WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

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Chapter 14: The Hour Between Dog and Wolf

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[Shepherd Girl's Request - Wolf Pack]

Description: Since ancient times, shepherds guiding animals through the heart of the grasslands have been the subject of many superstitions.

With a staff in one hand and a horn at their lips, freely commanding a great flock of sheep, they sometimes looked like shamans.

There were rumors that travelers who encountered a shepherd along the road would receive the earth spirits' blessing and avoid misfortune.

There were also rumors that shepherds were actually demons in disguise, sealing travelers' souls inside sheep.

But this shepherd girl was only a fragile child. She simply had a small talent for driving wolves away.

And that talent did not work against the newly appeared king of wolves. The girl could no longer protect her sheep alone.

Of course, she could not protect herself either. That was why she had asked for your help.

[Quest Objectives]

1. Protect the girl.

2. Protect the girl's dog (Optional).

3. Protect the flock of sheep (Optional).

4. Defeat the king of the wolf pack (Optional).

The quest was similar to what I had heard about in the Open Community, but a lot of it was different too.

The quest normally given by the shepherd girl NPC was a five-stage hunting quest called [Wolf Extermination].

But what I had received was some kind of escort quest. Even the format of its description was different from normal.

I thought only large-scale campaign quests came with descriptions this long. Was that not the case?

There were plenty of things bothering me about the objectives too.

Three optional objectives. The more I completed, the better the reward would probably be.

Even the [Wolf Extermination] quest the shepherd normally gave had pretty good rewards. Just how much better was this going to be?

And the final optional objective, defeating the king of the wolf pack. Did that mean the field boss, [Wolf King Lobo]?

I had heard it was the strongest individual monster on the second floor, aside from the boss in the Labyrinth Area. And now it wanted me to kill it right away?

For a quest I could get at the start of the second floor, the apparent difficulty was absurdly high.

Everything about it screamed that the reward would be massive. There was no reason to refuse.

"I accept."

Even if it was difficult, it probably would not be that hard considering my level and specs.

If things got bad, I could give up on the optional objectives and take only the base reward. It would not be a loss.

As soon as I accepted the quest, the quest window before me disappeared, and a new notification appeared.

[Every wolf in the field has begun watching you.]

The interface was red instead of its usual blue.

[All wolf-type monsters enter a 'Frenzy' state. Their attack and defense increase.]

[All wolf-type monsters will track you. They gain the initiative.]

[The king of wolves will track you. The field boss can now leave its designated field.]

This seemed like a much bigger quest than I had thought.

* * *

So from now on, the field boss itself would chase us until we reached the village?

Now I understood why there were so many optional objectives. Completing all of them in this situation would be incredibly difficult.

Maybe a large party could pull it off, but could I protect the shepherd NPC, the dog, and the sheep all by myself?

"I'm relieved you're helping us... I'll definitely repay you once we get back to the village."

"Don't relax. Let's move."

"Ah, yes, of course... I'll gather the sheep. Come on, Flanders."

The shepherd girl ran off in short steps with the black dog and her staff, then returned with the sheep.

There were fourteen sheep in total. Fewer than I had expected, but not few when I had to protect them alone.

The village was pretty far away too. I could get there quickly if I ran at full speed, but moving with a flock made the distance feel much longer.

Once I actually started carrying out the quest, several bothersome complications surfaced. Not that I intended to give up.

"The village is this way."

For now, I silently followed the shepherd girl's lead toward the village.

A few minutes later, a pack of wolves rushed at us.

I had the shepherd girl stop the sheep trailing behind her, drew my weapon, and charged to meet them.

-Grrr!

The same two kinds of field wolves appeared again. The only difference was their numbers.

From a distance, there seemed to be five or six, but two or three similarly sized packs were moving alongside them a short distance away.

Altogether, there were probably around twenty. No matter how many trash mobs there were, they were not a major threat. The problem was that I was not alone.

"Come at me!"

