Edward followed the road towards the Violet Flower inn, letting the morning chilly wind slowly put his emotions back in place. It didn’t take him long, and was soon just in front of the inn, feet stopping for a moment as his anxiety slowly started to spike up once again.
[You’re already here. Might as well go in.] said Fenrir slowly, seeing the hesitation in his steps.
“I know, breathing is just getting a little hard right now.” Replied Edward as he took one deep breath and pushed the door open.
As he walked in, he spotted Violet doing her morning rounds, serving food and drinks to the customers inside. He could only see her back, but seeing her tail hanging down lifelessly, he could already tell she wasn’t in the greatest of moods.
‘Should I come back another time?’ a thought drifted through his mind but he shook his head to get rid of it and slowly walked up.
As he got closer and closer, Violet visibly shook and the hair on her tail stood up at once, letting Edward know she was aware of his presence.
Stopping his footsteps, afraid to scare her once more, he just waited for the frozen Violet to turn around.
“Miss,” Said one of the customers, the one she was serving just before Edward walked inside, “are you all right?”
His words brought her back from her thoughts as she nodded towards the customer and turned around stiffly. A look full of mixed feelings appeared in her eyes as she fixed them on Edward. She opened her mouth to say something but no words came out.
Edward noticed that, while obviously confused, there was also a trace of apprehension in her eyes. Eyes that looked at him with joy every time they met, now only contained confusion, hesitation and even a trace of fear. He sighed and said: “Violet, can we talk alone for a moment? I want to apologize properly to you and give you an explanation… please.”
Violet looked even more troubled but eventually nodded and said succinctly: “Let me finish serving breakfast first.”
Edward nodded and took a seat at one of the empty tables. It took around a quarter of an hour until Violet started walking towards the courtyard in the back and motioned for Edward to follow after her.
Edward stood up and walked with her in the inn’s backyard. Seeing Violet turn around only after she was quite a distance away, Edward sighed one more and said: “I’m sorry I scared you, Violet. I never meant to. The last time I lost control of one of my skills in my rage…”
Violet stared at him silently for a good while before eventually asking: “Skill? Your skill turns you into a wolf?”
“Yes. It turns my body into the one of black wolf. It’s a battle skill of my unique class shape-shifter. I never meant to scare you, please believe me.”
“C..can you turn again?” asked Violet hesitantly as she brought her hands close to her chest.
“I can, but are you sure?”
Seeing Violet nod once again, Edward sighed and started removing his tunic. Violet blushed slightly but didn’t say a single word as she turned her head to the side to not look at him.
As Edward fell on all fours and cracking sounds started coming from his body, Violet turned back to look at him. Seeing the turning process, she got scared and took a few more steps back before she stopped herself and continued watching.
Edward turned quite fast, already used to it and looked up, only to see Violet with her back against the courtyard’s wall, a look of fear in her eyes.
‘Of course she would get scared…’ thought Edward as he hang his head and slowly stared turning back into a human, only to be stopped by Violet’s soft trembling voice: “Wait!”
Hearing her speak, Edward stopped undoing his transformation and looked up once more, only to see Violet slowly approaching.
Violet was feeling her heart wildly beating inside her chest, but it was not all fear. She came closer and knelt slowly in front of Edward before bringing one of her hands towards his head. Her tail raised itself high in the air behind her back, but none of the two paid it any attention.
‘Is she trying to pet me?…’ asked Edward in his mind, unsure of what to do, eventually ending up letting her slowly place her soft hand on his head.
After rubbing gently on one of his ears, thing that felt a lot better than Edward would ever like to admit, Violet surprised him once more by bringing her face close to his head and rubbing her cheeks against it.
As a sweet smell drifted into Edward’s nose, he took a step back and noticed that Violet was watching him with slightly glazed eyes and labored breath. Edward didn’t know what was going on and turned back into a human in panic. After wearing his tunic over his head quickly, he asked: “Violet, are you all right?”
Violet’s dull look went away, startled by his words and she started blushing fiercely before running away.
“Violet, wait…” Yelled Edward, trying to stop her, but Violet didn’t care as she ran straight to her room inside the inn before closing the door behind her.
Edward, being left alone in the backyard, hand outstretched awkwardly, sighed and let it down as he mumbled: “Why is she always running like this?…”
After asking the customers in the main lobby where Violet was, all of them shook their heads with awkward expressions. Once of the slightly older demi-humans there said: “You should give her some time kid.”
Edward nodded, feeling a bit down, as he walked out of the inn.
As she entered her room and locked the door behind her, Violet fell on the floor, her breathing getting even more ragged by the second. As she felt a slightly wet feeling between her legs, she slowly moved her hand under her long dress…
Edward was walking towards the outskirts of the city, a sad expression on his face. As he started getting closer to the place he left Minx, Fenrir couldn’t hold back anymore and started laughing out loud. Edward looked confused at his arm and asked: “What are you laughing about now?”
[Hahaha… That poor girl… hahahah]
Edward stopped and raised an eyebrow. “Violet? What about her?”
Fenrir didn’t answer until she had her fair share of laughter before saying: [That girl couldn’t resist your pheromones before and you decided it would be a good idea to turn into a wolf and give her a super dose of them… hahaha.]
You are reading story Curse of the Mad Wolf at novel35.com
Fenrir’s words didn’t make sense initially, but after a few moments, an awkward expression appeared on Edward’s face as he asked: “A-are you saying she just horny?”
[Not horny, she’s in heat. Probably a consequence of her being a demi-human.]
“Oh…” murmured Edward, feeling a bit better as he continued walking towards Minx, ‘That’s quite hot…’
Minx felt his approach quite early and came to rub her head against him as soon as he passed through a thick foliage.
