The Commission

Before long, the two arrived outside the warehouse the woman had mentioned.

Moss covered its stone walls, and years of exposure to wind and sun had warped the edges of its wooden doors. Through the gaps, they could just make out a jumble of sacks and farming tools inside.

It looked even more run-down than Lorenzo had imagined. Perhaps no one had dared come near it since the Demon Wolves arrived. Using the mana detection Frieren had taught him, he checked inside.

"There are four in all."

What the hell? Four Demon Wolves had gathered in such a small place. And judging by the state of the village, they clearly hadn't shown much aggression, simply staying inside this tiny warehouse.

Then what had they been eating?

"In that case, you handle it. It'll be a good chance to test what you've learned."

After hearing Lorenzo, Frieren walked over to a large tree nearby. She took out a grimoire and leafed through it as she spoke casually.

She really was taking it easy, acting as if it had nothing to do with her. Lorenzo was used to it by now, though. It would have been stranger if she had actually shown some initiative.

So he stepped forward and gently pushed open the warehouse door.

Whatever the Demon Wolves had been eating these past few days, he was having Demon Wolf steaks today.

Creak—

The hinge let out a squeal. The warehouse clearly hadn't been maintained in years. Darkness rushed toward him, carrying the smell of damp wood mixed with a strong, fishy stench.

Deep inside, four pairs of ghostly green eyes stared fixedly at him.

They seemed a little smaller than the ones he had encountered in the forest. No wonder people said wild ones were better. Look at these four Demon Wolves: they had only "settled down" for a few days, and they had already grown this thin. It was rather regrettable.

Lorenzo then summoned his wand.

Although he didn't need a wand at all to use Magecraft, most of the magic in this world had to be cast through one, so he had asked Frieren to help him get one.

It was called a wand, but materials had been limited. Aside from some magical materials Frieren carried in her small case, its main body was just a decent-looking branch they had picked up by the roadside.

It didn't matter, anyway. His core ability was Magecraft, not this world's magic, so any wand would do as long as it worked.

The four Demon Wolves lurked in the shadows, growling under their breath. The one in front had already lowered its body and spread its claws, looking ready to pounce on the intruder and tear into him at any moment.

Lorenzo slowly channeled mana into his wand, then fired a blast straight from its tip. The Demon Wolf in front was sent flying at once. It slammed hard into the wall and didn't move again.

The remaining three bristled and lunged at Lorenzo at the same time.

Lorenzo stepped aside, and a thin barrier blocked their incoming claws. During that brief pause, mana had already gathered at the tip of his wand again. Before they could regain their footing, he fired three more blasts in quick succession.

The remaining Demon Wolves all died as well. The warehouse fell silent, four lifeless corpses scattered across the floor.

He had deliberately held back. If his offensive magic had blown their bodies into pieces, dealing with them afterward would have been troublesome.

Normally, finishing a fight meant it was time to collect the spoils, but Lorenzo hesitated to approach the Demon Wolves' corpses.

It wasn't out of kindness or anything like that. The main reason was that it was too dirty. The floor was covered with the Demon Wolves' droppings and unrecognizable scraps of food. On top of that, the enclosed space had no air circulation at all, and the smell seemed to be drilling into his nose from every direction.

He didn't know how long the Demon Wolves had been here, but it definitely couldn't have been just a few days, as the woman had said. By all appearances, they had been here for weeks.

"Frieren, do you have a spell that can make a whole room look brand new?"

"No."

Frieren turned a page under the tree without looking up. He didn't know if it was his imagination, but she seemed to be sitting a little farther away, too.

Could she think the warehouse smells too awful as well?

He looked at the white figure under the tree, then at the warehouse in front of him, and checked the distance between them. She really was a step or two farther away than before. But did a step or two actually make any difference?

Resigned, Lorenzo turned back to face the mess inside the warehouse. Fortunately, his only task right now was to bring out the four corpses. He wasn't required to clean the place.

Mana flowed directly around his fingertips, weaving itself into invisible threads. The threads stretched out from his palm and slipped into the shadows of the warehouse like living things, feeling their way to the four Demon Wolf corpses before wrapping around them.

The four Demon Wolves rose into the air.

Lorenzo took a step back and beckoned with his fingers. The corpses followed him, floating out through the warehouse doorway one after another.

In the sunlight, the Demon Wolves' coats looked dull and gray, with several matted patches. They were indeed much thinner than the ones he had seen in the forest. Their ribs were clearly visible, as though their skeletons were barely wrapped in a thin layer of leather.

"They're very thin."

At some point, Frieren had come to his side.

"Come to think of it, should we chop off their heads and hand them over to the villagers here? That would prove we finished the job."

Lorenzo asked Frieren as he looked at the four corpses, which had already been set on the ground. After all, for a cleanup commission like this, wouldn't bringing back some physical proof be more convincing?

"They'd definitely think we were threatening them. Are you trying to get us thrown out?"

Frieren immediately rejected his idea.

She had a point. After all, he had never heard of a Hero cutting off the Demon King's head and bringing it back just to prove he had really defeated him.

Having abandoned the idea, Lorenzo crouched down and began processing the corpses.

Skinning, bleeding, butchering—every movement flowed smoothly into the next.

His knife flipped between his fingers, its edge sliding along the grain of the muscles with almost no resistance. The pelts came off intact, the meat was divided into evenly sized portions, and the bones were neatly set aside.

If anyone else had seen it, they would definitely have said, "What incredible skill."

"...Done."

Lorenzo straightened up, flicked the remaining blood from his knife, and put the last steak into a cloth bag he had prepared beforehand. He folded the pelts separately and set them aside, intending to sell them in the village or another town.

Though they were a little thin, Demon Wolf pelts were worth some money on the market. Even if they didn't fetch much, a few extra copper coins would be welcome.

As for the remaining bones and organs...

Lorenzo looked down at the pile of remains he had separated out. He didn't much like eating that sort of thing, especially liver. It always felt particularly strange in his mouth. He could just bury them: find a spot, dig a hole, and in a few days there would be nothing left to see.

In the end, nothing from the four Demon Wolves went to waste.

"All right, time to go back and report in."

Perhaps it was because she could finally take a hot bath, but Frieren looked lively for the first time in a while. She no longer had that faint "dead person" air about her.