"See you later!"
"Come visit Gilm again!"
"Next time, let's talk about magic!"
"Set! I'm going to make you eat my cooking next time for sure!"
Hearing those farewell voices from the ground below and waving his hand, Rei flew through the sky together with Set.
He wore the Dragon Robe, but with the hood down, allowing the warm spring air to brush against his face.
Even so, once they reached an altitude of a hundred meters, the wind turned cold—but Rei let out a small smile, accepting that too as part of the spring air.
"Guruu?"
What's wrong? Set seemed to ask, turning its head back while flapping its wings.
Rei smiled as if to say it was nothing and stroked Set's head.
"A few days to Gilm. Unlike when we came here, the journey should be easy. Let's enjoy the weather along the way."
"Gururu!"
Set purred happily at Rei's words.
As expected, being together with Rei was what made Set happiest of all.
After stroking Set and gazing out at the grassland that would turn into a green carpet by summer, Rei directed his eyes toward the blue sky.
The weather was as blessed as could be for a day of departure—a cloudless spring sky that one might even call perfect.
...Though, given that spring had only just begun, it was far too early to actually call it May.
(By my perception from when I lived in Japan, this would easily pass as May weather.)
For Rei, who had lived deep in the mountains of Tohoku, March and early April were still times when snow could fall and the highest temperature wouldn't even reach ten degrees—a season caught between winter and spring.
That was why experiencing such warmth during this period brought a small sense of surprise, something he had also felt the previous year.
"Quite a lot of people coming and going... but I suppose that's normal. Unlike a remote region like Gilm, this place has a good location."
Muttering this as he observed the many merchants, travelers, and adventurers walking along the highway, Rei suddenly produced a small container from the Misty Ring.
The container, about the size of an index finger, held a bright red liquid.
"Seriously... shouldn't do things they're not used to."
What crossed Rei's mind as he murmured this was the farewell party from the previous day.
Insula, who had suddenly appeared at the party, had handed it to Rei on behalf of the third- and fourth-year S-Class students.
The item was the container now held in Rei's hand, and its contents were a concentrated potion.
Concentrated potions naturally had a smaller volume, making them easier to carry.
The technique itself had been developed several decades ago, but the reason it never became widespread was the difficulty of handling it.
Even when diluted with plain water, the potion would still take effect, but its potency would drop drastically.
To produce proper results, one had to use water infused with the appropriate magical power through alchemy, tailored specifically for the concentrated potion.
The difference in effectiveness was staggering: using the same concentrated potion with properly treated water could heal even grievous wounds, whereas using ordinary water might only manage to heal a light cut on a fingertip—if even that.
Given that it was such an unwieldy potion, it was only natural that the concentration technique never spread.
After all, if you had to carry a concentrated potion and magically treated water separately, you were better off just carrying a regular potion.
The reason they chose such an impractical concentrated potion—made with a nearly extinct technology—as a gift for Rei was likely because they had heard somewhere that he collected magic items as a hobby.
Hearing this, the students had each chipped in money to find a rare magic item, settling on the concentrated potion as a present for Rei.
"It's true that I collect magic items, but what I collect are ones that can be used in actual combat."
Even as he said this, Rei carefully stored the concentrated potion back into the Misty Ring.
Despite his words, anyone somewhat accustomed to dealing with Rei would be able to tell he was embarrassed.
"...Well, I'll accept it for now. You can never have too many potions, and you never know when they might come in handy."
"Gurururu"
Set let out a somewhat teasing cry toward the murmuring Rei.
Rei lightly stroked the back of Set's neck.
"Hey, teasing me is ten years too early for you. ...Well, for us, ten years would pass in a flash, though."
"Guruu!"
With such exchanges, Rei and Set continued flying toward Gilm.
A few of the people walking along the highway looked up at the sky, but since they were flying at an altitude of about a hundred meters, they couldn't even tell whether it was a bird or a monster.
Of course, if one of those travelers were a seasoned adventurer, they would have been able to tell it wasn't a bird.
Naturally, even if they recognized it as a monster rather than a bird, an ordinary adventurer would have had no way of dealing with it. ...That is, if they were an ordinary adventurer.
"Whoa!"
Suddenly sensing a wind-cutting sound flying toward him, Rei reflexively drew the Death Scythe to intercept it.
However, the wind-cutting sound was by no means fast; rather, it seemed intentionally designed to produce an audible noise, making its speed slow enough to perceive at a glance.
Before even swinging the Death Scythe, Rei realized that the source of the sound was an arrow with a blunted arrowhead, and further noticed a piece of paper tied to it. As the arrow arrived right beside him, he snatched it out of the air.
"What is this?"
"Guruu?"
Set, too, seemed interested in the arrow, tilting its head curiously with a throaty cry as it looked back.
Although Rei had asked "What is this?", the fact that it was an arrow already made it obvious whose doing it was.
"Sardat could have just come to see me directly instead of going through all this trouble."
"Gurururu"
Set purred as if agreeing with Rei's words.
Their first encounter had been far from friendly, but Sardat had never been hostile toward Rei or Set, so Set had quickly let its guard down.
Nowadays, Set didn't mind being petted by Sardat at all.
Compared to Rhodos, whom Set still disliked due to their past conflict, the difference was stark.
"...A letter. So this is an arrow letter? Maybe they have that sort of thing over here too... well, if you use a bow and arrow, you'd naturally think of it, I suppose."
Thinking this, he opened the letter.
Inside were brief farewell words, followed by a simple message requesting that he introduce some girls to Sardat the next time they met.
"Honestly, I have to question the fact that the request to introduce women is longer than the farewell itself."
