Standing in front of the giant wolf leader, Leonard was the first to feel the pressure of its imposing aura.
He looked up at it and saw swagger and ambition burning in those green eyes.
Oh? So it still refused to submit.
The giant wolf leader lowered its head and saw how calm Leonard looked. Its heart skipped a beat.
Something felt off. The little thing in front of it was far too calm.
No, it could not lose face now. It had become this strong, so there was no reason to be afraid anymore.
The surrounding Bitterthorn fell into a frenzy, constantly probing with thorny vines. But every tentative strike was knocked aside the moment it met the giant wolf leader's magically charged aura.
The giant wolf leader looked down at the rebounding vines, and a smug grin spread across its wolf face.
"So your attacks aren't much after all," it said disdainfully, turning back to Leonard.
"What do you mean by that?" Leonard asked, idly toying with the skinning knife in his hand.
"Nothing much. I just want to ask, are you really sure you want me to submit to you?" The giant wolf leader's gaze kept drifting toward the skinning knife in Leonard's hand.
For some reason, it felt a little uneasy.
"Heh. So you're going back on your word?" Leonard let out a cold laugh.
"Hmph. I call that adapting to the situation," the giant wolf leader said proudly. "Let me make this clear. You can forget about enslaving our noble wolf clan."
Before it could finish speaking, a blur too fast for the naked eye to follow shot past its face and struck the grass at its feet.
The next moment, the ground exploded.
The giant wolf leader jumped in shock at the violent impact.
"Wh... what was that?"
It looked toward where the blur had come from and immediately saw a thorn slowly extending from that enormous Venomous Tentacula.
Lowering its head, it saw the thorn embedded in the ground beside its foot.
A crater had already formed there. The thorn was buried in the soil like a meteorite that had smashed into the earth.
That thing had just attacked it?
The giant wolf leader swallowed hard.
If that had hit its body, would it not have punched a hole straight through it?
Something was wrong.
Its newly strengthened power suddenly did not seem all that useful, and the little thing's gaze was becoming stranger and stranger.
"What was that you just said?" Leonard smiled at the giant wolf leader. "I didn't hear you clearly."
"I'm sorry!"
Without another word, the giant wolf leader flopped down in front of Leonard and reverently exposed its belly.
"I give up!"
The posture a canine took when admitting defeat was far too suggestive. Especially since this giant wolf leader also had a pair of massive dangling bells, the sight nearly blinded Leonard.
"Get up!"
Leonard's face darkened as he kicked it right in the bells.
The giant wolf leader yelped and sprang up. The intense pain made it bare its fangs at Leonard on instinct, but before it could do anything, another poisoned thorn shot past the side of its face.
Boom!
Several large trees crashed down with thunderous noise.
The giant wolf leader froze with its mouth hanging open, then slowly stuck out its tongue, cold sweat pouring down.
"What? You still want to bite me?" Leonard asked with a half-smile, one hand pressed against the giant wolf leader's nose.
"N... no. I wouldn't dare." The giant wolf leader trembled, legs drawn together, and answered pitifully.
"Good. You'd better not." Leonard smiled kindly as he said something vicious enough to make the giant wolf leader shudder. "Try resisting again and I'll have you neutered."
"Yes!" The giant wolf leader clamped its tail and looked utterly horrified.
"Midgard, they're yours now. You know better than I do how to make them submit from the heart," Leonard said, turning to Midgard.
"Fine."
Midgard nodded silently, stood up, grabbed the giant wolf leader by the tail, and dragged it step by step out of the botanical garden.
...
Leonard took Claudia to the other side of the botanical garden to look at the plants. As he chatted and laughed with her, the sounds of punches and kicks landing solidly carried in from outside.
"Leonard, where did Big Sister go?" Claudia asked curiously, looking toward the source of the noise.
Leonard cupped her cheeks and turned her face back toward him, rubbing them lightly as he said, "Don't worry about her. Big Sister is handling important business."
Naturally, he could not let Claudia see something that bloody. The giant wolf leader's screams had already grown so faint they were barely audible. Midgard might beat it to death at any moment.
Midgard was really going all out...
After some time, Midgard returned in werewolf form.
She casually wiped the blood from her claws. Her breathing was steady, her expression calm, as if she had merely gone out to swat a mosquito.
"Big Sister's back."
Claudia took one look at fluffy Midgard and immediately threw herself into her arms, rubbing against the soft, comfortable white fur.
Leonard watched with deep envy.
White fluff...
Out of fear of being beaten up, he had never once dared to rub it to his heart's content.
Perhaps his gaze was too intense, because Midgard noticed and met his eyes.
Leonard's expression stiffened, and he calmly looked away as if nothing had happened.
Midgard smiled, patted Claudia and sent her off to play somewhere else, then walked over to Leonard.
"Taken care of?" Leonard asked awkwardly.
"Taken care of." Midgard nodded.
"You just left them outside? They won't run, will they?"
"Run? Where would they run?" Midgard grinned in werewolf form, the kind of smile that could stop a child from crying. "Right now, I'm the alpha."
"So in the end, you lost another set of clothes," Leonard said, glancing at her fur.
"What? Feeling bad for me?" Midgard sat down beside him carelessly. Then the fur of her werewolf form rapidly receded, revealing a whole stretch of bare pale skin.
Leonard awkwardly turned his eyes away. He listened to Midgard's laughter and the rustle of fabric for a while before finally turning his head back to look at her once she was fully dressed again.
Midgard was watching him too, a smile that was not quite a smile on her face, and it made Leonard feel thoroughly uncomfortable.
"That giant wolf..." Leonard coughed lightly, using business to break the awkward silence. "Don't let it get away. I have a feeling we can find the final step to solving the werewolf curse through it."
Midgard could not help laughing at the way Leonard deliberately steered the conversation back to serious matters, but she did not keep teasing him. Instead she asked, "Where are you planning to start?"
"Blood, of course. Aside from a few special organs, it's the substance most closely tied to magic in magical creatures." Leonard thought for a moment. "We can try making a potion with that thing's blood."