That day, the reward handed to the loggers when they returned from work was an almost unbelievable amount.
Three Gold Coins.
Under normal circumstances, it would be utterly unthinkable for a logger to earn that much in a single day.
Of course, even among loggers, there were exceptional individuals—those capable of felling special trees like Water Trees or Wind Trees. For someone like that, a reward of this level wouldn't just be ordinary; it might even be considered somewhat cheap.
But the loggers working in the Treant Forest were all nothing more than ordinary loggers.
Given that fact, receiving this much in reward was completely unexpected.
Naturally, there were several reasons for this.
For starters, a logger's work was paid on a piece-rate basis.
Then there was the fact that the most grueling part of a logger's job—transporting the felled trees—had been handled by Rei, an Item Box User, meaning there was virtually no time lag.
Additionally, because the work took place in the Treant Forest, hazard pay played a major role.
After all, it was a forest where, to the Guild's knowledge alone, two adventurer parties had been annihilated. Thresha had barely survived, but still.
Those who had been working as loggers for a fair amount of time understood this.
Precisely because they understood, they refrained from doing anything unnecessary and focused solely on completing the work they were told to do.
But for the young loggers who had received a reward beyond anything they had imagined, the Treant Forest might as well have been a forest where treasure slept.
They had, of course, been told beforehand that it was a dangerous place.
Yet it was a fact that they had faced no danger whatsoever while working.
Moreover, even the adventurers who were supposed to be their escorts had cut trees alongside them and earned the same reward.
Because they took pride in their craft as loggers, they harbored a certain dissatisfaction toward those adventurers.
Among those young loggers, one of them suddenly had a realization.
"Shouldn't we cash in as much as we can while the opportunity's there? The trees the adventurers cut were ones we should've felled ourselves for the reward."
Since they were felling trees in the Treant Forest, they had been informed of its peculiar nature—that the forest expanded on a near-daily basis.
If one thought about it calmly, forests expand naturally, so there was no real need to worry about running out of trees to fell. But this logger held resentment and jealousy toward the adventurers.
The logger in question was a man by the name of Fekts, born and raised in Gilm.
Having grown up in Gilm, a place that could be called the heartland of adventurers, he had naturally longed to become one himself.
But when Fekts was around his mid-teens, right about the time he was set on becoming an adventurer, his father, who had worked as a logger, died of illness.
That left his mother, younger sister, and younger brother struggling to get by.
Adventurers—particularly Low-Rank Adventurers—earned barely enough to scrape by on their own.
If Fekts had insisted on getting his way and become an adventurer, his family would have had a hard time surviving.
He truly believed they would have starved to death unless his mother became a prostitute or something of the sort.
Under those circumstances, Fekts couldn't afford the selfishness of becoming an adventurer. Being a logger was his only real option.
New loggers didn't earn particularly high wages either, but the pay was still better than that of a Low-Rank Adventurer.
At the very least, it was enough to ensure his younger brother and sister, who were still young enough to be called toddlers, wouldn't go hungry.
And so Fekts began his life as a logger.
As it turned out, he had a talent for the work, perhaps inherited from his father, and he began to distinguish himself among the younger loggers.
By now, he was regarded as one of the leading figures of the younger generation.
Precisely because those words came from such a person, the young loggers who were devoted to Fekts naturally agreed with his opinion.
In truth, there were by no means few loggers who felt strongly about the fact that the adventurers, despite being hired as escorts, had done absolutely no work befitting their role, and had instead merely mimicked them by cutting down trees.
Furthermore, since they weren't professional loggers, the cut ends of the felled trees were sloppy, and many paid no particular attention to the direction the trees fell, sending them crashing down at random. From Fekts's perspective, it was a truly unsightly display.
For what it was worth, the adventurers themselves didn't think they could fell trees as skillfully as loggers, and had been cutting them down at a distance from the work site so as not to get in the way.
But from Fekts's perspective, even that consideration made him suspect some kind of hidden ulterior motive.
To cut trees in such a manner and still receive a guard's pay on top of it—to Fekts, the adventurers' actions were simply unacceptable.
Moreover, having seen an adventurer abandon his escort duties to go off into the forest alone with a woman, his indignation only grew stronger.
In reality, Luno and Thresha had been investigating various things about the Treant Forest, but Fekts hadn't been informed of those circumstances—namely, that Thresha was a survivor of a party that had been annihilated in the Treant Forest.
That was exactly why, to Fekts, Luno and the others appeared to be nothing more than a couple flirting with each other despite having accepted an escort request.
Given Fekts's background and personality, it wasn't unreasonable for him to think he didn't want to let the adventurers earn money so effortlessly.
"Alright, let's go."
At Fekts's murmured words, the others nearby nodded in response.
Those acting alongside him were men who adored him, men who were struggling with money, men who simply found the adventurers disagreeable—and others with all sorts of reasons of their own.
With axes in hand, they headed toward the Main Gate together with Fekts.
The sun had already begun to dip, casting its evening glow and dyeing their surroundings red.
There was a spring-like warmth in the air, but even in this season, it still got quite cold once night fell.
The air had grown slightly chilled, but Fekts and his companions, filled with the excitement of outsmarting the adventurers, walked on without feeling the cold at all.
Upon arriving at the Main Gate, they called out to the guards to carry out the procedures for leaving the city.
This was the first checkpoint.
Before long, the gate would close for the day.
Given that, it was only natural for Fekts and his group to be viewed with concern when leaving the city at this hour.
"Hm? Fekts? And the rest of the crew—what's going on?"
