"Gamelion."
It was probably involuntary—Hasta murmured the name of their target. The white monster, which had been gorging on a goblin's innards, stopped feeding the moment it heard that voice and glanced back for just an instant with sharp eyes.
Then, upon recognizing that the ones behind it were two adventurers, it showed no particular concern and went right back to sinking its fangs into the goblin's innards.
Its roughly one-meter tail, however, swayed back and forth, keeping watch on the situation behind it as if to ward off any approach.
"...Hasta, fortunately it hasn't noticed Set. Let's pull back and have Set hit it with a surprise attack from above."
Rei called out to Hasta's tense back, but Hasta tightened his grip on the estoc and gave a small shake of his head, rejecting the proposal.
"Even though I asked you to help me fight the Gamelion, I can't just leave everything to you. Besides, there's my father's condition to think of."
At Hasta's words, Rei recalled how his father had insisted that Hasta fight himself rather than leaving everything to others.
"If I leave it all to you and Set here, I'd be betraying my father and mother. ...I'm sorry, Rei. Please let me take it on first. If it truly comes to a point where I can't handle it, I'll ask for your help."
"...You're sure about that?"
"Yes."
Seeing Hasta nod without hesitation, Rei recalled the warning from the adventurer man they had met when entering these plains.
(He might indeed be prone to going a bit overboard. But given the condition that was set, it can't be helped. If things get dangerous, I just need to step in immediately.)
Rei sighed inwardly and gave a small nod.
"Understood. But since you're partnered with me, I can't have you dying on me. If it looks dangerous, I'm stepping in."
"Please do."
Watching Hasta assume his stance with the estoc, Rei took a few steps back to observe, as if to say, show me what you've got.
Naturally, the Death Scythe was gripped in his hand, ready to intervene at the first sign of danger.
Meanwhile, Set lay flat on the ground, suppressing its presence as much as possible so the Gamelion wouldn't detect it and bolt.
"...Here I go!"
Steel in his voice despite his tension, Hasta kicked off the ground and closed the distance to the Gamelion, estoc in hand.
Whish!
The Gamelion, sensing the approaching presence, whipped its tail sharply—
"!?"
Hasta dropped his center of gravity as he closed in, his feet scraping against the ground as he slid forward, ducking beneath the tail that lashed at him like a whip.
The sight reminded Rei of a soccer sliding tackle he had once seen on TV back in Japan.
"Hah!"
Of course, to Rei—who possessed superhuman physical abilities—the tail strike wasn't particularly fast. He could have sliced it off with the Death Scythe's blade, blocked it with the handle, or even dodged it by a hair's breadth if necessary. But there was no way Hasta could pull off such feats with his level of ability, and the result was that sliding maneuver.
"Gah!"
For the Gamelion, though, having its attack dodged probably wasn't all that unexpected. Letting out a distinctly irritated cry, it snatched up the goblin corpse it had been gorging on mere seconds earlier and hurled it at Hasta as it whipped around.
Even though the creature was only about the size of a human child and had its innards picked clean, the corpse still weighed well over twenty kilograms. Had Hasta been carrying a standard weapon—a longsword, a spear, or an axe—he could have simply swatted the thing aside through brute force. But his weapon of choice was an estoc, built for thrusting, and he couldn't very well use it to sweep a goblin's corpse away. He could have tried if he were willing to snap his blade in the process, but doing so would cost him his only means of attacking the Gamelion.
In short, evasion was his only option.
"Not a chance!"
Shouting as if to drive himself forward, Hasta—still mid-slide—snatched a knife from his belt with his free left hand and drove it into the ground, forcibly arresting his momentum. The goblin corpse sailed past right in front of his face and slammed into a tree trunk a short distance from Rei, splattering blood-laden fluid across the surroundings.
"Hah!"
The Gamelion was caught off guard for just a moment by its prey's sudden stop. But that brief instant was more than enough for Hasta, whose creed was swift thrusts.
The estoc's tip, loosed with a spirited shout, struck true at the base of the Gamelion's tail. Its body was covered in fur that boasted high defense against slashing attacks, but the tail lacked that coverage...
"Kyan!"
