"……It's gone, huh?"
"Yes."
Rei murmured as he watched the black mist—the Unbris—sink into the ground.
Vihera offered a word of agreement.
The Unbris had submerged without showing any sign of noticing Rei, Vihera, or Set.
(From what I just saw, I can't imagine the Unbris has any will of its own……Is it really not a monster?)
Rei thought back to the Unbris's appearance as it sank into the earth without so much as reacting to their presence.
If the Unbris possessed any kind of will, it wouldn't have been strange for it to show some reaction to them.
Yet it had displayed nothing resembling a reaction. It had simply sunk into the ground.
The act of submerging might have been a response to their presence, but watching the way it went down made it clear that wasn't the case. If it had sunk into the ground to flee after spotting them, it should have moved much faster.
Instead, the Unbris had descended with an utterly unhurried, natural ease.
Given that, thinking it had felt threatened by them was unreasonable no matter how one looked at it.
Since it was an existence where even the presence of self-awareness was uncertain, rather than assuming it had noticed them and fled, it was far more accurate to say it had been about to submerge anyway when they happened to arrive.
"I would've liked to take it down the moment we spotted it, but……"
"In that situation? Impossible. The Unbris is essentially immune to physical attacks. Only attacks powered by magical energy—including magic—have any effect. And since it was born from a magical anomaly, its magical defense is extraordinarily high."
Her unspoken message was clear: You couldn't have launched all those attacks in the brief window between finding the Unbris and it vanishing into the ground, could you?
Rei could only shrug in response.
(If I'd had Death Scythe already flowing with magical power, or if I'd activated Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor, I might have managed something……but whether I could've actually pulled that off is another question. If I'd been holding Death Scythe to begin with, it'd be a different story.)
Since it got in the way while walking through the forest, Death Scythe was stored in the Misty Ring.
Drawing it would have taken an instant. Channeling magical power through it, an instant. Closing the distance, an instant. Swinging it down, an instant.
But four instants in succession—that was four instants too many. Rei was certain he wouldn't have been able to finish off the Unbris at that timing.
"Right. If anything, wouldn't you have been more effective, Vihera? You can use Magic Impact Palm."
"Impossible. My Magic Impact Palm is ultimately a skill that transmits shock into the opponent's body. The Unbris doesn't have a physical body, so the power would be greatly reduced. If it were a similar kind of monster—something like a Ghost—I'd be confident I could manage. But if the Unbris has the level of magical defense Marina described, then no."
Rei sighed at Vihera's words, spoken with genuine regret.
He finally turned his gaze to Set, but among all the skills Set could use, the one with the highest level was Poison Claw.
Whether it would even work on the Unbris was unknown, and the chances of the entity burrowing underground before he could try were high.
"In the end, whether in the sky or on the ground, the prerequisite for doing anything about the Unbris is that it has to be somewhere we can actually attack it."
"Right. ……Well, losing it here hurts, but at the very least we confirmed the Unbris is a black mist—exactly as Marina described. It's not like we came away empty-handed."
Vihera spoke as if to comfort him, and she was undeniably right.
They had been told the Unbris existed, given the recent proliferation of packs led by Leader Species, but no one had actually confirmed its form. Now they had seen it with their own eyes.
That was, without question, a gain.
……Though the best outcome would have been defeating the Unbris during this first encounter.
Even so, they had fulfilled the minimum requirement. That much was certain.
After all, despite many high-rank adventurers scouring the area for the Unbris, no one had been able to confirm its appearance until now.
"Right. We'll report this to the Guild, but……I wish we knew where the Unbris is heading underground."
If it were moving through the sky or on the ground, tracking it would be easy for Set.
But once it moved underground—somewhere invisible from the outside—confirming where it went was impossible.
All they could do was guess.
And predicting where an Unbris with no sense of self would go was extremely difficult.
Vihera likely understood that as well. She furrowed her finely shaped brows ever so slightly and spoke.
"True. Not being able to follow it is a real loss. ……I'll ask just in case, but is it impossible even with Set's sense of smell?"
Using his extraordinarily sharp nose, Set had tracked the Goblin's scent all the way here.
Since the Unbris had been at the destination he arrived at, perhaps he could track the Unbris's scent as well.
At Vihera's words, Rei considered that if Sense of Smell Enhancement were at level five……but Set, meeting their gazes, looked down apologetically.
The Unbris, born from a magical anomaly, had a form that was essentially magical power turned to mist.
As a result, even Set, who possessed the ability to sense magical power, couldn't detect the Unbris's energy. And because it was a mist-like existence, it had no scent whatsoever.
If it were ordinary mist, it would carry various scents—the smell of water, the smell of wherever that water had been—and Set would likely be able to distinguish them.
But the Unbris, owing to its nature as a magical anomaly, was a truly odorless existence.
"I see. So even Set can't do it. ……Well, nothing to be done about it. There's no point staying here any longer. Let's head back to Gilm. If we report to the Guild, there might be some new information."
Rei's words drew no objection. Or rather, understanding that persisting here was pointless, Vihera simply nodded.
Set also seemed to have no complaints, purring in agreement.
