Chapter 26 - Embarrassed

Ulf took his weapons and went out of the village. He was nervous and excited as it was the first time for him to leave the village all alone. The destination Ulf chose was south. In his first hunt, Ulf encountered so many death-threatening situations. Even if it was called the easiest from the other hunting ground, his group was almost destroyed two times. Those circumstances forced Ulf not to put himself needlessly in danger.

Ulf didn't run toward the southern forest right away. He wanted to check out other territories, which usually contained low-level creatures, but not always. If the logic worked in his world, there must not have been the offspring of the monster stage mountain rhino in the southern forest, but the reality was non-identical. Ursa and his group didn't expect too and paid a high price for it. However, Ulf didn't have anyone together with him right now, who may be the first to die due to such a sudden turn of the close combat fight. So he didn't have any room for failure, which would cost him his life.

Soon Ulf reached the place that was covered by the wood and spread around several kilometres and a small hill inside it. It was the perfect spot to start warming up for the harder parts of hunting. He went into the woods and noticed easily that the trees were really shorter there than in the forest. The highest ones would be little more than a hundred meters. Ulf climbed on the tree and started to observe the surroundings from there. There wasn't anything challenging, just some small creatures that could be barely considered animals here.

After stealthily walking around and getting close to the inner part of the woods, Ulf found the first target just two hundreds meters away. They were a group of wolfs. However, they weren't naturally as powerful as the last pack of wolves, which had a beast stage alpha wolf. In the group were seven of them. The strongest wolf was more than one and a half meters tall (5 ft).

'I must be the pack animal level wolf if something like that exists.' Ulf thought.

Ulf remembered the vibes given from the aura of the beast-level rhino and wolf. That was why he knew that there wasn't any beast-level creature when he got a bit closer. Their fur was light grey on the upper bodies and mostly had white legs.

Even if there wasn't any beast among them, these wolfs were bigger, stronger and had better abilities to see, hear and sense than back on the earth. Ulf, who wanted to ambush them from above, had to stay calm in his proper, well-hidden place on the tree branches and wait for the good opportunity. He had hidden his old spear, the bow and arrows in the entrance of the wood and had only Aeglos with him. Ulf had purposely chosen this tree because it had a very strong scent of its own fresh fruits and would make it hard for the wolfs to take notice of Ulf's presence.

The group of wolfs were a bit careless, but not entirely, especially the alpha that was monitoring the territory. From time to time the group was getting near or distanced from Ulf. After half an hour, Ulf started to think about charging right toward the wolfs and abandoning the plan for the ambush. It would cause him to be at a huge disadvantage from the start but would be better than being frozen in one place for such a long time. However, as a few minutes went by, the wolfs came back and moved much closer to Ulf.

'It's now or never!'

As he decided to take action, jumped down from the tree. At that moment he was using external qi and aiming at the alpha wolf. If Ulf could take it down others would be less troublesome. However, the alpha wolf had sensed Ulf earlier and reacted faster than Ulf expected. Instead of piercing its neck, he just wounded it. The big wolf hopped back and the blood started leaking from its injury.

Ulf's plan got crushed from the start, but it wasn't time to be discouraged. Maybe Alpha wolf was fast, but others took less than half a second to realise what had happened. However, it was more than enough for Ulf to stab Aeglos deep inside the nearest wolf's right eye.

'Still, there is one less left as I planned.'

Every wolf jumped behind and when they saw one of them was killed, Alpha howled and got truly angry. After killing the first target, Ulf took the position with his back toward the tree.

From the very start, running away was out of the question, so in order to get to a better place, Ulf decided to secure his rear with the help of a huge tree. This move caused Ulf to be surrounded from the front and two sides and didn't give him any chance to run away. Only one possibility was to climb up on the tree, but the wolf would not give the permission that easily if Ulf showed his back to them. However, a few big plants nearby would also not allow a whole pack of wolves to attack the intruder. It was bit relief for him.

Ulf was waiting for an assault from the wolfs, but his very furious opponents still preferred to wait for any openings from Ulf. Though, showing the weak point needed one of the wolfs to engage in the fight with the hunter in front of them. Soon, one wolf from the left side took initiative, ran and leapt to bite the human's throat.

Ulf looked at the wolf and started to get ready to welcome the new prey, but right then alpha and two wolfs from the right side started to move and aimed at different parts of Ulf's body. He knew that it wasn't time to check his original warrior rank power anymore and had to use internal qi too or else would be finished.

