VIII

"I heard there's been a kid going around killing our soldiers!"

"What? No way! Its probably a dwarf or a halfling. They're rare around here, but there's no way a kid is killing grown men."

Two over-weight, middle-aged men sat behind the counter at the local tavern. One wore a giant hammer on his back and the other a bow and quiver. They donned guard uniforms for the Kingdom of Crane. They resided in one of the military camps that trained the soldiers for war.

It was a mid-ranking camp, meaning only people of medium power level were deployed or trained there.

These two men, had been guards for decades. 

Once you reached twenty years of age, if you didn't show promise, you were given low ranking jobs. The kingdom understood the idea of late-bloomers, but they had far too many people to cater to individuality. 

This particular camp, was a few hundred kilometers from the capital and housed guards and students from humble backgrounds, and low skill levels. The teachers were mostly retired veterans or nobles that paid there way.

A rumor had been going around, regarding the deaths of half a dozen soldiers. 

One of them was killed right outside the camp, and the other five were picked off, one by one, while scouting.

Only a high skilled, high-tier soldier, could pull something like that off.

Not some kid.

These guards weren't high-tier, but they were still responsible for protecting the camp, and were not chosen lightly. 

An investigation had been started to find the killer, but after nearly two weeks of searching, nothing came up.

Those two weeks would be the only chance they had.

Little did they know that all these deaths, had been the result of one of their guards accidently stumbling across something they shouldn't have.

This something, was a demon.

A demon in a child's skin.

Clad in a black fur coat, bearing a longsword down its back. 

It's un-kempt hair resembling large ears, while it often fought low to the ground. Reminding, any who had caught a glimpse, of a wolf. It had supposedly been seen towards the east, deep in the wilds.

The demon would fire projectiles at terrifying speeds, to kill its target. If that failed, it would get up close and finish them off. This meant that seldom had anyone seen it without perishing.

One name had manage to catch on and everyone at the camp knew it.

The WolfGod

-

This WolfGod was Dylan.

Or at least what he had become after nearly two years of surviving in the wilderness. 

He had spent most of his life post-gate in the woods, but he always had the comfort of Gertrude and the orphanage. This kept him innocent.

After enduring the true wilds, he had grown into a cold, precise killer.

It had been nearly two months since the fight with the dire-wolf.

In that time Dylan had only grown more precise in his battle style. This meant he could take on stronger foes, and he didn't waste any time. Finding foes was easier than ever, now that he wasn't too weak.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, he finally gained some more experience killing beasts, enough to where his first kill of a new type of foe, had once again increased his level. Making him powerful enough to create these rumors.

-SYSTEM DATA-

Name: Dylan/Grain

Age: 9 years 11 months(post-Gate)

Race: Human/???

Level: 3

Strength: 11

Agility: 13

Intelligence: 15

Dexterity: 10

Faith: 0

EXP: 0/1000

Dylan looked at his current stats with satisfaction.

'If it wasn't for that guy attacking me i still would've been looking for beasts to level up,' he thought.

'After seeing how little trouble he gave me, I'm pretty confident in taking on other people.'

-SYSTEM DATA_

(Host received 125 experience points for defeating a mid-tier guard)

(Host received 65 additional experience for first human)

'First human.'

At first Dylan felt like killing a human would bother him, but after replaying the events he knew he had no other choice.

With that decision, he set down a path he wouldn't easily stray from.

Dylan manage to recover a few things from the guard he killed. 

One was a sack full of these bright blue gems. There was easily thirty.

'I assume this is some type of currency rewarded to members of the army. Something like contribution points. Or maybe, they are a type of magic crystal and are used for trade or growth.' he guessed.

He knew they would be valuable either way.

He also found a satchel with rations and basic survival gear. Like rope, fire starters, a small, hunting knife, and curing salts.

After inspecting the guards sword, he decided it would be to cumbersome. He wanted to wield a long sword like an RPG protagonist but with his current build and fighting style, his light home-made spear was perfect.

