One who speaks human language

Aiden opened up his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the pair of wolf's eyes. They were looking down on him. However, there was no sky above him. It took him a moment to realize that he was inside one of the hide tents.

"Uuuhh..." He groaned in agony as he tried to sit back up. As soon as he did, the wolf stood up and left the tent. "That was the injured one." Aiden could see that the wolf was still limping.

He noticed that his helmet was beside his head as he looked around. Not far away, there was the body of the other Chenoo and the elf. He was swift to activate his first mana circle, only to find that someone had already absorbed it.

"There is nothing left," said Mraz, addressing Aiden's surprise. "You must have taken at least two more days to wake up without absorbing the essence of these two."

"Two more days, huh? How many days have I been sleeping?"

"One day, 21 hours and 32 minutes. Sorry, I didn't count the seconds." It was Robin who answered him as he entered the tent. "It looked like you had dislocated your shoulder, so I fixed it. It's fine, right?"

Aiden didn't move, looked at Robin, and asked, "Why did you shoot?"

"I know I can hit its eyes, and you said to shoot it if I can shoot its eyes." Robin was very proud of that shot. He added with a grin on his face, "it wasn't easy, but the shot was perfect."

Aiden pointed to his heart and said, "If you had missed, you would have died. You know that, right? I wasn't joking when I said that you would die if you disobeyed my words."

"If that thing had killed you, I don't think I had the ability to escape that thing, the Chenoo." Looking at the expressionless Aiden, he sighed and pointed at his own heart. "It's not a very pleasant feeling and, frankly, it's not very fond of it."

"To top it off, your personality isn't friendly either." With a smirk on his face, Robin added, "I even regretted following you in the first place"

Guessing Aiden's expression, he continued, "But I've understood something over the last month. You just want to hide your secrets. You've never ordered me to do stuff that I can't do. You..."

"You should go now. I need to rest a little more." Aiden looked the other way as he spoke. And it put a smile on Robin's face.

"Yeah, that is what I am talking about. You are an eccentric and unfriendly person."

Seeing a tinge of red on his ear, Robin added, "Sometimes you behave of your age. But, that is rare and in between. However, the most important point is that you've saved my life quite countless times."

"Your life wouldn't be in jeopardy if you didn't follow me first."

"If I didn't follow you, then I would have died a long time ago, but…" Robin looked at Aiden and asked, "It just makes me wonder about what happened on Earth that changed you so much."

As usual, Aiden didn't entertain Robin's imagination, "Did you find anyone in the underground lab?"

Robin could understand that Aiden was trying to change the topic. He, too, chose not to pursue the matter.

"It's the same here, just no mutant. The elf may have used all the mutated ones to create these zombie types of things." His face darkened, "There are still people down there, there are some researchers out there too. But…"

Aiden glanced at him and realized that he was hesitating. "Is there something like a big bone down there too?"

"Oh! Big bone? Similar to that skull?" Robin shook his head, "No, there are no bones, but they have installed a lot of mana generators in the labs. To think they are really trying to make mana crystal out of humans…"

Aiden smiled, "there are many things they don't want you to know. Don't think about it. What about the wolves?"

"There are three. One of them doesn't look that optimistic. It would be easier if you looked at it."

"Kuk..." The pain forced him to remember the entire ordeal as he stood up.

"Sorry, there is no working healing pod in the research post. I think it's better if you go back to the last post."

"Don't worry about it, it will get better in a day or two."

"Broken ribs, broken ankles, heal on their own in a couple of days. Without any machine, your speed exceeded the speed of sound. Even if you tell me, it will be hard for me to believe that you are a human."

Aiden just smiled and dragged his heavy leg out of the tent. And this was the response Robin had expected. He sighed, asking, "Are these wolves part of the pack as well?"

"Those two are, but I have to check the new ones," Aiden said as he walked towards the entrance of the underground laboratory.

"Oh! One more thing." Robin looked around the hide tent and said, "There is a tent, most probably of the elf. It has some mana crystals. I can't determine the origin, but there's a lot."

Aiden nodded as Robin said, "There are some tents that also contain human flesh, half-eaten humans, and bones. What should we do with it?"

"Let the wolves eat them. It looks like they are starving."

"What? The wolves?" The response was way beyond his expectation, "Aren't you going to bury them?"

"Why? Do you want to do that?" Looking at the frown on Robin's face, Aiden said, "Do whatever you want," and walked into the underground lab.

The light was still intact, and the power was still working, and the dried red blood had decorated on the walls along the path here and there. However, there was no anomaly as they approached the junction point.

"Which direction?" Robin guessed from Aiden's words that he was searching for the way to the wolves.

