Rei watched the green carpet stretching out beneath him slip by in the blink of an eye before turning his gaze skyward.
Until a short while ago, the spring-like sun had been shining, but now clouds had rolled in and obscured it.
The one fortunate thing was that they didn't look like rain clouds.
(Searching for an alchemist would be a real hassle if it started raining now.)
Rei kept his eyes on the sky, praying it would hold off, when he noticed Set shift its head.
"What is it?"
"Gururu..."
Set turned its gaze toward the forest, but the dense canopy blocked Rei from seeing whatever had caught its attention.
Even so, if Set was looking, there had to be something. Rei gave its neck a light tap.
"Take us down."
"Guruu."
Set nodded immediately at the command, flapped its wings, and angled toward the ground.
As they descended, Rei finally understood what had drawn Set's attention—the unmistakable stench of blood rising from below.
And not the kind that would come from just one or two creatures. The smell of rot was mixed in as well, more than enough to tell him exactly what kind of scene awaited them on the ground.
He could grasp that much. What he couldn't grasp was why.
"Did monsters fight each other? But that alone wouldn't account for such an overwhelming stench of rot and blood."
When monsters preyed upon other monsters, it was almost always for food. And if they were eating them, the corpses would end up in their stomachs—he couldn't imagine that producing such a thick, cloying reek of decay and blood.
Besides, if corpses had been left long enough to rot, the heavy scent of blood that lingered afterward would have dissipated naturally.
In other words, the ground below held a mix of corpses old enough to reek of decay and corpses fresh enough that the smell of blood still clung to them.
Rei's prediction was confirmed the instant Set touched down.
Countless monster corpses lay scattered haphazardly across the clearing.
"Countless" was the only word that fit, because almost none of the bodies retained their original shape. Nearly every corpse had been reduced to chunks of flesh—minced meat would have been a more accurate description.
There were signs that other monsters had been feeding on the remains, but none were left within Rei's line of sight. They had likely caught wind of Set—a high-rank monster like a Gryphon—descending and fled.
Low-intelligence creatures like Goblins might have kept gorging themselves without even noticing Set's presence, but whatever had been here before Rei and Set landed must have been smarter than that.
"What the hell is this? Did a whole pack of monsters just tear into each other? And this stench the second we touch down..."
"Gyan!"
Rei muttered through pinched nostrils at the spectacle before him.
His senses were already sharper than most, so the wall of rotting stench hit him hard. But for Set, whose sense of smell far outstripped even Rei's, the effect was devastating.
When they had delved into the Undead-infested floors of a Dungeon before, Rei had at least been mentally prepared and managed to push through. This time, it was a complete ambush. He should have caught the stench while they were still airborne, but...
"For now, you can't stay here, Set. Go back up and wait. The smell was barely noticeable a short distance from here."
Set had pressed its face flat against the ground and was shielding it with both front legs. At Rei's words, it immediately spread its wings and climbed back into the sky.
After watching Set ascend, Rei took a proper look around.
Most of the corpses had been reduced to chunks of flesh, many already rotting, making an exact count impossible. Even so, there were clearly a great number of them—and not from a single species. There were several, perhaps even dozens of different kinds.
Horns, fangs, wing bones, tail bones—the scattered, decomposing remains plainly belonged to a wide variety of monsters.
What stopped Rei's gaze, though, was a magic circle near the center of the carnage.
The circle itself gave off a faint glow. At its heart sat what looked like a pedestal, and resting on top of it was a censer.
"A censer...? I see. So it wasn't erasing the smell—it was suppressing it."
This place was deep in the forest, where monsters and beasts were plentiful. If the stench of blood and rot had been left unchecked, it would inevitably draw a swarm of scavengers.
Whoever had created this scene had set up the censer to prevent exactly that.
"But then why were there still monsters here when Set arrived...?"
The answer came to him as soon as he thought back to their descent.
"So the censer's effect is just a mild deodorizer, not a barrier."
His eyes went back to the censer on its pedestal. Given that it was a censer, there was nothing strange about its function being smell-related.
"Still, the real question is why someone would slaughter this many monsters in the first place..."
Rei murmured as he scanned the area, and his eyes snagged on something—a half-rotted Cyclops head, and beside it, a Cobolt head that looked relatively fresh.
"Cyclops, Cobolt... hey, don't tell me..."
He had already suspected the alchemist was using this site based on the magic circle and censer. But seeing the heads of monsters he recognized—the same species he had encountered before—crystallized what had happened here.
"Right. No matter how powerful a Magic Item is, there's no way a monster could just pick it up and use it. Which means someone was testing whether monsters could master Magic Items here. The ones that succeeded were the two I ran into. The ones that failed... are these."
He couldn't get an exact count of the bodies on the ground. But from the sheer volume of half-rotted flesh and scattered bone fragments, it was clearly far more than a few dozen.
"And it's not just Cobolts and Cyclops, either. There are several other species mixed in. Whether those were successes or failures... I'll have to ask the alchemist directly."
