While Emery was still tending the fiery red-haired girl, he also took advantage of this opportunity to start asking questions, strongly hoping she would be willing to answer.
"So, how many days have you been here?"
The girl was silent. It was apparent she didn't want to say anything, but Emery persisted. He shifted his body and looked straight into her eyes, waiting for an answer.
Perhaps because of the emotions within Emery's eyes or something else entirely, Morgana turned her head to the other way and muttered in an extremely soft, almost inaudible voice.
"…Three days."
Nodding his head at her answer, Emery proceeded to pull and tie the clothes he had used to bandage her wound, causing her to hiss slightly.
"Now, tell me. How do you know this place?"
Morgana, once again, didn't immediately answer his question. But moments later, she slowly said, "It was... the High Priestess. She told me about this place."
The unexpected answer actually made Emery confused for a moment. As much as there were mysteries the High Priestess had, he wondered why she didn't tell him about such a place.
Then again, Emery was shown the Gaya temple by Gaia, hence it should be no oddity for Morgana to be shown this place. Agreeing his speculation was most likely what had happened, Emery proceeded onto the next question.
"Now, please, tell me Morgana..." he said looking directly at her, "What hunt were you talking about before?"
This time, Morgana seemed to have no intention to answer. She forced her body to stand up, picked up the sword lying on the ground and began to move her body where the blood trail went. Clearly, she wanted to seek the beast.
Emery stood in front of her to make her stop. Unaffected by her glare, he said
"You have to walk behind me, or you're not going anywhere."
Morgana was annoyed, but knowing her condition, she eventually nodded and followed behind him.
The two quickly followed the blood trail that was very apparent on the grassy ground. They were hoping to find the beast's corpse eventually, as Morgana did stab the latter cleanly on the neck, which should be critical enough.
But apparently, reality was not that optimistic, as it had been an hour since they started walking and they were still following the trail.
"There's already so much blood coming out of it! The beast must be dying already…" muttered Emery, secretly amazed by the beast's vitality.
The two found themselves standing at the bottom of a mountain, where the blood trail abruptly ended among the shrubs. Intently scrutinizing where the trail ended, Emery realized there was actually a cave hidden behind a thick bush.
"A wolf den?"
While the traces of blood clearly indicate Emery and Morgana to enter the cave, the two were still careful and went in slowly. Morgana used her fire spell to illuminate the dark cave, while Emery walked at the front with his sword brandished.
After walking through the murky cave for a few minutes, finally, thanks to his enhanced senses, Emery perceived a faint growl, which unmistakably originated from the beast. Turning his head around, Emery lowered his voice and said, "Be careful. The beast should be up ahead."
There, in the middle of a half-frozen cave, they could see the beast lying helplessly on the ground. The beast also seemed to notice their arrival, as it turned its head toward their direction.
Unexpectedly, it expended the rest of its energy to try biting the two, but only for naught, as its attacks were all dodged. Eventually, it gave up and lay on the ground again, closing its eyes as if resigned to its fate.
Emery was sure the beast wasn't dead yet, as he could still hear its breath which, though faint, sounded rhythmic.
"She's dying." Emery said and Morgana surprisingly responded immediately. "How do you know it's a she?"
Emery walked a few steps past the beast and showed her the view hidden behind by its body. There were five wolf pups as big as normal wolves licking the dying wolf.
"Apparently, she forced her body to come back for her little ones."
Seeing this, Morgana abruptly raised her sword, which in return caused Emery to stop her.
"What! What are you doing, Morgana?!"
"Releasing her from agony," replied Morgana in a calm voice.
"Wait, wait!! Wait!" Emery said, as he saw her raise her sword again.
He was disheartened to see the beast die. Hence, he tried to persuade Morgana to let him heal the beast. She found the request completely unreasonable, but even so, Emery already approached the dying beast and started applying the [Healing Paste] he had.
"What are you doing?! You are making a mistake!! Stop right now!" Morgana said loudly.
Emery realized that from the story of the old woman, the one beast that was killed last year must be the male and this female must be its companion. Its pregnancy was probably the reason why there was no killing in that period of time.
It was only after she gave birth she started to come out of its nest and kill people a few months ago.
"That beast is a killer! We should kill it while it is still weak!" Morgana said, in her attempt to dissuade Emery from healing the beast.
In fact, Emery agreed with her. However, he was also reluctant and unsure at the moment.
For safety precaution, he cast [Entangled] at the beast to make sure when it woke up it wouldn't go berserk. Afterwards, he spoke something that made Morgana calm down and listen.
"I can feel a strange aura from the cave. Let's investigate it first before deciding on the beast. What do you think?"
Emery's words had successfully piqued her interest, so Morgana decided to follow along, for now.
Leaving the partially-healed wolf and her pups, the two made their way into the cave. As they walked deeper, they could feel the temperature gradually rise, which was a weird phenomenon. After all, they just came from a half-frozen cave.
In the end, they found a pond whose surface was boiling. A hot spring situated in a frozen cave, this was definitely something worth checking.
Emery did a slight investigation; noticing the markings around and searching around the spring. From the clues he saw, he guessed the wolves had been drinking and bathing in this place, or rather, the hot spring.
When he looked carefully at the hot spring, he realized the water was sparkling. There was actually a silvery liquid mixed in the water.
Emery took a sample and used his [Analyze] on it.
[Corrupted Spring Water]