Wolfe’s mana was rapidly draining as the front of the herd ran past them, less than a kilometre away. The attackers were mostly decimated already, and the back ranks were turning to fight them, but he simply didn’t have the reserves to continue until the end of the battle.
“Mary, switch out with Wolfe. Wolfe, you meditate so that we have enough mana to fight the rest of the battle. I think we can do this.” Ella insisted.
“Be safe, and come back inside before you think that anything has pinpointed your location. We won’t be able to hold if the bunker is overrun or dug up.” He agreed, then moved back inside and lay down to regenerate the mana that his Witches were using.
Even Stephanie had joined the fight, following the lead of the others and relying on [Flame Strike] and [Lightning Bolt], which both visibly originated at the target and didn’t fly over from the caster.
That strategy was hard on mana and had drained Wolfe dry, but it was working. The monsters were still attacking the antlered beasts and not turning their attention to the humans.
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With Wolfe meditating, the rest of the group could go all out in their spell-casting. The loss of [Unholy Smite] reduced the area damage they were doing, but the faster casting was somewhat making up for it.
“Are you alright, Mister Wolfe? Are we winning?” Beth asked from her spot near the stove with Pup.
“I am rebuilding my mana storage so the others can cast more quickly. Why don’t you bring them out some of the energy bars and make them a drink? Even with the stamina amulets, they will still need them.” He suggested.
“I am on it.”
Beth never got a chance to make the delivery before the Witches came running back in, activated the barrier behind them and plunged the room into darkness.
“There’s something else out there. We can’t identify it, but both groups suddenly bolted in different directions, and then the pile of corpses caught fire. That was our signal to hide, so here we are.” Mary explained.
“Alright, Beth has snacks and drinks. Keep as silent as possible, and we will wait. We did good work today, and we might be able to recover something edible out there.”
“You plan to eat those things?” Mary asked, looking disturbed.
“Just the ones with antlers. But there is a spell for Witches to determine if it’s safe to eat before we drag anything over here.” Wolfe whispered back.
As soon as they heard that, the witches took out the Adventurer’s Handbook and began flipping pages, looking for the right spell. Being here in the middle of nowhere, knowing if their food was safe was suddenly much more important to know than it had been at the Academy.
The roars and sound of hooves on dirt kept growing closer, and then an additional noise, that of crunching bones and tearing flesh, was added.
That noise continued for much longer than anyone in the bunker would have preferred before it changed to the sound of huge footsteps, then tearing metal from somewhere very nearby.
If Wolfe was right, the creature had ransacked the already destroyed camp, and now it was moving on, back away from the front lines.
This was no place for humans. If there had been a camp, the unit would have attacked everything and drawn the attention of that final creature, all for no good reason except to reduce their own numbers.
This wasn’t what they had been informed a beast tide was. The monsters weren’t heading anywhere specific. They simply existed in this area in huge numbers. It might not be the normal state of things, but they weren’t actively trying to get into Witch territory.
“What do we do now? Do we look for a spot closer to the main line, or do we just wait here?” Beth asked a few hours later once she felt safe to speak quietly again.
Wolfe thought for a moment, then came up with a fairly reasonable solution. “If the things with antlers are edible, we stay. Who knows when they might send another unit or an entire bus full of Witches our way, and I would hate to leave them in the same situation we were left in.
It wouldn’t be too bad if we expand our bunker downward for safety and wait here as long as it is reasonable to remain here on the flank.”
“We can’t expand the bunker down. You probably can’t sense it since you can’t use water magic, but only ten meters below us is groundwater. Once this snow starts to melt, a lower level would flood.” Reiko informed him.
“Point taken. So, we work with what we have and see what happens. The most important part is food, though. Without food, we aren’t staying anywhere for long.”
“Then I will go with you and check the meat. I’ve learned the spell well enough now, and you can carry an antler beast back if they’re good.” Cassie decided and got up from the circle around the book that everyone had been reading by the dim glow of a magical fire.
Wolfe led the way out, keeping low to the ground as he searched for the nearest subject to test. There were a number of antler beast corpses within fifty meters of the bunker with huge claw marks on them, so that was their first destination.
Wolfe looked through the bodies and found one with damage only to its head. They were much larger than he had thought from a distance, standing nearly as tall as the bus they rode in on.
That also meant the creatures that attacked them were even more horrifying than they had looked while firing spells at them from a distance, but it was better to ignore that part.
“Cassie, check this one out. If any of them are good, it should be this one.” He whispered.
“The spell says this one and those two are good, but the one there isn’t. Do you think the claw marks might be poisonous?” Cassie asked, looking at the carcass in confusion.
“No, its innards are ripped open. I’ve been told that it taints the meat. I will prepare this one to take back to camp.” Wolfe told her and brought out his knife.
“And where did you learn that? You grew up in the city like me but worked as a bike courier.”
Wolfe chuckled at the question and smiled at her confusion. “From the meat market where Beth worked. They would slaughter and skin animals when the order came in, so I watched it a lot, and I think I can do it.
If she had come out here with us, she could definitely do it much faster. It’s not the usual goat or a rat that they’re selling as a rabbit, but the concept is the same.”
Wolfe worked as quickly as he could, cleaning and draining the animal so he could move it and then used the one basic gravity control circle that he knew in order to lighten it enough to move the huge beast without dragging it and leaving a path back to the bunker.
