Chapter 243 - Troublesome Kids

When Ryan approached, he noticed that his wolf almost killed the black-haired woman, but he also noticed that he had only eaten one of her arms. The two legs she had lost… the scars seemed several weeks old.

"Move," Ryan said.

The kids looked at Ryan, startled since he looked as much as vicious as his pet. Despite that, they had the nerve to get in his way and protect the woman. That was quite surprising since they weren't even ten years old. Ryan sighed and then used Wind Manipulation to make the woman fly toward him. She was trembling a lot due to the cold and pain, but she was already unconscious. Considering their number, Ryan realized they were probably the presence he felt earlier.

Regardless, Ryan used Full-Heal, and after a few seconds, all the woman's limbs were back to their rightful places. However, not even a crazy spell could do everything. Ryan finally realized that the woman and the kids were almost only skin and bones… they probably didn't have many chances to look for food or even eat monsters due to the dragons.

"Why this kind of shit only happens to me…" Ryan sighed. 

Now that he had met those survivors, Ryan couldn't leave them alone. Even worse, taking them back will cost him a lot of time. Unless he uses his dire wolf, it will take days, if not weeks, to bring all of them to the military base.

While Ryan was trying to find an easy way out of that mess, the kids looked at the black-haired woman in shock. Although she still was covered in her own blood, they couldn't help but be amazed that her limbs were back. In the end, Ryan didn't find an easy solution. His only option was to take them back to the base with his dire wolf's help.

After another long sigh, Ryan began to build a big sled made of earth. Instead of a sled, it looked like a pretty large tent that could be pulled by a vehicle, and in this case, a large monster. After the tent made of the earth was complete, Ryan used Earth Transformation and turned the earth into the concrete. The walls were pretty thin, just like the floor, since it would be too heavy otherwise. However, it needed at least that much to protect the brats from the cold wind.

The kids screamed again when the woman began to levitate and entered the weird-looking the tent, but at least they followed her to inside and that saved Ryan from the trouble of giving them any orders. After that, he used some ropes and connected his creation to the dire wolf's body.

"Don't look at me like that," Ryan said. "It is your fault that we are in this mess."

The dire wolf didn't look troubled in the slightest. The creature just stared at Ryan, waiting for new orders. Based on Ryan's estimation, the kids, the woman, and the improvised tent probably weighed as much as the wolf so that the creature would be considerably slower than usual. Ryan could use magic now and then to help, but even so… they will have a long journey ahead of them.

"Let's grab some of the dragon's meat," Ryan declared.

The trip would belong, and there was no need to make it even more uncomfortable. So, after jumping on the dire wolf's back, the beast began to move toward where Ryan killed the monsters. In the end, Ryan only managed to store inside his ring around five hundred pounds of dragon's meat. The kids' screamed when they saw the massive corpses and even more so when Ryan started to cut off the meat that they were going to eat.

"So noisy…" Ryan sighed.

It will take some time before they arrive in a region where the dire wolf will have anything to eat, so Ryan let the beast fill its belly for the time being. Meanwhile, Ryan prepared some containers of hot water and also grilled some of the meat. After that, he entered the tent to clean the woman's body. The blood had already dried, so he had to hurry. However, a little girl protested when she tried to unbutton the dark-haired woman's shirt.

"What are you doing?" A blonde little girl asked.

"She needs to be cleaned," Ryan said. "You guys also need a shower, I guess. Just wait for your turn. Before that, you can go and eat some of that meat over there."

"You can't do that; you are a boy!" The girl insisted.

"I am a man, and this doesn't trouble me in the slightest," Ryan said. "Still, you have a point. Based on my experiences, she will probably annoy me once she learns that I saw her naked. Can you do that? Clean her body?"

"I can… I helped my aunt clean her baby many times," The little girl said.

"Fair enough," Ryan said. "You guys help her, and the other brats will stay on guard duty with me. Those who try to peek will receive divine punishment."

"Why would we try to peek?" A cheeky, black-haired boy asked.

"I guess you are really brats all right," Ryan shrugged while showing a small smile.

After separating boys from girls, Ryan made the brats eat their meal. It was quite shocking how tasty dragon's meat could be even without salt or anyone seasoning. Maybe mana was the cause of that… that would explain why monsters tried to eat humans and looked so passionate about it.

Ryan thought now that he wasn't alone, he would be an easy target for Fenrir and the other dire wolves, but surprisingly, those creatures never showed up. Either they learned their lesson, or at the very least, they were smart enough that using hostages against Ryan would be useless. Still, if the monsters on the ground had no plans on attacking, Ryan decided to focus his attention on the sky. For the better or, the worse, he was leaving a trail behind, and dragons could easily find it while they fly in the sky.