?Gale stood in front of the wolf and they looked into each other''s eyes. They both were preparing their spells for their forting sh, 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 moment the wolf bolted toward Gale, Gale waved his hand upwards, and 3 pirs came out of the earth in an attempt to break the wolf''s bones.


    Gale had to use pirs instead of spikes to utilize his heaviness affinity to the maximum; his power was greater when it came to blunt attacks. The wolf used a momentary speed buff it had prepared and dodged the pirs.


    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 extremely near, and Gale could not dodge in time 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 iing wolf; at that moment, 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 immediately hit the statue with its paw, breaking it, but it was enough time for Gale to cast another pir.


    The pir 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 pir broke some of its ribs and caused internal damage.


    Gale didn''t want to lose this opportunity and started shooting fireballs; it was a far faster element 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 ce; it was in the Mage Phase too since it was Nancy''s sub-element.


    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 mes. 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 same 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 time soon, and by the time 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 ce in chaos; out of 15 carriages, 5 were ruinedpletely beyond repair by the battle that just took ce, 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 Ninater that by the time 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 time 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 meet with Nina and Leo.


    The coachmen and merchants 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 n to open a stall to sell them in the capital.


    Aspensation for his battle, they gifted him 80% of the items worth in cash which could help himter in the capital. Nina and the rest of the Expert Magicians got half of that aspensation, while the merchants and coachmen divided the rest among themselves.


    "Excuse me, Lord Gale."


    Gale turned around to see a merchant bow to him with a slightly ufortable expression.<novelsnext></novelsnext>


    "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 time to sell it yourself, so how about I sell everything for you and take amission of 10%."


    That was the first time 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 elements."


    Gale nodded and went to sit by the side with Leo and Nina until the convoy will be ready to leave again.


    "You''re extremely 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."


    Leoplimented 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 herbat 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 arge 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 some 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 be subordinates of a duke''s child that might not even be the duke."


    After Leo exined the situation clearly to Gale and Nina, they separated and went to meditate or practice magic to test new things they understood during their battle. Night fell by the time the merchants 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 almostpletely invisible and silent. He closed his eyes to feel movements of mana around him and quickly found faint traces of mana maniption in the distance.


    He walked in that general direction, changing his route a few times ording to the feeling he was getting from the mana around him. After going 2 kilometers to the south he finally heard some noises in the silent night.