Chapter 499: The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 499: The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Cities demand vast resources to sustain their scale: food to eat, clothes to wear, fuel to burn, water to wash with, and so on. For this reason, cities are typically founded in resource-rich areas, but perfect terrain that provides everything is rare.
Thus, cities build facilities to produce resources, supplementing what they lack.
The Enger Plains were not originally home to flocks of sheep. Among the grazing animals, only the strongest species survived there—resilient water buffalo, swift zebras, and sturdy gazelles. The only reason sheep could come to this land and graze was that humans had begun to raise them.
The shepherd boy let out a great yawn, watching the shifting flock.
"So boring..."
Shepherding was a job primarily for dog and sheep beastkin. Dog beastkin were natural herders, needing no training, while sheep beastkin could instinctively communicate with sheep. Experience could be gained over time, but communion with the flock was an innate gift. Thus Ende, with its many capable beastkin, chose natural talent over a baseline of mere competence.
The boy, a sheep beastkin tasked with herding, gazed out at the plains teeming with sheep and grass and clicked his tongue.
"It's better than having trouble, I guess... but this is just too dull."
Shepherding hadn't always been such a tedious job. This was the edge of Ende. It was a place where stray lions and wild dogs roamed, a place where waking up to find a couple of sheep missing was a daily occurrence. Checking and mending traps and repairing fences should have been part of the daily routine.
But lately, nothing at all had happened. It was strange.
The shepherd boy looked out at his flock again.
The sky over the Enger Plains was vast and clear in the dry season. On the fields below, the battle between brown and green was slowly being won by the brown, as the flock's diligent grazing pushed back the front lines of green. The sound of the wind rustling through the grass mingled with the contented bleats of the full-bellied sheep.
It was a peaceful, pastoral life. Someone burdened with the world's worries might have found joy in such tranquility, but for a boy with big dreams, it was unbearably dull.
"I wish something exciting would happen..."
Speak of the devil, as they say. The sheepdog yawning beside him suddenly shot to its feet. The shepherd boy felt the hair on his own neck prickle. He shaded his eyes with his hand and peered into the distance.
Far in the distance, at what might as well have been the edge of the plains, something with gray fur was heading their way.
A wolf.
A thick coat of fur. A sleek body. Two eyes brimming with savagery, burning like ghost flames. Though it was still a great distance away, the sheep beastkin felt a primal fear and acted on instinct.
"Woofy! Watch the sheep!"
"Woof!"
Leaving the sheepdog in charge, the boy scrambled down the slope. He ran so fast his fur streamed behind him. Reaching the outpost, he frantically rang the alarm bell and yelled.
"Wolf! A wolf is here!"
The guard post erupted into chaos.
Guards grabbed their weapons and came running. Clad in thick leather armor, they panted heavily as the shepherd boy led them to the pasture.
When they arrived, all they saw was the flock grazing peacefully and the sheepdog, its tail stiff and its teeth bared. The guards looked around.
"The wolf?"
"Over there! Just a minute ago! It was coming this way from the plains below!"
The shepherd boy pointed into the distance, but the wolf that had been drawing closer was nowhere to be seen. The guards, irritable from the sudden call to arms, snapped.
"There's nothing here!"
"But I swear I saw it!"
"Did you mistake something else for it? Or were you just seeing things?"
"No! You think I can't tell the difference? It was a wolf, I'm sure of it!"
"A wolf just shows up for a second and then vanishes? Does that make any sense?"
He pleaded earnestly, but the guards only looked at him with suspicion. A wolf on the hunt is relentless. It would harry its prey, fraying its nerves until it collapsed from exhaustion, then go for the throat in a moment of weakness. It wouldn't just vanish into thin air.
Fuming, the shepherd boy turned to his partner.
"It's true! Woofy, you saw it too, didn't you?"
"Woof! Grrr, woof!"
But the only animal that could speak the words of men was the Beast King. The guards remained unconvinced, even as the dog barked.
"Hmph. Fine. Whatever you say."
The guards returned to their post, grumbling. Though they didn't say it aloud, it was obvious they thought the boy was a liar. Their attitude infuriated him.
"A wolf really came, and this is how they treat me?! If the whole flock gets wiped out, I bet they'll blame me for it!"
"Woof woof!"
"Yeah, Woofy. You worked hard. Still, what in the world was that wolf all about?"
Approaching the flock only to vanish the moment he'd turned his back... It certainly wasn't typical wolf behavior. The Enger Plains were vast. To hide on such open ground, with no obstacles, it would have had to retreat a great distance.
Drawing near only to retreat for no reason—animals didn't make such inefficient movements. It wasn't a human employing some kind of feint, after all.
The shepherd boy let his imagination run wild.
"Maybe it was a lone wolf, cast out from its pack. It got close, saw how big the flock was, and decided to back off."
"Grrr!"
"Or maybe it saw how brave and handsome you are and ran away!"
"Woof!"
The boy chattered on for some time about the mysterious wolf. His sheepdog couldn't understand the words, but it responded with enthusiasm all the same.
Still, the wolf's appearance had one upside.
It certainly wasn't boring.
A few days passed. While walking along the fence, yawning, the shepherd boy once again spotted the hazy silhouette of a wolf in the distance. It was still far away, but this time, it was significantly closer.
