The roots that had formed the root puppet dissolved entirely, slipped underground, and vanished. In that very instant, the ground shook as if someone had been timing it perfectly.
"Kyaa! W-what in the world!?"
Some distance away from Rei, Vihera, who had been fighting a Treant, screamed at the sudden earthquake.
That she didn't fall was likely thanks to her excellent reflexes.
Set, standing on four legs, showed no particular agitation at the abrupt tremor. Instead, he struck a Treant that had lost its footing with his front leg, destroying it.
"Tch, what's about to happen!?"
Rei was also startled by the sudden quake, but quickly steadied his posture and scanned his surroundings, ready for whatever might come.
Unaccustomed to earthquakes, Vihera put some distance between herself and the Treants while looking around.
Unlike Vihera, Rei was caught off guard by the suddenness of it, but showed no particular alarm at the earthquake itself.
This was likely because he had been born and raised in Japan—a region with an unusually high frequency of earthquakes, rare even by world standards.
Minor tremors, around seismic intensity one, occurred there almost daily. Even at intensity two or higher, where the shaking could clearly be felt, a considerable number happened throughout the year.
Having grown up in such a place, Rei had a certain degree of familiarity with earthquakes.
That was precisely why he had the composure to simply check his surroundings even while the ground shook violently beneath him.
From what he could see, though the ground was indeed shaking, there was no other particular abnormality.
(What is this? It's definitely shaking, so something must be happening... but what?)
Even when he directed his gaze toward the spot where the roots had burrowed underground, there was nothing in particular to see.
The Treants' movements had also stopped, which made it certain that something was about to happen.
But... when would that something occur?
(Could it be that they just stay underground in the Treant Forest and never come out? That can't be right, can it?)
For a brief moment, Rei entertained that doubt, then immediately shook his head in denial.
The will conveyed through the image-language was, above all, a drive to expand—an obsessive compulsion that the Treant Forest had to grow.
If asked whether destroying a single root puppet could suppress that compulsion, Rei would have answered no without hesitation.
That was how intense the will had been.
Without letting his guard down, he kept a careful watch on his surroundings.
Then... the violent shaking gradually began to weaken.
If that had been all, there would have been no particular problem. Indeed, it would have been something to welcome.
But when the ground at the very spot where Rei and the others had been standing began to crack the moment the earthquake subsided, that was a different story.
"Vihera, Set, we're evacuating! If we fall into a fissure, it's no joke!"
The first to react to Rei's shout was Set.
Downing a Treant with a strike of his right leg, he sprinted straight toward Rei.
Vihera followed a beat behind. Rei leaped onto Set's back, and Set beat his wings, launching into the sky.
Vihera grabbed onto Set's body without a moment's hesitation.
From the moment Set delivered his final blow to the Treant to the moment he took flight, less than ten seconds had passed.
It was a swift movement, yet even so, it had been near the absolute limit.
Mere seconds after Set took flight, the entire area that had been an open plaza was swallowed by the fissure and collapsed inward.
"That was close..."
Looking down at the ground, the entire wide space where Rei and the others had just been standing was completely swallowed by the fissure—no longer there at all.
No—it could no longer even be called a fissure.
Given the sheer size of the space it had consumed, describing it as a hole opened in the very fabric of space would not have been an exaggeration.
"...Even so, the ground only collapsed right there. Look—the path we came through is fine."
Vihera pointed this out while clinging to Set's front leg with practiced ease. Rei turned his gaze toward the path and nodded in understanding.
From what he could see from above, not only had the path not collapsed, there wasn't even a single crack in it.
Had it been somewhere far from the area the ground had swallowed, Rei would have accepted it.
But it was right next to where they had been standing.
Despite that, the complete absence of even a single fissure was something that defied belief.
"Well, it definitely wasn't a normal earthquake. So magic or something similar must be involved. ...Still feels off, though."
An opponent capable of causing an earthquake of that magnitude could use any means and it wouldn't be surprising. If anything, it was even understandable—or at least, Rei wouldn't be the only one to think so.
"So, what do we do now?"
"...Staying here won't accomplish anything. Let's head back to Marina and the others for now. I'm a bit curious about how things are on their end."
When Rei had entered the forest, fighting was still ongoing on the outer perimeter.
If that was the case, there was a possibility that the battle was still raging even now.
(Well, when the earthquake hit, both the Treants and the root puppets stopped moving. If Marina took advantage of that opening, it wouldn't be surprising.)
Given Marina's command ability, if the enemy suddenly stopped moving mid-battle, she would immediately launch a full-scale offensive without fail.
And Rei couldn't imagine the immobilized monsters being able to withstand the adventurers' attacks.
And in fact...
"Figured as much."
Less than a minute after Set took flight, they arrived at the outer edge of the forest—the place they had been using as a campsite. There, monsters that had stopped moving were being slaughtered one after another by the adventurers.
Adventurers who had seen comrades wounded and killed, who harbored fierce hatred toward the monsters, and those seeking to secure materials or Subjugation Proof Parts if not Magic Stones—all were fighting furiously, as if making up for lost time. That scene spread out before them.
Time rewinds.
Not long after Rei had entered the Treant Forest, Marina had been issuing instructions to the adventurers, using bow and arrows to support allies, and using Spirit Magic to destroy monsters—all simultaneously.
