The forest breeze and the lingering turbulence stirred up by the silver werewolf churned the dust hanging in the air-or perhaps it was drifting spores.
"Aren't you going to act?" the man asked, looking up.
They seemed close, but the towering trees left a considerable distance between them.
The werewolf, hunched as though poised to spring, also looked over at those words.
"Actually, you could just forget about me. I think that would be perfectly fine," Ruger said from the tree, pausing before he shrugged. "But judging by the way you're acting, you seem very concerned about me. That would probably be difficult."
Belonging to the same Wizard organization did not mean they would help one another. The larger the Wizard faction, the more that held true.
"Aren't you going to act?" The smiling fellow had lost his earlier ease, but he still smiled as he asked.
"If I act, it'll be over."
Ruger smiled faintly at the question, shrugging again with a helpless expression.
The towering silver werewolf's shoulders shook. Though she looked ferocious, she seemed to be laughing.
"You're stalling for time, aren't you?" Ruger sat cross-legged on the branch and looked down beneath the tree. "But those little tricks probably won't work on her..."
Before his words had faded, a dazzling radiance erupted from the silver werewolf, accompanied by a scream.
The scream came from beside the werewolf's feet.
Those seven or eight pieces, which no one had been paying attention to anymore-of course, there were already fewer after one person had been rescued-were about to dwindle further and meet true death.
Scattered across the ground, slowly losing his life and bidding the world a final farewell: that was the towering silver werewolf's last gesture of respect for him. But this Wizard was clearly special, and he