Severed near the root, the tail went flying as a scream tore from the Gamelion's mouth and echoed through the grove.
(Huh. Not bad.)
Rei had kept the Death Scythe at the ready so he could follow up at any moment, but he let out a quiet sigh of admiration nonetheless.
"Not done yet!"
Without even glancing at the roughly one-meter tail sailing through the air, Hasta instinctively understood—born from all his experience as an adventurer—that this was his best chance, and he unleashed another sharp thrust.
Given the Gamelion's fur and its high cut-resistant properties, his target had to be an area not covered by that fur. A spot where a single strike would be lethal. Namely, the eyes, sitting right near the brain. If he could drive the estoc into an eye, he could destroy the brain along with it. That was Hasta's one and only shot at felling the Gamelion in a single blow.
But the Gamelion knew its own weaknesses, of course. And it knew exactly how to respond when its eyes were targeted.
Clang!
A sound like metal striking metal rang out across the grove. The source was Hasta's thrust estoc—and the razor-sharp tip of the Gamelion's ear, which had become a blade.
"What—!?"
"Gaaaaah!"
For Hasta, it was a thrust with speed and sharpness that would undoubtedly rank among the best in all his countless battles. Yet the giant rabbit before him had blocked it with its Ear Blade. He had known those ears were bladed, but against a higher-ranked monster, he simply hadn't had the margin to account for them. That was the mistake.
And the Gamelion, having deflected Hasta's estoc with its Ear Blade, opened its jaws wide—flaunting those sharp fangs—and lunged to sink them into Hasta...
"!?"
He tried to pull back the deflected estoc to at least use it as a shield, but it was already too late. The Gamelion's fangs would claim his life before he could withdraw the blade. The moment that thought crossed his mind—
Slash!
"Gah... h?"
Activating his Sleipnir boots, Rei sprinted into the air, descended from a height of about six meters, and simultaneously channeled magical power into the Death Scythe. A single swing, and the Gamelion's head came clean off.
"...Eh?"
The head—bearing the fangs that should have been driven into his body—was severed and sailed past him. Hasta watched it go with a sense of unreality, a hoarse voice leaking from his lips.
"You alright?"
Rei asked, shouldering the Death Scythe that had lopped off the Gamelion's neck like a guillotine.
"Ah, yes. Yeah. Of course I'm fine, but... eh? Wait, what?"
Hasta's gaze darted back and forth between the blood spurting forcefully from the severed neck and the Gamelion's head rolling to a stop a short distance away.
Rei, however, paid no mind to Hasta's bewilderment. He frowned slightly at the spurting blood instead.
"Can't store it until it's bled out a bit."
He muttered it as though it were nothing of consequence.
"..."
Hasta simply stared at Rei in silence.
He had heard the rumors. Even so, he had figured that since Rei was, at the end of the day, a D-Rank adventurer like himself, even if Rei's combat prowess exceeded his own, the gap couldn't be all that large. Somewhere in his heart, he had believed that the assessments of Rei were partly inflated by his gryphon—a Rank A monster.
But the skill with which Rei had effortlessly dispatched the Gamelion that Hasta had been struggling against... Even if the creature had been focused on Hasta, essentially serving as a decoy, it was still a fact that Rei had taken its head in a single attack. Through fur that should have possessed strong defense against slashing, no less.
At this moment, Hasta truly felt—firsthand—the bottomless strength of the adventurer known as Rei.
"So, we managed to take down our target right after arriving at these plains. What do you want to do? Head back now? Or hunt a few more?"
Rei asked as if completely oblivious to Hasta's inner turmoil.
Hearing that question, Hasta quickly snapped back to himself.
"Ah, well. This is a seasonal monster that only appears here during this time of year, so the Guild has asked that each party limit their kills to no more than five. So let's head back to the City of Gilm after taking down one or two more. Honestly, I thought we'd be lucky to bag even one. I never expected to find a Gamelion right after getting here."
"I see. ...By the way, if they're said to live in the Forest of Magic, do reckless adventurers ever wander in there?"
