"Ah!? What is that...?"
"I..."
"Don’t freeze up like that you two! Run!"
Seeing the ancient dire wolf now descending into the ravine towards them, two of the humans froze up while the third in the group was forced to drag the two of them along with him as he began escaping in the same direction that Scaly had disappeared in. Knowing that wasting even a single second with such a terrifying monster around would mean death.
Even more so when considering that the ancient dire wolf was looking at the three of them with a rather hungry look in its eyes. Properly already imagining how it was going to eat the three of them after it caught them.
Rumble~!
Luckily for the group of humans and Scaly, the size of the ancient dire wolf was far too large for it to move around easily inside some of the narrower parts of the ravine. Resulting in its speed slowing down.
Roooar-!
Even then, the ancient dire wolf didn’t stay in a disadvantaged position for long, as it decided to just jump over some of the narrower parts of the ravine. Catching up to the group of humans who ended up being forced to try and hide inside one of the narrower parts of the ravine that the ancient dire wolf couldn’t enter with its massive body.
Bang! Bang!
Leaving it to aimlessly slam into the rocks to try and force its way through to no avail under the attacks of the humans who wanted nothing more than to force it away from their safe spot between the rocks.
All the while, Scaly took the opportunity to slip away. Soon using the cover of a few rocks sticking out from the side of the ravine to climb back up and escape into the forest before the ancient dire wolf grew bored of trying to reach the humans and decided to chase her down instead.
Roar?!
By the time that the ancient dire wolf decided to try and find the lizard that it had originally been chasing into the ravine, it was left in bewildered state as the lizard in question had seemingly disappeared into thin air in the short period of time that it had been focused on the few humans now hidden between the rocks.
ROAR!
So, with no other target in sight, the ancient dire wolf once again descended upon the rocks that was blocking it from reaching the humans. Intending to break the rocks and reach the humans.
"This- It’s really not intending to give up, I really hoped it would leave to chase down that lizard..." As the humans hidden between the rocks of the ravine looked up at the ancient dire wolf trying to reach them, one of the three couldn’t help lamenting over the fact that it hadn’t ended up chasing down the lizard like they had hoped it would do when they saw it leaving for a brief moment earlier.
"It really wants to eat us... It’s over! We won’t be able to escape from such a powerful monster!"
"Yeah... It looks this is it..."
Upon realizing that their only chance at escaping was gone, two of them humans could not stop themselves from panicking as they looked up at the ancient dire wolf filled with fear and regret.
Fearing the strength of the ancient dire wolf, while feeling regretful over having followed the lizard into the ravine a short time earlier. After all, if they had left it alone, they might have been able to avoid running into the ancient dire wolf in the first place. Not ending up stuck in their current desperate situation.
"It’s fine you two, it will at least take a few hours before it can get through those rocks... And I doubt it intends to waste that much time trying to get to us." Seeing how panicked his two companions had become; the third human could not help rolling his eyes as he said this while pointing at the large rocks that had barely been damaged by the ancient dire wolf so far.
"This... I hope that is true..."
"Hope that is true? Both of you, we can still attack the ancient dire wolf while its bust trying to dig us out. Not to mention a few hours, we might even be able to drag things out by a few days if we continue forcing it to defend itself against us. Making it unlikely for it to continue trying to kill us."
""...""
Faced with the confidence of the third human when it came to dealing with their current life and death situation, the other two humans could not help feeling inspired as they silently nodded their heads before doing as the third human had said and began to attack the ancient dire wolf. Aiming to weaken or even kill it as it had its full attention focused on destroying the rocks between itself and them.
Among them, the one who ended up dealing the most damage to the ancient dire wolf was none of other than the human water mage, who had the easiest time attacking the ancient dire wolf from a distance without accidentally getting caught by it in the process.
Ptsh-!
ROOOAR-!
In the end, the human water mage even managed to lodge one of his water spears inside one of the ancient dire wolf’s eyes. Instantly forcing it to retreat with a loud roar, as it stopped attacking the rocks between itself and the humans.
"Safe... It shouldn’t continue its attack. Now we just have to wait for it to leave before leaving this place."
"Yeah, we have to go back to the town and inform the guild about this. After all, this monster is far too strong to be present on the third floor. After all, with our strength, we should have been able to deal with even the strongest monster on this floor!"
"Indeed, I just hope we can get out of here safely."
Seeing this, the three humans hidden beneath the rocks of the ravine all let out a collective sigh of relief, as they understood that the ancient dire wolf would most likely not continue trying to reach them after the injury that it had just received from doing so.
Roar!
And, just like the humans had suspected, the ancient dire wolf didn’t continue staying inside the ravine for long as it soon jumped out and left like it had never been there in the first place. Only leaving behind a few patches of blood from the eye that had been hit by the water spear earlier.
Of course, even with the ancient dire wolf leaving, the three humans weren’t dumb enough to just go out immediately, as they instead decided to wait around for a few more hours before cautiously making their way out of the rocks before slowly climbing back out of the ravine.
Only after getting far away from the ravine with no sign of the ancient dire wolf, did they start to relax a bit and chat among each other while making their way back towards the town to inform the guild about their encounter.
Knowing that a stronger adventurer would have to be dispatched to deal with such a powerful monster.
"Huh? What is this!? What happened during our absence?!"
However, when they made their way out of the forest and arrived at the large empty grass plain between the forest and the town, they were shocked to discover several dead bodies covering the place along with a barely visible barrier protecting the town in the distance.
"If I’m not wrong... This should be the guardian barrier of the town, set up by the guild to protect dungeon towns in case they encounter powerful monsters far beyond the strength of those inside the town to deal with!"
Knowing a bit more than the rest of the humans, the human water mage instantly realized what the almost invisible barrier enveloping the town was, as it didn’t take long before they all understood what had happened.
A powerful monster had attacked the town while they were gone!
Not just that, but the three of them had a feeling that it should have been the ancient dire wolf that they encountered inside the ravine... And upon reaching the town and chatting with a few people through the barrier to get an idea of what had happened, they realized that this was indeed what had ended up happening.
Not just that, but there were two of the ancient dire wolves!
"Guess we will have to head to another town..."
In the end, the group of humans decided to do what other humans who had come before them did and decided to leave for the closest town. Knowing that it would be difficult for them to survive on their own with the limited food and water on them, while also fearing that they might end up running into the powerful ancient dire wolf again.