With a sigh, he nevertheless stored the letter—rather than discarding it—into the Misty Ring alongside the Death Scythe.
(Introduce women... if you're an S-Rank Adventurer, I wouldn't think you'd have any trouble with women. Or have bad rumors about him spread that far? ...It's possible. I remember hearing rumors about Sardat at the Officer Academy a few times too.)
Feeling somewhat ambivalent about the difference in how Noise was treated compared to Sardat, Rei enjoyed the spring air as he flew with Set.
Occasionally, he caught sight of adventurers battling monsters on the ground below, but he passed by without particularly intervening.
He might have stepped in if an adventurer were in a pinch, but that didn't appear to be the case.
Especially during this time of year, with spring having just begun, there were certainly no small number of adventurers whose winter reserves had already run dry.
If he were to steal the prey of such adventurers, he would only end up being resented.
If that was the case, then as far as Rei was concerned, unless an adventurer's life was in danger...
"Ah."
There was no need to help.
That was what Rei had been thinking, but at that very moment, he spotted an adventurer about to be attacked by an orc in a forest on the ground below.
The longsword in the adventurer's hand had been knocked away and was embedded in a nearby tree trunk, and the adventurer was desperately trying to put distance between herself and the orc.
The most unfortunate part was that the adventurer was solo... and a female adventurer at that.
A female adventurer struck down by an orc—what that entailed was already well known to Rei.
But being an adventurer was a matter of personal responsibility, and the consequences that followed were one's own to bear.
As long as one was an adventurer, that was an undeniable fact, and Rei had no particular obligation to go out of his way to save a female adventurer.
If he pretended to know nothing and flew past overhead, passing over both the orc and the female adventurer, no one would complain.
And that was precisely why...
"Set."
"Guruu!"
Whether Set understood what Rei wanted from just that brief call of its name, it let out a short cry and dove straight toward the ground.
(That's right—no one would complain even if I just flew past overhead. But if I were to ignore what I saw, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself.)
Even as Set dove toward the ground, the orc continued approaching the female adventurer, reaching out its hand to strip off the leather armor she wore...
"Hah!"
A spear retrieved from the Misty Ring flew from Rei's hand.
Normally, Rei would use his arm strength and the twist of his body to throw a spear, but right now he was on Set's back.
In that case, while arm strength was one thing, the force transmitted through the twist of his body would have almost no effect.
...However, riding on Set's back and diving toward the ground meant that he could transfer that diving speed into the spear.
Naturally, doing so required perfect synchronization between the two, but where Rei and Set were concerned, there was no need for such concern whatsoever.
Rei's arm strength and Set's diving speed. The spear released by those two forces flew straight toward the ground...
"Buhii, buhihihi... bu..."
The spear struck the head of the orc, which had been focused on tormenting its weaker prey, and pulverized it as it pierced through, then drove into the ground where the shaft snapped.
The spears Rei used for throwing were generally disposable to begin with, so many of them were already on the verge of being discarded.
Not all of them were such spears, but proportionally, the ones near the end of their lifespan were overwhelmingly more common.
Given that it was such a spear, unleashing a blow powerful enough to pulverize an orc's head naturally resulted in the shaft breaking.
"Kyaa! ...Eh? Huh? What just happened?"
From the female adventurer's perspective, she had been under attack by an orc, and then in the blink of an eye, the orc's head was gone and it lay dead—so a voice of confusion escaped her.
The female adventurer looked around, but all that surrounded her was the shattered remains of the orc's head—blood, flesh, bone, and brain matter scattered about—and she could not find whoever had saved her.
If the female adventurer had looked up at the sky at that moment, she might have been able to spot Set's figure, but Rei and Set had immediately righted their posture and left the area after throwing the spear at the orc.
He hadn't saved her seeking any reward, nor did he intend to look after her to the end.
He had helped her simply because letting someone die within his line of sight would leave a bad aftertaste, and that was exactly why he chose to leave without calling out to her.
"I-I was saved... right?"
The female adventurer surveyed her surroundings once more, and having somehow overcome the crisis to her life and chastity, she then looked around yet again.
"...The subjugation proof part—what do I do?"
The subjugation proof part for an orc was its right ear, worth three silver coins.
But what lay before the female adventurer was the corpse of an orc with its head destroyed.
There was no way she could find the right ear, and she didn't even want to try looking.
For a few seconds, she scanned the area as if confirming her surroundings, and upon realizing that whoever had saved her was truly gone, she let out a small sigh before walking toward the headless orc corpse.
"Even if the right ear is a lost cause, I can still get the magic stone and materials... I'd like to finish harvesting before any other monsters show up, but... ugh, really. Why didn't I bring anyone with me?"
Reflecting on her own recklessness, she set about harvesting materials from the orc.
...Naturally, while staying ready to flee at a moment's notice should another monster appear.
This female adventurer successfully harvested the orc's materials, took as much of its meat as she could carry, and returned safely to the City of Gracial, where she would later come to be known as "the Orc-Killing Woman."
"Alright, let's get moving again today."
"Gurururururuu!"
Set cried out as if in agreement with Rei's words.
Several days had passed since departing from the City of Gracial. On this day, as they were drawing closer to Gilm, Rei began traveling atop Set's back as usual.
However, that day's journey did not continue for very long.
The reason was that within less than an hour of departing, he spotted figures on the ground battling bandits.
That alone wouldn't have surprised Rei very much.
...However, the fact that the woman was wearing thin garments like those worn by dancers or prostitutes, with hand guards on her arms and shin guards on her legs, made it an entirely different matter.
And beside that woman, there was the figure of a single small girl.