Chapter 170: Overwhelmed by Emotions (Patreon)

Over by the clearing, neither Yukino nor Kaguya had seen clearly what happened — they'd only heard a few gunshots and two short, sharp howls.

Then they saw Isac charge back through the doorway, and moments later he walked back out carrying an axe stained with dark green blood.

From the ambush to the kill, the whole thing hadn't even taken a full minute — fast enough to leave them scrambling to keep up.

They'd said they'd cover him, but it was over before they even caught sight of the enemy.

It wasn't really their fault. The giant Aurora wolf had timed its attack perfectly, striking the instant Ai climbed over an obstacle, and dodging both Isac's and Ai's shots with uncanny speed.

Not until Isac closed in and rammed it hard enough to stun it did he land the killing blow — two more brutal, no-frills axe swings after that finished the fight.

Isac rubbed his left shoulder. Thanks to the bark armor he wore, the impact only left a dull ache, and after a bit of rubbing it settled down — chances were it hadn't even broken the skin.

The giant wolf that had come out of nowhere, by comparison, hadn't fared nearly as well.

Shot square in the chest, it hadn't even had time to yelp before Isac buried the axe in its jaw.

"In the end, this thing's still the most reliable tool," Isac said, bending down to wipe the axe clean with a handful of snow.

He'd fired three rounds total and missed every single one — in the end it was the axe in his hand that delivered the killing blow.

Ai came up beside him and reached out to squeeze his left arm. "Are you... okay?"

"I'm fine, doesn't even hurt anymore. Probably didn't even break skin." Isac tried to flex like a bodybuilder, but the bark armor under his jacket got in the way — still, the gesture got the point across.

"So hard."

"Well, survival points don't spend themselves for nothing."

"Did that part get hard too?"

"...?"

A question mark slowly formed over Isac's head.

Ai tilted her head, a smile tugging at her lips. "I meant your arm muscles."

"You'd better."

When it came to being naughty, it was hard to say which of them topped the other. Ever since their relationship went further, Ai had gone in Isac's mind from an all-purpose maid figure to a shameless flirt, constantly steering things somewhere risqué — and not just on her own, either; sometimes she dragged Kaguya into it too.

And mind you, that wasn't limited to words.

If Ai weren't still not that close with Yukino, Isac suspected she'd have dragged her into it too.

"Still... next time, don't take unnecessary risks." Ai looked Isac straight in the eye. "Even if that wolf had lunged at me, I was confident I could've dodged it."

"I know, but I was confident I could knock it off you too. And besides..." Isac held her gaze right back. "I'd rather get hurt myself than have anything happen to any of you."

Ai's heart skipped a beat. A faint flush crept across her pale face, and she turned away, muttering under her breath, "Saying something like that out of nowhere is just plain unfair."

"Also... when it's just the two of us, dropping the 'any of you' would earn you extra points. You flirt."

"I thought I was already maxed out with you, Hayasaka."

"Wrong." Ai crossed her arms in front of her chest, forming a big 'X'. "Your favorability's already overflowing — and you're responsible for whatever spills out."

"How exactly do I take responsibility for overflow?" Isac asked, curious.

The corner of Ai's mouth curled up, as if she'd known he'd ask exactly that. She stepped closer, leaned in to his ear, and whispered, "Once we're back... three times."

Th... three times?

Isac felt a flicker of disappointment — that didn't sound any different from usual.

"No hands."

"!!!"

With the danger past, Kaguya and Yukino walked over to join them. At the sight of the pitch-black giant wolf lying dead in the doorway, both their mouths fell open slightly — clearly they hadn't expected it to be this huge.

Aurora wolves were already bigger than ordinary wolves to begin with, and this pitch-black beast was easily twice the size of an Aurora wolf.

Looking at the axe marks on its hide — this was what Isac had just been grappling with up close?

Kaguya's eyes flickered, her breathing quickening.

Yukino, ever sharp, noticed the reaction beside her and quietly put a little distance between them.

This one's a lost cause.

