Falling from Set's back toward the ground, Rei pulled the Death Scythe and Twilight Spear from his Misty Ring mid-air.
Using them properly as Twin Spear Style was still difficult... nearly impossible, in fact. But given the situation, wielding both weapons was the better choice.
Within the grove, surrounded by trees, the Death Scythe had the disadvantage of being unwieldy.
In such terrain, the Twilight Spear — capable of delivering thrusts — was far more practical.
The Death Scythe could also thrust using its pommel, of course, but the massive blade inevitably got in the way.
By that logic, using the Twilight Spear for standard attacks and the Death Scythe for skills was the best available option.
Then, as always, he activated his Sleipnir boots partway through the descent to slow himself, kicking the air several times before landing on the ground.
The goblins hadn't initially noticed Rei's sudden appearance from above.
...That was how absorbed they were in their current activity — hurling stones and pieces of wood at a man hanging from a tree by vines.
Stripped of armor and clothing alike, the man hung there naked.
He could only be identified as male because he was naked; his face was beyond recognition.
It was so swollen and bleeding that it was impossible to tell what he had originally looked like.
"Gyagyo?"
The first to notice Rei's presence was a goblin toying with a stone in its hands a short distance away.
Given its larger build compared to the others, it was almost certainly the Goblin Leader commanding this horde.
Making that judgment in an instant, Rei swung the Death Scythe in his right hand in a wide arc.
"Flying Slash!"
With those words, a blade of air shot from the Death Scythe's edge.
The slash flew straight and true, severing the Goblin Leader's neck the instant it tried to react.
The head sailed through the air like a thrown ball before striking the ground with a dull thud that echoed through the clearing.
By the time a few goblins finally registered Rei's appearance, he had already moved.
"Haaaaah!"
The Death Scythe, swung with barely contained irritation, cleaved through several goblins at once, bisecting their torsos.
Without breaking the momentum of that swing, he thrust the Twilight Spear in his left hand forward.
During Twin Spear Style practice, he had never been able to wield both weapons with such fluid control.
He still couldn't, truthfully — but he could manage basic movements, and the tip of the Twilight Spear crushed a goblin's skull.
"Gyagya!"
That was when the surrounding goblins finally noticed Rei.
Several let out shrill cries and charged straight at him.
They didn't bother assessing their opponent's strength. They simply attacked.
Typical goblin behavior, certainly — but even so, it was nothing short of reckless.
If the Goblin Leader had still been alive, they might have responded differently.
Unfortunately for the goblins, the Goblin Leader was already dead, slain by Rei's Flying Slash.
And without a leader, goblins inevitably devolved into a disorganized mob, each acting on its own impulses.
As a result, the goblins had already lost all interest in the man hanging from the tree. Their sole focus now was how to bring down the figure standing before them.
...The fact that they still hadn't fled, even after several of their number — including the Goblin Leader — lay dead, was slightly surprising even to Rei.
(Well, having them focus on me works in our favor.)
Swinging the Death Scythe in his right hand to keep the goblins at bay, he glanced upward for just a moment.
Dense foliage blocked most of the sky from view, but even so, Rei sensed instinctively that Set was descending toward the ground.
(If he's going to pull off the rescue of the man hanging over there safely, I need to keep these things focused on me. At the same time, I can't let them scatter — but I can't kill too many at once either, or the rest will bolt.)
Death Scythe in his right hand, Twilight Spear in his left.
Finding himself in an unexpected Twin Spear Style combat debut, Rei allowed himself a faint smile.
Ideally, he would have liked to showcase Twin Spear Style in a more proper setting, against a worthy opponent.
Even so, since this was a debut rather than a formal exhibition, treating it as live combat practice wasn't a bad arrangement at all.
What might have happened if the intelligent Goblin Leader had still been alive was uncertain — but it was already dead, so the point was moot.
"Hey, what's wrong? Come at me. Come on, come on!"
He swung the Twilight Spear, then the Death Scythe, layering provocation on top of provocation.
"Gyagyagyo!"
Whether riled by Rei's taunting or not, one goblin charged at him wielding what appeared to be a club fashioned from a broken branch.
And it wasn't alone. The other goblins nearby surged forward at the same time.
"Glad you came!"
The sweeping Death Scythe severed torsos, limbs, and necks in a single stroke, while the Twilight Spear impaled several goblins at once.
"You too!"
With the Twilight Spear still buried in a goblin's torso, Rei wrenched his left arm sideways.
The impaled goblin went flying from the sheer force, slamming into another goblin mid-charge.
Being struck by a comrade of equal size was not something the receiving goblin could withstand. Crushed beneath the body, it crumpled to the ground.
Rei didn't let the opening pass. Continuing the motion from his previous slash, he brought the Death Scythe around.
"Flying Slash!"
The released slash cut clean through the goblins sprawled on the ground.
"Gigi?"
Only now did they seem to grasp Rei's strength. Several goblins glanced around, searching for an escape route—
"Gurururururu!"
—in that instant, a goblin scanning for a way out had its head crushed before it could blink, killed by a diving strike from above accompanied by a war cry.
"Uwawawawah! Damn it!"
He must have been thrown clear before Set delivered its strike. Hester, who had snagged on a tree branch, screamed but somehow managed to land on the ground.
