"What is the meaning of this? What in the world are a bunch of recruits doing here?"

The previous head of the Perserios family, a blue-haired elderly man who despite his age was keeping up the impeccable physical prowess scoffed after seeing the group.

"As per your instructions, we have arrived so that the participants could observe the monster subjugation..."

"That's what I mean. I didn't give you ridiculous, brain-dead instructions such as this! Observe the monster subjugation?! A bunch of greenhorns on the sight is making things ten times more dangerous for everyone else!"

The instructor in charge of the group reported while saluting and got instantly berated by the blue-haired man whose face started turning bright red from anger even though he was doing well controlling his voice.

"Huh...? But...! But, my lord...!"

"Shut up. If you don't want me to execute you for acting on your own, getting the lives of the recruits under your care into danger, and abandoning your post, compile a coherent report and submit it to me within an hour."

The instructor turned pale and stuttered but old lord Perserios didn't give him a chance to explain himself verbally and gave a decisive order.

"You are lucky. If the corpse of the monster in question wasn't found yesterday, you wouldn't have this chance, so better get moving."

"!!!"

Old lord Perserios declared, looking down on the instructor, causing the man to scramble himself and rush away, undoubtedly in search of a piece of paper and a quill.

"My lord... what do you mean the body of the monster...? Don't you mean that you tracked and killed the beast with the rest of the knights you brought here?"

Another instructor from the newly arrived group called out hesitantly, fearful about sharing the dubious fate of the man in charge of them until a few moments earlier.

"No. Two days ago a group of local hunters spotted tracks of multiple armored wolves that must have migrated through this area. Just to make sure that they weren't gearing up to stay the highlanders followed the trail, only to find traces of fierce combat and a partially eaten corpse of a bishark."

"Bi-bishark?!"

The elderly man shook his head and declared, causing a panicked murmur spread amongst the recruit.

"The armored wolves are pack monsters, intelligent, but not that much. When encountering enemies, they always assume that their opponents also live in packs – that's why a pack that is n the move will never settle in a place where they encountered a powerful monster of another species even if they managed to kill it. They always expect that there are more creatures they encountered lurking around. As for bisharks, they are extremely solitary creatures that do not stick around each other even during mating season. Conclusion – Despite the pack being powerful enough to kill a bishark without losing any of its members is a problem worth looking into, they already left towards another mountain and will not come back anytime soon."

Old lord Perserios finished his explanation and turned around, returning to where he came from.

The confused group of participants and instructors followed him and after a short walk, they were exposed to the corpse that he talked about.

Bishark was a fearsome creature, the body of a great white shark that grew six rhinoceros-like legs was already creepy and nightmare-inducing as it was, but that particular kind of monster would also grow two long spikes from the base of its throat.

The horns weren't weapons per se, even though they were plenty sharp to impale smaller creatures, but rather were magic conduits and the point of origin for the darkness attribute spells that the monster was capable of casting.

Mainly the muffle and shadow walk spells.

Yes, despite having the strength and the speed to overpower a good amount of the land monsters, bisharks were ambush hunters.

Well, the specimen in question certainly was unlucky – it had its spikes broken off with teeth and claw marks all over the stumps meaning that the wolves who did it were aware of the danger of darkness attribute and dealt with it appropriately.

A bit of a shame too – when taking into account the monster parts that were worth the most, the horns of the bishark were definitely the most expensive part of the fearsome creature.

"..."

While the group was staring at the corpse, old lord Perserios was observing them.

"...hold on, where is the black-haired boy? Wasn't he son of young Mizoe...?"

The blue-haired man furrowed his brows and asked, with an angry glow in his eyes.

"He said that he can't keep up and that he is returning back to the Perserios territory...!"

"...and you let him do that...? Alone...? When you knew there was some dangerous monster lurking nearby...?"

The instructors fidgetted and came up with an excuse, but it only infuriated the old lord Perserios even more.

"I-it wasn't like that! He had that wolf of his with him, and...! And he left right at the beginning of the first second day!"

"Yes! He did, right everyone?!"

"That's right!"

The instructors all started panicking and coming up with excuses one after another doing everything to cover each other backs.

Some of the recruits joined them too, although not everyone.

"... irresponsible... Rest for today, tomorrow we are all returning back to Perserios territory. When we get back, you all get straight back to instructor training. This seems to be a good batch of recruits, you are making them waste their time."

The blue-haired man scolded the instructors and shook his head in disappointment.

----

"I think we've heard enough... Cat, we're going back to the Perserios territory. After all, apparently, we got back there several days ago."

"Nnn...!"

Zoemi backed between the trees surrounding the village, breathed out, and deactivated the law of Sagittarius before glancing at the large brown wolf next to him – which got him a hushed whimper of agreement.historical

"At least we know that Perserios family, well, Rokiana's grandfather, wasn't in on the whole thing."

"Graugh!"

The black-haired boy ended up rubbing his head and adding – as he did, the pressure around him lessened and his wolf barked enthusiastically, no longer fearful, and started wagging its tail.