Gale stood in front of the wolf and they looked into each other's eyes. They both were preparing their spells for their forthcoming clash, aiming to wound their enemy in their next move.
The wolf used his spells again for speed and power buffs, while Gale used his to prepare a trap for the wolf. The mont the wolf bolted toward Gale, Gale waved his hand upwards, and 3 pillars ca out of the earth in an attempt to break the wolf's bones.
Gale had to use pillars instead of spikes to utilize his heaviness affinity to the maximum; his power was greater when it ca to blunt attacks. The wolf used a montary speed buff it had prepared and dodged the pillars.
Gale was left with one spell and the wolf had only its passive speed buff and power remaining. However, that speed-up got the wolf extrely near, and Gale could not dodge in ti with his inferior speed as an earth mage, and the wolf's fangs closed on his shoulder.
Gale simply opened his arms and embraced the incoming wolf; at that mont, his body turned into stone and the real Gale was ejected out of it from behind. The wolf crushed into the stone statue and was captured in its embrace. It imdiately hit the statue with its paw, breaking it, but it was enough ti for Gale to cast another pillar.
The pillar rose from the ground and struck the helpless wolf that was falling to the ground after breaking the statue. The wolf let out a miserable whimper as the pillar broke so of its ribs and caused internal damage.
Gale didn't want to lose this opportunity and started shooting fireballs; it was a far faster elent for attacks, and now that the wolf was already wounded it could deal enough damage even with Gale's lower affinity with it. His affinity with fire wasn't low in the first place; it was in the Mage Phase too since it was Nancy's sub-elent.
3 fireballs were shot at high speed toward the wolf and exploded, sending sparks everywhere nearby. Everything that was touched by a single spark was instantly ignited and burned in flas. However, the wolf wasn't one of those things; it was still fast enough to fall back and dodge the sparks despite the pain.
*HOWL*
The wolf howled loudly and started to run away at full speed. Beasts of higher ranks had higher intelligence, and they wouldn't waste their life in a fight they were likely to lose, so the wolf simply turned tail and ran away.
As soon as the loud howl resounded in the convoy, all the remaining wolves started running away in the sa direction as their leader, which might not have been a smart decision since Gale was standing in their way.
Gale, however, believed in preserving nature and had let them go without any further massacre; they wouldn't be able to attack again any ti soon, and by the ti they will be ready he will be in the capital.
Gale quickly ran to where everyone else was fighting to check on Nina and found the place in chaos; out of 15 carriages, 5 were ruined completely beyond repair by the battle that just took place, and only 2 carriages remained undamaged since they were in the further end of the convoy.
The ground was littered with the corpses of humans and wolves alike. At least half of the humans were killed despite Gale's initial attack which helped to reduce the wolves' numbers greatly. Without his barrage in the beginning, there would be hardly any survivors by then.
Nina and Leo were leaning on each other back-to-back, exhausted. Gale found out from questioning Nina later that by the ti they had killed one wolf each, one Expert Magician had died and the 2 wolves she was fighting against filled the gap created by the wolves they had killed.
It took them a few minutes to kill one before, and it didn't get any easier in the renewed fight. By the ti Nina had killed another wolf, another Expert Magician died and both the wolves that fought against him attacked Nina, forcing her to fight one against three.
The third Expert Magician was injured during her fight, but she managed to take down one of the wolves and keep the other at bay until the end of the battle. Gale offered her a potion to help her recover and went to et with Nina and Leo.
The coachn and rchants who survived buried the fallen humans and treated the wounded ones. Once they finished, they cleared the way of the wolves' corpses and broken carriages. They gave 20% of the belonging of the fallen to Gale, who refused the offer since he couldn't carry items, and neither did he plan to open a stall to sell them in the capital.
As compensation for his battle, they gifted him 80% of the items worth in cash which could help him later in the capital. Nina and the rest of the Expert Magicians got half of that as compensation, while the rchants and coachn divided the rest among themselves.
"Excuse , Lord Gale."
Gale turned around to see a rchant bow to him with a slightly uncomfortable expression.
"What is it?"
"I wanted to offer you a business deal; you've killed a fourth-rank wolf and its corpse can be used for many crafts and even as food. I believe that you don't have the ti to sell it yourself, so how about I sell everything for you and take a commission of 10%."
That was the first ti he heard that beasts' corpses could be used that way and wondered why Lena and the prince ignored the fourth-rank wolf Lena had killed in the forest. Then he quickly understood; for royalty and a student of an Expert Mage, it was probably considered peanuts.
"All right, I will leave it to you. Does a wolf really taste good though?"
"It does, it was nourished by mana to a high degree. With the right chef, it's even considered useful to magicians and might even give a slight boost to one's affinity with the beast's elents."
Gale nodded and went to sit by the side with Leo and Nina until the convoy will be ready to leave again.
"You're extrely strong, Gale. I didn't expect you to defeat 2 fourth-rank wolves before we could offer any help. You've even left the battle unscathed."
Leo complinted Gale as soon as he sat by their side. Leo had a long gash on his thigh which was currently fading after consuming a healing potion. Nina only had a few scratches that would heal on their own in a few days and wouldn't hinder her combat prowess, so she didn't take any potion.
"Thank you, Leo. It was quite a nerve-wracking battle, but I managed to win by using tactics wolves wouldn't be able to see through."
Nina was still bothered by the attack; she wanted to find out the instigator.
"Leo, how likely do you think it is your siblings' fault that we were attacked today?"
"I don't want to sound paranoid but I believe it's very likely to be instigated by humans since wolves wouldn't attack a large convoy with enough power to kill half of them unless they are starving, and those wolves didn't seem to be starving."
"Don't worry about it, I will take care of it. If they want us dead, they should be still in the surroundings. What are your siblings' stages?"
"My big sister is a True Mage, while my little brothers are both Expert Magicians. However, it won't be them on the field but their subordinates. Each of us has 2 True Mages subordinates on the surface, but we've all secured so more in the dark. They can't employ the 2 that are associated with them or they might get caught, so it's very likely the instigators are unknown mages who can do their dirty work for them."
"What about Advanced Mages?"
"Impossible, they are as strong as a duke, and wouldn't lower themselves to beco subordinates of a duke's child that might not even beco the duke."
After Leo explained the situation clearly to Gale and Nina, they separated and went to ditate or practice magic to test new things they understood during their battle. Night fell by the ti the rchants were ready to depart again, and they chose to camp there for the night and leave in the morning.
At night, Gale got up from his sleeping bag and cast his shadow spells, turning almost completely invisible and silent. He closed his eyes to feel movents of mana around him and quickly found faint traces of mana manipulation in the distance.
He walked in that general direction, changing his route a few tis according to the feeling he was getting from the mana around him. After going 2 kiloters to the south he finally heard so noises in the silent night.
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