The Divine Wolf... or?
Chapter 8: Humans!

Seeing humans made Ark both dumbfounded and a bit happy, seeing humans brought him some hope! Maybe someday he could make a friend!

Even though it seemed like a foolish dream since he was, in fact, a wolf, Ark didn't care, he didn't have any friends back on earth but he really wanted to be able to have someone to talk to about anything and anyone, someone that would always support him, someone who wouldn't turn his back on him and someone to keep him company.

But he still knew his limits, communicating with humans was impossible at the moment so all he could do was try and show them he wasn't hostile, even though it might not necessarily work. As the two fallen humans entered his eyesight he took notice of their appearances as well as their power levels.

He silently chanted "Inspect" in his head as he watched the two humans who had now proceeded to stand up.

Lily [Human]

Class: Rogue

Lv: 11

Strength: 18

Agility: 17

Dexterity: 18

Intelligence: 15

Vitality: 16

Grant [Human]

Class: Wizard

Lv: 13

Intelligence: 24

Wisdom: 19

Agility: 13

Vitality: 12

Dexterity: 14

Seeing their statuses and appearances made Ark feel a little bit at peace, he could see that the girl on the right seemed to be a rogue or an assassin since she was carrying twin daggers that looked to be made of ordinary steel. She had a small build and seemed to be about as big as Ark himself at about 150 centimeters, or 1,5 meters.

Her hair was as brown as hazelnut and her small and round face was quite petite, which made her quite cute like you had a sudden urge to protect her. She had thin lips and a pretty dark shade of brown in her eyes.

The young man was clad in a red robe that seemed to be a size too big for him, the robe also had some exquisite embroidery which made it look quite expensive, if Ark had to make a guess this young man was probably from some noble family since he also had some pretty handsome looks on top of his clothing.

His hair was a pretty bright shade of blonde and his eyes were a pretty deep looking blue, they kind of resembled the ocean a little bit. his face itself was a bit long and he had some pretty high cheekbones as well as some luscious lips, although they were on the smaller side.

He also had a staff that seemed to be made of some high-quality wood since it was emitting some pretty unique Mana, but that could also be because of the engravings on it, Ark had no clue. The man was also about 173 centimeters tall.

When the two kids saw the scene in front of them they instantly looked really frightened, it was quite understandable since it wasn't some ordinary weak monsters that they had run into.

.....

Grant was in a happy mood today, it had been a great day. He had been able to get permission from his father to go out in the forest nearby on an adventure. It had taken him some time but he was finally able to convince him.

Grant was from the Hughes family, it was a Baronets family so they were considered to be nobility which garnered them some benefits and a status that was cut above the rest of the commoners.

As the only son of a nobles family Grant was doted upon a lot which made it quite hard for him to go out on an adventure since both his father and his mother were strictly against the idea of their son going out on a dangerous adventure. Even though a Baronet was considered to be of the lowest rung of nobility, it was still nobility.

The different ranks of nobility were in order from low to high, Baronet - Baron - Viscount - Earl - Marquess - Duke, and then there was royalty of course at the top of the food chain. The biggest reason because he was happy though was because he had been able to invite Lily, Lily was a commoner who was a resident of the area the Hughes family was in control of.

Lily and Grant had been able to become close friends at a young age despite the difference in social status, the reason was quite simple, they were still kids. After having grown up together Grant had started to develop quite the feelings for Lily, for him it didn't matter whether she was nobility or not since she was the girl that he loved.

Even if his family would want to arrange a political marriage for him since he was expected to marry someone of the same social status as him, he still wouldn't accept it.

If his family wouldn't support him, then he was ready to run away with Lily and make a name for himself, to force his family into recognizing his decision. But that was only the worst-case scenario, Grant knew that his family was supportive of his decisions ever since he was little, as long as his partner was someone good then they wouldn't object.

This day in the forest was supposed to be a splendid day for Grant since he was going to tell Lily his feelings. He was quite sure that she had the same feelings so he was quite happy, at least that's the way things should've gone. Instead what had happened was that they had unexpectedly run into quite the frightening scene.

There was an earth bear that was wounded and on fire in the water, just this was enough to frighten anyone who wasn't strong enough to take it down.

The even more frightening scene though was the fact that there stood a blue wolf in front of them, this blue wolf wasn't normal since it could injure the earth bear to this point, and with fires at that! A blue wolf wasn't supposed to know fire magic, so this one was a variant, it was also quite easy to spot if you looked at the two chains that were intertwining on its body.

The wolf was even staring straight at them, which made both of them shiver.

After a second or two Grant decided to grab Lily and make a run for it since there was no chance that they could contend with these monsters. But as soon as he was going to grab her the bear suddenly howled at them, releasing some very powerful shock waves that froze them in place.

Grant instantly knew that the bear had used one of its signature skills which could freeze weaker opponents in place, not leaving them any chance to try and escape.

What shocked Grant the most though was that the bear had released an earth spike that was fired in their direction, that by itself wasn't shocking but what was shocking was that the blue wolf had moved to stand in front of them and made a shield out of water to block the attack. This was simply unheard of!

Grant and Lily had all the right in the world to be shocked, a monster protecting a random human wasn't something that normally happened, even though it certainly wasn't impossible.

....

After having protected the humans Ark proceeded to gather the magic for his attack, this time he was going to make an all-out attack to try and kill the bear instantly. Ark decided that it would be quite appropriate to modify the attack he had used to kill the stag a little bit for his killer move. To do this he started to gather both water and fire and fusing them.

He forced the Mana to concentrate on his claws and then condense over and over again.

After about 5 seconds Ark started to lose a bit of control over the magic he had been accumulating, this move did need a ridiculous amount of precision to execute after all. The wind within a 10-meter radius of Ark seemed to go mad, ferociously howling as it got forced away by the invisible pressure that Ark's move was emitting.

Since he couldn't control the vortexes on his claws for much longer Ark instantly used up most of the remaining strength in his legs to arrive before the bear, swinging his claws down.

It took almost half a second until the destructive power of the move instantly erupted and swallowed the bear whole. The bear barely lasted a single second as it got eviscerated by the attack almost instantly. This was Ark's strongest attack after all, and he had spent quite a lot on executing it this time.

Even though there was still the humans left, but since had protected them just then he hoped that they would be sensible and leave him alone.

As he turned around to stare at them he noticed that they looked incredibly shocked, Ark could also see some clear confusion as well as fright, which anyone would feel if they saw a monster staring at them that had shown horrifying strength just a second before. But they didn't seem to harbour any intent on battling him though, which made Ark a bit more relaxed.

Since the humans didn't seem like they were gonna mess with him Ark just nodded at them before dragging of the bear's corpse with him into the distance.

....

Seeing the scary and strange wolf leave with the bear corpse both Grant and Lily let out a slow breath that they had been holding. To be honest, neither of them had the guts to even breathe when the wolf was checking them out just then, but since it had left they could finally relax a little bit. Both of them was looking at each other with some confusion in their eyes before one of them spoke up.

- What the hell was that about?

- I have no idea!