Rei's party had exited the Treant Forest, but it wasn't as though they reached Gilm without further incident.
"Damn it, what a pain! Why did we have to run into a goblin pack in a place like this?!"
Wielding his magic-infused Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear, Rei struck down goblins one after another.
The Death Scythe's blade sheared through several goblins at once — weapons and all, including the clubs and rusted longswords they carried — while the thrown Twilight Spear impaled a handful of goblins together before returning to Rei's hand.
Set attacked with his wide-area skills — Fire Breath, Water Ball, and Wind Arrow — while Marina's arrows struck goblin heads in unerring succession, and Vihera rampaged through their ranks, generating magic blades from her hand gauntlets and cutting down any goblin within reach.
It was a display of overwhelming force, the kind that deserved to be called effortless — yet for some reason, the goblin pack kept charging at them relentlessly, undeterred.
(Why aren't they running?)
Striking down a goblin that had tried to ambush him from behind with the butt of the returned Twilight Spear, Rei found himself wondering.
Goblins were reckless monsters that would attack even upon seeing Set, unable to comprehend the difference in strength.
But even so, once they actually fought and found their opponent stronger, they should have fled without hesitation.
Despite that, this goblin pack did not run even as their companions were killed one after another.
If anything, they charged forward as though the very concept of fleeing was foreign to them.
(No — maybe they truly don't know the word "flee.")
He swung the Death Scythe in a wide arc, cleaving several goblins clean in half from top to bottom in a single stroke.
"Everyone, work together to fight the goblins! Don't try to handle them alone!"
That voice reached Rei's ears.
Turning his gaze toward the source, he saw Fekts issuing commands to his fellow woodcutters as they fought the goblins.
Perhaps their experience in the Treant Forest was influencing them, or perhaps working as woodcutters outside Gilm meant they had experience fighting goblins — either way, Fekts and his men fought with a certain degree of composure.
(Surprisingly capable.)
Judging by how the others acted in accordance with Fekts's instructions, it was clear they trusted him.
From Rei's perspective, Fekts had been a man who acted on selfish delusions and went on a rampage — that was the impression he had formed. But seeing him issue orders to his companions like this, Rei could somewhat reconsider his assessment.
"Well, that doesn't mean this whole incident never happened, though...!"
He thrust the Twilight Spear forward, piercing through a goblin's head.
"Grrrrrrrrrgh!"
Along with Set's cry came Crystal Breath.
It couldn't kill the targets on its own, but the goblins covered in thin crystal stopped moving.
Charging toward the immobilized goblins, Set plunged in all at once.
Unable to dodge Set's attack, the goblins died one after another.
With Set's large body, each strike crushed multiple goblins at once.
After about ten minutes passed, the final three were impaled together by Rei's thrown Twilight Spear, and the battle finally ended.
"Haa, haa, haa..."
After the battle ended, Fekts sat down on the ground, panting heavily.
While issuing commands to his companions, Fekts himself had been swinging his axe.
Since it was not a combat-oriented axe — not what one would call a Battle Axe — the fighting in the Treant Forest and the battle with the goblins had taken a significant toll.
The axe blade was coated with tree sap, blood, and fat, and its cutting edge was far from sharp.
"Hey, get up right now! I know you're tired from just finishing a fight, but if we stay here any longer, there's a chance of another monster attack!"
At Rei's words, Fekts and the other woodcutters voiced their displeasure... but stood up nonetheless.
They couldn't deny Rei's warning that remaining here might trigger another battle with monsters.
This time, the opponents had been goblins, so they had managed to cope.
But if they had to fight other monsters here — monsters more powerful than goblins — the woodcutters would inevitably suffer casualties.
Knowing that, they needed to stand up somehow and return to Gilm as quickly as possible.
By now, most of the woodcutters deeply regretted having come to the Treant Forest to try to outperform the adventurers.
No — given everything they had experienced, it would be stranger if there were still those who hadn't regretted it from the bottom of their hearts.
In any case, those who had somehow managed to stand followed behind Rei.
As for the formation, the woodcutters were clustered in the center, with Rei at the front, Marina and Vihera on the left and right, and Set guarding the rear.
Normally, placing Set at the front would have been the best option, but Rei judged that being ambushed from behind was more dangerous in this situation, so Set — whose five senses were sharpest and who could also detect magic — took the rear position.
Some of the woodcutters watched Set with a hint of unease.
What lay in their gazes was awe.
Of course, since they lived in Gilm, including Fekts, the woodcutters present knew of Set.
They had seen him carrying Rei to the Treant Forest countless times during the day, and some had even petted or fed him then.
But even so, having witnessed Set in battle with their own eyes, it was difficult to treat him the same way as before.
The woodcutters had been shown that sight right before their eyes.
Of course, conversely, it also meant that someone as powerful as Set was protecting their rear, which gave them a sense of security as well.
Having defeated the goblins, Rei's party continued down the road.
Fortunately, after the goblin pack's ambush, they were not attacked by any other monsters, and eventually the sight of Gilm, illuminated by moonlight, came into view in the distance.
(Was the goblin ambush a coincidence? No, even if the attack itself was coincidental, goblins that don't flee... especially without any High-ranking Species or Rare Species leading them...)
Perhaps because seeing Gilm had eased his mind, thoughts of the goblins they had just fought crossed Rei's mind.