Single-handedly fulfilling three roles, yet still with some composure to spare, Marina turned her gaze toward the Treant Forest.
That several giant flowers were growing there could be seen even from this distance, illuminated by the moonlight.
(But I suppose we were lucky that the number of those troublesome seeds flying toward us from the later flowers is fewer than from the first one.)
The first giant flower to sprout had unleashed seeds like rain—perhaps a slight exaggeration, but from the perspective of those on the ground, it was a feeling that wouldn't have been unreasonable. It had rained down countless seeds.
They ranged from small to large, and among them were some whose arms had been hurt despite blocking with a shield.
It had been a highly troublesome attack, but now that seed barrage had decreased considerably.
Thanks to that, being able to concentrate on the enemies on the ground was an undeniable benefit.
"Treants are gathering on the right! Also, watch out for plants that suddenly sprout from underground! Beyond the fighting, concentrate on what's beneath your feet too!"
While issuing instructions, Marina loosed an arrow at a monster bearing a flower with blue and red mottled patterns.
The arrow flew straight, slicing through the air, and struck the flower monster's stem, severing it effortlessly.
Watching the stem fall to the ground, Marina called upon the Wind Spirits to create countless Wind Arrows, unleashing them toward the area where the Treants were clustered.
Numerous Wind Arrows pierced and slashed through the clustered Treants—a display that showcased Marina's skill as a Spirit Mage to the fullest.
Though not to the same extent as Rei's, Marina's Spirit Magic was an attack extremely well-suited for striking a wide area.
Indeed, compared to Rei, who was poor at fine control, Marina's Spirit Magic was superior in that the Spirits' attacks hardly required any direct effort from her at all.
That said, depending on the Spirits' whims, they sometimes made movements Marina hadn't intended—but fortunately, right now they were producing exactly the effects she had asked for.
The other adventurers watching this found themselves thinking that Marina's Spirit Magic, capable of concentrating attacks within a defined area, might actually be more practical than Rei's wide-area annihilation.
"H-hey, look at that!"
Amidst the battle, one adventurer's voice of astonishment rang out across the surroundings.
That the voice carried during the fighting was likely coincidence, but for the adventurers, it was a stroke of good fortune.
The reason for the adventurer's astonishment was the sight of giant flowers being annihilated one after another.
Of course, "annihilated" didn't mean the giant flowers had been completely destroyed in a literal sense. Only the flower portions themselves had been largely destroyed.
"That's... Rei, isn't it."
Because they were party members who cherished the one she loved, Marina understood how the scene unfolding before her was being accomplished.
That blow was likely from the Twilight Spear.
And indeed, she was correct.
"That attack... Rei did...?"
One of the nearby adventurers heard Marina's murmur and muttered quietly.
But that small mutter, for some reason, reached the ears of those around them in an almost uncanny manner.
Even while fighting, the voices that reached their ears were more than enough to raise the adventurers' morale.
Though the numbers had thinned, someone had destroyed the monster that had been raining seeds of various sizes down at them from the sky.
There was no way morale wouldn't soar from that.
"Aaah, those giant flowers were precious research material..."
"From the looks of it, they haven't been completely destroyed, so maybe that's fine."
The researchers' murmurs also reached Marina's ears, but she naturally ignored them.
She understood what they wanted to say, but her conviction was that defeating the enemies came first.
"Now! While the seeds aren't falling, reduce the enemy's numbers as much as you can!"
Simultaneously with her shout, she drew her bow and pierced a Venus Flytrap.
There was no way the adventurers wouldn't obey Marina's words.
She was a Dark Elf beauty fitting for the night, and above all, the former Guild Master issuing a rallying cry.
No one present could fail to be fired up by the sight.
Some of the Female Adventurers had mixed feelings about the situation, but given the current circumstances, they had no choice but to fight with everything they had.
Thus, with everyone attacking under high morale, the battle continued for a while.
Then, without warning, the monsters' movements stopped.
The first to notice were, naturally, the adventurers fighting the monsters.
"Wha—!?"
The adventurer who had swung his longsword down had expected that blow to be blocked.
The strike he had just released was one intended to be blocked by the opponent—deliberately.
The plan was to exploit the opening when they blocked and deliver a fatal blow.
That was the attack he had intended to execute... but the Treant took the strike head-on.
It didn't evade. It didn't block. It simply took it squarely.
The swung blade severed a Treant branch with ease.
Since the purpose had been to have the attack blocked, it wasn't a particularly powerful strike.
But to notice the Treant's abnormality, that was actually preferable.
Sensing something wrong, the adventurer leaped backward on instinct.
With an aggressive personality, one might have continued attacking. In fact, when he quickly scanned his surroundings, many were already attacking the monsters that had suddenly stopped moving for some reason.
"What—!?"
The second voice of astonishment was raised because the ground suddenly shook.
An Adventurer Man experiencing an earthquake for the first time instinctively placed his hands on the ground to keep his balance.
If the monsters had been able to move freely at that moment, his life would have been over.
It was a tremor severe enough to make one think so.
But the shaking was temporary.
Countless screams rose from the surroundings, but once the tremor subsided, all that remained were the monsters that had, for some reason, stopped moving.
And it was only natural that the adventurers would set upon them with everything they had.