The wolves return.

At some point during the night you catch a familiar scent and hear equally familiar barking, and soon your two wolves come into view and join you where you sit. They are visibly demoralized by recent events, but still seem happy to see you. You give them both a petting before they curl up to sleep as well.

You sit and wait for hours, attentively keeping watch while being thoroughly bored. But the uneventful hours do give you time to sort out your thoughts and plan for the future. The more you do, the more you start to believe that your growth choice did indeed make you smarter, or at least less reckless. Hopefully your next opportunity to rake in some sweet XP will serve as proof of that rather than a disaster.

Eventually the sun does finally rise, and Ilimia returns to her elf form before your eyes, remaining asleep. You abruptly snap her out of that state by shaking her awake. You've waited for her to revert for the entire night, and your last sliver of patience died at least two hours ago.

"Hey!" she protests drowsily.

"The map," you say impatiently.

"Hold on, hold on, at least let me properly wake up first..."

Ilimia stretches and yawns, and then looks at her hands. "Huh, I'm back to normal... Fucking finally."

"Fucking finally indeed," you reply. "Now whip out the map."

"Yeah, yeah..." Ilimia groans and reaches into her inventory, giving you her map.

"I'll hold on to this in the future..." you mumble as you study it, quickly finding what you wanted. A town, relatively close to where you currently are, with the recommended level being about the same as your current one. There you should be able to get the supplies you want, and the surrounding area should be good for hunting.