"Ah, I accidentally left something behind at the worksite. Figured I'd go retrieve it."
"Whoa... Can't you leave it for tomorrow? There's not much time left before we close the Main Gate, you know."
"I know. But it's something pretty important. I don't want to leave it out overnight and have some monster or animal mess with it."
"...Got it. But be careful out there, okay?"
The fact that he was met with concern rather than suspicion was likely because, having worked as a logger for so long, he was on familiar terms with the guards.
Fekts gave a casual wave to the familiar guard and proceeded with the paperwork.
"Still, over ten of you going together?"
"Well, it's just in case something happens. Can't exactly hire adventurers just to go to the worksite and come back, can we?"
"I suppose not."
Since the guard knew that Fekts's family was by no means wealthy, he had no choice but to accept those words.
If possible, he would have liked to accompany them himself—he had at least some combat training—but as he was currently assigned to the Main Gate, he couldn't leave his post.
"Seriously, be careful."
"Yeah, of course. Besides, if it's just Goblins, with this many of us together we can handle it no problem. So don't worry."
"...I'm worried because there are plenty of monsters besides Goblins that might show up, you know."
Giving a light wave to the worried guard, Fekts finished the procedures to leave Gilm and led the other loggers out through the Main Gate.
The guards, still on duty, could do nothing but silently watch them go.
"Listen up. Tonight—right up until tomorrow morning—we're going to do nothing but fell trees. We're going to make sure those adventurers don't lay a hand on our territory."
"Yeah!"
At Fekts's words, the other loggers nodded.
They had already left the highway and were advancing toward the Treant Forest.
It wasn't particularly unusual for loggers to be outside at this hour.
After all, it wasn't uncommon for them to barely make it back to Gilm right before the gates closed while out felling trees.
Still, heading to the worksite at this hour was a first even for Fekts.
"Just in case, make sure to call out immediately if anything happens. Though, considering how those adventurers were acting today, I doubt we'll need to worry much about that."
"True. For one thing, they were hired as escorts, but they didn't do any escorting at all. If that's how it's going to be, they should've become loggers in the first place."
A logger devoted to Fekts voiced his dissatisfaction with the adventurers.
The others likely felt the same. They walked on, each muttering their own complaints.
And so, right around the time the sun was sinking below the horizon, Fekts and his group arrived at the Treant Forest.
"Hmm."
A murmur slipped from Fekts's mouth as he glanced around at his surroundings.
It wasn't a remark with any particular meaning behind it.
Even so, those words leaked out on their own.
"Fekts, what should we do?" one of the loggers nearby asked.
Each of them had brought a full set of logging equipment.
He had worried that carrying axes might arouse suspicion, but perhaps because they were familiar faces, the guards hadn't seemed particularly suspicious.
Then again, since they were heading outside Gilm without escorts, carrying weapons was only natural.
"No point wasting time standing around. Let's get started right away. Listen, I don't think there's anything out here, but just in case, if something happens, shout and let everyone know immediately."
Under normal circumstances, for ordinary loggers who weren't even adventurers to fell trees through the night would be tantamount to suicide.
But during the day, while working in the Treant Forest, they hadn't seen so much as a single animal, let alone a monster.
Given that, they assumed monsters wouldn't appear at night either.
Ordinarily, Fekts wouldn't have fallen into such a mindset himself.
Even so, the fact that he had taken this course of action now was, ultimately, because jealousy toward the adventurers he had seen during the day was his greatest motivation.
The adventurers he had wanted to become but couldn't.
He wanted to prove that even without them, his group could fell trees without any problems right now.
He would prove it, and tomorrow, when his fellow loggers and the adventurers arrived, he would say:
"Adventurers? Whether they're here or not, it makes no difference."
Just imagining what kind of expressions the adventurers would wear when he said that brought a smile of delight to Fekts's face.
He had also heard the stories about parties being annihilated in the Treant Forest.
But since it was adventurer parties that had been wiped out, and the Adventurer's Guild had been the one to provide the information, he couldn't bring himself to believe it outright.
Perhaps they had fabricated a story that never happened, all to boost the perceived value of adventurers.
He understood that this was nothing more than a vulgar suspicion on his part, but even so, he simply couldn't help thinking that way.
Watching his companions prepare to fell the trees of the Treant Forest one after another at his instruction, the thought of whether this was really the right choice crossed Fekts's mind for just a fleeting moment.
Even so, he immediately shook his head, convincing himself that this was the best course of action, and set about preparing to fell trees himself.
It was as if he were turning a blind eye to something unpleasant.
But even so, having lived as a logger all this time, his hands were efficient.
Just as Fekts had claimed, their skill was incomparable to the felling work the adventurers had been doing.
"It's going down!"
He swung his axe, controlled the direction of the fall, and brought the tree down outward.
Since they didn't need to bother stripping branches, Fekts and his group felled trees one after another.
Their speed was undeniably fast, though there were surely those who had their reservations about the whole endeavor.
However, working in conditions where the surroundings had already grown dim inevitably made the job more difficult.
"Light a fire! Be careful not to let it spread to the forest!"
At Fekts's words, everyone gave their respective replies and returned to work.
Building a campfire in the forest was dangerous in more ways than one, but fortunately, his experience as a logger gave Fekts the confidence that he could manage at least that much.
Besides, given that they worked as loggers, each of them was physically strong.
Even if animals, monsters—or even Bandits—were to attack upon spotting the light, they were confident they could handle it themselves.
Fueled by that confidence, Fekts and his group continued their felling work in the forest.