Author's Note: Ugh long day at work, and a long one tomorrow. Well a promise is a promise after all. My schedule for the next two days has me working long hours from morning, so most likely releases will be done in the late evening central time.

Not gonna lie, this chapter was like pulling teeth, so I had a little fun. Tried to channel my inner teenager.

Chapter 10: Big Bad Wolf

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Gale wakes up early and puts his equipment together. He's wearing basic leather armour on his chest, with pants made of a thick canvas like fabric. On his back is a long sword he looted from a hobgoblin, to his left hanging off of his belt is a scimitar he received from a skeleton. Also on his belt are a few pouches carrying herbs and other medicines. Three empty sacks are also tied on. Strapped to his chest, are 3 throwing knives.

Boots.

After grabbing a quick breakfast, Gale makes his way to Alisha.

"Ok! You're awfully early." Alisha greets him, " I don't think anyone else is around, but when they do I'll make sure to introduce you. These adventurer's have a little bit more experience then you, but don't be too alarmed. They are still fairly new."

"Not a problem." Gale responds.

A few hours pass with Gale awkwardly standing there like a teenager. Mostly because he is a teenager, and spent 2 hours looking very awkward. Adjusting his equipment, pulling out his throwing knives, making eye contact with people and then quickly averting his gaze, failing epically at going for a casual look, putting his hands through his hair to try to give it a certain look, and walking towards Alisha whenever a group would go over, in the hopes that it was his future party members. They weren't.

Finally, "Go sit down! I'll call your name when they get here, you're freaking everyone out." Alisha yells out.

"Right, yeah, sorry. Umm. Where should I sit?" Gale turns a bright red.

"Anywhere that looks like a seat, ok?" Alisha forces a pained smile.

Gale walks away at a very casual pace. So casual that no one could have possibly noticed how awkward he had been and was still being. At least this is what he forced himself to believe. In reality a great many helpers and adventurers were holding on to their mouths to avoid laughing and snickering. Gale takes a seat in an empty chair in the lobby.

Another 2 hours go by until Alisha walks over, "Hey Gale, allow me to introduce you to your party members. This is Kyle," she points to a short teenage boy wearing wizard clothing with a robe covering his face, "this is Stephanie," she points to knight wearing full plate body armour, "this is Jeffrey," she points towards a young man wearing white robes with a staff in hand, "and this is Claudia." She points towards a teenage girl with a shortbow and quiver on her back.

"Hey, nice to meet you. I hope we didn't leave you waiting here long." Jeffrey says holding out his hand.

"Oh no, not at all," Gale stands up and grabs his hand, delivering a handshake, "It's not a big deal."

Alisha stares at Gale, a restrained smile touching her lips. "Ok! Now that I've introduced you guys, it's time we go over the quest details. This is an F ranked quest. The task being to kill one hundred dire wolves to limit the sudden increase in population that has been plaguing the area. The time limit is 3 months. The area you all will be working in, is the field to the east of Austeria. Currently, human occupation is low. Other monsters you might run into include goblins, boars, and kobolds, but you never know what might show up! My advice is for you guys to take it easy, you all have plenty of time to complete this, so try to come back in one piece. Ok! Any questions?"

"I think that's plenty of information Alisha, thank you." Jeffrey states, "Now we just have to get together and work out strategies."

After Alisha walks away, the party sticks around for a while going over what their roles will be and giving a more in-depth introduction. Coming to an agreement, the party heads out to buy necessary supplies, agreeing to meet at the west gate in one hour.

'Might as well just walk there and wait, this time I'll play it cool for sure.' Gale thinks to himself as he heads towards the west gate.

Meeting up at the west gate the party sets out. The game plan is to try to kill 3 wolves a day and get the quest over with before the end of the second month. Claudia will be drawing one or two wolves over at a time by hitting them with an arrow from a distance. Stephanie will act as a shield for the party, protecting the magic users from harm. Kyle will be casting ice magic to bind the wolves in place. Gale will be the damage dealer, and the secondary defense in case anything gets past Stephanie. Jeffrey will be the field tactician and healer of the party.

"Remember the most important thing is to keep me safe," Jeffrey warns. "It's fine if you guys get hit, but I can heal you. If I die most likely everyone dies. Now let's get going, we'll hunt until an hour from sunset and come back to the city to sleep and then we'll meet back here at sunrise to start over."

Everything went as planned for the first 4 days. The party set up and the plan they had concocted was working perfectly. It allowed them to hunt 2 wolves on the first day, 4 wolves on the second, 8 on the third and 6 on the fourth. The party was way ahead of schedule and morale was high.

On the 5th day they were battered by more than 20 wolves. Luckily they stayed with their formation and were able to kill half of them before running back to the city. Healing up, they went back out again on the 6th day, with the same result. What made matters worse was that they couldn't loot the right ears of the most recent kills, and so they couldn't prove how many they had killed.

This continued for another 10 days with them meeting their quota, but only able to prove that they had killed 53 wolves. On the 17th day, while they were successfully finishing off a group of three wolves.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

*AAAAAAWWWwwwwwoooooooooooo*

"What. Was. That." Stephanie stammers out, beginning to hyperventilate.