She thought to herself, then turned to Isac, a note of worry in her voice. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"No, don't let the size fool you — its strength was about on par with mine, and Ai even got a shot into it," Isac answered.

As if worried Yukino might lecture him, Isac quickly added, "Didn't even break the skin."

"I see..." Yukino lowered her eyes but didn't say anything more.

As long as the outcome was fine, that was what mattered — and she knew well enough that if Isac hadn't stepped in when he did, it would've been Ai who paid the price.

Knowing Isac's nature, there was no way he'd stand by and let Ai get hurt — just as he'd never have stood by while she herself got pounced on by a cougar.

You could call him a flirt, but you could never say he lacked backbone.

Maybe that was exactly why Yukino was willing to accept Kaguya and Ai's place in his life.

"Let's head back to the dorm first and figure the rest out there."

Since Aurora wolf corpses vanished along with the aurora itself, Isac had no intention of dealing with the pile of wolf carcasses littering the ground.

"Wait a second." Ai crouched down and held her rifle up against the wolf's paw for comparison.

Sure enough, the claw marks on the rifle matched this wolf's paw exactly.

Which meant this was the same wolf that had attacked the hunter inside the dam.

Cross-referencing the timeline, they knew the hunter had taken on the dam investigation only after the Bear Spirit came onto the local government's radar — that much was clear from the investigation report on the Bear Spirit found on the laptop, and from the earliest notebook they'd discovered.

This wolf had lived at least twenty-odd years — and that was just going by the known timeline. There was no telling how much more time had passed before Isac and the others even crashed here.

Under normal circumstances, a wild wolf living ten years already counted as remarkably long-lived. In captivity, a wolf's lifespan could stretch close to twenty years, which was more or less the upper limit for the species.

This wolf had already blown past that limit entirely, and then there was its abnormal size — could this black wolf be a mutant, just like the Bear Spirit?

But why had it come out from inside the dam? During the day they'd practically turned the whole place upside down, and they'd sealed off the exit at the top of the dam.

To make sure no more wildlife could get in through that gap and interfere with their looting operation, they'd hauled over a bunch of wooden crates and steel scrap and reinforced it all with cable.

Given the abilities this giant wolf had just shown, it probably couldn't have broken through that quickly — and besides, in the time it would've taken, it could've just circled around to the front door instead.

The aurora only amplified wild animals' aggression, making them fearless of death — it didn't strip away their capacity to think. That much was clear from the way they'd still coordinated with each other while hunting the squad.

All the way back to the dormitory, right up until she got the stove going, Ai kept turning the matter of the giant wolf over in her mind.

Noticing this, Kaguya spoke up. "Is there a chance that wolf just appeared out of thin air?"

Ai looked over at her mistress, who had already settled onto her bunk, flicked the safety off, and set her rifle within easy reach before adding, flatly:

"Since this is a Survival Game, isn't it perfectly normal for a boss to randomly spawn? Not to mention, the update notice specifically called this dam a special location — and if it's a special location, having a stage boss guarding it is nothing out of the ordinary."

Yukino couldn't help a faint smile at that, and gave a gentle warning. "Don't actually start treating survival like it's a game."

Kaguya shot back, "It's just a figure of speech. Do you really think I can't tell the difference between a game and reality?"

She remembered all too well how miserable that fever had been, back in the cave where she'd first met Isac. If he hadn't brought medicine to her in time and carried her back to the forest cabin, she'd almost certainly have been done for — it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say she'd already died once.

So when it came to whether their current situation was a game or reality, no one understood it better than she did.

It was precisely because of that experience that Kaguya had accepted Isac so quickly — generously enough, even, to share him with other women.

Back before all that, sharing him would've been out of the question — if he'd so much as tried anything with anyone else, he'd have woken up the next day headed for a little underwater rafting trip in Tokyo Bay.

Yeah, and Ai would've been coming along for the ride too.

Yukino looked over at Ai. "If we can't figure it out now, let's set it aside for the moment. There's an old saying back in Xia — when the cart reaches the mountain, a road will appear; when the boat reaches the bridge, it'll straighten out on its own. Whatever's unknown to us now might get answered soon enough.

