Lady of Curses

After the last wolf fell, Aella stepped out of her cover and went closer to it. Now she needed to decide how to proceed, she could wait for the wolf to bleed out, but that could take a while and in that time the blood could attract some unwelcomed guests, so it was in Aella's best interest to kill the wolf and move on as quick as possible. 

The first idea that came to her mind was just to stomp on its head as strongly as she could with the intention of killing the wolf, but Aella wasn't sure she could kill it with one stomp, another thing was that she didn't want to stain her new clothes with blood, they already were little dirty from this hunting adventure so she had no intention to get them stained with blood. 

She could try and find a rock big enough where she could drop it on its head and just kill the wolf like that, but again the blood and brain would fly everywhere and she wasn't strong and accurate enough to throw a big rock from a distance, plus she had no idea how strong a this wolf's skull is. At one point Aella considered trying to find a sharp stick, but the stick would probably break before she could do any meaningful damage, and she wasn't sure if stabbing through the eye she could reach the brain. 

While looking around Aella found another problem, how will she get all these bodies to the settlement? If wants to get money for her hunt, she needs to get these corpses to the settlement where they then will appraise the prey and give her an appropriate reward. Aella didn't have any magic bag that would help her with carrying things, so she had to do it the old-fashioned way and carry them with her own hands. 

Plus she didn't have anything on her except her clothes, not even rope that she could somehow use to make the task easier, so the only conclusion Aella could find was that she would need to use her own hands and straight to get these corpses from one location to another.

Now the question was, how much work and time Aella was ready to put in. 

''Fuck.'' Taking another look Aella understood she was about to make a decision she knows she will regret soon after. Taking a deep breath Aella got to work because she had a long day ahead of herself. 

The first thing she did was pry open the wolf's jaw that was clamped on the shoulder of another wolf. It took some time and straight but she did it, but Aella was sure she broke some bones in the process. In this process, she got her dark clothes dirty with some blood, but Aella didn't care because, at the end of all this, she will probably be covered with blood.

Now that Aella got that done, next was the long and annoying part. She took one of the wolves bodies and started to carry it, after she carried it for some distance she put it down and went back for the second body. After she carried the second body where the first one was she put it next to it and went for the third one and she repeated this process until all five bodies were next to each other, and yes she even carried the wolf that was still alive, but won't be alive for that much longer.

After taking a moment Aella again picked up the first body carried a distance before putting it down and then went for the second then the third and so on and so forth. She intended to repeat this process until she got to the settlement, she knew it was probably dangerous not to mention a long and challenging process but she was determined.

So one by one, she slowly made progress through this forest, covered in blood and dirt. And although her body didn't feel exhausted Aella could feel that this all put a strain on her mana absorption, and the longer she did this the less mana she absorbed in her growth pool. But Aella didn't care all she wanted was to get these bodies to the settlement and get the reward. 

From time to time when she took the small brakes Aella looked around for any danger but surprisingly she didn't encounter anything that could endanger her. There was one instance where a predatory bird was eyeing Aella's bounty, but the bird was small, and Aella easily drove it away using her [Curse of weakness] and some pebbles.

So in short the journey wasn't too exciting it was just the repetitive action of hauling bodies, but even then the determination in Aella's dark eyes didn't waiver, because she had set a goal to get her hunt to the settlement and she will, no matter how long it takes. 

And she did just that. The sun was one-third on its way to the horizon when Aella saw the wooden walls she was familiar with. Seeing the settlement walls brought a small smile to her lips because this indicated that soon she will get her reward and be done with hauling bodies. It still was some distance away but with the goal clearly visible Aella got to work with more enthusiasm than ever.