In the end, since they were in a hurry, he hadn't bothered collecting Subjugation Proof Parts or Magic Stones, and had left the corpses behind.
(As for the possibility of them becoming Undead... I can burn them tomorrow when I go to the Treant Forest. Well, given what happened today, I'm not sure whether logging operations in the Treant Forest will even continue tomorrow.)
There was the matter with Fekts, and Rei had witnessed the danger of the Treant Forest at night with his own eyes.
Of course, he had already been informed about the danger — Thresha had reported it, and Rei had heard the details.
But even so, hearing about it and seeing it firsthand were entirely different things.
It was, in the truest sense, a case of seeing being worth a hundred hearings.
(Though according to Thresha, there were supposed to be several other types of monsters besides Treants... but today, only Treants and vines appeared. I don't know what kind of monster those vines were either... surely they're not a subspecies of Treant, right?)
Moreover, even after defeating the Treants, he hadn't obtained any Magic Stones.
Based on common sense alone, this meant the Treants they killed were not monsters.
Of course, such entities couldn't possibly not be monsters, but even so, no Magic Stones had appeared.
(As a source of lumber, it's undoubtedly an excellent location... but it leaves me uneasy. Right now, the forest only becomes aggressive at night. But there's no guarantee it will stay that way. There's a very real possibility that it could bare its fangs during the day as well.)
As they approached Gilm, Rei was struck by a bad premonition.
Of course, the adventurers hired as escorts for the woodcutters were individuals with a certain level of strength.
As such, even if they were attacked by Treants, handling them would not be difficult.
At the very least, they wouldn't be reduced to only fleeing like Fekts and his men.
...Though if no monsters appeared and they focused entirely on felling trees for the extra pay, that would be another story.
In the meantime, they finally arrived before the Main Gate.
"Hey, it's Rei! I've brought back the woodcutters who went to the Treant Forest! Open the gate!"
When he shouted from the outside, the Main Gate opened immediately.
This swift response was likely because the guards who had handled their departure from Gilm were on duty.
They had used a document bearing not only Guild Master Worker's signature but also that of the lord, Daskar — so this treatment was only natural.
However, the Main Gate did not open fully as it would during the day. It opened only enough for a person — or rather, enough for Set to barely squeeze through.
As a monster countermeasure, this was only natural.
Without a single complaint, everyone entered Gilm.
Once all of them were inside, the gate shut immediately.
No monsters had appeared, but nights in the frontier were times when all manner of monsters roamed actively.
Considering that, the guards' action was something to be praised, not criticized.
"We're finally here..."
The moment they entered Gilm, one of the woodcutters let out a voice of sheer relief and sat down on the ground.
For a burly man who worked as a woodcutter, it was a somewhat pitiful sight... but no one laughed.
Even for adventurers, operating outside Gilm at night was intensely nerve-wracking, draining both mentally and physically.
Considering that, it was hardly surprising that the woodcutters — who had been attacked by monsters in the Treant Forest, resigned themselves to death, and then been ambushed by a goblin pack for reasons unknown — were utterly exhausted.
Physically, they might be tougher than the average resident of Gilm, but in the end, they were ordinary people.
Of course, there were times when they were attacked by monsters while felling trees, but on those occasions, adventurer escorts were present.
There were almost no instances where they had to handle things on their own in the truest sense.
"So, what do we do now? Should we take them to the Guild?"
Looking at the woodcutters collapsed on the ground, Vihera asked Rei.
Rei, being asked, hesitated slightly.
He had accepted this matter as an emergency Nomination Request from Kenny.
But where exactly he should take the recovered woodcutters was something he hadn't heard at all.
"The Guild should be fine, right? We need to complete the paperwork since the request was successfully fulfilled."
When Marina said that, her words carried deep persuasive weight — as expected of a former Guild Master.
"Right, that's probably the quickest way. Let's go!"
Called out by Rei, the woodcutters summoned their last ounce of strength and stood up.
To begin with, Fekts and the other woodcutters had worked their usual hours during the day — no, they had worked even harder, determined not to lose to the adventurers who were supposed to be escorting them but had focused on felling trees for extra pay.
After finishing their daytime work and returning to Gilm, they had taken a brief rest before heading right back to the Treant Forest to resume logging — only to be attacked by Treants and vine monsters mid-operation and thrown into a life-or-death crisis.
Even after being rescued by Rei, they had been ambushed by goblins and had to march while gripped by the fear of when the next monster attack might come.
It would be stranger if they weren't exhausted.
But even so, Fekts pushed his stamina and willpower to their absolute limits and stood up.
"Come on, let's go everyone. We're almost home and can rest. Give it your last strength."
At Fekts's words, all the woodcutters stood up.
Even though Fekts had made numerous mistakes in this incident, the fact that he was a central figure among the young woodcutters remained unchanged.
Rei was mildly surprised by this.
Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have been strange for them to hold a grudge against Fekts for dragging them into such a situation.
...Though Fekts had only invited them, and they had chosen to go along of their own accord, so any resentment would have been close to misplaced blame.
In any case, seeing that everyone had stood up at Fekts's words, Rei's party exchanged a few brief words with the guards and began heading toward the Guild.
The guards saw the group off, hoping that no further trouble would occur.