found us yet; but that’s not going to last, so we’ll have to come up with something quickly.”

Cadmus nodded, “How quickly can you take one down?”

“Fairly quick—especially with the advantage of an ambush. It would take under three seconds if I don’t worry about any of the others. Though, of course, that’s just asking to get killed right after…”

“And if you were worrying about the others?”

Gelida shrugged, “It’d depend on how well the first shot goes. If the target somehow avoided a fatal blow, I wouldn’t be able to properly finish it off. However, if all goes well, I think I could get one in under three seconds like I said—assuming these are normal wolves, of course.”

“What do you mean by ‘assuming these are normal wolves?’” Alice asked.

Cadmus looked down at her, “Have you forgotten? The reason we were called here was because Mento Village’s hunters weren’t able to deal with this problem on their own. Something about these wolves is more dangerous than usual.”

Gelida rubbed her chin thoughtfully, “Though the chief didn’t seem that worried for some reason… He said they’re more troublesome than usual, but not a problem for us. I’m not sure what he meant by that…”

“We should have asked more questions; it’s strange that he provided us such little information in the first place.” Cadmus said, “In any case, I have a spell I’ve been working on to fight wolves. I want to test it out, but in case it doesn’t work, I’ll have a combat spell ready as well.”

“Do you want to strike the first blow then?” Gelida asked.

Cadmus shook his head, “No. I need a dead wolf for it to work. Alice, you ready a spell with an enhancement modifier as well—just in case. If things take a turn for the worse, we’ll need all the firepower we can spare.”

Gelida said, “So you want me to go first?”

Cadmus nodded, “Yes. The faster you can kill a wolf, the better.”

“Gotcha.”

They quickly readied their magic circles, with Cadmus preparing four: three to stack upon each other for his newest iteration of Dead Puppetry that should work against wolves, and one for Rock Spikes (a measure to halt the advance of any wolves and to buy more time should Dead Puppetry fail).

“Ready?” Gelida asked, her body taut like a compressed spring.

Cadmus nodded, and that was all the signal Gelida needed. The spring was released, and Gelida launched herself off the cliff, firing an attack the instant her feet touched the ground below.

Cadmus was several moments slower than her, but he made it to her just in time to see her attack—a giant shard of ice—jam itself right into a wolf’s neck. From Cadmus’ cursory observations, the wolf did not seem to possess unusual features, but it was surrounded by three of its fellows, all of whom had perked up at their arrival.

Cadmus scrambled forwards as Gelida fired a few more shots of Ice Shard at the now-enraged and howling wolves to keep them at bay, and he cast Dead Puppetry on the fallen wolf as soon as it was in range. He supposed it had only been a warring sense of fight-or-flight that had kept the pack of wolves from charging them—a sense that had only been exacerbated by Gelida’s attacks—but now that Cadmus was in range of them, that hesitation had been removed.

They were like lightning, upon him before he could even think—

“Cadmus!” Alice screamed.

The first wolf was struck by her spell, Rock Spike. Though lacking in power compared to a normal-sized Rock Spike, even with an enhancement modifier to help its size, it was still powerful enough to reverse the wolf’s momentum and kill it on impact.

The second was struck by one of Gelida’s Ice Shards, its corpse which had been alive just a split-second ago flying past Cadmus, its vicious trajectory altered with the impact of Gelida’s spell.

The third had been a moment slower than its peers, and it was ironically that very lack of speed which had allowed it to escape the same fate as its comrades. However, it had still jumped all the same, just half a second later, and so it was almost at Cadmus’ throat now.

It’s jaws approached his neck, and he tried to back away but—

The wolf was suddenly knocked further into air, eliciting from it a startled yelp. The perpetrator stood in front of him now: the mangled corpse of the very first wolf that Gelida had killed. Its jaw hung loosely, and Cadmus guessed that some essential muscles to control it had been destroyed with Gelida’s attack, which was why it had only crashed into the enemy instead of biting down on it.

It charged forwards toward the disoriented enemy, brutally clawing at it like the wild beast it was. One more Ice Shard from Gelida, and the fight was ended.