With the sudden boost in the power, Ulf's reaction speed became much faster. He pierced the jumped wolf from the left side in the abdomen when it was still in the air and threw it at the alpha wolf. The big fella became distracted and lost balance and momentum only for a little time. However, it was all Ulf needed. Two wolfs from the right side were already ready to 'embrace' Ulf's right leg.

Ulf took one step behind and slashed down the spear. He decapitated the first opponent and seriously wounded the second one in the shoulder. It would have a very hard time moving.

Now four animals were standing, including the wounded wolf. The alpha became more agitated as it had already lost three of its companions against one human, although it was hesitant too as it had seen how fast Ulf was when he killed the second target. After considering the odds of winning, it seemed that the alpha wolf wanted to retreat, but Ulf didn't intended to finish it there and moved before his foes did and pointed Aeglos at only one standing wolf on the right side. Even if an animal stage wolf would be faster than most warrior rank hunters and would even have the same speed as peak warrior, it was still much slower than Ulf, who was using combined inner and external qi. Alpha wolf understood that the enemy wouldn't let them go, so moved together with its still-alive companies.

Alpha was quick, but the power equal to leader rank hunter was something it would not be able to come close to. It intended to use Ulf's attack on the left side, as he showed his back to the rest of the pack. Even the wounded wolf wanted to take revenge against Ulf.

His combined power had to be used as swiftly as possible. Ulf didn't have much experience in handling his inner qi in such a hazardous clash. He realized now, that even with his full strength seven animal class wolfs were still a huge threat.

The target on the right side didn't have any chance to avoid the upcoming attack and got killed after Ulf penetrated its throat. Alpha wolf and its two other partners were already on the way to tear apart their common foe's defenceless left side and legs. Ulf wanted to move forward again to stay away from the danger. However, at that time the dense forest that had given him the advantage hindered him from using his max speed and got cut on the left side of his abdomen, by the alpha wolf's claw.

'SH@T! Still reached me.'

The injury hurt so much and blood started seeping out, but it wouldn't obstruct his movements for some time. When the wolfs saw that the enemy was injured, they abandoned any thoughts of running and attacked together. Ulf waited before they were close enough, jumped on the left side, and hid between the two trees. At the same time, wolfs were in the same spot where Ulf had been just a second ago and became perfect prey for Ulf, who was defended by the plants and had only the front and back parts opened.

Ulf needed to act immediately, aimed at the problematic alpha wolf and crushed its skull with his full prowess. He didn't stop there, cut the last healthy wolf's head and killed the wounded one too.

'Haa... it's finished!'

Perhaps the fight lasted only for a minute, Ulf felt like at least half an hour passed. He wasn't too tired but felt that even if his power was as strong as leader rank hunter, his physic wasn't. Using too much qi to force his body to move faster could become bothersome after some time. He wanted to yell loudly because of the satisfaction of victory, but recalling where he was, stopped and started to go back. There may not be stronger predators than the wolfs he had killed now, but even then Ulf preferred to be careful.

Ulf needed to fix the wound. However, he wasn't worried that it would get worse. He had a sturdy warrior rank body, with a huge amount of inner qi. Maybe he wouldn't be able to survive without necessary treatment if the wound was too deep and even reached organs, but this one wasn't that problematic. Ulf had honey in his middle-size bag, as for meat, it was right in front of him. When blood stopped leaking, Ulf wanted to take the next step and it was to learn a new skill - skinning. It was very important for the hunters. The first few tries didn't go well and Ulf severely damaged the wolfs' skins. He still had a long way to go.

After finishing everything he wanted, Ulf left the location and went out of the wood, found the old spear, bow and arrows and continued his way toward the southern forest. On his way, Ulf was analyzing his fight. He had many loopholes. His control over inner qi demanded to be finer, needed better observation skills in the wild and to be more calculative. The ability of skinning wasn't even worth mentioning. The body was holding him back, but it wasn't something that could be solved in a few months. Ulf also knew, he had been also a bit arrogant, when he hadn't used inner qi from the start or else nothing would be able to save the alpha wolf from Aeglos.

Ulf felt a bit embarrassed. He was considered one of the best at killing in his past life, but here even if he had a huge cheat, could hardly take care of a few animals. His past life experience was helpful against the humans but was like the shackles if the other creatures were standing in opposition to him. That was why Ulf wanted solo hunting in order to make his adaptation to this world faster.