"Alright, let's go."
With those words, Set—carrying Rei on his back and Vihera dangling from his front legs—took to the sky toward Gilm.
"Unbr——"
Lenora, upon hearing from Rei that the Unbris had been discovered, nearly shouted before she somehow managed to clap a hand over her mouth.
The Guild was packed with an unbelievable number of people, despite it being just past noon.
And the reason for the commotion—the existence of the Unbris—was already widely known.
Initially, there had been opposition from the Guild Staff Members about publicizing the Unbris, which was immune to physical attacks and possessed high magical defense. But humans fear the unknown.
It was judged that spreading word of a powerful enemy being the cause of the current crisis would cause less turmoil than leaving things unexplained, with Leader Species mysteriously multiplying for no discernible reason. (The Unbris had no will of its own, but that detail was beside the point.)
In fact, with the enemy's existence made clear, the adventurers' unease had diminished compared to before.
……Of course, the hefty reward prepared for anyone who reported the Unbris's location was also a factor.
Because of that, every high-rank adventurer eligible to accept the request was competing to find the Unbris.
However, the Unbris's existence was ultimately merely the Guild's conjecture—or more precisely, a prediction made by Guild Master Marina, who had learned of the incident at the Valley of a Hundred Demons.
In fact, since its existence had been made public, the Unbris's form had never been confirmed even once. Among the adventurers, there were some who thought the Unbris had nothing to do with the current situation.
But with Rei and Vihera confirming the Unbris's form this time, those who would doubt its existence going forward would likely vanish.
A high-rank adventurer whose name was widely known in Gilm, and an Alias Holder.
Given Rei's credentials, there should be hardly anyone who would call his sighting of the Unbris nonsense.
The reason it was "hardly anyone" rather than "no one" was partly because some still found it unpleasant that a high-rank monster like a gryphon had taken up residence in Gilm, and partly because Rei's personality made him prone to making enemies.
Even so, such individuals were a minority, so they likely had no effect on the overall picture.
"May I ask you to share the details?"
"Yeah, I don't mind, but……here?"
There were many adventurers around.
If they were to discuss the Unbris in a crowd like this, it would undoubtedly draw everyone's attention.
The Guild would want to conduct a proper interview and gather solid information before allowing talk of the Unbris to spread.
Lenora understood that as well. She nodded immediately.
"Could you wait in the second-floor meeting room? I'll bring someone from above."
"Now that you mention it, there was something like that."
"……Rei-san, did you forget about it?"
Lenora muttered with a sigh at the words that slipped from Rei's mouth.
For a while now, whenever there was business to discuss, he'd been summoned to the office used by Guild Master Marina rather than the second-floor meeting room.
As a result, the meeting room had largely faded from Rei's awareness.
"Anyway, please wait in the meeting room. We'll be there shortly."
Lenora left the counter to fetch the person she intended to bring to the meeting room.
Kenny, while tending to an adventurer, cast a glance toward Rei……but quickly returned to her work.
Without noticing Kenny's gaze, Rei headed for the meeting room with Vihera.
Vihera had naturally noticed Kenny's stare, but sensing it would be inappropriate to say anything here, she kept her mouth shut.
Among the adventurers in the Guild, a few sharp-eyed ones noticed Rei and Vihera heading upstairs.
Had there been some development in the current situation, or had something else happened? They wondered but saw the two off without pressing further.
They had things they were curious about, but they knew all too well what would happen if they got too deeply involved with Rei—especially if they caused him any displeasure.
Watched by such gazes, Rei and Vihera arrived at the second-floor meeting room without interruption.
Naturally, there was no one else inside; it was just the two of them.
As they took their seats, Rei was the first to speak.
"What do you think will happen?"
"What do you mean? About the Unbris, right?"
"Yeah. We confirmed its form for now. We did, but……the problem is we let it get away. To resolve this commotion, we have to do something about the Unbris. But finding it is extremely difficult."
"True."
Vihera had no objection.
Finding a mist-like Unbris was exceedingly difficult.
Since it couldn't be tracked by scent or magical power, their only options were to search in the direction from which demi-human monsters that had recently come into contact with it arrived—as they had done this time—or to encounter it purely by chance.
(Could the Unbris from three hundred years ago also submerge underground? Given it was the Valley of a Hundred Demons, it was probably rock rather than soil, though.)
Thinking about the Unbris they had witnessed, that seemed plausible.
But if someone had observed such a thing, there should have been records left behind.
(In that case, is it that even though it's the same Unbris, the one from three hundred years ago was somehow different?)
It had only been recorded in historical texts. This was the second case.
There simply wasn't enough information about the Unbris as an existence, and they were prone to jumping to conclusions.
"Thank you for waiting."
"Sorry, things have been a bit busy with this whole situation."
The ones who entered the meeting room were Lenora and one other.
A muscular, large man with a piece missing from one ear.
Rei naturally knew his name.
After all, he was a comrade from the raid on the Orc settlement.
"Bobbs?"
"Yeah. I've been assigned to hear the details on this one."
Bobbs—a Guild Staff Member and former B-Rank Adventurer—flashed a rugged, manly grin.