At basically ten years old, he was about a meter and a half tall.

He had only grown about twenty centimeters in the near two years, but his body had become far more defined. After running for ten months straight, then honing his skills for the later ten months, he was confident in fighting most low-tier beasts.

He had seen beasts that he felt were out of his league, and assumed those were mid-tier beasts.

Dylan had invented these rankings, because he had nothing to go off of.

Maybe he could join an organization at some point and learn the actual rankings of beasts. Until then, he'll just avoid anything that looks too strong. That left him with, large-rats, killer-ants, and of course dire-wolves. These were the three creatures the system had registered as beasts.

Each fight was hard and rewarded him with experience. The system would then tell him the name of his kill. He had hunted one of almost every species for ten kilometers. Out of the dozens of large animals, only these three registered as beasts in his system.

'It must have to do with power scaling. The regular animals cant reach the same level of strength as the beasts can naturally.'

'Maybe this means humans also have thresholds, only certain people can pass.'

Seconds passed.

'Of course, the flames of want!' he realized.

'The reason I've been able to gain levels and experience is due to the flame of want's ability. The reason children get taken or scouted at ten must be because, that's when the level cap changes.

Due to my specific circumstances, I'm probably the strongest person under thirteen. Maybe even older.'

Dylan thought more on this subject and things seemingly unraveled in his mind. 

'No wonder that dude was so easy to kill. He's not even a Gear.'

'He probably spent his whole life just, barely training his body and avoiding stronger beasts. If he is, lets say twenty years old, he would only have been increasing his stats for about a decade. Essentially, as long as I have.'

Dylan had not only the benefit of the system, but also his breaking of the level cap, via the flames of want. So he was able to gather as much strength as a twenty year old man before his tenth birthday.

That was insane!

-

After the death of the first guard, the camp deployed a unit to search for him.

This unit consisted of five mid-tier soldiers. Each of them fresh graduates, no more than twenty-one years old.

The unit needed a first mission and the captain figured the guard had been killed by some kind of beast. So, surely a group of five trained soldiers could handle one beast. There wasn't anything that strong besides the dire-wolfs for kilometers.

The men decided to spilt up remaining fifty meters apart and sweep the forest. If there was a beast they would find it.

Unfortunately for them, one of them stumbled across something worse than a beast.

-

Dylan laid in his hole-home, trying to get some sleep. After his fight with the guard, he decided to lay low for a bit. 

No sense in getting caught up in any serious fights before he had his blessing. He still had about two weeks.

*SNAP*

His eyes shot open.

In two fluid movements, he sprung up, grabbed his gear and burst out the shelter. 

Once he was clear of the make-shift roof, he picked a direction and took off in a dead sprint. Not knowing what was out there and knowing something was out there were two different things.

He could've easily remained hidden but being hidden only worked when someone wasn't looking.

One might think Dylan was being overly paranoid, but no. It was only logical that he immediately broke into action.

It had only been a hand full of hours since the altercation with the guard. Plenty of time for a search team to be sent out.

Why did he know a team would be sent out?

Because, he knew that if anyone saw the body they would think a beast was the culprit.

Dylan never got the chance to impale the guard during their fight.

He only went to throw the guard by the arm and his arm ripped off!

After flipping the guard over his body, Dylan didn't let go and the guards arm stayed, while the rest of him was thrown into a nearby tree.

Still shocked by his newfound strength, he didn't notice the guard approaching to make a counterattack.

Last second the guard yelled, and Dylan responded with a back hand that broke the guards neck.

So when the guards found a dismembered body, regardless if the truth is found, initially a party will be sent to scout the surrounding areas.

With all that considered, Dylan decided to avoid another fight by avoiding the possibility of one.

Obviously, things don't ever go as planned.

A hot sharp pain in his shoulder, broke Dylan's stride. 

The left side of his chest went numb, and a sense altering pain, spread throughout his arm.

