Chapter 181 Lycanthropy and Elves

A bright, full silver moon hung in the night sky, and a cold evening wind howled across the clearing.

The air carried the faint scent of decay unique to the Slums, mingling with the putrid stench of blood welling up from the sewers.

Along with a heavy, dangerous growl, like that of a wild beast.

Buck stood motionless. Bathed in moonlight, his body swelled and expanded at a visible rate.

Swirling around him like a vortex was a bloody aura drawn from his own veins. Using the curse of "Lycanthropy" as a threat, these crimson currents repelled any enemy daring to approach and interrupt the transformation.

Xia Nan gripped the Decapitating Longsword tightly with both hands, its iron-gray edge gleaming coldly in the moonlight.

He fixed his gaze on the burly middle-aged man undergoing a rapid lycanthropic transformation just a short distance ahead.

He wasn't some villain from the stories of his past life, the kind who would stand by and watch the protagonist power up mid-battle without trying to stop them.

Naturally, he had no intention of standing there and waiting for his opponent to finish strengthening before starting the fight.

However, the blood-laced currents currently swirling around Buck carried an intense deterrent effect—not unlike a mop fresh from cleaning a filthy bathroom.

Although Xia Nan had no obvious open wounds, who knew if that bloody aura might seep through his pores upon close contact?

It would be disastrous if he contracted "Lycanthropy" because of it.

Furthermore, his own close-quarters combat style relied heavily on flexibility and mobility; he lacked ranged attacks.

As he considered this, his left hand swept across his waist.

Two Fire Oil Bombs moved from his pouch into his palm.

Ever since he first saw Wood use them during the Glowgarlic Vine quest over half a year ago...

...these highly convenient throwing items had become a mandatory part of his supplies before setting out on any mission.

Traveling from Rivervale Town to Nym, he naturally kept a few on him.

Without a shred of hesitation.

Taking aim and flexing his arm, Xia Nan hurled the two pitch-black Fire Oil Bombs fiercely at Buck.

They flew incredibly fast!

The immense force behind the throw even caused the round, black spheres to emit a sharp whistle as they tore through the air.

Swollen and locked in a stiffened state, Buck only had enough time to raise his right arm to shield his front.

A second later, pitch-black oil and murky dust clung to his arm, abruptly erupting along with a few stray sparks.

Boom—

Like a torch, the blazing orange-red flames instantly engulfed his entire right arm.

Even the bloody currents stably orbiting his body began to fluctuate chaotically.

Of course it worked!

The fear of fire had been deeply branded into the blood and instincts of all living creatures since the dawn of life countless ages ago.

This was especially true for a Lycanthrope gradually losing his human rationality and degenerating into a wild beast.

But just as Xia Nan thought his attack had succeeded and prepared to seize the opportunity to launch a fierce assault...

...he paused. His dark eyes reflected the moonlight that suddenly flared brightly across Buck's body.

Threads of gentle moonlight descended from the heavens, blessing this hairy, beast-like disciple in the clearing.

The flames—which had ignited his fur, swallowed his arm, and were rapidly spreading over his shoulder toward his chest—seemed to have met their natural nemesis.

The moonlight merely swept over him once, and the burning flames were effortlessly extinguished, leaving behind only a few wisps of blue smoke.

Even his charred flesh and blackened fur scabbed over and healed in the span of a single breath, returning to normal.

Seeing this, Xia Nan felt the situation was growing even more troublesome.

His mind raced to find a countermeasure.

Right at that moment, a slightly trembling man's voice, seemingly enduring great pain, came from ahead:

"You were sent by the Association, right?"

Thick brown fur was rapidly sprouting all over his body, faintly revealing the bulging, writhing muscles underneath.

Buck stared at the black-haired adventurer before him. His increasingly cold, beastly eyes shifted slightly, sweeping over the man's Fine Chainmail and longsword.

"Makes sense. A small-time outfit like the Gray Badger Gang only ever bullies ordinary people. How could they afford a Class Holder?"

Xia Nan did not reply, nor did he have any intention of making conversation. He simply stared at the ballooning figure, searching for any possible openings.

"Heh, I never thought a day would come where I'd face off against a big shot like you, someone with a Class Level."

The sound of his muscles tearing and expanding and his bones thickening and deforming mixed with the howling evening wind, forming a bizarre, twisted noise in the air.

"You know, I'm actually very grateful to the Adventurers' Association," Buck said, lowering his head.

