And when we reached, she sat on the floor, staring at me like I just committed a great crime against her, which made my metallic body shudder.
“So, do I really have to do it?”
“Grrr… how stupid!” she yelled, “okay, if you are capable of understanding me, I accept my life is in your hands from now on! As if you had hands…”
[Silver Mountain Wolf wishes to enter a pact of loyalty with you as your follower. Accept?]
I thought about it a bit more. She really didn’t seem happy about this arrangement, and I might be getting in the middle of her life without her asking for me.
[Contract accepted! You gained your first follower as a Boss Monster!]
“Huh? You can speak? And you have a female voice…”
“Yeah… it is weird, like I am hearing from another room, but I can hear you right now. I didn’t know living objects could speak.”
“Human? I haven’t heard about any humans in a good while! Only our legends tell of them. But nothing about an exit..”
I figured as much. Finding the exit was not going to be as easy as I hoped, so who knows how much longer I was going to stay there. What if this whole world was now underground?
“Although… someone might have an idea.”
“She is the High Spirit Priest, Adena. She seems to talk with the goddess Ella, and has a ton of knowledge. If anyone knows anything about an exit, it is her.”
“Not so far… I can take you there, I guess. But we must be careful. We are going to travel through the Kings’s clan territories and hunting grounds, and since you let a few of them leave, they will know you killed one of the best warriors of my clan.”
“Cannot say I am not worried, but I don’t care about them anyway. The one you killed made my life miserable while I was living with them. You did me a favor… although, I doubt the King will see it that way.”
Just then I realized the problem I just threw myself into. First time finding something that seems like an organized culture in these wolves and I already killed someone. Someone that was an important asset to a leader…
It has been just a few weeks since I got that new world and I might have just begun a war with a community of wolves. Good job, Alice, you let your impulses take a hold just because you wanted to play the heroine.
|Oh! By the way, I’m Alice. What 's your name?|
“Name? We don’t have those.”
“I mean… yeah. But she says that is the name Ella gave her.”
Didn’t Ella say she didn’t know she was in some caverns? But she said she heard voices, asking her to give them names…
And I was wondering what a priest wolf would look like. I was not expecting to find a full on society underground, but this might be welcomed news. I finally have someone else to talk to other than the System!
[Your ideas about me have been noted]
Shut up! I just want someone that doesn’t sound like an AI!
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But I had to do something. I couldn’t just keep calling her wolf.
“Huh?” her ears perked up and her tail began to wag behind her, until she caught it with her right back leg. “Do whatever you want… you are the mas… just do it.”
I giggled at how embarrassed she seemed after I promised her a name! She went all cute and flustered when I offered her a new name.
“Grrrrr…” she growled, not looking at me, but the tip of her tail, still trapped under her leg, was wagging uncontrollably.
“Shut up! Ugh… let’s just go…”
The caverns on that level were different by quite a bit now that I began to explore them. That lake with vegetation I found Aspen at was, in fact, where the limit of the hunting grounds and territory the wolves claimed as theirs. The rest of the area was divided in different rooms of multiple sizes and heights, which basically worked as different territories within that place.
The ceiling had cyan colored glowing mushrooms, so it seemed to be a sky, and they blinked in a synchronized and timed way. Plants were more common, and more animals moved around us. Like a whole ecosystem. The majority ran from us, but thanks to [Soul Sense] I could get a nice glimpse of them.
The majority had big eyes, most likely to make up for the lack of natural light. Bats, more muckrats, snakes, lizards. No birds, the only flying creatures were the bats.
And my [Soul Sense] Grew a good few meters of distance! I could see over 200 meters with it. It doesn’t sound like much, but remember that was without my eyes and that it gave me a 360 view of my surroundings, and I could see things even when they were behind a rock or a plant.
I was missing having eyes, though. I still can only see that far away, and with eyes I could see further.
And the Ether seemed to move very differently there. Seemed to dance more, and be more “stable”, if that is the correct word.
[Explanation: Ether moves around living beings where it gets both consumed and produced. Once it reaches balance, it helps to develop life, evolve and expand.]
So, the Ether on that place got balanced. It wasn’t traveling from one part to the other, it was getting consumed and then being produced once more, and because there were souls around there, it was expanding.
Giving the Wolves the capacity to speak and to develop into more complex societies was impressive.
I explained my story to Aspen. How I got to those caves and what happened to me. I skipped the part of Ella, though.
If Ella was the goddess they were worshiping, then the news that their deity was dead was either going to be impossible to believe or the destruction of her hope. I would have to see how to land the news to her, if I ever have the need.
“Seems you went through a few ordeals.”
“Yeah, well… you said you didn’t need to eat their flesh.”
“Experience points?” she seemed confused.
[Explanation: Only humans have a System]
And the System explained important stuff right after I said something weird! Aspen was looking at me completely confused at what I was talking about!
“You are a weird sword…”
I know…
Then… was she going to progress the same way as I did, or not?
[Explanation: Allies that are under your command through pacts benefit from your growth, and they develop faster. XP is shared if you two fight nearby]
[Showing Aspen’s Stats…]
[Name: Aspen - Class: None - Silver Mountain Wolf]
[Level 04/10 - EXP: 320/590]
But I could get a glimpse at how she was progressing! Maybe she didn’t get a System, but that didn’t seem to be detrimental!
She seemed to hesitate. It took her a few seconds to explain the answer.
“I tried to kill the king after he killed my father. I have been chased since then.”
“I… hey! We are close!”
She changed the topic.
But before I could insist, I noticed something had changed entirely when we entered the next room.
The Ether was flowing with much more intensity, but rhythmically. Where it was fast currents and simple dances, this one seemed to be a complete choreography, taller and more powerful.
The room itself was impressive. What I saw was an impressive lake, large, that covered the whole room, with water so clear and crystalline that reflected the light from the shining mushrooms in the ceiling and walls.
“There it is.” Aspen said.
“There is an isle in the middle of the lake.”
“Then, follow me.”
Yeah, I knew having that limit was going to be problematic at some point. It grew with me, and let me find everything around me, but after that it was dark. I needed eyes soon.
Aspen walked towards the water. For a second I thought she was going to fall on it, but a rock appeared before she left the shore. As she went deeper, a small path magically appeared as she stepped forward. I went behind her, letting her guide me. After the first 50 meters, a large formation appeared.
That was the isle she was talking about.
A large burrow was in the middle, enough for one of the wolves to enter, which I assume is the Priest’s house.
There were 4 runes drawn on the floor. One seemed to be a square with a second point on top. The second two circles. A third a flame with two points, and a fourth the point of a triangle. They seemed to shine.
“Eeeh… you mean the symbols? The priest said they represent the four basic elements that Ella taught her and gave us magic. You used it while fighting those hunters, didn’t you?”
Although I had never seen those symbols. System?
[Analysyng… exactly, those are the wave forms magic flow takes when you cast a spell. Knowing them is important for the creation of spells. Pay attention when you cast a spell in the future, they appear around you]
Spell creation? That caught my attention.
“High Priest Adela!”
When she got called… she appeared. Just in the middle of my [Soul Sense]. I could not detect her before. She was inside the burrow, only making her presence known even to me when she was called.
“Child… what is this you have brought to me this day?” the first asked. She walked out, dark fur like the other wolves, and there was an aura surrounding her, heavier than any other I had seen. “Tell me, human from another world… what does someone in your situation want with me?”