Chapter 53 – Wild Wolves (1/2)

Translated by Sunyancai

A herd of giant-antlered deers was wandering along a stream, while some predator’s movements nearby was making them anxious.

About a few hundred meters away from the herd, Shao Xuan hid himself behind some dense branches as he stood on a tall tree. He looked in the deers’ direction through the leaves.

It was the fifth day since they came out for hunting, and since they had hunted enough game already around their first location, Mai planned to take the hunting group to head to the second location.

The second location was located at the other side of the basin, so they had to go through the basin and then climb over yet another mountain to reach it. With Shao Xuan and Mao tagging along with the hunting group, Mai did not intend to move straight through the basin. Instead, Mai told the group to march along the basin’s edge. The distance was longer this way, but it was not as dangerous as walking straight through.

During their journey, the group encountered a large herd of giant-antlered deers, with a pack of wolves following them. Mai commanded the others to hide themselves first and then asked Shao Xuan to observe the wolves in the forest. Shao Xuan kept a wolf himself, and Mai was worried that he hadn’t seen a real wolf in the wild. In fact, Caesar was not considered a real wolf in most of warriors’ eyes, so he would hate it if Shao Xuan’s impression of wolves was based on Caesar’s tame behaviour.

However, Mai and the others actually worried for nothing. Of course Shao Xuan knew what wolves were like in the wild, or else he wouldn’t be treating Caesar as a dog.

But the wolves here were much stronger than the wolves that Shao Xuan had seen in his last life. They had stronger muscles and were very destructive. Judging from their head and jaws, one could tell that they had much more force in their bites. In fact, they would hunt for giant preys that were much bigger than themselves in sizes.

Now those wolves were just lurking around, for before any action, they had to assess the risk first.

“They prefer to avoid the deers with bigger antlers, like those ones.” Mai pointed some out for Shao Xuan.

Among the herd of the giant-antlered deer, there were a lot of male deer with big antlers, some of which had really unique antlers. Unlike other deer, their antlers were not like branches that stretched out, but forked out backwards several times covering their whole bodies. Those were extremely difficult to deal with.

Shao Xuan had seen similar antlers in the tribe, for some people were wearing those when attending the ritual ceremony.

“The best way to hunt down herd creatures like the giant-antlered deer is to make them run.” Mai whispered.

Shao Xuan looked at the wolves and noticed that at first the wolves were just like taking a stroll, but then they gradually split up and slowly approached the deer herd. Some of the wolves even tried to intimidate the deers on the edge.

Because of the approaching wolf pack, the deer herd began to panic, and quickly there was chaos in the herd from the wolves’ threat. The deers began to run, and some of them even headed in different directions.

The wolves separated as they chased after the giant-antlered deer herd, searching for suitable targets.

“Baby deers would be protected in the center of the herd, with strong and big individuals protecting them. Normally, the wolf pack would not try to hunt them down. But as for those who ran towards different directions, it was pretty easy for the wolves to pick out those wounded or old ones. Once those weak or the wounded ones were spotted, all wolves would give up chasing after the others, and focus on those less-abled ones.” Mai pointed at the running wolves and explained to Shao Xuan. After some hesitation, he added, “So even if you are wounded, you should never show your weakness in front of them. Also, never show the pack your back, which is too dangerous.”

Shao Xuan had not found out which of the deers were the less-abled ones, but one of the wolves suddenly sped up and chased after one particular deer. Soon, six or seven wolves joined the chase, as the time went by, more and more wolves joined the chase.

The biggest and strongest wolf among the pack should be the leader, and it was the one that started the attack.

However, it was a shame that because of the help from some other deers, their prey finally slipped away.

“They won’t give up without a prey.” Lang Ga was positive.

At that end, the wolves came back together soon after the failure. Perhaps they were in tumult because of the failure in hunting this time. However, the chaos soon calmed down by the leader. It howled at the sky and Shao Xuan felt that it must be increasing the morale.