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

Chapter 38 – Magic Wolves Get Sick

After fooling around with Moofy for a while, the small wolves looked up in the air suddenly.

There, looking up, they suddenly started to howl.

「Ooooooowowwwwwww.」

Their howls were so cute.

I guess the also howl when others in the pack are away. They must be lonely.

「What’s wrong with you guys?」

I petted the little wolf pups again.

「Now that I look around, Femm’s not here either.」

They must also be lonely without Femm.

I do remember that Femm had just ridden Collette here and left her.

「Collette. Do you know where Femm went off to?」

「Don’t know. But after Femm dropped me here, Femm left pretty quick.」

「Okay.」

Since Femm was a wild magic wolf, it was good at disappearing.

Lately, I could tell that Femm was less…wild. So that’s maybe why I didn’t notice.

Femm disappeared without a trace.

「Where did Femm go?」

I stood with the little wolves and tried calling to Femm.

After a while, I saw Femm’s face pop out of the woods. It was it’s huge size again.

『I need your help.』

Femm was holding a drooping wolf by the nape of the neck.

「Sure. What is it?」

『All of the wolves are very sick.』

「Okay…Collette. Could you go get Millet?」

「Okay!」

Collette ran back into the village.

「Cruz and Luka, I need your help.」

「Sure.」

「No problem.」

Cruz and Luka nodded quickly.

「What about me?」Vi-Vi said.

「Yeah…I might need you to help treat them here.」

「Got it. I guess I’ll start tracing out a magic circle.」

「Please.」

Vi-Vi also was ready to help.

From then, Femm guided us to where the magical wolves were.

They were all lying on the ground.

「Are you all okay?!」

I rubbed one wolf on the head, and it whined with a「Wheeen.」

『No strength, headaches, stomachaches. They all seem like they feel like vomiting.』

「Okay. Could you help carry them back to the storage shack so Millet can find them?」

『Thank you.』

Femm bowed to us.

「I’m good at this.」

「Yeah, I can handle it too.」

Cruz hefted two wolves under her arms.

Each wolf was quite big. She had quite some strength to carry two of them together.

Luka carried one wolf under her arms.

Femm carried a different wolf by its nape.

「Femm, you don’t have to carry it. You just let me ride you and run as fast as you can.」

『But there are 16 of them left.』

「16 left. That amount I can carry with magic. You can just run.」

「Rawf.」

I made the wolves float with some gravity magic.

「R, ruff」「Kween.」

The wolves were making some desperate sounding cries.

「Just relax. I’ll get you back safely.」

「Rawf…」

So the wolves didn’t try to resist, but just laid there, carried by magic.

Most of the wolves had their tails between their legs…they must be scared.

Of course…you’re sick as a dog…AND you’re floating for no reason.

I just ignored they were frightened though and focused on getting them back.

「Okay, Femm, run!」

「Wawp!」

I kept the vector of the magic spell following us so the wolves were always suspended behind.

「Great job, Al. I’ve never seen a human use a grav spell that well.」

Cruz kept up with us, smiling with the two wolves under arms.

「Huff, pant, you two are sure having fun…」

Luka looked pretty tired. She was only holding one wolf, but was still keeping up.

When we arrived where Moofy was, Millet was waiting for us.

Vi-Vi seemed like she was finished with her magic circle too.

「What happened to all these wolves?」

「No strength, headaches, stomachaches, nausea, it seems.」

「Okay then.」

Millet quickly walked among the wolves, checking their condition.

「Al, I drew this magic circle to lessen pain. The effect’s not that great…but…」

「Thanks, it’s enough.」

Since we didn’t know the reason for it, it was dangerous to just throw down a restoration magic.

If the cause was a parasite, then the parasite would be healed along with the host.

If you added a body-strengthening magic to it, then the parasite would become much stronger.

With that in mind, pain reduction was what was needed. Health starts with the mind, after all.

If you don’t feel very pained, then your bodily condition improves.

And just now I could see the wolves scattered around the circle begin to recover, if only slightly.

「Kweeen.」

The little wolves were licking the parents’ faces, worried.

It was sad seeing them all like this.

Millet whispered to me after looking at all of them.

「This kind of looks like the sickness that Cruz had. Did they eat something strange?」

「They all ate hydra meat like Cruz did.」

「Then that’s probably it. But, if that’s so, then why is Femm okay?」

Millet and I looked over at Femm.

『I didn’t eat it.』

「What? I gave you the meat, though, Femm…」

『Well, the pack all did such a good job with the hydra, and Cruz took too much of the meat. I kind of felt bad that the were going to get less. So I just gave up my portion.』

「I see.」

Femm had given over its amount to the others so that no one noticed.

I bet the other wolves didn’t even notice it. What a good wolf.

I looked over at Cruz. She seemed a bit unhappy at hearing this.

「Soooory.」

『I’ve done something horribly wrong…』

Femm was more worried than anything. Because all the other wolves got more of the meat, they probably got more of whatever was making them sick.

「It’s not your fault, Femm…」

「Yeah!」

Cruz agreed with me strongly.

While this was going on, Millet had gone back to making medicine.

「I know this is is bitter, but please make sure to drink it all.」

「Kweeennn.」

The magic wolves sounded very weak.

「You have to drink all of it!」

Even though I yelled at them, none of them were drinking the medicine.

Femm was watching this and suddenly began to growl and bark loudly.