I shouted, hoping to provoke them, and charged into the wolves first.

I had to fight as deep inside the pack as possible so they could not circle around me and go after the shepherd girl.

-Crunch!

I smashed the wolf leading the pack away with my shield, then threw myself forward like a rock star diving into a crowd.

I landed on the back of a large wolf and stabbed it in the back with my dagger, just as I had done to the Goblin Lord.

The dagger did not do much damage, but wolves were not particularly tough. I killed one quickly enough.

-Roar!

Was it reacting to the blood of its own kind? Or was it the Frenzy effect from earlier?

Thankfully, the wolves did not get distracted and rushed straight at me. After that, it was smooth sailing.

I swung my sword and shield around like I was in a dogfight and beat more than twenty wolves to death.

"Eek! Adventurer!"

Then the shepherd girl screamed from behind me. I stepped over the wolf corpses and ran back.

A gray-furred wolf, different from the ones I had defeated earlier, was facing off against the sheepdog.

"Hup!"

After roughly judging the distance, I hurled the shield on my left arm like a Frisbee.

-Thwack!

The wolf crumpled after getting hit by the shield, but more wolves appeared and charged in right after it.

I retrieved my shield and dove into the wolf pack again.

* * *

Fuck, I could not keep doing this quest.

"Huff, huff... Fucking mutts."

There was no way I could keep the curses in. This quest was designed to tell people not to do it alone.

Whenever I drove off one pack of wolves, another came charging out from the opposite direction as if it had been waiting.

After I ran myself ragged to take them down, another pack would emerge from the other side and go after the sheep.

I did not even know how many times this shit had happened already. There was no more exhausting, pointless runaround than this.

If my Agility stat had been even a few levels lower, I would have lost all the sheep by now.

The most fucked-up part was that repeating this bullshit made it impossible to reach the village.

"Adventurer... should we rest for a bit?"

"Haa... Forget it. Keep moving."

The shepherd girl anxiously watched my reaction and suggested we rest, but I refused and urged her onward.

If I sat down to rest now, I might give up on the quest entirely. I was not someone who could afford to rest.

I did not trust myself. The laziness I had thrown off once had not gone anywhere. If I lost my momentum, that was it.

Besides, I could not rest for long anyway. Who would protect the sheep while I rested? That black dog?

"U-Um, hang in there a little longer. There's a good place to hide the sheep up ahead."

I remembered it too. There should be a safe area in the second-floor field a little farther ahead. If we were going to rest, it had to be there.

As I dragged my exhausted body onward, a blue notification suddenly appeared before my eyes.

[You have acquired Passive Skill: Battle Persistence Lv.1.]

"Huh?"

What the hell was this now?

* * *

After a long forced march, we finally reached the safe zone in the field.

"If we put the sheep between these rocks, even the wolves won't be able to do anything."

The shepherd girl herded the sheep into the gap between the rocks with her dog. Well, probably.

I sat on a nearby rock, opened my Status Window, and checked the passive skill I had just gained under the Skills tab.

[Battle Awakening LV.1]

[Battle Persistence LV.1]

[Battle Persistence] sat beside [Battle Awakening], which I had acquired while fighting the Goblin Lord.

No matter how I manipulated the interface, I could not find any explanation of its effects.

I opened the Open Community and searched for the skill's name. Unexpectedly, several information posts came up.

"Improved concentration... and increased endurance?"

The skills other Challengers had with the same name came with proper descriptions, unlike mine.

Even the way to acquire them was clear. It did not seem like anyone else had gotten it out of nowhere the way I had.

It was not displayed as a number in the Status Window, but people said it definitely had an effect.

"What the hell is this?"

There was not enough information to figure it out through searching. It would be better to ask directly.

The Rankers who practically lived in the Tower of Trials had to know something.

I opened the Open Community and started writing a question post for the first time in a long while.

That was when it happened.

[The Hour of the Wolf has arrived.]

A red notification window appeared before my eyes once again.

Footnotes:

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