Osric walked through the market streets after having chosen his new E-Rank mission.
Winter had settled in fully. Osric needed a thicker coat because the cold was starting to get worse, especially in the night.
He quickly bought his new coat for 27 copper after some haggling and headed out of the city.
As Osric was walking towards one of the smaller farms outside the city and close to the Ashbrook forest, he looked at his mission parchment again.
E-Rank Mission:
Feral Dog Hunt.
Objective:
Hunt down the Feral Dogs that have been killing the farm animals in the Brafton Farm.
Scouting Report:
Suspected to be 7-8 of the F-Rank Feral Dogs.
Reward:
70 copper.
At the bottom of the parchment was the exact location of the farm.
Osric already knew of Feral Dogs as they were one of the most common beasts in Ashbrook.
He also knew that when they were attacking farms in numbers, it was smarter to hunt them with a party.
Feral Dogs were at the peak of F-Rank monsters. Most normal civilians wouldn't be able to handle one even with a weapon.
They were fast, fearless and had very sharp fangs.
The reward was a little lacking but Osric didn't mind. His goal was to test how he would do against so many beasts at once. And he was curious how much his combat instinct had improved now that it was D-Rank.
Osric slowed his pace long before the farm came into full view.
The smell reached him first.
Blood—old and new—mixed with rot and wet earth. It clung to the cold air and carried easily across the open ground. That alone told him the scouts hadn't exaggerated. If the bodies were already being eaten, the feral dogs were still nearby.
He crouched and moved off the road, keeping to the shallow dips in the terrain. The farm sat just ahead: a handful of low wooden buildings, a fenced pen, and a small farmhouse that had once been whitewashed but now looked gray and lifeless beneath the winter sky.
No movement.
Osric didn't let that reassure him.
The dogs would be spread out. Feeding. Restless. Feral dogs didn't guard territory the way wolves did—they circled, returned, wandered, then circled again. That made them unpredictable, but it also meant they wouldn't all be watching the same angle.
He studied the ground as he advanced.
Tracks crisscrossed the mud and trampled grass. Too many to count cleanly, but the pattern mattered more than the number. Heavy paw marks near the pens. Drag marks leading away from the farmhouse. Smaller, frantic footprints that ended abruptly.
Osric exhaled slowly through his nose.
Seven or eight felt right.
He tightened his grip on the iron sword, drawing it fully free of its sheath. The blade wasn't exceptional, but it was solid. Heavy enough to bite deep if he committed to the swing.
Combat Instinct nudged him—not as a command, not as a voice, but as a tightening awareness.
Left side first.
He adjusted without consciously thinking about why.
A low shape moved near the broken fence.
One of the dogs had its head buried in a carcass—goat, maybe. Its ribs showed beneath mangy fur, but its neck was thick, jaw powerful. It hadn't noticed him yet.
Osric didn't rush.
He closed the distance step by step, keeping his boots out of the softest mud, timing his movement with the wind. When he was close enough to smell the animal's breath, he raised the sword.
One clean strike.
He stepped in and brought the blade down at an angle, cutting through the back of the neck with his full weight behind it. The dog spasmed once and went still, blood dark against the ground.
No bark. No warning.
Osric didn't pause to look at it.
The moment the body hit the ground, he was already moving—away from the kill, toward cover. He knew better than to linger. Feral dogs didn't howl like wolves, but they noticed absence quickly.
A sharp yelp sounded from somewhere near the farmhouse.
Osric's jaw tightened.
Too slow.
He repositioned behind a low storage shed, breathing steady, eyes tracking movement at the edge of his vision. Shapes were beginning to shift. Heads lifting. Bodies turning.
He'd gotten one.
Maybe two more—if he was careful.
After that, it would stop being a hunt.
And start being a fight.