A few days later...

Days pass and you see no sign of Vidla's return. But you know you shouldn't be too impatient. The suspicion that she just abandoned the quest passes through your head many times, but you don't lose hope. You don't have much else to rely on currently as no one else shows up to get a quest from you. Some show up attempting to kill you though, but as always you manage to evade them, albeit sometimes barely.

And then, one late afternoon, she finally returns. You're sitting on the same porch as before, and out of nowhere you see the paladin thrown on the ground before you as Vidla steps into view.

"Got him," she says with a grin. "He was kind of tough. Not as much of a pussy as I expected someone with that name to be. But still a pussy."

You look at her captive with wide eyes. Your captive. He's wearing the same bright grey, gold-lined armor as he did on the night when he killed one of your closest friends, and he's neatly tied up and gagged with a thick rope, muffling his confused protests.

You can't believe it. You have a golden opportunity to get some ****, and even level up! That's when you realize... you're still useless for combat. How are you supposed to kill him? Your werewolf form can do small amounts of damage that most heroes can just shrug off while focusing on bigger threats, but at least you can deal damage. As a human boy, you can't do anything. You don't have a weapon and your punches are certainly too weak to deal even one point of damage.

"Is there a problem?" Vidla asks, noticing your inner struggle.

"...I have no means of executing him," you admit.

"Were YOU supposed to do it? I thought you had a gallows here or something."

"No, no such thing... And I want to be the one doing it."

"And you were expecting to do so without a weapon... How?"

You smile at her sheepishly. "Could I... maybe borrow something from you?"

She sighs, hopefully assuming that it's part of the quest, and looks around her inventory until she finds a dagger and hands it to you. "This thing shouldn't be too heavy."

You thank her and accept the dagger, and then you raise it above your head, looking into Airus's eyes that are filling up with immensely satisfying fear, and then you plunge the dagger into his chest.

...That is, his chestplate. Which blocks all damage from the stab.

You curse and try again, aiming at an opening in his armor this time. This deals a few points of damage and gets a satisfying groan of pain out of him that is mostly muffled by the gag, but it still barely affects his health. You stab a few more times, but he appears to have some obnoxious paladin-ability that gives him passive health regeneration and he regenerates about as fast as you can hurt him. He's in pain nonetheless, which is very nice, but you become increasingly frustrated that you can't seem to kill him.

You look up to find that Vidla appears to feel the same way, visibly losing her patience as she watches you with raised eyebrows. "Need a hand, kid?"

"No, no, no... I need to be the one killing him!" you respond.

"Yeah, but I could at least bring his health down."

That would be too risky. She might kill him on accident, and even if she doesn't, he would probably regenerate too fast for you to deliver the final blow anyway.

You're running out of options and Vidla is clearly running out of patience just as fast. "Look kid, if you can't do this, I'm killing him and taking his loot anyway. I did not drag this guy all this way here to watch... whatever you're doing."

Panic starts to creep up on you along with overwhelming embarrassment, but then you notice something. The sun is setting. Yes! Your werewolf form might be strong enough for the job. Barely.

Vidla suddenly smashes Airus with her two-handed hammer, dealing way more damage than any of your puny attempts.

"Wait!" you yell as she delivers a few more blows, reducing the paladin's health to below half. "Just wait until dusk. Then I can do it."

Vidla stops and looks at you with suspicion. "And how am I supposed to get my reward when this place is swarming with werewolves?"

"We could take him somewhere less crowded," you suggest. "I promise not to hurt you. Not that I could do much even if I tried."

Vidla taps her chin as she considers, and then gives you her answer by grabbing Airus by his legs and dragging him away.

Well, this is going great. You just embarrassed yourself massively and you're also realizing what a huge risk you're taking going to a lonely place with this barbarian at night. Since you appear to have been quite a big annoyance to her, she might very well kill you as soon as Airus is dead just to get a bit of ****. Hopefully she doesn't run very fast...

You follow Vidla deep into the forest close to the village, where you probably won't be found for a few minutes after dusk. She then drops Airus, and just in time, too... You can feel the beast within you awaken, scraping at the door of your consciousness, and then bursting through your flesh with a roar!

Or well, it's really more of a yelp... And your anticlimactic transformation is not made much better by Vidla's laughter upon seeing your werewolf form.

You're a grey-furred werewolf standing hunched over on its hind legs, with small teeth, claws that barely stick out of your fuzzy paws, short cute arms and legs, and big, glowing yellow eyes. Too big. Adorably big.

With Vidla's laughing echoing in the background, you open up your stats and look at the embarrassingly low numbers for what you hope to be the last time.

Werewolf Pup (Orphan Street Urchin Mikael)
Lvl: 3
Melee Attack: 2
Armor: 1
Weaknesses: Fire, Silver
Special Abilities:
Bloodlust: You deal more damage the less health you have.

Then you let your animal instincts go wild, biting and clawing at any openings you can find in Airus's armor. It's a slow process, and you're pretty sure you hear Vidla knock him a few times to speed things up, but eventually you hear it.

*Ding*

You've leveled up. You pull yourself off Airus's dead body, and then you fall over in pain as your body grows, bones extending and flesh expanding, tearing your clothes to shreds.

When the pain has stopped you open your stats, eager to see the change.

Young Werewolf (Orphan Street Urchin Mikael)
Lvl: 3 -> 8
Melee Attack: 2 -> 10
Armor: 1 -> 3
Weaknesses: Fire, Silver
Special Abilities:
Bloodlust: You deal more damage the less health you have.

Ability Gained!
Tracking: Enemies leave a trail that disappears after 30s * your level.

Ability Gained!
Heightened Senses: You can see in the dark, hear sounds from further away, smell enemies from further away and distinguish them by smell.

You can't believe it. You gained five levels. After all this time, your stats are actually WORTH a damn. Sure, you're still not even as powerful as the adult villagers, but you finally have the potential of getting a kill.

You inspect your body. You can't see your face of course, but you see that you're already more impressive. You're still rather scrawny and shorter than an average human, but you've gained some height, some muscle, and your claws are larger. You can feel that your teeth are as well.

You look towards Vidla to see her reaction. Her face wears an absurd mix of impressed and unimpressed. She is also holding her hammer ready to attack. You're not sure if it's just a safety measure or if she's planning to attack you.