He lost balance and tumbled forward. After rolling a few meters, he managed to get to a sitting position.

Before he had the chance to grab his weapon, a foot encased in metal collided with his face.

The blow sent him rolling backwards.

It took a split second, but thanks to his high intelligence stat, Dylan regained his senses, and used the momentum to spring to his feet. 

After landing, he brandished the home made spear, and took a, low to the ground battle, stance.

He could see two approaching figures in his field of view. One carried a long sword and the other a mace and shield. They only wore light leg armor and helmets. This meant no one-shot headshots with the sling, and going for the legs is a no go.

With that in mind, Dylan held the spear firmly in his right hand and charged the shield-bearer.

Once he was a meter a way, he used the momentum to fling his body into the shield. The shield-bearer lost balance and stepped back only to find no footing. The small boy climbed over the shield as the man fell and pre-emptively stabbed the spear towards the mans chest.

The man saw this coming and went to swing his mace, only to find the boy's left foot dung into his arm!

If the shield-bearer had been left handed, Dylan may have taken a devastating blow, due to his injury. All his weight was on his right side, so if the attack had came from the right, he wouldn't have been able to react in time. Luckily the man was in the ninety percentile of people and had a right dominate hand.

Dylan's thrust met no obstacles other than soft flesh.

The sharpened boned dug deep in to the mans chest ripping apart his lungs and heart.

The perk of this new spear was the light weight and flexibility of older models, but also the bone was sharp and wide. So the attack area was large enough to inflict life-threatening wounds. This meant one attack was enough to end the shield-bearing mans life.

There was no time for victory however, as the longsword wielding man, swung his blade in a wide arc, barely missing the dodging boy. 

Dylan counterattacked with a spear throw. 

This was a technique he rarely used but knew practicing it could come in handy. Due to the over extended guards distraction, this was a perfect time to implement it.

The spear went into the mans abdomen, causing him to fall forwards from pain.

Dylan reached in his satchel and charged.

Brandishing the hunting knife he just acquired, he dove on the longsword wielder. Landing on top of his back.

He then began stabbing the man in the side repeatedly.

The man tried to shake him off, but Dylan just kept stabbing.

Eventually the man ceased to move.

-SYSTEM DATA-

(Host received 125 experience for defeating, mid-tier soldier x2)

EXP 250/1000

Dylan immediately removed the arrow from his shoulder. Wrapping parts of his shirt around the wound.

From what he could tell, no muscles or tendons were injured. The arrow had just passed through, meaning he could kind of use his arm, maybe enough to put up an actual fight.

He quickly checked the guards. Taking the longsword, bow and quiver, and any blue stones.

After looting the corpses he sprinted east, further from the kingdom. He felt there had to be more soldiers and he needed to make distance. As he ran he turned the sling into a make shift holder for the longsword, wearing it down his back.

He also donned the fur coat over the sword to keep it in place, it was nearly as tall as him after all. 

With all that in place he put the quiver on his hip and tried drawing the bow a few times.

'It's do-able.'

Hoping he was prepared, he climbed the nearest tree and waited. 

-

Three figures came into few, followed by three whistling sounds.

'Two out of three, not bad'

Two of the soldiers dropped from the arrows they received.

The third was too distracted to notice the young boy, swinging a long sword in a wide arc, towards his mid section. With one swipe the soldier was cleaved in two.

'This things kind of dull. I don't mind though.'

After finishing off the other two, Dylan grabbed all the blue stones, rations, and loose arrows.

He decided on not trying to take anything else. The bow was a great weapon, but all the other weapons the soldiers used were too bulky. 

'The longsword fits my style more. I'm a great shot due to archery club on Earth and i always wanted to be a big sword anime boy.'

Silence.

'All this killing though, is this okay?'

Silence.

'They attacked me and this world doesn't matter anyways.'

Silence

'I got bigger goals than this place and if anyone wants to stand in my way,' 

Then they don't wanna live.'