Besides, what Kaguya said isn't without merit either. If this so-called Survival Game can summon this many wolves, then dropping one mutant giant wolf into the dam out of thin air isn't impossible."

Isac had already taken off his jacket and started stripping off his bark armor. Hearing the women's conversation, he chimed in with his own take:

"Well, what's done is done — let's just get some sleep."

Ai didn't move. She just settled onto the edge of the bunk closer to the stove. "You and Yukino get some sleep first tonight. I'll take the first watch with Kaguya."

Yukino was just about to say something when her vision suddenly went black, as if someone had slammed a hammer into her skull. A flood of knowledge poured into her mind, and before she could get a word out, she'd already blacked out.

The other three each felt some degree of impact too, but none of them went down the way Yukino had.

The instant Isac saw Yukino collapse, he moved fast and caught her, keeping her from crumpling straight to the floor.

Kaguya reacted almost as quickly, moving to Yukino's other side to help support her, and together with Isac she got Yukino onto the bed.

After laying Yukino down flat, Isac immediately checked her over, and only relaxed once he confirmed she'd simply passed out and nothing worse.

He glanced toward the small square window and saw that the aurora outside had already faded — this must be what the update notice had called "experience compensation."

Of the four of them, Yukino had read the most books by far. Given the setup where reading local books granted corresponding skill experience, her brain had probably just been unable to process that huge a surge of information all at once — hence the protective blackout.

She should be fine after a good sleep.

With that thought, Isac turned to the two women still awake and asked, "Do either of you feel anything unusual?"

Kaguya didn't answer right away. She glanced at Ai first, then put on a thoughtful expression, and after a moment said, uncertain, "It's like I've got some extra knowledge about plants and geology in my head now. And my archery feels like it's gotten a bit sharper, too."

"I feel more in tune with my guns too — more specifically, I think I can shoot straighter now?" Ai thought it over and added, "If we run into a situation like that again, I don't think I'd miss every shot."

Kaguya turned to Isac, curious. "What about you? Do you feel anything?"

"Hmm... I feel like my ice fishing's reached master level. Next time I go fishing by the river, I definitely won't come back empty-handed," Isac said, brimming with confidence.

Though that wasn't actually what he'd meant to ask. What he'd really wanted to know was whether, besides the dizziness, they felt anything else unusual — like, well... you know.

Kaguya and Ai had probably misunderstood him — though it was also possible they were just too embarrassed to say it outright. Either way, Isac hadn't spotted any sign yet of the "going into heat" state the update notice had mentioned.

Too bad... no wait, thank goodness.

Sigh.

"Hayasaka, come give me a hand — let's get this one's clothes and armor off. Leave her lying here like this and she's bound to catch a cold by morning." Kaguya called Ai over to help strip Yukino's jacket and armor off.

Together they worked her into the sleeping bag. With Yukino unconscious, Isac didn't join her inside it this time — instead he put his jacket back on, wrapped a fur blanket around himself, and figured he'd just rough it for one night.

With the physique he had now, getting sick would probably take some doing anyway.

Besides, it wasn't like he had nothing covering him — they'd brought the fur blanket along specifically to serve as a backup sleeping bag in an emergency, and with Yukino out cold, now was as good a time as any to use it.

After a whole day of running around, capped off with that final jolt of knowledge, Isac was already dead tired. His eyes had barely closed before he sank into a deep sleep.

Once Kaguya saw he was asleep, she elbowed Ai.

In a voice pitched low enough for only the two of them to hear, she hissed through gritted teeth, "If I'd known, I never would've read those trashy books."

They'd scavenged quite a few books for the house, and among them, naturally, was a landmark work like A Guide to Northern Charms — and that was exactly the kind of "trashy book" Kaguya meant.

It was exactly because of those trashy books that the way she looked at Isac now had gone a little... off.

If it weren't for the last shreds of her self-control, plus the fact that there was clearly no room to act on anything right now, she'd already have... already have lost herself completely.

"Kaguya, there's another old saying from Xia."

"Hm?"

"No amount of money can buy hindsight."

Kaguya: ...