At first glance, the small wolf looked like a puppy with slightly ferocious eyes.

I was able to summon a bigger wolf in my past life. But this was all he could muster with the amount of mana he currently had. Using up more mana now could cause him problems later.

This is why summoning magic isn’t popular. Nine out of ten mages could only become first or second-class mages. Because of that, they could only summon cute spirit animals with their magic.

“Wow... It’s the first time I’ve seen magic.”

“Have you seen it before? You used to live in the capital.”

“Of course I have! Don’t you know who I am?”

“Ohhh.”

Everyone buzzed with excitement at the sudden display of magic.

“Here, wolf,” Ian called the wolf spirit over to a blood splatter on the ground, who, in turn, rushed toward its master’s voice. “Can you guide us to where this scent leads?”

The wolf spirit sniffed around the area, trying to track the scent.

“Sir.”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to inform you that we’ve already tried using hunting dogs. They lost the scent as if the hunters vanished into thin air.” The senior knight was suggesting that tracking the scent wasn’t going to work, which made sense.

“Dogs are supposed to track scents better than humans, right? Their sense of smell is supposed to be a hundred times better than ours,” Ian said.

“Yes, that’s what I heard.”

“Well, a wolf spirit’s sense of smell is a hundred times better than a dog’s.”

“R-really?”

“I read this in a book.”

“Huh?”

“It’s in Everything about Mana, the famous book written by the Great Mage Luke.”

“Yes, I’m aware of it...”

The senior knight couldn’t believe he was basing his knowledge on something he read in a book. He stared at the spirit wolf trying to pick up the scent. Its appearance and adorable gait offered a sense of ease amid a critical situation.

Can this thing really track the scent? The knight was aware that the book the mage had read was famous. He had read it as well. It had many details about magic and was written by a legendary mage. But he still had his doubts. Could they really trust this child? His doubts were only growing.

“Awoo! Awoo!”

The wolf spirit stood tall and howled like he was telling everyone to follow it, which it was.

“Let’s go.”

Ian and the search party started following the spirit wolf as it ran ahead, following the scent. The same thing would have happened in his past life. The dispatched mage, Marco, would have probably also used summoning magic.

The wolf continued sniffing through the forest. Animals, even ferocious ones, were left shaking in his wake. Despite his adorable looks and size, this was a beast spirit.

The soldiers’ breathing became labored as they went deeper and deeper into the forest. They had lost track of how deep they had ventured and had begun worrying about finding their way back. But then, the wolf spirit suddenly halted with a growl, raising its hackles.

“Stop,” Ian said in his small voice.

The senior knight shouted the command to the rest of the search party. The soldiers immediately lowered their stance. Ian advanced, only the crinkles of grass heard with each step.

A valley? In front of them was a huge valley that would drop the party members to their deaths if they didn’t watch their steps. And there was a cave running through either side of its curved walls. It was a good place to use as a hiding spot.

Looking down in the valley, a soldier shouted, “There... Look over there!”

The faces of the men in the search party turned dark.

“Th-that’s impossible!”

“The goblins...”

The scene they witnessed as their eyes focused on the deepest part of the valley was truly shocking.

“How many are there...?”

It was a mob of goblins—there seemed to be as many as five hundred of them. Suddenly, drums started to sound in the valley. The goblins began moving, leaving the center of their formation. They split into two groups, leaving a trail in the middle.

The creatures behaved like trained soldiers, showing discipline. Then, something else caught the search party’s attention.

“Wh-what’s that?” A never-before-seen monster trudged along the path made by the goblins.

A hobgoblin? Ian’s eyes widened. The hobgoblin, as tall as a man and pink in color, was impossible to miss.

How? Hobgoblins only lived in the southern great plains, at least to Ian’s knowledge. But now, he was proven wrong.

The creature is acting as their leader. It was acting like a king—the king of all of Mount Mogrian’s goblins. The drums started beating again. More goblins emerged from the caves, dragging something out.

Immediately, the senior knight jumped to his feet, saying, “My lord....?”

Before them emerged the lord of Mogrian.

“Sir Lavi is also alive!”

“Our lord is there!”

It wasn’t just the lord they were dragging out. They had Lavi Mogrian, James, the leader of the Mogrian knights, and other knights and soldiers who had survived. All of them were tied up and helplessly dragged along the trail.

“Kyaak! Kyaak! Kyaak! Kyaak!”

The goblins’ roars sounded over the valley. Seemingly full of hatred and madness, they threw filth at the line of humans who were forced to their knees. They were getting ready to begin executing the humans.

With a swish, the senior knight drew his sword, and others followed.

“We have to save our lord!” they shouted, getting ready to go down the valley.

“Going in like that will get you and everyone else killed,” Ian said. There were hundreds of goblins, and a small search party could not win this battle.

“But we can’t just sit and watch!”

Ian’s words were not getting through because everyone was terrified of what was going to happen to the lord. He had anticipated this.

“Yes, you can.”

“What...?”

With that, Ian jumped down into the valley without a hint of doubt.

“S-sir!” the knight shouted in shock behind him, seeing that Ian had jumped instead of climbing down the valley. He was free-falling.

“Feather Fall.”

“Huh?”

However, instead of crashing to the bottom, Ian fell slowly riding the wind, thanks to the slow-falling spell he recited.

I’ll make it just in time. He would land right in the center of the goblin crowd, right next to the lord and his retinue.

I could finish them all. He could use magic and take advantage of the fact they were all lined up to kill them.

I have to use every drop of mana I have left. Ian began concentrating his mana, and soon, cold energy burst from his right hand—so chilling that specks of frost formed in the air.

“Kyaak! Kyaak! Kyaak!”

As he got closer to the goblins, their screeches that sounded like metal scratches grew louder. They were not pleasant to the ears.

Just a little bit more. Ian turned in the air to make sure he fell in the right place—right in the middle of the execution ground.

And a bit more. He saw the lord and his retinue under his feet as he was still quite high up in the air.

A bit more. He got closer to them and quietly let mana flow through his lower body so that his legs could withstand the impact of landing.

“Keeek?”

One by one, the goblins acknowledged Ian’s presence as he slowly landed. The hobgoblin grabbed his ax.

“Dispel.”

Ian dispelled Feather Fall and let his body descend. The short travel down and his reinforced legs would make for an easy landing. With a boom, he landed right in front of the lord—who had lost all hope—and his young son and his retinue.

“Frost.”

As Ian placed his right hand on the ground, specks of ice flew around it.

“Nova.”

He was using the same magic he had used on the training ground. This time, the spell worked beyond its original range.

Crack!

Crrrack! Crrrrrrack!

The cold spread out and swallowed the goblins. Its power was a lot stronger than when he had used it on the training ground because he had used every last drop of mana he had.

“Keeeeek!”

“Keeeeak!”

The terrified screams of the ice hell replaced the shouts of the once bloodthirsty goblins. The search party had witnessed the power of a mage in its most powerful form. They were rendered speechless as they watched it unfold, realizing that their weapons in hand were useless.

“That’s a... mage?”