“How are you, Minx?” asked Edward as he rubbed her ears softly, remembering how good he felt when Violet did it to him.
Minx continued rubbing her head against his small hand before her voice drifted slowly through the air: “I’m good, Edward?”
“I’m good too Minx, I’m good.” Replied Edward with a sigh as he led Minx so they can stay down on a tree nearby.
As he sat down, Edward said: “Fenrir, tell Azure I need her help to learn a few more spells or that master of mine is going to kill me.”
Fenrir then started helping Edward communicate with his water spirit and he spent the whole day working on a new spell while playing with Minx. As evening came and his mana started feeling a bit low, Edward has finally worked out the basics of his new spell. He called it water bullet and it was a relatively low cost spell, only needing between one to three points of mana per bullet, depending on the water density he wanted.
It worked the same as the water ball, but it was a lot smaller and it’s form will be a lot more streamlined, allowing it to reach greater speed in flight. It also had a lot more piercing power than the water ball due to it’s shape and smaller size.
After being done with the theory, he practiced for a little bit more, but the results were a bit underwhelming.
[Azure said that this is the limit of speed a spell is going to reach for a simple water mage. You will need to use air magic to propel projectiles if you want them to move faster, but that’s a thing for the future.]
Edward nodded and checked his status tablet, noticing that the spell was indeed there. Releasing a sigh, he said to Minx: “I’m going to sleep now. Have fun and make sure the wolf won’t do anything stupid.”
Seeing Minx nod in agreement, he closed his eyes and went to sleep. As he appeared inside him mind, Edward looked at the small fish floating peacefully and said: “Azure, can you help me come up with another spell? I doubt a single spell will make Circe happy.”
While the wolf hunted through the mountains north of the city, Edward spent the entire time coming up with a new spell. At Azure’s suggestion, the new spell was one of control and it was named Water Curtain by Edward, a fitting name considering it’s purpose. The spell would fill the space in a small radius around Edward with small water droplets, creating an area that would confuse the enemy’s senses while allowing Edward, using his connection with water and his own mana, to still feel his opponent’s movement.
The spell’s cost was quite big, using a total of 50 mana for only a thirty feet radius, but Edward was quite pleased with the idea. As morning was upon the world and Azure knew Edward was leaving soon, she said: “This spell has multiple proficiency levels, you being able to even move the water curtain with you as you get better at using the spell, but even being able to create a fixed one is enough for the beginning. You need to spend some time on increasing your connection with the water element. Promotions in the water mage class depend on increasing your mastery with the element, as does your ability to use more advanced water spells.”
Edward nodded in understanding and his time was up, waking up inside the forest once more. Looking at his body covered in blood, he sighed, cleaned himself using a water ball before climbing on top of Minx. “Let’s go back now.”
Minx let out a small whimper and started running towards the city. As he reached their little hideout next to the city, that now looked like a storm passed through it, Edward dressed himself up and said: “I’m going back to the city. Be a good girl and wait for me, Minx.”
“Good luck.” Replied Minx as she licked one of his hands and sat down, closing her eyes to sleep. Edward smiled and started walking towards the city. After passing through the entry gate, he headed straight for the adventurer guild. Now that he was level 8, he could take the promotional quest to increase his adventurer grade and finally get some decent quests.
Entering the adventurer guild, he headed for the second floor and walked up to the information counter. Lara was there and, smiling softly, she asked: “So, how was your second trip to the dungeon?”
“Pretty good. Thank you, Lara. They are indeed a good party.”
“See? I told you so. What brings you here today?”
“I wanted to take the quest to increase my adventurer rank, but I don’t really know how to go about it.”
Lara nodded and picked up a small tablet. After typing a few words on a keyboard like tablet, she smiled and said: “Already level 8? Not bad. You are eligible to take the promotion to rank E. Do you want me to request a promotion quest for you?”
Seeing Edward nod, Lara took another tablet and inserted a few more words before frowning and saying: “This quest is quite hard. I think you should wait a while before taking your promotion..”. As her words ended, she turned the tablet around and showed the writing on it to Edward.
//Rank E promotion quest//
//People in the village of Narva have started disappearing every night since three weeks ago. The village chief requested the adventurer guild’s help, but we first need to investigate the cause of the disappearances.//
//Head for the village of Narva in the far west, next to Springflow River and find out who or what’s behind these disappearances.//
//Reward: Promotion to Rank E//
Edward raised an eyebrow and asked: “It doesn’t look that hard. Why did you say it would be better to delay my promotion?”
Lara took a small map and showed it to Edward before pointing at a small village in the far West and saying: “This is Narva. Not even mentioning the distance from it to the City of Ashes, it’s located near Solana Forest, a forest not managed by the guild and full of strong magic beasts. It’s quite the dangerous place.”
“If it’s so dangerous, why do people not leave the village?” asked Edward with a confused expression.
Lara shook her head: “Who knows..”
Edward pondered for a moment before mumbling: “I should ask the others about it and see what they think…”, only to be denied by Lara: “You can only complete promotion quests on you own, without the help of a party.”
“Oh, I see…” said Edward as he thought a bit more about it. Eventually, Edward came to the conclusion that some time away from the city would be good and, now that the Swarm might be looking for the one who killed it’s members, he being so far away from the city might not be a bad thing.
After a bit more thinking, Edward said: “I’ll take the quest.”
Lara sighed and typed a few things before writing the quest’s contents one a piece of paper and handing it to Edward: “You have two months to complete the quest, but over half of the time will probably be spent on the road. Be careful.”
Edward thanked Lara and took his leave, heading for Ingvar’s house. He wanted to let his party and the others know he will be missing for a while before heading to Narva village to investigate the quest.