The moment his feet touched down, Hester frantically scanned the area—
"!? Pump, is that you?"
—and spotted the figure of a man hanging from a tree branch.
The face was unrecognizable beneath the blood and swelling, and the body was covered in marks from beatings, stabbings, and burns.
Yet Hester was able to identify him as Pump — because he recognized the tattoo on his arm.
In the village where they'd grown up, receiving a tattoo on the arm was a rite of passage into adulthood.
Most of the tattoo had been obscured by burns, but he could still barely make out traces of it.
"!? Damn it, I'll get you down right now!"
Hester shot a hatred-filled glare at the goblins, but rather than succumb to his emotions, he kept his focus on what needed to be done.
He sliced through the vines binding Pump to the branch with a knife and caught him before he could hit the ground.
"Ugh... ah?"
Hester had wondered whether Pump could even speak anymore. Looking at his face, Hester's own twisted further with rage.
...Naturally. Pump's tongue had been cut out, and burn marks showed where the wound had been cauterized in place of proper treatment.
Without a tongue, speech was impossible.
Not that it mattered — Pump's consciousness was too hazy for words regardless.
"I'll kill them."
The words slipped from Hester's mouth, quiet yet saturated with killing intent.
It was only natural. His party member had been subjected to this.
Even so, he couldn't abandon Pump and give in to bloodlust right now.
All Hester could do was stand guard, watching the goblins being torn apart by Rei and Set with killing intent seeping from his eyes.
Oblivious to Hester's burning hatred, Rei carved through goblin after goblin, treating the whole thing as a convenient Twin Spear Style drill.
Combat was a full-body effort with one's life on the line. Sustaining a fight over a long period was inherently difficult.
Once stamina or mental fortitude began to run low, the consequences were naturally fatal.
That was why, even against mere goblins, facing a hundred of them would drain an adventurer's stamina and lead to defeat.
But... that only applied to ordinary people.
Rei was anything but ordinary. A B-Rank Adventurer who nonetheless held a title, whose very body had been crafted by Zephyle and his clan — a body once called that of a Majin. And on top of all that, he had a partner like Gryphon Seto. There was no way he could be ordinary.
The Death Scythe scythed through clusters of goblins with each swing, and he hurled the Twilight Spear at any that tried to flee.
Pierced from behind or skull shattered, the goblins fell where they stood — and in the next instant, the Twilight Spear was back in his hand.
Right now, Rei was everything the word Grim Reaper implied to these goblins.
...Though, to be precise, that was only the end result.
This being his first real combat use of Twin Spear Style, mistakes were frequent.
He misjudged the one-handed range of the Death Scythe, striking a goblin with the handle instead of cleaving its torso with the blade. On another occasion, when he meant to pierce a goblin's head with the Twilight Spear, its handle collided with the Death Scythe's, and the Crimson blade ended up slashing the goblin's throat instead.
Even so, goblin corpses continued to pile up with mechanical precision — a testament to just how abnormally powerful Rei was.
By this point, the goblins were faltering in terror, attempting to flee — but at goblin speed, there was no escaping Set.
Had these been slightly more intelligent monsters, they might have chosen to scatter in all directions, knowing they couldn't outrun pursuit individually. Unfortunately, goblins weren't that clever.
And the Goblin Leader that had been directing them had been the very first to die by Rei's hand.
Some fled individually upon sensing danger, and by chance a small number ended up clustered together — but even they were swiftly cut down by Set's and Rei's ranged attacks.
Before long, it was over. Against the hundred goblins that Hester's four-person party had been powerless to stop, Rei and Set alone had achieved near-total annihilation.
"Near" because, when several fled simultaneously, the grove's trees happened to shield them, allowing a handful to slip away.
"Well, with the Goblin Leader gone, a handful of goblins can't accomplish much."
"I know that, but... I can't accept it."
Hester, who had been standing guard over Pump, shot back with visible dissatisfaction.
From where Hester stood, he didn't want a single goblin left breathing after what they'd done to his party member.
But he knew full well he lacked the strength to hunt them down, so he left it at words.
"...Thanks to you, Rei-san, I was able to save Pump. I'm grateful. Thank you."
He said his piece and fell silent.
"Yeah, if you can accept it, that's fine. More importantly... we need to do something about Pump first."
Whether from relief or simply hitting his physical limit, Pump had lost consciousness and fainted at some point. As Rei spoke, eyeing the unconscious man, Hester turned his gaze toward Set.
The unspoken question was obvious: could Set carry Pump the same way it carried Rei?
But Set looked to Rei instead, as if asking, "What should we do?"
Rei hesitated.
Hester wouldn't be a problem. But if Pump regained consciousness mid-flight and started thrashing, it would be genuinely dangerous.
At the same time, he couldn't just leave him here.
In his current state, Pump could die at any moment.
"Please."
Hester bowed his head to the still-hesitating Rei. In the end, they decided on temporary recovery — Hester used his own potion to stabilize Pump to some extent, then bound him with rope from the Misty Ring to prevent him from lashing out if he woke during the flight. They left the ordinary goblin Magic Stones behind as too much trouble to collect, retrieved the Goblin Leader's corpse, and took to the sky.