The cave smelled like blood and old meat.

Leo followed Maya's silhouette through the dark, his hand on the cave wall, his heart a steady drum in his chest. The passage sloped downward, opening into a wide chamber lit by the faint glow of lichen on the walls.

And there, in the center, lay the pack.

Thirty wolves at least, curled together in a pile of fur and breathing. They were huge — bigger than the ones that had attacked the village. Their leader lay at the back, a monstrous silver beast twice the size of the alpha he had wounded.

**【Pack Leader (Lv. 20). Boss-class mob.**】
**【Taste of Power: Weakness identified. The pack leader's throat armor is thick, but its eyes are soft. Strike through the eye to the brain.**】

"Through the eye," Leo murmured.

"What?" Maya hissed.

"Nothing. How do we get to it without waking the others?"

Maya pointed to a narrow ledge that ran along the wall, just above the sleeping pack. "That. I can cross it. You... probably can't. You're too big."

"Then I'll wait here."

"No." Maya's eyes glinted. "You'll be the bait. When I'm above the leader, you make noise. Wake them up. They'll rush you, and while they're focused on you, I drop."

"Drop and do what?"

"Drop and stab." She drew a long, thin blade from her belt. "One clean strike through the eye. Then we run."

"And if you miss?"

"Then you're the fastest Level 9 farmer in the world." She was already moving, silent as a ghost, her feet finding holds on the ledge.

Leo watched her go, then turned back to the pack. Thirty wolves. A Level 20 boss. One sword.

"Right," he whispered to himself. "Three years of watching pros do this. You've got this."

He waited until Maya was a shadow on the ledge above the pack leader. Then he took a breath, stepped into the chamber, and shouted.

"HEY! DINNER!"

The pack woke as one.

Thirty pairs of eyes snapped open. Thirty heads turned toward him. The pack leader raised its head, lips peeling back from teeth like daggers.

Then they charged.

Leo ran. Not away — sideways, along the wall, keeping the pack strung out in a line. He wanted them chasing, not surrounding.

A wolf lunged. He sidestepped, sword flashing, and felt it bite into flesh. Another came, and another. He was a whirlwind of iron and stolen reflexes, and for a moment, just a moment, it was almost beautiful.

**【You have killed a Grey Wolf (Lv. 6).】**
**【You have killed a Grey Wolf (Lv. 7).】**

He didn't stop to devour. No time. He was bleeding from a dozen scratches, and the pack leader was moving now, stalking toward him with the unhurried confidence of something that had never met prey that could fight back.

"Now, Maya!" Leo shouted. "Now!"

The pack leader's head snapped up.

Maya dropped from the ledge like a falling star, blade first, aimed straight for its eye.

The wolf twisted.

Her blade caught the edge of its skull instead of the eye, carving a furrow through fur and flesh. The pack leader roared — a sound that shook the cave — and swatted her out of the air.

Maya crashed against the far wall and went limp.

"MAYA!" Leo screamed.

The pack leader turned to him, blood running down its face, and in its one good eye he saw exactly what it intended to do to him.

**【Taste of Power: Weakness identified. The pack leader's left eye is now damaged. Its right eye is intact. Its throat armor is thick. Its flank is exposed. Its flank is the target. Its flank is the target.**】

The message repeated, urgent, insistent.

Leo didn't think. He ran.

The wolves closed in around him, but he was no longer seeing them. He was seeing the flank, the open space behind the leader's shoulder where the ribs curved out.

He jumped.

The pack leader lunged to meet him, jaws open wide.

Leo twisted in midair, brought the sword down two-handed, and drove it into the beast's flank with all the force of his borrowed levels.

The blade sank deep.

The pack leader screamed — a horrible, high-pitched sound — and crashed sideways. Leo rode it down, wrenching the sword free, and struck again. And again. And again.

**【Critical Hit!】**
**【Critical Hit!】**
**【You have killed the Pack Leader (Lv. 20). Boss-class mob.**】
**【Residual experience: MASSIVE. Devour? Yes / No.**】

"No," Leo gasped, dragging himself off the corpse. "Not yet. Maya."

The remaining wolves were frozen, staring at their dead leader. Then, as one, they bolted — a river of fur pouring out of the cave and into the night.

Leo crawled to Maya's side.

She was breathing. Bleeding from a gash in her forehead, but breathing. Her eyes fluttered open as he reached her.

"Did... did we get it?" she croaked.

"Got it," Leo said. "You're an idiot."

"I'm a *lucky* idiot." She smiled weakly. "Help me up before the cave collapses or something."

Leo pulled her to her feet, and together they limped back to the pack leader's corpse.

"You should," Maya said, gesturing at it, "do your thing. Whatever it is you do with the bodies."

Leo froze. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I've seen dead things around you, farmer. Every wolf you killed, you touched. And the bodies dried up like old husks." She raised an eyebrow. "I'm a thief. Noticing things is what I do."

Leo looked at her for a long moment.

Then he knelt beside the pack leader and pressed his hand to its fur.

**【Devour.】**

The blue light that poured out of the beast was a flood. It filled his chest until he thought his ribs would crack, until the edges of his vision turned white, until—

**【Experience Devoured. +220 XP.】**
**【Level Up! You are now Level 12.】**
**【Level Up! You are now Level 14.】**
**【Level Up! You are now Level 15.】**
**【New Skill Unlocked: Alpha's Roar.**】
**【A terrifying howl that demoralizes weaker foes. Cooldown: 24 hours.**】

Leo exhaled. The power settled into him like a second skeleton, hard and bright.

Maya watched him with an unreadable expression.

"Fifteen," she said quietly. "You went up six levels from one boss."

"I told you I'm a good farmer."

"You're something, all right." She held out her hand. "Come on. Let's get paid and get out of this cave before something else smells the blood."

Leo took her hand and let her pull him up.

**【Quest complete: The Northern Wolf Den. Reward: 100 gold, split 50/50 with Maya.**】
**【Reputation increased in Fallow Village and surrounding towns.**】

Outside, the stars were out. The cave mouth behind them was silent.

"Where to next?" Maya asked.

Leo looked north, toward the dark line of the mountains. "The next town. The one with the contract board. I need more contracts. I need to get stronger."

"For what?"

Leo thought of the Level 100 monsters he had seen floating over the mountains. Of the world he was trapped in. Of his old life, his rent, his mother's hospital bills — all of it gone, all of it three years dead.

"Because this world," he said slowly, "has levels I can't even see yet. And I'm not going to die at Level 15 in a wolf den."

Maya snorted. "Big talk."

"Big plans."

They started walking.

Behind them, in the silent cave, the pack leader's corpse had already dried into a husk — every last drop of its experience drained, every secret of its strength now walking away in the shape of a farmer.

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