“So it works,” Cadmus noted, staring down at the blood-matted corpse that would follow his any order, “With correct adaptation, Dead Puppetry can be used against any creature—not just humans…”

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“That spell is amazing,” Gelida muttered as she walked up to him. She knelt down to take a proper look at both the wolf and the circles, “I’ve never even heard of anything like it: to get a corpse to somehow move semi-autonomously again…”

Cadmus smiled and ran his hand through the circles to wipe them away, causing the wolf to fall lifelessly to the ground again, “The overall combination of functions is actually rather simple: to reactivate the target’s muscle memories, and then transmit an objective into their brain.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Anything but,” Cadmus said, looking at the corpses of wolves before him, “Thankfully I had a vast library of information and years of research to help produce this.”

Gelida nodded, absently taking a look at the map and setting off in a new direction, “Of course. What was that one saying again? ‘We stand upon the shoulders of giants.’”

Cadmus said, following after her, “Exactly,” he looked down at Alice and considered his words, “Although… I don’t know why, but I’ve recently begun to think that maybe that saying is a little wrong. Maybe we don’t stand on the shoulders of giants… maybe all we do is stand on the shoulders of other people, who stand on the shoulders of the people who came before them. A constant progress of knowledge heralded by people who only look like giants because the people who come after prop them up as such.”

Alice met his gaze curiously, but Cadmus looked past it. If he squinted just right, if he imagined just a little, he could see Ember’s face there.

Where were you going, he desperately wanted to ask her, surely Benig wasn’t your intended final destination.

Gelida glanced back at him, “Isn’t that a little disrespectful?”

Cadmus shrugged, lifting his gaze and breaking the spell of his imagination, “Is it? I don’t think thinking like that takes away from their achievements. I think it simply acknowledges that they made great use of the resources they had, just as we do now.”

Gelida made an unsure face, “Even so… It seems a little wrong to me. I’d rather think of it as giants standing on the shoulders of giants. It gives those people who accomplished so much the respect they deserve.”

Cadmus considered it, “‘Giants standing on the shoulders of giants…’” he smiled, “Yes, perhaps that’s not a bad way to look at it either.”

They plodded through the forest for a while more before they once again found themselves on the path they had veered off from before. Suddenly, Gelida stopped and looked around as though she recognized something, “Hey, wanna take a bit of a detour?”

“No, not really—”

Gelida set off down the path once more, ignoring what Cadmus had to say, “Come on! It won’t take long—just come along!”

Cadmus would have let her leave and simply continued on with the quest, but she was the one with the map in her hand, and the know-how to use it, and so was forced to follow her. The path split into two ways, and though both were beaten and barely maintained, the one to the left looked nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the forest, as though it had long been abandoned by the people who had once used it.

It was this path that Gelida took. Having little choice, Cadmus followed. There was something ominous about this path, he felt, what with the trees closing in to reclaim the land that had once belonged to them.

The greenery began to thin, and the trees started to become more and more sparse when the path ended abruptly against familiar blackened ground.

In front of them stood an echo of Springville’s remains: a clearing of ash and burnt ground. There were no graves here, but Gelida stared ahead as though she could see a million more.

She explained, “There’re spots like this in the forest everywhere. We were just lucky that it was rainy season at the time, so the whole of the forest didn’t burn down.”

“Rain works against dragon fire?” Cadmus asked.

“It’s less effective than against normal fire, but yes, it works. Dragon fire may have many dangerous properties, but it’s still fire at the end of the day.” For a split second, Cadmus thought he spied something rather dark on her face as she said this.

After a moment, he asked, “Why did you bring us here?”

Gelida sheepishly scratched the back of head, “This is… um, this is where my dad died. His corpse was still recognizable because he probably wasn’t directly struck by one of the dragons’ flames. Instead, we figured he was probably thrown by the blast, and he hit his head hard against something, and bled, and… well, that was it.”

She shrugged as though it simply couldn’t be helped.

Alice looked mournfully at the barren clearing ahead, “I’m so sorry.”

Gelida sighed, a sound of frustration ripping from her throat, “Ugh! This is why I wanted to do this quest alone! It’s such a downer to talk about this, but I had to visit once I came to Mento VIllage—it’d feel wrong not to!”

“And you had to come to Mento Village in the first place?” Cadmus asked.

