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–––Werewolf’s viewpoint

The male charged at me from the front, while two of the females seemed to circle around me. It was a very common and brazen pincer attack. The remaining female stood in place, raising her staff and starting to unleash magic. Her power was nowhere close to my master’s, but it was still considerably strong. She was probably the one who cast that ice spear earlier as well. I had a strong magic resistance, but I still had to watch out for her attacks to be safe.

“Hyah!”

The male hid half his body behind his shield as he charged towards me, his sword pointed straight to me, but I flicked it off with my claws. At the same time, the two females came from the sides to attack while I was busy with him.

“Hah!”
“Yahh!”

Deflecting the attack from the female with a shield was easy enough, but the large sword the other held was really sharp, so I had to kick the flat side of the blade with all my might to jump backward. She was imbuing her sword with magic to enhance the edge. Usually, my thick hide was strong enough to stop any blade without receiving much damage, but that one was different. If I took a direct hit, it could cause a life-threatening wound.

The only adventurers I had to be careful of were those two, the female with the long sword and the one chanting magic in the back. The other two were nowhere nearly as strong. I easily parried the attacks from the weak two, while focusing more on dodging the attacks from the stronger ones. After a while, the three of them attacking from close range jumped back at once and the one in the back attacked with ice spears again, except that this time there were many more of them. Realizing there was no way for me to evade all of them, I decided to minimize the affected place as much as possible by jumping up into the air and rolling myself into a ball.

“Grawl!”

The pain made me groan unintentionally. Of the four spears, I dodged two, while the other two pierced my arm and leg. The wounds were shallow, but if I didn’t treat them the blood loss could hamper my movements. I had to accomplish my objective before that happened.

When I landed a few steps back, the male and the two females circled around me again. I raised my hands trying to stop them from attacking, while screaming in a language they could understand.

“Veit!!”

The three stopped in shock. The female behind everyone also looked surprised at me. To stop them from moving again, I decided to employ the pose of friendship between humans my master had taught me. I knelt down and placed my forehead and hands on the ground. It seemed to work as I could not feel animosity but only confusion from them.

“What’s with him…he’s kneeling so much…”
“But didn’t he talk earlier as well? Did I actually hear a werewolf talk?!”
“Does that mean he’s not an enemy? It evaded a lot of our attacks, but it never tried to attack back.”
“…Let’s just calm down a bit. Keep your watch up and weapons ready, but it looks like he’s trying to tell us something so let’s hear him out at least.”

My master’s pose of friendship worked wonders. Earlier I could only feel a murderous intent in their eyes, but they shone with sanity now. When I felt safe, I sat on my knees and took out the piece of parchment tied to my waist. They raised their guard while I moved, but at least they refrained from attacking.

“Dake dis.”

Saying that, I softly threw the parchment to the male. He did not catch it, instead letting it fall on the ground and using his sword to pick it up, every movement extremely careful. What a rude fellow, did he think it was some sort of poison? If I was in the mood, I could easily tear him apart with my bare hands without needing some poison.

“This is…a letter? And it says…huh?!”
“What does it say?”
“Well…mm, it might be better if you read it yourself.”

The male passed the letter to the females one after another. When they had all read it, everyone looked very surprised.

“Is this true? Are there really people living in the Haunted Lands…”
“And using that name on top of that, everyone has heard that name before. A very famous person from the past…it sounds hard to believe so suddenly.”
“But a werewolf having a letter like that is already plenty weird, isn’t it? The only reason why a monster would not attack us would be if they are bound by magic.”

The three humans on the front seemed to half believe half doubt it, but the one female in the back showed the strongest reaction.

“Did that person truly give that letter to you? Are you completely sure?”
“Yes. Mee master gabe dat to me.”
“I see… Then I guess we have to cancel the request and go meet that person as soon as possible.”
“Ciel?! Are you serious?!”

Only that female appeared ready to follow through. I was glad, that meant my master wouldn’t punish me when I returned. If I failed I would have to suffer the disgrace of being forcefully mated with the wild dogs back there, so internally I sighed from relief.

“Though well, we can’t just leave without saying anything either. We still have to sort things out with the villagers, and bring them proof that we took care of the werewolf. Hmm, hey, did your master or whatever you called them give you anything else?”
“…Yes, veit a beet.”

I opened the small bag with the tools I carried and emptied its contents, which left the adventurers with eyes open wide in shock.

“That’s…a werewolf’s hide? It looks real.”
“This fur…it looks exactly like yours. How did you get it?”
“Mee master. From dime do dime, I’m punished. It woud be a wasde, so we keep de scraps.”
“…Your ears and tail were torn off as punishment? That sounds even scarier than the stories I heard, but this should be enough to pretend we completed the request.”

My master is just a bit smarter than me. So it’s easy to know beforehand what kind of people I’ll meet, and what will be needed to complete everything.

“We’ll do like your master asked and bring the person mentioned in the letter. But you keep your distance from this place. If the villagers see you again, you might get killed before you can talk again.”
“I noh. I’ll hide, undil you redurn.”
“How will you know when we’re back? Can you use some sort of magic?”
“Mee nose is gud. Eben from far away, human scent is easy do find.”
“I see. Then there’s no problem. Let’s hurry back to the village everyone. We have to pretend we completed the request and get back to the city quickly.”

Urged by the female magician, the other three humans returned to the village. That meant the hardest part of my job was complete. All I had to do now was hide in the forest until they came back.

Sorciere, my master, I have fulfilled your task without setbacks.