Wolfe turned to see the green robes of the female whose pursuer he had shot just the other day. Her figure was curvy in an athletic way from what he could tell under the robes, and the hood was draped over a bestial muzzle straight out of a werewolf horror movie.
Not the ones where they turn into full-blown wolves, but the half-monster version. Only, on closer inspection, this one looked more elegant and dignified, more like a fox than a rabid wolf.
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“You know he’s going to run away, right?” She asked.
“With that broken leg? If he does, it won’t be quickly. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I believe I shot a soldier chasing you the other day.” Wolfe greeted her while the sound of the soldier using his rifle as a crutch to try to run away crunched and banged through the trees.
A sudden scream marked his demise, and Wolfe looked back to see that an overgrown squirrel had ripped his throat out. No wonder everyone was terrified of this place. Even the cute animals were vicious.
“Your thoughts are wandering. What are you thinking? I know you’re not from this area. I have never seen you before.” The hooded animal girl asked.
“The squirrel is kind of cute, in a bloodthirsty way. But more importantly, the ones on the motorcycles are your friends, right? How did you end up alone with a small group of humans chasing you down? I’m sorry if I messed up a well-laid plan, but I wanted to test the improvements to my rifle.”
“Thank you for that. I thought you were one of my people at first, but when they didn’t come out to help, I just kept running. What are you doing this close to the borders? Even before the army poisoned everything, this area was terribly unsafe. If we didn’t need to restock our supplies so desperately, we wouldn’t come within a day’s run of here.”
“I’m working with the witches to hunt mundane army units. The Witches have informed me that I’m just looking for the humans to report back on their presence, but it’s the same thing, really.”
“Why would you work with witches? They are hideous and cruel.” The mutant girl asked in confusion.
“From my point of view, they’re rather cute. Not in the same way that you are, but still easy to look at, and the attitude problem is easily solved with the appropriate application of mana.”
“I feel like that phrase should mean burning them, but you don’t intend to burn them, do you?” She asked.
“You’re right. I don’t. It might seem hard to understand, but you could say that getting along with Witches is an innate talent of mine. If you see a dark-haired one wandering around that smells somewhat like me, please don’t kill her. We’re working together.”
“I will warn the others. The monsters won’t be so kind, though. The squirrel seems to recognize you as not being food, but she won’t be as lucky.
Why did you want a radio from the army guy? Are you going to hunt them? We would, but most of our fighters don’t have strong enough flames to block a bullet, and their mana takes forever to recover. So we’re just going to loot a few spots and return to our winter home with the supplies.”
“I’m going to go check out this army camp. If I can terrify them into leaving, you can have whatever I don’t need.” Wolfe suggested.
“This I have to see. How is a demon, even a humanoid one, going to do that alone? Plus, aren’t you an Incubus? Only an Incubus could possibly find witches cute.”
There was definitely some ingrained bias against the witches here, but even the Witches had accused him of being an Incubus for flirting with the students at the academy, so maybe that’s what the word actually meant.
“Hand me the automatic rifle, not the one from the sniper. I’ll enchant it, and then I’ll be ready to go.”
Wolfe saw her ears perk up at the word enchant, and she happily cleaned the weapon off with fresh snow before handing it over.
Wolfe took out his paint marker and drew the inscription he had created for [Fireball] on impact.
“That’s it. I think, as a flame aficionado yourself, you will appreciate this one. Grab the ammunition as well. We will need all of that.” He added as she inspected the rifle.
Wolfe inspected the new weapon to make sure that he was using it correctly. Lock, single, burst, and auto. Those were the four options on the selector above the trigger, so he picked burst, which seemed like it should be more appropriate for the limited ammunition they had.
When it came into sight, the camp was in a full panic about the warning that a talking undead was in the area and about the missing sniper team. That level of chaos would make the job even easier.
Instead of starting with the guards on patrol, Wolfe took aim at the centre of the camp, where two fancy vehicles and a large tent were situated.
The burst mode was less stable than he had expected, and the first burst only got the tent once but also hit one vehicle and a group of soldiers on the far side of the tent. The explosion of the [Fireball] spells lit up the camp in pale blue Unholy Fire, and Wolfe aimed for the spot where the armoured vehicles were parked.
The persistent fire set the whole area alight even before the camp’s fuel storage exploded, coating the area in burning oil.
Chaos reigned in the camp, and Wolfe led his new friend to another hiding spot. This time, he went for the clusters of soldiers with the three-round bursts of [Fireballs]. It was rapidly draining one of his mana focuses, but it was definitely worth it for the damage that it was doing.
The screaming over the radio was keeping them from giving any orders, but Wolfe didn’t let up and emptied the magazine one burst at a time as thick black smoke filled the air.
He was beginning to understand why the humans had teamed up with the witches to kill off the Magi during the great war. This was ridiculous. A single untrained Magi could solo a mundane army unit without breaking a sweat. At least a unit with this equipment.
They had spotted him now, and Wolfe ducked behind the crest of the hill as bullets flew overhead.
“Time to move. They’ll fire artillery at us soon.” He reminded his mutant companion.
“I am reasonably sure that you should be more concerned about that possibility.” She pointed out as they ran for a new spot.
One tank managed to track them, and Wolfe used the barrier spell to block the shell a dozen meters away. The explosion was powerful but redirected away from them, giving them a veil of cover from the flying dirt and smoke to finish their relocation.
“What was that? Did you use armour in the air to block the attack? Why did that work? Are you that strong?” She huffed as they landed in a foxhole that the army had dug.
“The shells explode on impact. Even if the defensive spell is broken, it’s still blowing up over there, not in your face. Once you know the trick, it is easy. I think their morale will break soon. It has to be getting hot in that tank with everything burning around them.
I’ll switch rifles and see if I can actually disable it directly.”
Wolfe spent most of a minute refilling his mana while the soldiers in the camp fired wildly in his general direction, then dumped almost all of one Mana Focus worth into the gravity enchantment before activating the [Fireball] enchantment and firing at the turret of the tank.
The side of the turret dented, and the vehicle rocked up onto one track as the flames engulfed it, but it was still moving.
There was an exhaust port at the back, so he aimed there next, rocking the tank a second time and stopping it instantly.
“That’s the spot. I need a bigger gun or a better spell to shoot holes in tanks, but it’s disabled now, I think.”
The concussive force of the first shell rocking the vehicle had knocked the unprepared crew from their seats, and the second had destroyed the engine bay and hydraulics. The tank wasn’t going anywhere, even if the ground under it wasn’t on fire.
“Aim at the ground under the back. There is a weak spot there that we aim for with explosives.” The mutant girl recommended with a smile.
Wolfe tried that next but got the track, and a second tank immediately stopped moving after it finished rocking.
That was enough of a warning for the survivors that they were outmatched. They grabbed everything they could carry and began to run.
At first, it seemed that they would get away, but the noise and smoke had drawn unwanted attention, and a flock of giant birds with long, featherless necks began dive-bombing them, going for the soft flesh and leaving the gear behind.
Wolfe smiled at his new friend. “And now we wait to collect the loot. Easy, right?”