"I'm okay." Ian said, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart. He had to use the gate twice again to go back so he wanted to gather as much mana as he possibly could in a short time.  'Can't afford to be too late.' The kids were waiting for him back at the Inn. He definitely didn't want to worry them.  After taking a half an hour break under the tree, Ian finally stood up. He had gathered enough mana to use the gate and not collapse once again.  "Alright! Let's go back now." He gave Damon a thumbs up and the boy nodded his head in reply. A significantly small gate opened up in front if them this time. Damon was trying to minimise the mana consumption and not strain Ian too much.  Ian patted his head and they both entered the gate. But only after stepping inside the gate did Ian realise something.

Ian and his party left the city. He of course didn't forget to send a letter to the Dicarious Duchy before he left. It had most of the information about those kidnappers and their hideout. Of course, he added a little bit something else as well. But that's a secret. After travelling in their previous pace for a whole day, they decided to put up a tent inside the forest. The next village was too far away for them to keep travelling through the night.As they all sat down to enjoy their dinner, the kids couldn't contain their curiosity any longer and finally asked. "Where are we going?"Ian had previously told them that they'd be returning back to the duchy after handling his business in Dharia village. Although they had to take another turn to rescue the villagers, that should've been the end. As such, all of them expected Ian to return back home this time. But after travelling for a whole day, that didn't seem to be the case. They could clearly see how they were going further and

"Enjoy your stay."The guard bowed slightly and let them in. As Ian and the others stepped through the gate, all of them were surprised as they looked around. They thought since it's a village inside the mountain, it'd be somewhat rural and dark.But the place looked similar to a medium sized city with wolfs roaming around here and there. Many of them were in their humanized form as well, chatting and giggling.There were markets, shops and even library's on both sides of the village. Ian could feel the wolf kid's excitement as he held onto his hand while walking. Ian and the other's looked around and found a place where it looked life official works took place. They wanted to get some information first before heading elsewhere so Ian entered the building along with the wolf kid. "Excuse me, hi. Can I come in?"He was acting like a friendly outsider who was a frequent visitor of their places, although it was the first time that he did."Yeah. Come in."One of the officers answered

'That's massive..'Ian couldn't help but be shocked as he saw the wolf who crashed into his shield. Normal adult wolves were blue-grey in colour, about the same size as a human. But the one standing in front of him was double their size and had deep blue patches all over his body. The dust around them slowly subsided and the wolf stood up on his feet once again. It looked around and saw the shield behind it. Since the shield was connected to Ian, his eyes naturally turned to Ian next. Ash and Louis stepped forward and covered Ian slightly as they tried to figure out what it'd do next. They were already treating him with hostility since he disturbed their meal. It was also true that many people would've gotten hurt if it weren't for Ian's shield. As such, they were just treating it like another mindless creature. But they seemed to have forgotten an important thing. Just like the humans, where the higher up you went on the ladder, the stronger and smarter they were, wolves were no

"Let's enjoy our lunch, shall we?" The King exclaimed with a cheerful expression as lunch was served in front of them. "Umm..but before that.." He continued his sentence with a troubled look. Ian wondered what else he was going to say as he waited, low-key scared of the King right now. 'I hate energetic people like that.' His reason was obvious. Our Ian or Noah or whatever his name you preferred, he's a complete introvert afterall. He didn't have the energy to keep up with someone like that. And the King, from his observation, seemed exactly like the type that he would have a hard time dealing with. "Shouldn't you guys do something else? For example..." The King continued with a weird tone. Ian waited patiently on the outside, while freaking out on the inside as the King continued his sentence. "Remove your hood?" "Hm?" Ian's answer was informal as he couldn't grasp what the King was talking about at first. But then he realised that all of them had hoods pulled up to their