"Tch, even if they were drawn in by the whistle, there are way too many of them!"
A Dark Elf Guard shouted as he loosed an arrow.
The arrow flew straight from the bow and pierced the torso of a Goblin that had burst from the bushes.
It wasn't an instant kill like a shot to the head would have been, but it was still enough to severely slow the creature down.
It had been about ten minutes since Rei and the Dark Elf Guards had joined up and begun moving toward the settlement.
But while Rei was holding up fine, for the two Dark Elf Guards, those mere ten minutes felt like an hour — or two.
The cause was the Goblins. They kept appearing one after another, as if springing endlessly from the earth.
The whistle Rei had first used — and continued to blow periodically as they moved, to let others know their position.
As if lured by its sound, Goblins emerged in relentless succession.
Not even ten minutes had passed, yet the number of Goblins they had felled already exceeded thirty.
The endlessly respawning Goblins were undoubtedly taking a mental toll.
But there was an even bigger problem...
"Damn it, I'm running low on arrows! How about you?!"
"Same here — not many left!"
As the two Dark Elf Guards shouted in frustration, the dwindling arrow count was their greatest concern.
With the bow as their primary weapon, they naturally had to be mindful of their ammunition.
But against Goblins that kept appearing without end, there was simply no room to worry about conservation.
"Once you're out of arrows, fall back to guard the children. I'll handle the rest."
"Even without arrows, we still have Spirit Magic!"
To the Dark Elf Guard who insisted they couldn't just sit idle, Rei thought for a moment before shouting back.
"Just don't burn through all your magic power!"
Even as he shouted, Rei launched an arrowhead formed from the Eye of Nebula at a Goblin that had just appeared.
If the Dark Elf Guards knew what kind of Magic Item the Eye of Nebula originally was, they would have been deeply envious.
That was how directly tied to survival arrow count was for any bow user.
But carrying more arrows meant added weight, which in turn slowed their own movement.
Dark Elves had Spirit Magic as an alternative to bows, but since magic power was finite, there were limits to how many spells they could cast and which types they could use.
Furthermore, some Dark Elves lacked the aptitude for Spirit Magic entirely.
Not everyone possessed the vast, seemingly inexhaustible reserves of magic power that Rei did.
(If a few more people show up, I can hand off Lugdus and let Set move freely.)
The unconscious Lugdus could not, of course, be handled roughly.
Having lost consciousness from a blow to the head, his safety was an absolute priority.
Combined with the need to protect the children, keeping him on Set's back remained the best option.
But... if more Dark Elf Guards kept joining them, they could hand off both the children and Lugdus to others.
That would free Set to move as it pleased, and the party's combat power would soar. However...
"Grrruuuuu!"
Wind Arrows erupted alongside Set's roar, striking one Goblin after another as they appeared.
Even now, in a state devoted purely to ranged support, there was no question that Set was already a significant combat asset.
Even so, Set's — a Gryphon's — true strength lay in close combat, backed by its superior physical abilities.
In particular, the current Set possessed a skill called Power Crush, powerful enough to shatter even large boulders in a single blow. ...Of course, against mere Goblins, a skill of that magnitude would be nothing but overkill.
Rei's party pressed forward through the night forest, cutting down Goblins as they went, until the bushes ahead in their path rustled once more.
"Enemies! I'm out of arrows — switching to Spirit Magic!"
"Same here!"
The two Dark Elf Guards shouted and each invoked earth and water Spirit Magic.
An Orc that lunged from the bushes had the instep of its foot skewered by a spear of earth erupting from the ground, sending it tumbling.
The Orc beside it had its face suddenly engulfed in water. Panicking, it swung its longsword wildly and ended up slashing a different Orc than the one that had fallen.
With the two lead Orcs incapacitated, those behind them naturally couldn't advance.
Worse still, some had tripped and fallen, and there were even Orcs shrieking as they were trampled by their own companions.
"Flying Slash!"
The flying slash fired into the clustered Orcs bisected several of them clean through the torso and inflicted varying degrees of slashing wounds on several more behind.
"Let's go — straight through!"
Shouting just that, Rei broke into a sprint, leaving the panicking Orcs behind.
"Gruu."
As they passed, Rei heard Set let out a low growl, as if lamenting the waste of Orc meat. He nodded inwardly in agreement.
(I wanted to collect the meat if possible, but there's no time for that now. ...Well, we did manage to grab a few, so I'll settle for that.)
As tempting as the delicious Orc meat was, they had no leisure to calmly store away corpses in their current situation.
Doing so would inevitably draw more monsters — that much was certain.
If it were just Rei and Set, it might have been feasible. But right now, they had children to protect.
With such an unavoidable vulnerability, giving up the Orc meat was simply the cost of survival.
As they ran, leaving the Orc pack behind, Set suddenly turned its gaze toward the branches of the trees on their right.
A few seconds later, Rei sensed presences approaching.
(Again? And from the branches? If it's some troublesome monster... hm?)
Rei had been considering launching a preemptive Flying Slash, but he realized the approaching presences weren't monsters and let out a breath of relief.
Seeing Rei's reaction, a Dark Elf Guard running nearby looked at him quizzically.
"What is it?"
"Reinforcements. Ours."
The moment Rei murmured those words, a Dark Elf dropped from a tree branch on the right, landed, and fell in alongside them at a run.
"Sorry to keep you waiting?"
It was the same Dark Elf Guard Rei had spoken with before setting out on the search.
Seeing him fall in so casually, a smile crept onto Rei's lips.
