"Wild Boar King...??"
"The Wild Boar King is what our villagers call it."
Under Darwin's puzzled gaze, the village chief explained: "This boar is much larger than the others, nearly five meters tall. Every time they raid the farmland, it is the one commanding the other boars to carry away the grain!"
"Commanding? Did you just say 'commanding'?"
"Exactly!"
The chief nodded. "It mostly stays behind the scenes to direct them and rarely acts personally. It only appears to rescue the others if they get caught in a trap. All the traps we set before were destroyed by that fellow; that big hole in the wooden enclosure was left by him too."
Darwin's eyes widened involuntarily.
In his understanding, mountain boars were usually "lone travelers" and rarely acted in organized groups. But the boars raiding this place were not only part of a gang, they had actually given rise to a leader who was well-versed in the "Way of the Coward" (playing it safe)?
This meant the Wild Boar King's intelligence had evolved to a significant degree!
"I understand. Leave the rest to me!"
Perhaps infected by Darwin's confidence, the chief gave a few more instructions and left to attend to his own business.
Once his figure had vanished in the distance, Precht suddenly looked at Darwin.
"What do you plan to do next?"
Darwin said loudly: "The simplest way, of course, is to wait here until the pack raids again and catch them all in one go!"
Precht remained silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
Darwin continued: "But if we use this place as a battlefield, it will likely cause even more damage to the crops. So the best way is to scout the area first, find the pack's stronghold, and start the fight there."
Being able to think about protecting the client's property while working—this attitude was already better than over eighty percent of the people in the guild!
Precht nodded with satisfaction. "And how will you do that?"
Darwin patted his chest confidently: "Among the imaginary creatures I can take over, there's no shortage of monsters with a keen sense of smell. As long as I take a walk around the area, I can track them by their scent!"
"The truly tricky thing is something else!"
"What is it?"
Darwin knew Precht was intentionally testing him, so he didn't hold back and listed all the potential troubles in one breath.
"The chief said there are about twenty boars. If I attack and they scatter in all directions, I might not be able to catch them all."
"That Wild Boar King hiding behind the scenes... if it sees me beating its lackeys to a pulp, it might turn tail and run immediately. If that happens, even if I deal with the underlings, the problem isn't truly solved."
"If the Wild Boar King leads the remnants back after we leave, all our efforts will be in vain!"
"So I can't alert the enemy. I must capture them all at once!"
"Ideally, I need to create a battlefield that can trap the pack so they can't escape no matter what!"
Speaking to this point, Darwin looked troubled again.
"But I haven't learned that kind of magic."
"Dealing with twenty boars at once isn't easy for me at my current level..."
"So, I still have to use some... minor tricks!"
"Ah! I've got it!!"
Darwin suddenly cried out and ran excitedly in the direction the village chief had gone.
Watching the boy's retreating back, Precht felt he was truly a student worth teaching and smiled with relief.
Thoughtful, bold yet meticulous, calm and collected—despite his exceptional talent, he wasn't arrogant or impulsive...
Truly the child of Weston and Mavis!
Half a day later.
By taking over the nose of a canine creature, Darwin found the boar pack hiding in the nearby mountain forest.
These boars lived in a natural cave.
The cave was carved beneath a cliff about twenty meters high. The protruding mountain peak at the top formed a natural eave, providing shelter from the wind and rain while also blocking any view from above.
The entrance was six meters high and three or four meters wide, allowing two boars to enter side-by-side, though for the five-meter-tall Wild Boar King, it was a tight squeeze.
The depth of the cave was unknown. Outside was a clearing "plowed" by the boars, roughly 200 square meters, piled with stones and yellowed withered grass.
Currently, several boars were playing around the rock piles, while others were lounging on the grass piles, napping.
Further ahead from the clearing, trees and bushes grew in staggered layers, blocking the view from further away. If Darwin hadn't used a special method, it would have been very difficult to find this nest.
After a brief reconnaissance of the terrain, Precht looked at Darwin: "So, what's your plan?"
"Simple!"
Darwin grinned. "I'll use Take Over Magic to transform into a boar and sneak in, then I'll drug their food!"
Precht fell silent.
This method... seemed... well...
At first, it sounded unreliable, but thinking it over, it seemed worth a try?
If it were just ordinary Transformation Magic, Precht would have stopped him. Transformation Magic is essentially just putting on an inescapable "outer skin"; no matter how exquisite the change, it can't alter the original scent. Since a pig's sense of smell is comparable to a canine's, an intruder would be smelled out instantly.
But Take Over Magic is different. The principle is to merge the subject with oneself, leaving no such flaws.
"So, you went back to the chief just now to get the medicine from him?"
"Exactly! I know a pig's sense of smell is as good as a dog's, so they'd smell normal medicine. but this is special medicine they can't detect!"
"How can you be sure they won't smell it?"
"When the villagers set traps before, they used the same medicine in the food. For several days, the boars ate everything clean. If they could smell anything unusual, they wouldn't have eaten it."
"I see..."
Next, Precht raised several tricky questions. Darwin answered them all fluently, clearly having planned everything out. After scrutinizing the plan for a long time without finding any flaws, Precht finally agreed.
The plan was set, but they weren't in a rush to act.
Darwin observed the boars playing in front of the cave from a distance—partly to perfect the "imaginary creature" in his mind, and partly to wait for the right moment.
Finally, as dusk approached, the boars got tired of playing. They lined up to go to a river 300 meters away to drink, bathe, and return to the cave for dinner.
"Now's the time, I'm going!"
As Darwin spoke, he dove into the bushes. When he emerged, he had become a lifelike wild boar.
Just like that, he slowly followed at the end of the line and slipped into the cave.