The direwolves ruled the roost over at the plains to the east, enough to give endless headaches to the merchants who plied their trade between the Eastern Empire and the kingdoms around the Forest of Jura. Each one of them was the equivalent of a C-ranked monster, hardy enough that an adventurer could find his leg bitten off if he wasn’t paying attention.
The real threat, however, came when they roamed in packs. Only when a talented alpha was leading the horde did the direwolves show their real worth. The entire pack would act as a single mind, a single creature, every member acting in lockstep. Such a pack, in full motion, could easily be rated a B.
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The eastern plains were located next to a wide grain-producing region, a vital lifeline for the Eastern Empire and one kept very well secured. No matter how cunning the direwolves were, no matter how advanced their skills, penetrating the Empire’s defensive lines remained a difficult task. Even if they made it through, doing so would rouse the full fury of the Empire, putting the direwolf race’s very future into question.
The pack’s leader was fully aware of this. It was something he had learned through hard-fought experience, amid the many skirmishes he had witnessed against the Empire over several decades. Targeting the smaller-scale merchants who passed by wasn’t enough to make the Empire take full action—but the moment wolves stepped into its grain fields, it would truly retaliate.
After so many failures, no more would the direwolves repeat the mistakes of their comrades. That was the alpha’s way of thinking. But his monster’s instincts also told him that, under the status quo, there would be no progress, nothing to push their pack forward.
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As a rule, the direwolf race did not require food to survive. Attacking and consuming humans provided them with a nice little snack, but those didn’t hold much in the way of magic.
To the pack, their real sustenance lay in the world’s magicules. They would need to attack stronger monsters or slaughter humans in droves to evolve into calamity-level creatures. None of these options were particularly accessible to them. The Empire was just too powerful. But merely picking off passing merchants would never do anything for their dreams of evolution.
Then they heard tales of the southlands. A fertile territory, one with a forest that offered all its blessings—a vast store of magic. A paradise for monsters, so it was said. In order to reach it, though, they would have to traverse the vast Forest of Jura.
The monsters of this wood were, in and of themselves, no great foes. Their past experience hunting the stragglers wandering out of it proved as much. So why had they shied away from entering it themselves?
Simple: Veldora the Storm Dragon. He was the one and only reason. Even when he was within his prison, the waves of dreadful magical force shook their very hearts. The creatures in the forest, they believed, enjoyed the dragon’s divine guardianship—which was why they could survive under those scorching waves. That was what they had to believe. Otherwise, the truth would drive them mad.
So despite how it pained them daily, the direwolves had given up on infiltrating the forest. Until now.
The alpha turned his bloodred eyes toward the forest. That evil, horrid dragon could no longer be felt. Now is the time, he thought, to hunt the forest clean of monsters—and then we may become the lords of the forest. The idea made him lick his lips and sound the howl commanding his pack to advance.
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Okay. So now I’m a guardian. What should I do next? To me, it just felt like bodyguard duty, despite the grandiose terms the elder used to describe me.
To start out, I had all the goblins capable of fighting gathered around me. It wasn’t a pretty sight. They were in awful shape. No way could I count on them on the battlefield. And from afar, the remainder of the village looked like…nothing but children and the elderly to me. Reinforcements, in other words, were out of the question.
The village elder must have been shaking at the knees. Even if they fled the village right now, they’d practically starve before the day was through.
Meanwhile, the goblins around me were all staring with an almost religious faith in their eyes. This was heavy, man. To someone like me, who lived a fairly easy-breezy life, those gazes added a lot of pressure.
“Right,” I said, “do all of you know what kind of situation we’re in?”
I wasn’t trying to make a joke. I just couldn’t think of anything inspirational I could say.
“Yes, sir!” the goblin leader instantly replied. “We are preparing for a battle to decide whether we live or die!”
The other goblins around him must have felt the same way. Some of them were visibly shaking, which I couldn’t chide them for. A person’s mind can think one thing and their body do something very different.
“All right,” I replied, trying to act like the best general I could. “No need to get all worked up. Keep it chill, all right? Whether you’re revved up or not, if we’re gonna lose, we’re gonna lose. Just focus on giving this everything you’ve got!”
That helped lighten my mood, at least. Maybe it worked better than I thought.
Might as well get started, then. If I screw up, that might be it for these goblins. But I gotta stick to my guns. I wanted to bring some swagger into this, and now I’m gonna!
With a moment to collect my thoughts, I gave my first order to the goblins—an order I would give many times to come.
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Night. The direwolves’ alpha had his eyes open. It was a full moon—the perfect night for a battle. Slowly, he rose, surveying the area, the rest of his pack looking on with bated breath.
Just the right amount of intensity, the alpha thought.
Tonight, they would level the goblin village, establishing a foothold for themselves within the Forest of Jura. Then, slowly but surely, they would hunt the monsters around the area, expanding their territory until they ruled the woods. Soon, when the time was right, they would turn their eyes toward the south, invading it for the power it held.
They had the strength to make it happen. Their claws could rend the flesh of any monster; their fangs could pierce any armor.
“Awooooooooooo!”
The alpha gave the signal.
It was time to let the carnage begin.
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There was, however, one concern.
The alpha had sent a scout a few days ago who had come back with some perplexing news—news of a small monster that let off a strange, mystical force. Enough to surpass that of even their alpha.
He had shrugged off this report at first. It was too preposterous to entertain. He himself had detected nothing of the sort in the forest. Every monster they’d encountered was a comparative weakling. Up to this point, nothing even resembling resistance to their advance had appeared—and they were almost in the dead center of the wood. A dozen or so goblins had picked off one or two members of their pack, but nothing else.
The scout must have been too excited about the upcoming hunt to think straight. That was the alpha’s conclusion as he kept his eyes forward.