As soon as they saw the birds, Luke's group hid themselves to not be seen. Earlier, they had walked for an hour and found not a sign of another living thing, only corpses of whole groups; for that reason, it was a shock to find the animals so suddenly.
"What are we gonna do?" Jilly questioned, with a tone of voice so low that the sound almost didn't come out of her mouth.
"You don't have to keep it down. They're over fifty feet up. They wouldn't be able to hear us." Shiro tried to be as polite as possible to the girl.
Nathalia was confident. She picked up a stick on the ground, moved some bush aside, and began to draw in the mud while explaining:
"Pay attention. We are here, and they are here." E-Class quickly drew something that resembled the trunk of a tree. At the top of that drawing, she made a circle at the bottom of it. "We will only get one chance to attack them, and we have to kill at least four. So we have to make a fail-safe plan."
"You have a plan?" The half-wolf asked, looking directly into the girl's eyes.
"Yes. Now, pay attention..."
Nathalia outlined a plan that would require the help of everyone in the group and their abilities. Since no one in the group knew if the animals were easily frightened or if they were extremely aggressive, they worked with both possibilities.
As ordered, Luke used the <Invisible Trail> skill to approach the flock silently by the massive trunk of a tree. Meanwhile, Shiro positioned himself at the indicated spot; next to him were Livia and Nathalia behind him.
The moment everyone got into their positions, the sign of the start of the ambush was the bang caused by the skill <Thunder Razor>, used by Livia. Trrooommm!
The birds freaked out a little. They looked down and saw a giant man with a girl beside him. Being such territorial birds, they were not at all pleased to see invaders in their area, and all dived toward Shiro.
"Trrrrrriu!" The golden birds squealed, enraged.
Luke saw the birds leave their field of attack and quickly began to descend from the colossal tree, jumping from branch to branch.
When the birds got close enough, Shiro clapped his palms together and shouted, "<Renegade's Barrier>!"
Seeing the barrier, the birds slowed down and prepared to dodge. However, Nathalia jumped out of the bushes behind the big man and used the <Malevolent Hook> skill. This skill pulled five birds from the flock right into the shield.
The rest of the flock tried to dodge, but Luke was right behind them. He used <Vind> and pushed a few more birds toward the shield. The necks of more than a dozen golden birds broke on Shiro's sturdy shield, thanks to the cooperation between Luke and Nathalia.
The rest of the animals scattered in various directions in the forest as they continued to squeal bravely. These birds looked proud, but they were not dumb.
Jilly saw some of them fly over her head, and even though they had managed to kill enough of them, she decided to use the <Endel?setau> ability.
Four semitransparent stakes appeared in the air, and they had a slightly yellowish hue. These stakes followed four birds and pierced them a few meters later. Jilly took the four birds by the necks and joined the rest of the group.
When the quintet grouped, they counted sixteen dead golden birds. Luke dissected four of them and took a golden orb from inside each of them. The rest of the animals he gathered into a bag and placed the dead animals in the <Normal Inventory>.
Although he didn't need to do this, the poor man's spirit within him warned him that these things might be worth some money. Since the dissection work took a while, some members of the group had to keep vigil.
"I left Livia watching the perimeter." spoke Nathalia, as she approached, "Have you finished?"
"Yeah, I think we can get out of that creepy forest now. And... good job earlier. You should take more of the leadership role. You have the skills for it." Luke complimented her and leaned lightly on her right shoulder.
Nathalia smiled proudly. "Thank you so much..."
"All right guys, you can come!" Luke exclaimed.
Shiro, Jilly and Livia approached, eager to get going. The half-wolf placed a golden orb in each person's hand and kept one for himself. Finally, he took a brief look around to check that no one was there and saw nothing.
"At the end of my count, we will all press the buttons... Three, two, one..."
Then everyone pressed the buttons simultaneously. They began to feel the same tingling sensation that invaded their bodies just before they emerged in the Skd?dsgen Forest. Then a blinding flash blurred their vision.
From one second to the next, the half-wolf stopped hearing the rustling of the wind in the tall leaves of the colossal trees, and this was replaced by silence. His eyesight gradually returned to normal in a moment. Thus, the half-wolf found himself in the middle of an extremely flat place.
This environment was extremely different from anything Luke had ever seen in his entire life. The sky was very blue, and there was not a cloud in the sky, plus he was stepping on thin, short grass. The half-wolf had never seen a field so flat and without any trees or rocks.
"Luke... Luke! Wake up, Luke!" He heard a distant voice call out to him.
At that moment, Luke woke up from his dream. "Huh? Where am I?" he asked, still a little sleepy.
Nathalia was next to his bed, and they were not alone; there was also a nurse next to her with a cold towel in her hands.
"Step away, I have to check on him." The nurse said and pushed Nathalia aside a little. "Can you see that?" She asked, showing three fingers with her right hand.
"Yes, it's three fingers. Did something happen to me?" Luke asked, a little confused.
Then with Nathalia's help, the nurse explained to the half-wolf what had occurred. Apparently, when the quintet was teleported back to the Central Palace, the doctors rushed to be able to help possible injured people, but among Shiro, Jilly, Livia, Nathalia and Luke, only the half-wolf fainted.
Everyone's first suspicion was the injury caused in the fight against the Tank, but...
"Everyone who has examined you has no idea what happened. It wasn't decompression, blood loss, weakness, a drop in pressure, much less a lack of sugar." The nurse continued to explain how his case was a mystery.
"But I feel great..." The half-wolf voiced, looking down at his own hands that were not even shaking.
"Do you usually visit a doctor you trust? One who understands about your race?"
"No... I've never even had an appointment with a real doctor."
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