Chapter 126 – Hatred
Translated by Sunyancai
The next day, the hunting group saw the pack of wolves in the area where the giant-antler deer herd was active.
Yesterday, they stood quite a bit away that they failed to see those wolves clearly, so today they observed them carefully.
These wolves didn’t look different from those living here before, but their sizes were bigger, and the color of their fur was different. They had a patterns on their bodies and some darker spots close to the back.
Since first entering the wild, Shao Xuan had seen many wolves of various colors. According to Mai and the others, there were some special packs. The pattern was the symbol of the pack, so a wolf with a different pattern might be an outsider.
Shao Xuan had never seen the wolves but Mai and the others might have seen them.
“Why do I feel that this wolf pack is familiar?” A warrior said.
“I also think that I have seen this pattern.”
“We came across them when we surrounded a cave bear along our hunting route,” Mai recalled and said.
At that time, Mai and the others met a huge cave bear with wounds, possibly caused by a fight with another ferocious beast. So they took the opportunity to surround it and kill it.
However, even though the cave bear was injured, it was difficult to defeat. The hunting group chased it for such a long time that they had nearly deviated from the hunting route before they succeeded in killing it. At that time, there was a battle between two wolf packs. A pack massacred the other, and it was a real brutal massacre. The defeated wolves were not just bitten to death, many of them were even gnawed into pieces. Their blood covered the ground.
After killing the bear, Mai and his group members hurried away from there. Meanwhile, the massacre was over and a few wolves were wandering around, dragging the dead wolves on the ground. When the hunting group finally arrived there, they were already full. Among them, some were also wounded, so they avoided going into conflict with the hunting group, and the head led its members to leave.
Lang Ga was also there and caught Caesar, who was still a cub at that time.
Caesar was the sole survivor of the massacred wolf pack, probably because he left his den for fun to roll down from the steep slope not far from the den. The wolf guarding the den might have found the other wolf pack and have been very vigilant against them that he did not pay attention to Caesar.
When Mai and the others reached there, they found Caesar lying under a stone. After waking up from a coma, he kept howling. Hearing his howling, Lang Ga found him. He was blocked by a stone and surrounded by high bushes. If he stayed silent below the steep slope, no one would have ever noticed him. Fortunately, no wolves of the winning pack picked up the smell of the cub at the edge of the steep slope.
“I remember when Caesar was found, he was such a small one.” Lang Ga raised his hand to show how small he was, and said, “It even intended to bite me with his baby teeth.”
As they were recalling, Lang Ga and the others could not help laughing, for Caesar was indeed small then, but soon they all became serious. Obviously, everyone had witnessed the massacre together with Mai and Lang Ga and felt uncomfortable.
They weren’t actually being sentimental. Because as warriors hunting in the wild for so many years they had witnessed many battles among groups of beasts like this. In addition, who hadn’t killed beasts or ferocious beasts as the hunting warriors? Could those with kindness survive here? That was impossible.
The reason why they felt uncomfortable was at the thought of the scene of how cruel the wolves were. That massacre could even be called a brutal murder.
“Unless you slaughter them all, don’t mess with those guys, especially you few.” Said Mai as he looked at the new members.
They nodded at once.
This year, there were also new members in the hunting group. Those new members always easily drew the attention of beasts and ferocious beasts in the woods who intended to attack the weak.
They had to go through what Shao Xuan had experienced.
“Ah-Xuan, keep an eye on Caesar.” Whispered Mai to Shao Xuan.
“Got it.” Shao Xuan shared the same idea.
Then during the hunting missions Shao Xuan paid a lot of attention to Caesar. The fact that Caesar behaved as usual reassured him.
After hunting a giant-paw beast, a few people in the group were dealing with the game while Lang Ga was checking the trap. He asked Shao Xuan to repair it, because the important role of the trap could not be ignored.
Finding Caesar lying not afar, Shao Xuan came to help Lang Ga repair the trap.
“Lang Ga, when you got Caesar, did he see his pitiful wolf pack?” Shao Xuan asked.
Lang Ga carefully recalled and said, “Yes, he did. I picked him up from the slope, and put him on the ground. He smelled the surroundings as he was howling. He tried to bite two different patterned dead wolves, but failed to bite the wolf skin with his baby teeth.
[So sad, and yet so cute!]
In order to massacre the other pack, the winning pack also suffered losses. Two wolves of this pack lost their lives, but it wasn’t a loss as serious, because the defeated pack was completely wiped out.
“Those wolves with spots were very strong, and compared to the others, they had a stronger bite and a brutal nature. They often killed other wolves and attacked other beasts.” When he saw Shao Xuan frowning, Lang Ga laughed and said, “Are you worried that Caesar would take revenge? Back then he was just a cub. It is impossible.”
