Climbing down from the tree tops I cleaned the wargs and stored the materials, just like before, leaving me with only one more to go. Raising my hands to my eyes I couldn't stop them from shaking violently. I was so unsteady I didn't even think I could hold a glass of water, much less handle my weapons.
‘It might be best if I went back… I could finish tomorrow. A partial bounty will buy me a room and a meal.’
I looked down at my arm. I knew pretty well just how bad it would feel the next day. Spider webs had incredible healing properties, but it came at a cost. One of the side effects took effects was that after about 6 hours It made your entire body feel incredibly sore, as well as making you tired. And of course… I was going to feel the effects of the alcohol too. Not just the hangover from drinking after going without food for over a month, but also the soreness in my mana circuits from having them in overdrive for so long.
‘I’ve only got one left. If I finish within the next five hours then I won’t have to come back at all right?’ I looked up through the trees ‘3 hours till sunset. That should probably be my timeline instead. It would be nice but I don’t actually have to push to finish the whole quest, I’ll get some money just from the spiders.’
Letting my mana regenerate, I relied on good old-fashioned tracking to find a river and follow a trail upstream to try and find my final prey. I knew the whole area like the back of my hand. Sure, it looked a bit different covered in cobwebs, but I had been going there for around 4 full years.
Sure enough, after a bit of careful tracking, I found a lone warg. It was larger than the others and had severe acid burns covering the right half of its face. ‘Finally, something easy.’
To give myself the best possible chance I waited until I had enough mana for at least three spells, placing my first one on the ground with an acid rune, combining my use of plant, fire, and earth magic. Acid wasn’t something I normally used… It ruined the animal's hide. But It was already ruined, and I wasn’t taking any chances so close to getting home safely. Besides, It clearly had some bad memories from acid, and if I could scare it that would only further decrease the difficulty.
‘Now then. Let’s see if I can hit my mark for once.’ Readying my knife in my left hand just in case I spun my spear around to my right and carefully aimed. ‘A little boost from the wind and…’ Tightening every muscle I had at once I flung it with all my might. It flew through the air, striking the beast in the heart. Instant kill. Chills went through my body as it hit the ground. “Finally,” I said out loud, letting the relief settle in.
Before I got too close though, I could make out the sound of its breath still going steady. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me…’ It slowly staggered back to its feet, breaking my spear’s shaft with a stomp and a growl.
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‘There’s no way… It’s so small, but if its hide is thick enough to stop my spear from going too deep then… It has to be an alpha. You’re telling me it lost its whole pack to spiders?’
It turned to face me, over half of its body was so badly burned that it almost looked like an undead. Despite that, its growl was just as intimidating as any I had heard, maybe more so, as it was combined with showing bones that gave me chills.
‘Time for plan B!’ I quickly jumped back. ‘If it’s an Alpha my weapons won’t work, I’ll need to use either magic or in the worst case scenario my dagger…’
‘Hope this works…’ Pulling my dagger for insurance I stood up from behind my cover and placed myself between my acid rune and beast. ‘I’ll layer it with fire magic to make sure it stops its first charge. “You want some?” I said, trying to taunt it. My voice was so shaky though it sounded more like I was trying to hand out free samples than give out beatings. ‘Ok, here we go, deep breath in.’
The muscles in its neck twitched, only half of its face still capable of moving. It started to charge. Running right over the rune and taking the acid in stride as if it didn’t even feel it.
I let out my breath, spewing fire like a lava lizard. It didn’t kill the warg, but the sheer heat finally made it shrink back in fear.
With its fur catching fire, it ran to the river and jumped in. Had it been uninjured, it likely would have taken both spells head-on and bit my head off, but turning to run was a fatal mistake. ‘I got you now.’
Since I didn’t have to create the water, I could cheat, turning it to ice and trapping the beast, without using a full spell’s worth of mana, then it was just a matter of avoiding its teeth while I walked up and executed it.
My magic was weak so it only froze the small part of the river around the warg, on top of that, it only held the warg in place because it was already near death. Still… It was enough. In the end, all that mattered was that I won. ‘And that’s six…’ The beast didn’t even cry as it died, letting me slide my knife into its neck as if it were already a corpse.
There are no excuses for losing. A real adventurer always wins… Even six to one. The thought still angered me. Even if one of them was an ogre, even if I was exhausted and nearly out of mana, I should have beat all six of them, not just three.
‘A real adventurer never loses.’
Unfortunately, I knew all too well that meant my parents weren’t real adventurers, they died nobodies, leaving a ten-year-old girl to fend for herself… Rather than feeling any sense of accomplishment from killing my first alpha warg everything just felt sour. ‘It’s really been 8 years…’ I turned my eyes to the sky as it began to turn orange. ‘What was his name… Taggart? Maybe I’ll have him buy me a drink after all…’
With my quest completed a wave of relief flowed through me, but the tension I felt in my body wouldn't go away. Every step felt like I was fighting against myself, every sound put me on edge. When the sun started to set, it only got worse. I was worried I miscalculated the time, but when I finally saw torchlight I was put at ease at last.
I walked in and it all felt surreal. I could hear voices, and make out laughter. It made me less wary of monsters… But it still felt grey. The colors all seemed muted, another side effect of the spider webs, but, it was more than that. Adventurers got together in groups, they laughed, and they cried. That’s how it was supposed to be. But when I came back no one even looked my way, much less said hello.
An alpha warg was considered a rank D boss monster. In other words, it was basically a legendary feat for me, someone two ranks lower, to beat one. Even disregarding that, killing your first boss monster was like a right of passage for all adventurers, and even putting that aside killing your first kill of any specific type of boss monster was still something to throw a party over and buy the whole tavern a round of drinks.
It all just felt wrong. ‘I bet no one would even believe me… They’d just say it was dead when I found it.’
I let out another sigh as I raised my trashed arm up to the light. ‘I probably shouldn’t drink anymore. I’m already going to feel like trash. My whole body is already going numb and my eyes are getting heavy.’