Chapter 401 401 Return To The Village
Chapter 401 401 Return To The Village
Wolfe made short work of the magical beast with a [Wind Blades] spell before it could even react to his presence, then silently walked over to see if he could determine who it had been eating and where they had been taken.
There was a chance that it had caught another patrol or a lone farmer unaware, and there might be more casualties where this one had come from.
The body had been so thoroughly picked clean that it was nearly impossible to tell who it had been, but there were some personal effects on the ground under the tree that the beast had been calling home for some time.
The bones in the undergrowth suggested that this wasn’t its first human victim, so Wolfe only recovered the beast’s body and left the rest of the site intact for the locals to come and examine for signs of their lost loved ones.
Anything else that he did might destroy evidence or make it impossible to tell who had been taken, so he would leave it to someone with training.
“Did you find it?” The scout team leader called when Wolfe returned without warning only a minute after he left.
“I did, and I have its body, but I should warn you that it was eating humans. There are the remains of more than one body at the location where I killed it, and I didn’t want to mess with anything before someone had the chance to identify them in case they were locals.” Wolfe replied.
The scout looked grim but shook his head.
“I haven’t heard of anyone missing from the village or the farms around us, but it might have happened without anyone noticing if it was one of the smaller farms that don’t check in often.
I will inform the Mayor and the Elders. Will my men be able to find the location without help?” He asked.
“Just over that way, you will see the blood on the tree and the damage from the creature’s claws all over. It’s hard to miss.”
Five of the patrolmen split off to head to the location to keep watch until someone from town could get out there, and the rest turned back toward the village.
“We should get into town quickly then. Thank you for the help taking out the beast. I’m sure this one will get you even more goodwill than the snake did.”
At least the scouts no longer had any doubts that they were who they said they were, and the team leader set a brisk pace back toward the village limits with them, aiming for the same main entrance where they had dropped the snake before.
“You know the routine. Set down the animal by the gate, and we will call the Elders. You’ve got our permission to enter, but they monopolize the purchase of magical beast materials, and they want it done outside the gates so that there are no illicit sales of items for curses and dark magic.”
Wolfe thought that it was more of a case that they wanted all the good stuff for themselves, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it. If possible, he wanted to work out an agreement with this village as well, so accusations would put him off to a bad start.
Besides, it wasn’t a big deal to begin with. The village witches were getting enough to eat, and the ones who could use the materials were the ones who were coming to buy them, so there wasn’t really any harm in their exclusive claims.
Wolfe set down the cat’s body and waited while the gate guard rushed inside to fetch the Elders.
His sensitive ears could already detect the gossip going through town that the Snow Demon was here with a dead magical beast as a peace offering for the village, and the prisoners that Wolfe had rescued sounded like they were getting ready to meet him at the gate before the Elders told them to wait until the business was done.
For an old woman, the Elder had a pretty good voice, and even the guards were smiling when they heard her chastize all the energetic sorts inside the village.
If they were out and about in the middle of the day, they weren’t being treated too badly by the locals, just like John had predicted. He was already a soldier, as was his daughter, so they should have been welcomed with open arms as returned prisoners of war, but there had been some doubts as to how well a small village would receive a dozen or more new mouths to feed.
Not all of them had real marketable skills, and some Wolfe had picked on a whim, like the pregnant Witches, so it wasn’t the finest batch of job applicants that a village could hope for.
The Elder walked out with a smile on her face and two younger women in tow.
“Mister Wolfe, Miss Ella and Lady Christa. Welcome back.”
At that point, she paused as she took in the various auras of the group.
“You deceived us the last time you were here. I might not have noticed that Wolfe was a Demon, and that’s on me, but Miss Ella is Matriarch Ella, it seems. Forgive us for not greeting you as you deserved the last time you were here, Highness.” The Elder continued once she had a moment to accept the truth.
“Miss Ella is just fine, Elder. Matriarch makes me feel so old, and I’m not even twenty yet.” Ella laughed.
Wolfe nodded in agreement. “If we wanted to make a big scene, we wouldn’t have hidden last time. We just had to make sure that everyone in your village was being treated properly before we went and did anything rash.
You know how it is, coming from a winter on the front lines of the war against the Mundane Armies, our first instinct was to kill the invaders and any Rebel working with them, but after meeting your lot and hearing about the stance of Gormana, we realized that there are a lot of positives to your arrangements.”