40: Treatment

Ice crystals gradually condensed on his eyelashes, forming beautiful frost flowers.

I watched Black Little Leopard vigorously dig through the snow with his paws, revealing the human clothing buried beneath.

I immediately crouched down as well, gently brushing away the snow from the person's neck.

Fortunately, he still had a faint breath; the person was alive.

"More than one."

I followed the direction of the Wild Dog's low growl again, only to see an unnatural bulge in a snowdrift thirty paces away.

The wind swept through the forest with a whine, and the swirling snow outlined a blurry human silhouette on the snowdrift, then quickly dissipated at the edge of the mist.

When Black Little Leopard and I dug open the second "snow coffin," we found it was another blond young man wearing leather scale armor.

Both of these people still had faint breaths.

I carefully examined the footprints behind them, coming from the south, four slightly indented trails in the snow, recording the direction of their travel.

Further away, the footprints were completely buried by the heavy snow.

As a human, I cannot leave them to die. But the secret of the Wizard's Hut… cannot be known by others!

Soon after, Sphere Professor and I used Mage Hand to drag the two people to another new large dog kennel in the mist outside the fence.

This place was originally prepared for the Wild Dog's puppies, but now these two people were temporarily moved in to shelter from the wind.

Both of these individuals were tall, blond, white men, appearing to be around 20 years old.

They were wearing leather scale armor, a type of defense made from a combination of leather and metal plates, and both had longswords strapped to their backs.

Looking at their hands, there were calluses, but they didn't seem to be from long-term sword use; instead, they looked more like marks left by labor such as farming.

Why did these two people suddenly appear here on such a freezing, snowy day?

This puzzled me greatly.

However, what was worth celebrating was that after a year, I finally saw humans again.

I had the Wild Dog and Black Little Leopard lie on them, slowly warming them with their body heat.

After the two warmed up, I set up a bonfire outside the dog kennel gate, then took out two wolf hides from the system space to cover them, and served bowls of hot meat soup, feeding them a few mouthfuls each.

Afterward, I left the female Wild Dog to watch over the puppies, and Sphere Professor to guard the house.

I, on the other hand, took Dragon King, Black Little Leopard, and the male Wild Dog out, intending to see if there were any more companions of these two people on the path they came from.

The snow-covered forest was beautiful, but it was too quiet; even the crisp sound of snow breaking dry branches was clearly audible.

I was wearing a hunter's outfit made of gray-white wolf fur, holding a bow and arrow, and entered stealth mode, trudging southward through the snow.

Dragon King flew overhead, its white jade scales difficult to detect in the snow.

Black Little Leopard, completely black, was very conspicuous bouncing around in the snow.

The gray Wild Dog walked beside it, guarding it.

The male Wild Dog had never been particularly fond of Black Little Leopard; at the Wizard's Hut, he only listened to his wife and me, the master of the territory.

But out for activity, he knew that if he didn't properly guard Black Little Leopard, his adopted daughter, he would be chased and bitten by his wife when they returned.

Black Little Leopard played wildly for a while, and seeing that I didn't stop it, it consciously reined itself in a bit, starting to learn from me, diligently practicing entering stealth mode.

It's just that I enter a shadow-hiding state, while Black Little Leopard wants to enter the shadow plane, which is much more advanced than my skill.

Black Little Leopard's shadow stealth became increasingly proficient; it would occasionally pass through trees, reappearing at a great distance, each time bringing with it a fine snow vortex.

A 10% success rate allowed it to succeed occasionally, its figure appearing and disappearing.

Innate skills are truly different! It made me incredibly envious.

"Chirp..." An eagle's cry pierced the sky.

"Ang..." Dragon King immediately let out a warning sound.

I looked up at the sky, only to see a gray eagle swooping down, its target clearly Black Little Leopard.

Food is scarce in winter, no wonder this gray eagle set its hunting target on such a large leopard.

The male Wild Dog barked wildly at the sky, while I drew an arrow, nocked it, and aimed at the gray eagle's eye.

Adjusting slightly according to its flight path, I drew the bow, held steady, and shot, an arrow piercing both of the gray eagle's eyes.

Black Little Leopard and the Wild Dog ran towards where the gray eagle fell, I had Dragon King watch over them from high in the sky, and I slowly walked southward.

Soon, Black Little Leopard excitedly returned, carrying the gray eagle in its mouth, with the Wild Dog following behind it.

I put the gray eagle and the arrow into the system space, then took out two small pieces of prepared fresh meat and fed them to the Wild Dog and Black Little Leopard respectively.

On the way, Black Little Leopard and the Wild Dog also hunted a fox and two wild rabbits.

We also encountered a few Mad Apess, but they all died under my Flame Arrow.

I picked some Rosa multiflora and Pyracantha along the way and put them into the system space; their sweetness would be even richer after the snow.

Additionally, I found some tree beard and snow tea on a few trees.

Tree beard is an edible lichen that parasitizes trees; while snow tea is a lichen formed by the symbiotic relationship between algae and fungi, which can be brewed into tea soup and tastes very good.

I planned to go back when I reached the river, as I rarely went further south.

Occasionally, Ogres appeared there; I had seen their figures from afar several times.

The last time I saw them was on an evening in early autumn.

From a distance, the figures of the over 3-meter-tall Ogres resembled moving mountains of flesh, casting enormous shadows in the dim twilight.

Their thick bodies seemed carved from rock, muscles gleaming with an ominous luster in the setting sun's afterglow.

Their steps were heavy and powerful, each one seemingly capable of making the earth tremble slightly, raising clouds of dust.

Their huge hands were like iron clamps, gripping enormous spiked clubs.

Within their blurred outlines, the Ogres exuded a terrifying might and wildness that made me feel they were invincible.

In reality, I didn't want to provoke those Ogres either.

On the map, Quagmire Fortress, occupied by Gnolls, was directly to the south.

As long as I didn't conflict with these Ogres, their existence could help me block the Gnolls' expansion northward.

The river had already frozen over, and I found two squirrels on a tree by the river, giving them a small handful of pine nuts.

I asked them if they had seen any other humans or humanoids passing by recently.

The squirrels told me that early this morning, before dawn, two tall bipeds, like me, passed by, heading north.

Additionally, in the territory of two large black bears upstream, another tall person was frozen in the river.

"Indeed, there's another person!"

When I asked the squirrels if there were any other people, the squirrels said they didn't know.

We started walking east along the north bank of the river.

The black bears were already hibernating this season, and I had dealt with the two bears before; they were quite reasonable.

Now, they should both be sleeping, and with the ignorant Black Little Leopard around, who thinks I'm the strongest in the world, I didn't want to mess up my relationship with the two bears because of its lively nature.

So I didn't want to disturb the black bears' sleep and just searched along the way.

After walking for over 100 meters, I saw a human-shaped snowdrift by the bank from afar.

Walking closer and digging away the snow, sure enough, it was a man in full armor.

He was still breathing, but one leg was in the river and had already frozen solid.

I took out my tools and started chiseling the ice, working up a sweat to move him, along with the ice block, onto the bank.

Then, I took out branches, ropes, and blankets from the system space to make a simple stretcher.

Dragon King and I worked together to flip the person onto the stretcher.

I again asked the nearby small animals if there were any other people in the vicinity and received a negative answer.

I tied four ropes to the front of the stretcher, letting Dragon King, the Wild Dog, and Black Little Leopard each hold one rope in their mouths, and I also put one rope over my shoulder.

The four of us pulled the stretcher together and started walking back.