Gelida nodded emphatically, “Of course! I grew up here—I have to help!”

“That’s why you asked for the entirety of the reward money,” Cadmus realized, “You intend to give it back.”

“Yeah,” Gelida confirmed, “It’s not like Mento Village is poor, but it’s not like it’s rolling in riches either. It’s an ordinary farming village, and it needs all the money it can get.” She rubbed her eyes tiredly and turned on the spot, “Oh well, that’s enough reminiscing. Let’s get to clearing out the final area, or else there wouldn’t have been any point in us coming.”

Cadmus gladly followed without protest, eager to get the quest back on track again. As they retreaded the path they had arrived from, Cadmus looked back one more time; beyond the thinning forest he could see a hint of cliffs composed of white stone.

The forbidden Bone Crags.

He turned away: such a place had nothing to do with him.

As they continued back, the forest grew fuller once again. Gelida frequently checked the map in her hands, and then, after a while, she stopped and veered off the path again. Cadmus followed silently, trusting her sense of direction after having been proven of it twice now, and was rewarded for it when she suddenly declared that they were approaching the next target location.

He helped her search for any sign of wolves for a mere few minutes before they found them. The wolves seemed to be ready for them this time, most likely having scented them on the wind; and perhaps some blood from the previous encounter had splashed on Cadmus’ cloak before, because they seemed awfully wary.

Luckily, there were only two of them this time, and a simple Ice Shard from Gelida and a barrage of Rock Spikes from both Cadmus and Alice (neither he nor Alice were any better than simply average in their accuracy) made quick work of them.

Cadmus used Dead Puppetry on both the wolves, lamenting that he had been careless in not bringing any of the corpses from the first battle: if this place had contained a far larger number of wolves, they would have easily been overrun.

Maintaining Dead Puppetry took a steady supply of mana, just as any other spell, but thankfully, the draw wasn’t actually too bad. He certainly had enough in his reserves to keep only two wolf corpses operating for a while yet.

His decision to take backup with him turned out to be the correct one, as the third location on the map contained as many as seven wolves. It was a number Cadmus, Alice, and Gelida would have been wholly unprepared to fight, but with undying canine warriors to draw the enemy’s attention, they once again made quick work of their enemies.

That had been the last location marked on the map, and now that no more enemies remained, Cadmus erased his spell once more. Almost as one, Cadmus and Gelida looked at the field of grey corpses before them and frowned.

Alice gave Cadmus above her a curious look, “What’s wrong?”

“There’s nothing wrong with these wolves,” Cadmus explained.

Alice looked confused, “Nothing wrong… Oh! You said it just a while ago—the chief hired us to fight abnormal wolves!”

“Exactly,” Gelida said, her frown more of polite confusion, as though she simply couldn’t understand what was going on, instead of like Cadmus’, which was tinged with suspicion.

They stood in silence for a few moments, letting their thoughts run for a bit, before Alice spoke, “So, er, what now?”

Gelida tilted her head unsurely, still looking largely confused, “I suppose we go back? Tell the chief we finished the job?”

Alice nodded, “That makes sense. We did exactly as asked, after all. Right—” She looked up confidently at Cadmus, and the words died in her throat, “…Cadmus?”

Cadmus wasn’t sure what Alice saw in his expression, but he quickly schooled it into something more neutral. He had slipped up by not doing so earlier; Alice had always been able to read him like a book.

She narrowed her eyes at him, “What’s wrong?”

Gelida looked at the pair of them curiously.

“Nothing,” Cadmus said, the lie slipping easily from his lips. “I’m just wondering the same as Gelida—about the abnormal wolves.”

And indeed, he supposed that wasn’t technically a lie. He was thinking about that, or rather, he was thinking that it was doubtful things would end simply like this. The conversation last night had strongly indicated as such.

But the question was when? The quest had already been completed, and they were going to head back today, there was simply no time for anything else to occur.

Doubt reared its head. He knew he hadn’t heard wrong, but had he perhaps come to the wrong conclusion? Was really nothing going to occur?

Alice narrowed her eyes further, “…Really? I don’t know why, but I don’t believe you.”