While talking, Lang Ga raised his head to look at Caesar lying not afar. Seeing him looking at them, Lang Ga lowered his head to continue repairing the trap. Each time he repaired the traps with Shao Xuan, Caesar always fix his eyes on them, lying not far from them.
“I didn’t think you would have kept it, I had intended to cook him for you.” The thought that Caesar had been almost been cooked amused Lang Ga, and he got mixed feelings.
Shao Xuan was listening while Lang Ga was talking about his experience at that time, when a shout broke out.
“Watch out!”
“Attention!”
“A wolf pack!”
Shao Xuan suddenly rose and looked around.
The laying Caesar disappeared.
Mai was nervously paying attention to the move of those wolves. They had intended to surround them, but soon Mai found Caesar rush out. Instead of confronting them head on, he bit the wolf at the border of its group and ran away immediately.
Mai felt that the wolves were planning to attack them, but the attack wasn’t targeted at Caesar. On seeing Caesar, the wolves hesitated for a moment, but in response to the call of the head, they changed the target to chasing Caesar.
When they went hunting, Caesar usually helped attract the attention from the prey as planned. But the prey was not such a threat like the wolves. Why did Caesar suddenly rush out?
“Ah-Xuan, ask Caesar to come back…” Mai glanced around, but did not see Shao Xuan. His face turned blue and said, “Where is Ah-Xuan?!”
Jumping out of the high bushes, Lang Ga was out of breath and said, “I couldn’t catch up with him.”
When he saw Shao Xuan leave, he followed him without delay in order to stop him. Unexpectedly, he was left behind and had no choice but to come back.
“He…runs too fast!” Said Lang Ga. He never thought that he, who had advanced to a intermediate totem warrior, and had a speed that was the fastest in the group, would unexpectedly be left behind in such a short time!
Mai took a deep breath. And then he looked at a few young warriors, and said, “You go back first to the cave! Qiao, take them away!”
Mai led a few warriors into the woods and followed the direction Lang Ga pointed at.
At the same time, Shao Xuan chased the wolves following the traces on the ground.
Caesar probably found the wolves before Mai and moved very fast. Perhaps he had been waiting, or he couldn’t have so decisively rushed out.
Due to a delay, Shao Xuan couldn’t see the wolves and just searched for them according to the nearby traces on the ground.
They didn’t know until now that these wolves could run with such high speeds.
Shao Xuan was worried about Caesar, because if he fought against the wolves he had a slim chance to win and escape.
Lang Ga said Caesar did not hold a grudge, but Shao Xuan believed Caesar still remembered. As to how much Caesar remembered, Shao Xuan did not know.
While chasing, Shao Xuan looked in the direction of the wolves and thought of something.
Between the first holdout and the second one, there was a remote area near a mountain, where ferocious beasts seldom appeared, Lang Ga and Shao Xuan had set up traps there.
During the hunting period they might encounter some troubles, so they set up some traps in remote areas to handle such situations. If they encountered some ferocious beasts and other beasts that were difficult to handle, members of the hunting group would go to the trap zone, where those traps served as obstacles to the beasts, so they were given more time to escape.
It was Lang Ga that initially set those traps, later Shao Xuan and Lang Ga studied together to repair and even improve several of them. Those traps were set to hurt, and even kill, the ferocious beasts.
Each time they came hunting, they had to check these trap zones. On the first day of this hunting mission, they had come to check them, and Caesar had watched them.
Many beasts stayed away from the places where the wolves often appeared, and some ferocious beasts there were afraid of getting into trouble and avoided confronting the wolves. This also facilitated Shao Xuan in catching up with the wolves.
Screams could be heard coming from the trap zone.
Shao Xuan sped up again.
When Shao Xuan arrived there, he saw the thorn pit, a wolf was lying in there.
The thorns did not pierce it deeply, but the harder it struggled to leave, the deeper the thorns went into its body. More and more blood was flowing out. As the thorns went deeper, it became weaker and weaker, because the thorns were smeared with a kind of herb juice that had an anesthetic effect. If no one took the thorn out, it would not take long for it to die. Shao Xuan did not care about it and just left.
Not far from the pit, a wolf was hanging in the air with a rope tied around its neck. The harder it struggled to leave, the tighter the rope became. This kind of rope was very strong because it was specially soaked in animal blood and herb essence. The hanging wolf struggled to bite the rope but failed again and again. When Shao Xuan saw it, its neck was deformed a little.
When Shao Xuan passed by, he cut it with his knife, so it no longer struggled.
A dead or a struggling wolf could be seen in the pits, lassos, nets and even near the knife piles. All of these wolves had spots close to their backs.
On his way chasing the wolves, Shao Xuan cut those struggling wolves with his sword. If he didn’t have time to cut them, he threw a needle or a dart in order to kill them. If they weren’t killed, they might just suffer excessively.