He decided there was nothing left for him here and turned to leave—but then his feet stopped.
A few seconds passed. Something clicked. He took a step forward—not away, but toward the magic circle.
"As long as it was just sitting here, this censer might not be all that important to them. But fewer cards in their hand is better for me. Besides, without it, they won't be able to use this site for experiments anymore. Unless whoever's helping the alchemist is skilled enough to work around it..."
Even so, if he could throw a wrench in their plans, there was no reason not to. He stepped into the magic circle—
"Ow!"
A jolt, like a static shock, shot through him. But the pain faded as quickly as it came.
"...What was that? Pretty weak for a defense mechanism."
Puzzled, Rei reached out and touched the censer on the pedestal. The next instant, it vanished into his Misty Ring.
At the same time, he noticed something had changed about the surrounding air—he couldn't say exactly what, but it was definitely different from before.
"Must be the censer's effect. Well, if it's even a minor inconvenience for them, good enough. I'll need to report this to Lord Daskar, though. ...Last thing I need is these things rising as Undead."
The stench of rot was already beginning to thin, but whether his nose had gone numb or he simply didn't notice, Rei showed no sign of it as he set about burning the corpses with Flame Magic.
The area was well-screened by branches overhead but open enough that there was no risk of the fire spreading to the forest.
He couldn't burn them all, but after incinerating roughly eighty percent of the remains, he left the site.
He could have called Set right there, but knowing the griffon would loathe it, he walked a short distance away first.
"Set!"
At the call, Set descended with a low purr, gliding down to Rei's side.
In the darkness, a man who had been mid-experiment suddenly went still.
Watching from a short distance away, a figure reached for the sheath at her hip and spoke.
"What's wrong?"
The voice was androgynous. To a casual observer, the speaker would look like nothing more than a slim young man.
But while her frame was clad in leather armor, a closer look revealed distinctly curved lines. From a distance, one might mistake her for male. Up close, it was a coin toss—though those with sharp eyes would peg her as a woman.
"Just now... someone moved the censer from the magic circle."
"Huh. So that means someone found the place. Who do you think? A passing adventurer?"
The man shook his head at her teasing tone, still mixing a blue liquid into some kind of powder.
"Probably not. That spot is deep in the forest—quite far in. There's no reason for anyone to wander through there deliberately..."
He was about to say there's no one, but the woman cut him off with a small smirk.
"True, if this were some ordinary town. But unfortunately for you, this is Gilm. The only frontier in the Kingdom of Mireana, which means there's no shortage of skilled adventurers. Any number of people could push through a forest like that without breaking a sweat. The Forest of Magic would be another story."
"The Forest of Magic, huh. Honestly, I am curious about it. But you stopped me, didn't you, Adria-san?"
At the man's sulky mutter, the woman called Adria let out a sigh.
"Obviously. That place is a death trap. With my level of skill, I wouldn't last a single day in there. It's probably like the Mountain of Magic back in the Bestia Empire, right?"
"Is it really that bad?"
The man stopped what he was doing and stared at her as if she had said something unexpected. Adria sighed again, this time in exasperation.
"Come on. The Forest of Magic is famous. Even I knew about it when I was living in the Bestia Empire."
"That's because you're an adventurer, isn't it, Adria-san?"
"You might be a skilled alchemist, but being completely clueless about the world is a real problem, you know."
Her words were mocking, but the amusement in her expression was genuine. And why wouldn't it be? If the man in front of her actually understood how the world worked, he never would have attempted something like this.
It was precisely because he was so hopelessly naive that she was having such a good time.
"Well, gathering the monsters was a pain, but getting to see that was worth it. When a monster can't handle the Magic Item's erosion, it just bursts from the inside. Still, why did you build the items to eat away at the wielder in the first place? You need pretty rare materials as a catalyst for that, right?"
"Yes. Honestly, the materials I brought with me when I fled Bestia are running low. But without that function, it's simply impossible for ordinary monsters to use Magic Items. They have to be taught—literally forced to learn, body and all."
"Hmm. Well, as long as I get to see interesting things, I'm happy. Anyway, back on topic—any idea who tampered with the censer?"
At Adria's probing question, the man shook his head.
"I don't know that much. That censer was a Magic Item I improvised on the spot. Honestly, I never expected so many other monsters to flock there."
"No, if there's a pile of monster corpses, it's only natural that scavengers come running. More importantly, the fact that someone dealt with the censer means they probably figured out that mountain of corpses didn't happen on its own."
"Perhaps. Though it doesn't really change anything. It's certainly true that conducting experiments there will be harder now, but if all I need is a place to work, there are other locations."
"I know I'm the one tagging along, but you've really gone off the deep end."
"Have I? But as I was before, I could never defeat Crimson... I could never avenge His Highness Cabajid. As long as that remains true, I will commit any atrocity, no matter how heinous. The one who killed my benefactor... will pay. That I swear."
Pouring magic into the Wind-Thunder Ore powder, the man—Zboz, former alchemist of the Bestia Empire—muttered with venom aimed squarely at Rei.