Cadmus avoided her gaze, which was a mistake, as he could see her eyes widen in vindication from the edge of his vision.

Beyond that though, perhaps the trouble would occur when they returned to Mento Village? Perhaps he should bring backup with Dead Puppetry? Then again, it would be even harder to avoid Alice’s suspicion if he did so…

Alice’s expression morphed into one that Cadmus knew heralded an incoming scolding, “Cadmus—”

She was interrupted by a tremendous roar. It was a guttural and bestial sort of thing, one that rung through the sky like the world’s loudest horn, and echoed throughout the entire forest. It must have come far off by Cadmus’ estimation, but despite that, the earth still seemed to tremble slightly.

Cadmus blinked as the roar echoed and died away. He felt if he closed his eyes, he could still hear it in the back of his ears. “What was that?”

The question had been directed at Gelida, but one look at her face told him that she was in no condition to answer. Her lips were parted in horrified surprise, and the colour had drained from her face.

“Impossible…” She muttered.

“What is?” Cadmus asked.

His voice seemed to snap her out of her shock, and she looked at him as though she was only now noticing his presence, “…I—I see why we were hired now.”

She began walking, her movements hurried yet restrained, and she quickly devolved into a barely controlled jog. Cadmus followed after her, feeling the acute drain in his stamina in a very short amount of time.

“And why is that?” Cadmus asked.

Gelida glanced back, and her face was set in hard, anxious lines, “It’s—it’s because the village is about to go on a hunting trip—to wipe out the encroaching wolves. We were just hired as scouts to evaluate the level of danger. And to serve as the advance strike, of course. There’s no need to worry, this happens every few years; even animals can get cocky.”

“Was that what roar was? Wolves?” Cadmus asked doubtfully.

Gelida gave a pathetic attempt at a confident smile, “Yeah, exactly. It may have not sounded like it, but it came from wolves. It’s just that the Bone Crags warp the sound and amplify it. There’s no need to worry.”

Alice made a sudden movement, but Cadmus forced her down.

“…Is that so? You don’t seem very calm.”

Gelida gave another pathetic attempt at a smile, though this one was laced with a healthy helping of sarcasm as well, “I can’t help it, can I? These hunting trips are dangerous, and this will be the first time that I won’t be here to see them off.”

Cadmus’ eyes narrowed, “I see. How terrible.”

They fell into silence, with only the sound of their laboured breathing accompanying them. Gelida had prompted most of the conversation on this trip, and now that she no longer seemed to be in any mood to talk, they remained in silence for the rest of the way.

They were forced to slow down a few times when Cadmus’ stamina could no longer keep up, and whenever they did, Gelida was unable to hold back the impatient annoyance from showing on her face and gestures. (Though she was polite enough to try and look away from him and not say anything.)

When they finally reached Mento Village once again, noon had already arrived, and a carriage from Anguis was waiting for them. Chief Roger had also been waiting for them at the edge of the forest, his chubby face flushed in what almost seemed like excitement to Cadmus.

“Gelida—!”

“I know,” Gelida said stonily, “I’ll see you later.”

The chief nodded frantically as they walked past a little too quickly to be considered polite. As they made their way to the carriage, the residents of Mento Village, who at first glance seemed as though they were only ordinarily going about their day, kept sneaking glances at them, something tense and anticipatory in their body language and gaze.

Gelida stiffly nodded in greeting at the carriage driver and hurried to board the carriage. Cadmus followed without complaint. They began moving, and a call rang out from outside.

“Gelida!”

It was aunt Bea, though Gelida barely seemed to register the call.

“Gelida—wait!”

Gelida blinked and impatiently stuck her head out the window. She looked questioningly at her. Aunt Bea looked almost desperate as she spoke, “Gelida, I—!”

“She forgot to say goodbye,” and suddenly, the chief was there. He must have followed after them, and as he steered the rapidly dimming aunt Bea away, he gave Gelida a light chiding look, “As did you, in fact. It doesn’t do to disregard family like that.”

Annoyance flared on Gelida’s face, but she mastered it quickly, “That’s—! No… you’re right. I’m sorry; goodbye, aunt Bea.”

And, with her face falling as though the end of the world had just arrived, aunt Bea whispered back, “…Goodbye.”