So he led him through the second door, wondering whether Aiden was human or wolf, that he looked for wolves even before looking for the survivors. And thus the conspiracy theory of Aiden's origin got weirder in Robin's mind.

Soon, they reached the glass-covered room. To his surprise, the other two wolves were sitting in front of the lab as well.

There were three wolves inside the lab. The signs of fighting were evident in their bodies, but two of them were not that wounded. The last one, however, seemed like it would die at any moment.

There was a huge lump of meat missing from his neck; it was the same for its left thigh. Patches of fur were missing from here and there. Blood clots were covering his wounds.

The frightening thing, however, was its muzzle wrapped with a rusting barbed wire while the foam was dripping from the side of its jaw.

"Do you have the mana healing injection?"

"Hey, I've got some with me." Robin was quick to pull it out and handed to Aiden, "Are you sure that it will work on them?"

"Don't know. But I don't think it will survive without it." Even though he had said those words, Aiden wasn't sure that it would survive even with it. Nonetheless, he said, "Open the door."

Robin hesitated for a moment, however, did as he was told. As Aiden entered the lab, the pair of wolves who were standing outside also followed him. Aiden's eyes were still stuck to the bounded one.

As he moved towards the wolf, he realized that there was a claw mark on its left eye. Most likely, some other beast had gouged out its eye. It raised its head and looked at Aiden for a bit and lay down again.

'Can you save it?' Even if he didn't intend to ask Mraz, he couldn't help asking.

"Didn't I tell you? My mana can't heal." Mraz's reaction was within Aiden's expectation, but Mraz added, "One wolf is not going to make any difference to the pack. "

Looking at the wolf who had already closed his eyes, Aiden sighed. He too didn't know the reason he wanted to. He said, "Take it as my way to pay for the spells I had learned from its pack leader."

"Payback?" Mraz snorted. And a stubborn silence followed from Aiden. 'It doesn't matter what you think, I just want to do it.' Aiden, however, had already made up his mind.

After a few moments of silence, Mraz said in a foul tone, "You can't do much about it. All you could do is use that medicine and inject some of your essence mana in its body, and hope it can survive."

'Medicine? These?' Aiden wasn't sure how Mraz got the knowledge of the medicine, but Mraz answered nonetheless, "It's just liquefied water mana crystal, with healing properties. While it is of inferior quality, it is still better than nothing."

Aiden said nothing and sat down beside the wolf. As he was about to inject the medicine he had...

"My lord, please, don't waste your precious thing on me? I am going to die soon." Aiden glanced around to find out who was talking before he looked back at the right eye that was staring at him.

"Did you just speak to me?" Aiden wasn't sure he was hearing it right.

"Please, my lord, forgive my impudence. But that's the only way I can talk to you."

'Is he talking to me?'

"This one is better than I thought. It must be at least a four circle wolf." Even if Mraz didn't answer him, Aiden could understand that it was the wolf that was talking to him.

'And you wanted to let it die.' Aiden gave a jab to Mraz before turning to the wolf, "It's good that you understand me. It will be painful but bear with it."

Aiden didn't give it any chance to talk and inject the medicine. He poured his essence mana into its body and soon discovered that it had two more forms of mana within his body than the mana of the medicine.

'The mana, similar to mine, must be its mana, but what about the other mana?' Aiden's knowledge wasn't enough to identify the last type of mana.

"That's a mana poison. It must be stopping the wolf from recovering." Mraz explained inside his mind. Hearing about the poison, Aiden frowned a little, 'What should I do?'

"That is the mana of just an ice slug. What the heck are you so concerned about?"

'That mana is stopping a four-circle beast from recovering, and I am just a one circle beast.' Listening to Aiden's reasoning, Mraz snorted, "Where is your arrogance now?"

Aiden chose to stay silent until Mraz spoke again, "Idiot, can't you see the mana is afraid of you? Just devour it. It's nothing in front of my mana."

Aiden observed in surprise that as he tried to reach for the poison mana, it escaped. It moved like it had a mind of its own.

But with Aiden's mana on one side and the wolf's mana on another, it wasn't long before Aiden was able to corner it and soon devoured it. Aiden immediately injected a few more vials and guided water mana to heal the wound as much as possible.

Only when Aiden opened his eyes again did he realize that blue blood had leaked to the side of the muzzle. Aiden just patted its head and said, "Rest, for now, you're going to recover soon."

"Thank you, my lord." The wolf took another look at Aiden as the wolf closed its eyes.

"Huh? Its dwarven metal," said Aiden, touching the barbed wire on the muzzle. But it put brief resistance to Aiden, and he soon removed it.