The Strongest Wizard Becomes a Countryside Guardsman After Taking an Arrow to the Knee

Chapter 66 – Checking Outside the Wolves’ Forest

I stuck some of the monsters in the magic bag as well.

I didn’t pull them apart like usual. It would be easier for Luka to check them out.

I needed to take this slowly.

Vi-Vi seemed to have relaxed after holding on to Moofy for a while.

With the work done, I asked Vi-Vi,

「Vi-Vi, are you okay?」

「I’m perfectly FINE!」

Vi-Vi said proudly in an attempt to look brave.

But her bottom half was still drenched.

「Um, let’s take you back to the village.」

「WHY?! We still haven’t figured this all out!」

「If you say so, Vi-Vi, but…」

If Vi-Vi was going to pretend like she hadn’t peed herself, I would respect that, I guess.

「Femm, do you feel any more presence around us?」

『Yes.』

「Okay. Let’s hunt them down, then.」

「Ruff.」

We searched around.

We found and killed dragons, bears, basilisks, hydras, and a lot of other monsters as well.

「There are too many out here.」

「Yeah.」

「Femm, how many monsters usually inhabit this area?」

『Too many…this is three times the usual.』

Three times wasn’t normal.

And the monsters you encountered weren’t typical around here either.

Femm suddenly stopped in its tracks.

Femm’s ears stood up and its nose sniffed away at the air.

「What is it?」

『Rotten flesh…no, blood, bones…the air’s full of it.』

「Hm. Let’s look around here.」

Femm took me to where the smells came from, and there was a huge mass of bones.

Dragon bones. Earth dragons, wyverns too. There were also bear and basilisk bones.

There was blood, but no meat left.

「What the hell happened?」

「Let’s look around.」

There were bite marks in the bones. The meat had been torn off the bones by something.

「Hm. Looks like some starving beast ate this up.」

「You think that this was eaten by that earth dragon?」

『From the smell and the bite marks, it was probably an earth dragon.』

Femm said while sniffing it over.

If so, then a bunch of starving earth dragons ate this up.

It might have been that all the goblins and magic mice were already eaten up by the beasts.

Because of this, any goblins and other small creatures left fled to the wolves’ territory.

With all the weak magic beasts gone, the stronger ones ate each other up.

「It’s pretty crazy to think the stronger beasts ate each other up.」

『I don’t think they ate each other. Perhaps they just ate some dead bodies.』

「Hm?」

Dragons usually don’t eat each other. There was no way that a proud race like dragons would resort to eating each other.

『This is too clean as well. If they had fought to the death, the bones would be broken too.』

「I see.」

After hearing Femm explain it and looking again, it was true that it was just too clean.

There were bite marks, but they only seemed to be made in order to gobble down the meat.

They weren’t bites made in battle.

「Hm. So why did they die?」

「We can’t know unless we check. Let’s take the bones home.」

I put some of the bones in my magic bag.

「That’s some deep bag you have there, Al.」

「It cost me a pretty penny.」

There was still quite a bit of room inside too.

Femm was checking the bones and then said,

『I think they starved to death.』

「Why do you think so?」

『The magic in their blood isn’t very good.』

It was something you could sense in magic creatures that could absorb magic.

A wizard like me could detect traces of magic around, but couldn’t tell the taste of it in the blood.

「Not good? The magic in it was low?」

『I think so.』

When Femm said that, Vi-Vi whispered,

「If they were going to starve, they should have just looked for food.」

「Well, if they starved, there had to be a reason, right?」

「So what’s the reason, Al?」

「They had run here, to the wolves territory, but wouldn’t dare go farther. It might have been that.」

「Are you saying that earth dragons would run from something?」

Vi-Vi frowned.

If the earth dragons ran, that meant they were running from something far stronger.

This wasn’t becoming a good conversation.

「If that’s the case, they they should have just entered the wolves’ territory.」

Vi-Vi said, but this pack of magic wolves was quite strong.

Even with dragons, they couldn’t beat the wolves.

And even if they had carrion to eat, they weren’t going to fight the wolves.

「The wolves are quite strong. And they knew it was only a matter of time until we attacked them.」

『If that’s so, they should have just run away to somewhere else.』

Femm said strongly.

It would have been a decent fight against the wolves. But there would have been a lot of sacrifices.

「Even so, it’s weird for earth dragons to run away.」

「Yeah, we have to find why they ran.」

『Understood. I’ll search for a stronger presence.』

Femm looked around, and we searched until evening.

However, there was no enemy that Femm could find.

「Want to camp?」

「No, let’s go home.」

「Why, Al? We have to stop whatever the reason is, right?」

「If we couldn’t find it in the day, it’s going to be even harder in the night.」

If Moofy and Femm’s noses couldn’t sense it, then there’s no way human eyes could.

Also, Vi-Vi’s legs…well…maybe she should change.

So we all decided to return to Mulg.