Under the moonlight, his massive, burly frame cast a huge shadow on the ground.

"Even now, that remains true."

"I've heard many people complain that the Association takes too large a cut, that the mission info they provide occasionally doesn't match the actual situation, and they even suspect the Association deliberately issues dangerous quests with mismatched rewards just to control the number of adventurers."

"But I know perfectly well that if it weren't for the Association..."

"...then I would have spent my entire life just like my father, my grandfather, and countless generations before them. I'd have wasted my life toiling in the fields, working myself to the bone all year round without even filling my belly. I'd have smiled while licking a tax collector's boots just for a small bag of wheat, with no hope in sight."

"Instead of being like I am now... or rather, how I was. Marrying a beautiful wife, saving up enough decent wealth to raise my children, and owning a little house in the Nym District."

"That was a life I never even dared to dream of before."

Buck suddenly looked up.

His facial features, which had still retained some human characteristics, were now completely beast-like. Coarse, thick fur covered the last bare patches of his skin.

Saliva dripped freely from his elongated, pointed snout, faintly revealing the cold, bone-white glint of his fangs.

"Even when my business ran into trouble and saddled my family with a debt I couldn't pay off with decades of normal work, I never gave up hope during those darkest days."

"Because I knew that even if life got a little hard in the short term, at least Sarah, Carey, and Little Daphne would still be by my side."

"And as long as I took on a few more missions and earned a bit more money, even if the sources weren't entirely clean, all the suffering would eventually pass."

"Whether it took ten years, twenty, or thirty years, it didn't matter. One day, I would be able to return to that wonderful life I once had."

"But..."

The tips of his perked ears had long since surpassed the height of the crude single-story houses on either side. His nearly bloated, massive frame suddenly began to tremble violently. Deep within his beastly eyes was a ferocious, bloody red that would strike fear into even the most experienced hunter.

"That animal, Big Ben. To save his own life, he left me behind at the camp."

"When we were attacked, my first reaction was actually to cover him, to buy time for the team."

"Thinking about it now, it's truly laughable."

"Then came the Gray Badger Gang..."

His voice grew heavier, his words gradually blurring until they sounded like the low howls of a wild beast.

"That night, Sarah and the others were supposed to go back to their grandmother's house. The little ones had been begging for a long time; they were supposed to be gone for at least a week."

"But a few brats from the Gray Badger Gang caused trouble in the tavern and injured the carriage driver I had hired."

"Two days. They were only delayed by two days..."

Buck pressed his body forward into a crouch. Both of his claws, now fully covered in brown fur, touched the ground. No expression could be seen on his face beneath the dense hair.

"They... heh..."

"They all deserve to die!!!"

Roar—

In the silent night, the manic, ferocious roar of a wild beast suddenly exploded!

Having been completely absorbed, the silvery moonlight that had clung to his body like water shattered into stardust and vanished into the air.

The bloody aura that had protected his lycanthropic transformation dissolved into nothingness amid the deafening soundwaves that distorted the air.

Like a miniature mountain of flesh, his shoulders towered over the eaves of the houses on either side. Needle-stiff brown fur rippled across his body. With just a slight flex of his five parallel hooked claws, he left deep gouges in the dirt and stone ground.

The fat piled around his neck surged and quivered beneath his thick, tough hide. Pitch-black eyes, completely consumed by bestial instinct, were set deep within his sunken sockets. Viscous saliva slowly dripped from the surface of his razor-sharp fangs.

This was a gigantic brown bear, its claws larger than a grown man's head and its body rivaling the size of the dilapidated houses at the edge of the clearing!

His last remaining shreds of rationality had been swallowed by hatred, remorse, and rage. On the night of the "Feast of the Moon," the brightest moonlight of the year became the perfect catalyst.

It plunged Buck's mind into complete collapse.

He had completed his final transformation into a Lycanthrope, reduced to a savage beast driven solely by primal instinct.

Roaring, he charged toward Xia Nan, the only other living person in the clearing.

The ground trembled slightly under the sheer weight of his footsteps, and the air was filled with a deafening bear's roar that made eardrums ache.

Xia Nan's dark eyes reflected the massive figure charging forward like a small tank.

His face showed no obvious shifts in emotion; he remained calm and composed.

He had naturally heard everything Buck just said, and therefore understood the full context of the entire situation.

As for sympathy... he couldn't say he had none at all.

But it was nowhere near enough to affect his expression, let alone change his plan of action.

What was the price adventurers had to pay for enjoying generous incomes and a superior status...?