Making their way towards them was a huge dire wolf at least 6 feet tall with glowing red eyes. Surrounding him are a small pack of regular dire wolves, about 7 in all.

"It's a Dire Wolf Lord," Jeffrey spits out, his face ashen, "We won't be able to run away, we'll have to go by the same strategy as before. This time though, Kyle hit him with a big spell. Your ice binding magic won't work long enough to be useful. Stephanie you're going to have to be our shield, I'll heal you as much as possible. Gale, aim for the vitals when you have the opportunity, you should be familiar with them by now. Stephanie, try to get its eyes, if that seems too hard go for its feet and legs. We need to blind him or at least slow him down. If he summons any more wolves, we're screwed. If that happens, Kyle you'll have to torch them all, so save your mana after the big blow." Jeffrey instructs.

Resolve enters each party member's face. Gale takes his scimitar and scabbard off of his belt, and throws it to the side. Grabbing some herbs from his pouch, he crushes them and shoves them into his mouth. Making a slight bulge appear in his left cheek.

'If I put healing herbs in my mouth, my recovery rate should increase while I'm in battle so I won't have to worry about small injuries. I have to make sure to go back and thank Joshua for giving me this tip.' Gale thinks.

The giant wolf growls in their direction, before loping towards them, the pack running around him. Kyle finishes his incantation, and a large red magic circle appears. A large wall of flaming pillars appear all around the place the wolves were. Various howling and whimpers are heard as the wolves are roasted inside. A black shadow is seen through the fire and gets bigger and bigger until it takes shape. The Dire Wolf Lord dives through, emerging on the other side of the flames, it's eyes glowing in hatred. Stopping it looks at the party, a growl emitting from its teeth.

3 Arrows whiz by, one hitting the Wolf in its left eye, another one hitting its front left paw, and the last one hastily dodged as it goes by the other eye.

"Gale, focus on its blind spot!" Jeffrey commands. "We're not going to let the bastard get reinforcements! Lets go!"

The party rushes forward, Claudia steadily firing arrows, aiming for its other paws and good eye to keep it preoccupied. The wolf dodges them except for a few that hit off the mark. One protruding from its right shoulder, with another going into its left ribs.

"Claudia change of plans, conserve arrows and just go for shots with sure hits. It's not gonna let us hit its other eye or legs easily." Jeffrey yells.

Coming into close range of the wolf, the party is stopped when the wolf crashed forward. Acting as the primary line of defense, Stephanie uses her shield to cushion the blow, and is almost swept away. Two long tracks of broken dirt are left where she slid on her feet from the impact.

Gale rushed to the left side of the wolf as soon as it attacked, and wielding his long sword stabs towards the lung area. He made sure to position the blade so it would go between the ribs. Making contact, the blade slips in about 4 inches. The Dire Wolf Lord howls, and moves its head to bite at Gale.

Withdrawing his sword, Gale leaps back, narrowing avoiding the large teeth. Stephanie takes the chance created to stab her short sword into the wolf's right paw, sinking it to its hilt so it stabs into the ground, effectively pinning it to the earth for a moment. She then jumps back, while 3 more arrows whiz over her head.

Giving off a yelp, the wolf turns to face Stephanie only to have three arrows hit it's snout, left eye and forehead. Unfortunately the one that hit the forehead glances off and only leave a shallow cut. Taking its right paw the wolf attempts to swipe at what's giving it pain on its face.

Gale takes his long sword one more time, and gets closer to the left side of the wolf. Readying the blade again, he stabs ferociously into the wolf's side. Burying the sword halfway down the blade between its ribs into it's lung area. Pulling the sword out with gush of blood Gale jumps backwards.

The wolf in great pain tries to snap at its left side blindly, but doesn't connect to anything. It's movements becoming slow and more unsteady, another 3 arrows find their way into the wolf's throat. Wheezing through blood from its lungs and throat, the wolf looks at the adventurer party and whimpers. It slowly eases its way to the ground

Gale walks forward, and placing both hands on his sword, points it towards the sky. In a swift and powerful motion he brings the sword down, freeing the head of the wolf from its body.

"I can't believe that worked." Jeffrey states.

After finishing up the remaining wolves and collecting proof as well as beast cores. The party finishes the quest in 10 more days. The party then heads back to the guild to collect payment. After proving that the Dire Wolf Lord was present, the quest got upgraded to a rank D quest, and every adventurer except Gale ranked up. Supposedly due to it being his first mission.

2 years go by with Gale joining many parties and completing many adventures. He spent money earned on a few items, notably an interspatial ring that was soul bound, an enchanted sword that emits dark energy, and a small house in the city. Everything else he used regularly was either acquired through quests, or wasn't special.

He also spent a majority of his money on acquiring basic abilities, and increasing his swordsmanship. When not adventuring, Gale would spend his time in visual meditation. Always training he slowly became stronger.

Waking up early, he heads towards the guild to meet his usual party members to embark on a new quest.