"Yeah. Thanks to you, we've had to fight more Goblins, Orcs, and Cobolts than I care to count."
"Same on our end. I know it's a night forest and all, but why are there so many Goblins today of all days?"
The arrow count in the quiver of the man muttering with a sigh had already dropped below half.
He had clearly done his share of close combat, not just ranged fighting — the leather armor he wore was stained with monster blood all over.
"According to Marina, monsters that entered the Barrier of Lost Ways while the World Tree was weakened got trapped inside when the World Tree recovered. That's probably why."
"...Even so, this level of increase is abnormal."
"Can't argue with that... hah!"
Even as he conversed with the Dark Elf Guard, Rei sent an arrowhead formed from the Eye of Nebula flying into the bushes ahead.
"Kyan!"
A dog-like shriek rang out.
"Cobolts, huh."
As if in answer to Rei's murmur, Cobolts burst from the undergrowth.
They had likely been lying in wait to spring an ambush, but concealing their presence from Rei was beyond their ability.
No — even if they had managed to fool Rei, they never would have slipped past Set, running right behind him.
"Aoooooooon!"
Judging that their ambush had already been discovered, the Cobolts raised a howling battle cry in unison and charged.
The Dark Elf Guards intercepted them one after another, loosing arrows and casting Spirit Magic.
Set too picked them off with ranged attacks — Wind Arrow, Ice Arrow, and Water Ball.
Meanwhile, Rei naturally employed Flying Slash, cutting down Cobolts one after another.
(The current situation is definitely close to the worst case, but being able to unleash Flying Slash to my heart's content is the one silver lining.)
Flying Slash, having risen to level five, had gained a dramatic boost in power.
When it came to mastering the technique, having an endless supply of targets was by no means a bad thing.
(I've gotten a solid feel for power scaling through the fighting so far. I've got a handle on the range of the stronger variant, and how effective it is against different types of opponents.)
Rei loosed a Flying Slash at a Cobolt that had climbed a tree to attack from above, bisecting its body along with the branch it perched on.
The Cobolts below, suddenly doused in their companion's entrails from above, froze in bewildered confusion — and right into that opening, Rei's group charged.
"Haaaaaah!"
One of the Dark Elf Guards unleashed a flurry of rapid consecutive thrusts with his rapier.
In the span of a single breath, two, then three thrusts lanced out — piercing the torso of a spear-wielding Cobolt, and when its head dropped from the impact, driving clean through its skull.
That technique was undoubtedly worthy of a seasoned fighter, and in Rei's eyes, the man was clearly quite skilled.
(So there are Dark Elves who specialize in close combat, not just magic and bows.)
The image of an Elf he had fought at the Fighting Tournament in the Bestia Empire last year briefly flickered through Rei's mind.
An opponent who, befitting an A-Rank adventurer, wielded both powerful Spirit Magic and formidable close combat ability.
(He's not quite at that level, though. ...C-Rank, maybe? But they live longer than humans, so they have more time to train. I suppose that's only natural.)
Rei, in turn, swung Death Scythe at an incoming Cobolt.
"Kyan!"
It was a strike with no technique whatsoever — pure, brute power.
But that single blow shattered the longsword in the Cobolt's grip and, with momentum unabated, slammed into its face.
A Cobolt-level monster simply could not withstand a blow from Death Scythe, which weighed roughly one hundred kilograms.
The Cobolt went flying with a shriek, its skull already crushed, its life extinguished in that instant.
On the return stroke, Rei tested Pain Burst. The Cobolt it struck let out a scream unlike anything Rei had ever heard, then lost consciousness entirely.
"Isn't it about time we reached the settlement already?"
"Yeah, it's definitely close. Honestly, I never expected this many monsters to come out just because it's a night forest."
The Dark Elf Guard who had settled in beside Rei drew his bow and responded to Rei's muttered complaint.
"Apparently so. I was starting to think this was just normal for the forest."
"No matter how you look at it, this is too many. If it were like this all the time, living in this forest would be impossible."
"So it's related to the abnormality in the forest after all?"
"Most likely."
They kept exchanging words, but their hands never stopped — Cobolts fell one after another.
The battle continued for several more minutes, until every Cobolt that had attacked lay dead on the ground.
Throughout the fight, Dark Elf Guards from the surrounding area had been joining up one after another, and Rei's party grew steadily stronger as time passed.
The Cobolts, never particularly formidable to begin with, had only held out by sheer weight of numbers — but even that collapsed once a certain threshold was crossed, and they were wiped out in short order. An inevitable conclusion, in a sense.
"...Our numbers have grown."
"Yeah. With this, we shouldn't need to fear monster attacks anymore."
"That too, but... if you wouldn't mind, could you take the four on Set's back off our hands? That way, Set would be free to fight."
"No, but... that gryphon is already more than pulling its weight with ranged support, even while carrying four children. Is there really any need to go through the trouble of handing them off right now?"
From the Dark Elf Guard's perspective, Set was already performing its role admirably — raining down ranged fire while carrying four children on its back.
And if they took custody of the children, whoever received them would naturally be taken out of the fight.
They could still attack with Spirit Magic, but after fighting their way through the forest through countless battles, not many had ample magic power remaining.
Given all that, it was only natural to consider the current arrangement the best option.
Rei was about to press the point, but another Dark Elf spoke up first.
"We're almost at the settlement!"
Hearing that, Rei naturally concluded that trying to hand off the children now would only be a hindrance. They decided to continue toward the settlement as they were.
And then... the forest ended, and the Protective Barrier came into view.