「GRAW GROWL RAWWF!」

「Kweeeen.」

With sad voices, the wolves began to drink down the medicine.

I guess a king’s orders always must be followed.

「They drank it down faster than Cruz…good wolves.」

「That’s not true!?」

As Luka complimented the wolves after having to watch Cruz’ reluctance, Cruz puffed her cheeks out and sulked.

After drinking the medicine, they all seemed a bit relieved. A few of them started sleeping.

Vi-Vi’s magic circle seemed to have an effect on them as well.

「Kweeeennn」

They cried out sometimes as they slept. Femm walked around and licked one, then another.

I also rubbed one near to me.

「Moooo.」

The huge Moofy also looked down on the wolves with a look of sympathy.

Moofy then laid down and nuzzled one of them.

Even so, the size difference was immense. Some of the wolves shuffled over and laid next to Moofy’s belly and feet.

Because of Cruz’ consecration of Moofy, the now sacred beast Moofy’s hair was long and soft.

The wolves liked lying down inside of Moofy’s soft fur.

「Well, let’s just see what happens.」

「Thanks, Millet.」

「No problem.」

『Thank you very much.』

Femm bowed its head so low that its nose touched the ground.

After seeing all that had happened, Luka’s face now seemed to be in deep thought.

Cruz saw this, and asked,

「What’s wrong, Luka?」

「Don’t you think it’s strange?」

「What?」

「The fact that Alfred said that he had eaten a hydra, but that it hadn’t hurt him at all.」

「Yeah, it is strange.」

It’s true that the hydra was disgusting. However, I didn’t try to interrupt and just listened.

「Well, it can’t be that the poison had affected them meat.」

「Huh? Why not?」

Cruz didn’t understand why.

「A hydra’s poison is very strong. If they were affected by it, then those wolves would have been sick immediately after eating it.」

「I see…you’re right Al.」

「Not me…Luka’s the one that noticed it.」

「Wow…Luka…」

「Also, if it was poisoned, then the wolves could smell it out, right?」

Luka looked at Femm.

『Of course we could.』

Femm suddenly shrunk down to its domestic size.

Hearing that, Cruz thought like Cruz usually did.

「Well, then maybe the amount of poison was less than they could smell?」

「Nah, that wouldn’t happen.」

「Nah, no chance.」

Luka and I both knew that was wrong.

「Cruz. Did you forget you were bathed in that poison but nothing happened to you?」

「I did. Heh heh.」

「Well, whatever. But you were totally covered by it, so just a little bit of it going in your mouth isn’t going to make you sick, right?」

「I get it…」

Cruz now figured it out. Or maybe she didn’t…we couldn’t tell.

If you get bathed in poison, of course a lot is going to go in your mouth and nose.

There’s no way that Cruz AND the wolves would be made sick with an unnoticable amount of poison.

「Either way, that hydra was a weird one. It could regenerate in the middle of battle right?」

「Yeah, I’ve never heard of that before.」

Luka was an academic too. She studied ancient lore and magic monsters.

If Luka said it was strange, than it definitely was.

「Al, could you let me see that gall bladder from the hydra?」

「Oh, yeah.」

I raised the gall bladder out of the mag with magic. Luka hadn’t looked over the thing enough.

As I handled the hydra’s gall bladder outside the magic bag like before, Luka looked over it with a piercing gaze.

「It just looks like a large, but normal hydra’s gall bladder.」

「Right. We don’t have the magic tools to check the abilities of the poison either.」

「Yeah. I think someone needs to look over it when I get back to the capital.」

「Okay, then. I’ll put it in your magic bag, Luka.」

「Thanks.」

Hearing all this, Cruz inched closer.

「Hm? I didn’t feel this before, but that thing gives me a bad feeling.」

「Bad feeling? Could you put that more concretely?」

「Um…it’s something that concretely makes me have a bad feeling.」

Nothing concrete about that. However, it would be wrong to have Cruz try to provide a complex explanation.

But if a hero has a bad feeling about something…there’s something bad about it.

「You should check out the place you fought that thing again.」

「Yeah.」

That night, I slept beside the storage house. I was worried about the wolves.

Femm and Moofy were too.

Cruz, Luka, Vi-Vi and Millet wanted to sleep outside too, but I had them sleep in Millet’s house.

We don’t need everyone sleeping out tonight.

Before I slept, I looked over at the wolves, who were sleeping softly.

I was about to slip into slumber when the small wolves came over to me.

They all looked worried.

——————————-

In the morning, I felt something licking my face.

「Mpph…」

「Ruff Wauf」

A few of the little wolves were sleeping on top of me. One of them was licking my face.

「Oh! Good morning!」

I rubbed the little wolf. I was panting cutely.

I looked around at the wolves…Femm was gone. I wondered where it had gone.

A few of the bigger wolves were walking around. The ones that weren’t were at least seated and panting softly.

They look like they had recovered.

「Seems like they’re healthy again. But no need to deal with them now.」

「Ruff.」

There were a few walking near and some sitting against Moofy.

After a while, Femm, in its large size, came back from the forest. It had a large boar in its mouth.

「You went hunting! Good job.」

『Yeah. Breakfast.』
「I think they’re all back to normal. I think well enough to eat that.」

『Yes, thanks. They look much better. I have to thank Millet as well.』

Femm split up the boar, shrunk, and we walked into town together.