"Ahahaha. You're quite the joker, Rei. Nobody's reckless enough to venture into the Forest of Magic on purpose. There are monsters in there that even someone of my level could manage, but they say B-Rank and A-Rank monsters are everywhere. And supposedly, there are even S-Rank monsters in there too."
"...I see."
Nodding at Hasta's words, Rei recalled the dragon he had faintly glimpsed when leaving the Forest of Magic. So that was what an S-Rank monster looked like. At the very least, it was a monster that would be too much for the current Rei and Set.
At the same time, the image of the Jarm—a flying squirrel-like creature—crossed his mind, reminding him of the encounter when leaving the forest.
(Come to think of it, the Gamelions are said to come out of the Forest of Magic. What happened to the Jarms?)
When he and Set had come out, they'd been swarmed by over a hundred of the things... He thought back on the Jarm's behavioral patterns.
(Right. They're nocturnal, so as long as we come through during the daytime, it's not a problem.)
While Rei was lost in thought, Hasta was processing, absorbing, and digesting his surprise at Rei in his own way.
Then, significantly revising his internal impression of Rei, he spoke up.
"Still, you're really something, Rei. To think you could dispatch a Gamelion in a single strike... Honestly, even though people kept saying how strong you are, I kind of thought it might partly be thanks to Set... but that impression just got wiped clean away."
"Well, I understand myself that my build isn't exactly suited for an adventurer. As a result, I've been hassled by other adventurers on countless occasions."
"Ahahaha. True, you're small and look slender at first glance. With that robe on, you could pass for a short mage."
Rei couldn't help but smile at Hasta, who said this without any attempt to flatter him.
"Naturally, those people received their just deserts. ...So, to confirm—we're hunting about two more Gamelions before heading back, right?"
"Ah, yes. That would be great."
"Got it. Then it'd be fastest to have Set search from the sky again. Oh, and looks like this one's mostly bled out."
Most of the blood that had been circulating through the body had likely drained by now. The bleeding from the neck had stopped, and a suffocating, iron-rust smell hung in the air.
The only saving grace was that they were in a grove, where the wind would quickly disperse the stench.
Rei placed a hand on the Gamelion's carcass and stored it in the Misty Ring. Naturally, he didn't forget the head he himself had lopped off, nor the tail—the proof of subjugation that Hasta had severed.
"Alright, Set. Back to the sk—...Set?"
"Grrrrrr."
Rei had been about to ask Set to search the sky for more Gamelions, but Set was staring from the grove toward the plains, growling deep in its throat as if warning of something.
And in the next moment, Rei's own sharp hearing picked up on whatever had put Set on alert. Screams. Voices shouting to run, just run, growing steadily closer.
"...Rei?"
But those sounds were audible only to Rei—and to Set. Hasta, an ordinary human, had no idea what the two of them had noticed.
"Get ready. Sounds like adventurers are being pursued. ...What do you want to do? Help them? Or stick to our goal and keep searching for Gamelions?"
Coming to these plains, which were said to be under the influence of the Forest of Magic, meant that whatever happened was your own responsibility. That was the framing Rei used for his question, but the truth was, he had already half-expected how Hasta would answer.
"You might be right, but I can't just abandon adventurers from the same city. Besides, you and Set are here today. ...I know it's presumptuous of me to keep relying on you like this."
"I figured you'd say that. Besides, I don't know what kind of monster is after them, but for me it's a perfect opportunity to collect magic stones. Set's fine with it too, right?"
"Gruu!"
Set nodded as if to say, leave it to me.
Watching the two of them, Hasta bowed his head in gratitude.
"Thank you so much!"
"Don't worry about it. More importantly, let's go before the adventurers being chased get done in."
"Yes!"
"Grrr!"
The two of them and their companion burst out of the grove and back onto the plains.
The moment they returned to open ground, Hasta could see them too—adventurers sprinting in their direction.
It was precisely because the plains had almost no cover that their figures were visible. Four adventurers, fleeing toward the grove where Rei and the others were. And right behind them, a Gamelion in pursuit.
Up to this point, everything was unfolding exactly as Rei had predicted. The only difference was...
"A rare species."
Hasta muttered quietly.
Yes. The Gamelion chasing the adventurers was nearly three times the size of the one they had just slain.