Even he, who had been in the business for less than a year, already understood it clearly.

How could Buck, a veteran adventurer, not know?

It was simply that bestial instincts had taken over his mind, preventing him from thinking clearly for a moment. Or perhaps... he was just instinctively avoiding the question.

On some level, Buck—who had contracted Lycanthropy on an adventure and killed his own family—was fundamentally no different from those adventurers who had their heads bashed in by goblins.

Even with a Class Level, he was currently just another adventurer in the middle of a mission.

Howl—

A long, drawn-out wolf's howl, accompanied by a fierce wind as sharp as a blade, suddenly rang out across the clearing.

In the blink of an eye, Xia Nan's body was swept up by the gale, disappearing from his spot.

In the darkness of the night, only the blurry, ferocious silhouette of a roaring Wolf Head could be faintly seen, along with a fleeting flash of cold iron-gray light within it.

To absorb the power of the moonlight, Buck had lured Xia Nan out of the sewers and ultimately completed his transformation under the moonlit sky.

Yet, to some extent, this neither closed the gap in strength between him and Xia Nan, nor did it make his situation any safer.

Breaking away from the restrictive sewer space, which had been full of brick walls and stone barriers at every turn, and entering this open clearing...

...freed Xia Nan from environmental constraints. He could now freely unleash [Fang Hunt] and [Spinning Slash], pushing his mobility to the absolute limit.

The boost to his combat power was far greater than what Buck, who hadn't yet become a Class Holder, experienced.

"Crack!"

Claws as hard as steel sank deep into the ground, kicking up fine dust around the edges.

The sudden disappearance of his target made the brown bear—now entirely stripped of human reason and running purely on bestial instinct—subconsciously slow his pace.

He twisted his head clumsily, trying to locate the enemy.

The only response he received was a ferocious Wolf Head lunging out and biting down from the blind spot behind him.

"Squelch!"

The iron-gray blade pierced through the thick fur. Blood splattered, but the blade did not linger for even a second.

After merely testing the density of the flesh, Xia Nan violently yanked it back.

And with another burst of the wolf's howl, he vanished from his spot once more.

This caused the massive bear paw that swatted down moments later—a strike capable of easily snapping steel—to hit nothing but empty air.

"Roar!!!"

Dark eyes calmly watched the brown bear ahead, which was roaring furiously from the intense pain radiating from its back.

Xia Nan casually flicked the residual blood droplets off his blade.

He had decent combat talent and rich battle experience far surpassing that of adventurers his age.

A simple, straightforward probe was all it took for the upcoming course of battle to become increasingly clear in his mind.

Fully transformed, Buck had unquestionably gained defensive capabilities and physical Strength far beyond what he once possessed.

—His thick, tough hide, covered in a mane of fur, combined with the dense layer of fat and rock-hard muscles underneath, acted as natural armor.

At the same time, having lost his human body, Buck's speed and flexibility had been severely diminished.

As long as his defensive capabilities hadn't reached a point where Xia Nan couldn't break through his guard at all...

...this type of enemy was exactly the sort Xia Nan excelled at dealing with.

In just a few short seconds, he had even planned out his movements for the next few exchanges.

First, he would use the mobility granted by [Fang Hunt] to feint a few times. This would wear down his opponent's patience while allowing him to probe for any hidden trump cards and ensure his own safety.

Then, he would seize the right opportunity and use [Gravity Control] to increase the bear's gravity.

He wouldn't need to hold it for long.

Half a second, or perhaps even less, would be enough for him to plunge the front half of the Decapitating Longsword into the back of his opponent's neck.

Then, he would trigger the ochre-red [Gravity Etching] lines glowing on the surface of the blade and blow the bear's head off.

Of course, he had to be careful not to get injured during this entire process to avoid contracting Lycanthropy. Therefore, he needed to hold back enough energy to ensure he could cast [Fang Hunt] again at any given moment and retreat rapidly.

As he pondered this, power gathered in his calves once more. [Fang Hunt] was primed and ready.

But right at that moment.

Out of nowhere.

On the edge of the clearing, amid the manic roars of the beast and the howling of the fierce wind, a faint yet eerily clear set of footsteps suddenly rang out.

His gaze subconsciously flicked toward the source of the sound.

What entered his sight was a stumbling, slender figure that looked somewhat familiar.

Under the veil of night, long blonde hair could be seen swaying past their cheeks, along with a pair of long, pointed, fair-skinned ears.

"An elf?"