A jolt of fear shot through him, and the boy sprinted down to the outpost.
"Wolf! A wolf is here!"
This time, a unit of orc mercenaries arrived alongside the guards. Armed with gleaming weapons, they snorted impatiently and scanned the area.
He wondered why pig beastkin had shown up instead of, say, an Obelisk, but it was no secret that Ende was short on manpower. They must have been hired to hunt the wolf. The shepherd boy, who was always the last to hear any news, didn't think much of it.
An orc mercenary looked around and asked.
"The wolf?"
"It was over there! Near that big rock beyond the fence!"
The orcs looked toward the large rock, but there wasn't so much as a shadow of a wolf. The mercenary's already craggy face wrinkled further in a scowl.
"Can't see a thing. Sniff, sniff. Don't smell any blood, either. You sure there was a wolf?"
"There was! It was right there, wagging its enormous tail and staring right at me!"
He thumped his chest, insisting he was telling the truth, but once again, he was met not with praise but with suspicious glares.
"Then go look for yourselves! There ought to be massive wolf prints over there!"
Furious, the shepherd boy climbed right over the fence. The orc mercenaries followed.
"It was huge and terrifying. So big you couldn't even see it behind this rock! I'm telling you, there have to be prints left behind as big as a man's head!"
Full of conviction, the boy led the orcs to the rock. The tracks would vindicate him.
But contrary to his expectations, there wasn't a single footprint near the rock.
One of the orcs searching the area said gruffly.
"There's nothing here."
"Huh? What? That's weird. Why is there nothing?"
"Must've gotten scared and seen things. This is why cowardly sheep shouldn't be shepherds."
The insults were one thing, but what truly tormented the boy was the injustice of it all. He had told the truth, had simply done his duty, yet here he was, branded a liar and scorned by everyone. The unfairness was unbearable.
"It's true! A giant wolf was standing right here, staring at us!"
"Then where are the tracks?"
"What, did the wolf use some Gon Qi Art to hide its tracks?"
"Don't be ridiculous. If it was a wolf that could use Qi Arts, this kid would already be dead."
"Besides, wolves hunt in packs. The fact that he said he only saw one was strange from the get-go."
"Maybe he saw one of those wolves you die after seeing three times?"
"Guess he'll be dead soon, then! Haha!"
The boy's only crime was his diligence. He had reported what he saw, relayed what he'd experienced, and somehow, he had become a liar.
Even the guards who had responded with them now pointed fingers at the boy.
"Don't pay him too much mind. That kid rang the alarm for a wolf before, and it was a wild goose chase then, too. He's probably just messing with you since you piggies are new here."
The orc mercenary shot back gruffly.
"Piggies?"
"Ah, sorry. Orcs... was it?"
"Watch your mouth. Our Okma has granted us the authority to punish anyone who uses racist slurs on sight."
In any case, further searching yielded not so much as a single strand of fur, let alone a footprint. Spitting curses, the orc mercenaries rounded on the boy.
"You call us out here on a lie again, and you'll be sorry."
"We're already on edge with all this talk of wolves, and now the shepherd's causing trouble."
"Stick him in with the flock, and you wouldn't be able to tell him from the sheep. How's he supposed to look after creatures more intelligent than he is?"
"Sheep are famous for their bad eyesight, aren't they? His eyes are probably just as bad, and he came running in a panic."
And you're just dirty piggies, he had the sense not to say. The shepherd boy kept his mouth tightly shut and swallowed his rage until the mercenaries were gone.
"Damn it... There was a wolf. I only told the truth..."
He had never felt so wronged, so furious, in his entire life. He hadn't done anything wrong, yet it felt as if the entire world had conspired to blame him. No matter how loudly he shouted, they just laughed and made fun of him.
A boy who considered himself brave saw crying as a disgrace. Desperately holding back tears, he sniffled and buried his face in his sheepdog's fur.
"I'm never ringing that bell again, not even if I die. Hmph. They'll see. They'll regret not believing me when the entire flock is dead."
The animal could not speak his language, but it could soothe his heart.
The sheepdog silently comforted its master as he wiped his tears in its fur.
The next day.
The wolf appeared again. A large, black wolf, watching the flock from a distance just as before.
Everything was the same, except for the boy's reaction. He ignored the wolf and went about gathering straw.
"Bark! Bark!"
"It's fine, Woofy. Just let it take a few sheep."
"Bark! Bark! Bark!"
"They won't believe me even if I ring the bell."
"Bark! Bark! Bark! Whine, bark! Bark..."
"No need to protect them. They'll only believe me when there's blood splattered all over the ground."
As the boy gave his cynical reply to the sheepdog's frantic barking...
...the barking suddenly stopped.
The boy turned his head at the ominous silence. The black wolf was there, staring at him. He didn't know when it had gotten so close. With its massive build and glossy fur, it was unmistakably the same wolf from before.
Clamped in the wolf's jaws, his sheepdog hung limp, its neck broken. It had died without a chance to fight back.
The scent of blood sent the flock scattering in terror. Even as its prey fled in every direction, the wolf's gaze remained fixed on the shepherd boy. Thud. The loyal dog's body tumbled limply to the ground. It was only then, seeing his friend's corpse, that the boy understood his own predicament.
The wolf hadn't been after the sheep.
It was after the shepherd.
The wolf's hunt for the city had begun.