The day after asking Marina to use Spirit Magic so they could sense Ilse's crisis in an emergency, Rei finished up his usual tasks at the expansion construction site and headed for the Treant Forest, with Ilse in tow.
"Kyaaaaaaaaah! Wait — I'm falling, I'm falling, I'm falling! I'm falling, Rei-san!"
"Gurururu."
Hearing what sounded like a scream — or perhaps a wail — coming from directly beneath his feet in the most literal sense, Set turned his head and purred at Rei on his back as if asking, Is this okay?
Rei stroked Set's neck to calm him down and spoke.
"It's fine. Ilse is an adventurer. Hanging onto Set's leg for a few minutes isn't a problem."
"It is! It really is! I may be an adventurer, but I have zero confidence in my physical abilities!"
Even half-panicked, she must have heard him. Clinging to Set's right front leg, Ilse screamed as if she had cast aside every shred of her usual composure.
The truth was, Rei was the only person Set could carry on his back in flight.
Strictly speaking, Set could also manage one or two children alongside Rei, but carrying an adult other than Rei was out of the question.
Gliding down from a high altitude would have been possible, but reaching a height where he could glide while still carrying Ilse wasn't feasible, and no building in Gilm was tall enough to serve as a launch point anyway.
So Ilse ended up clinging to Set's front leg as he flew through the sky — just as Marina and Vihera had done before her. But Ilse had never been confident in her combat ability — or, more precisely, her physical ability.
That was exactly why she had always stuck to gathering requests rather than subjugation work.
So why was Ilse dangling from a griffon in midair? Simply because traveling to the Treant Forest by ground took far too long.
She could apparently ride a horse, but even so, Set flying through the sky was overwhelmingly faster than a horse galloping on the ground.
Besides, at Set's speed, the trip to the Treant Forest took only a few minutes at most. All she had to do was endure that brief time — which was why Rei had decided to carry her on Set.
Ilse had initially insisted on traveling separately, but the Wind Spirit attached to her had been instructed by Marina to draw magical power from Rei.
In other words, as long as she stayed near him, Marina's Spirit Magic would last that much longer.
It was an arrangement designed to minimize the strain on Marina, and fortunately, it worked.
Granted, pulling it off required meeting a rather demanding set of conditions — namely, finding a Spirit willing to heed Marina's request and one that also found Rei's magical power appealing. But by some stroke of luck, everything had fallen into place.
At any rate, those were the reasons Ilse needed to remain as close to Rei as possible, which also explained her current predicament.
Furthermore, while Marina or Vihera could have hung onto Set's front leg without issue at his usual flying speed, Ilse's lack of physical confidence made that impossible.
As a result, Set was flying considerably slower than normal.
Slowing down just means she'll be clinging to his leg in the air that much longer. Well, if Ilse is fine with it, I'm not going to complain.
With that thought, Rei surveyed the landscape below.
Flying was nothing new, but today the altitude was lower than usual. He normally cruised at around a hundred meters; right now, they were at roughly fifty — half his normal height.
This, too, was at Ilse's request, but...
If you think about falling, there's probably not much difference between a hundred meters and fifty.
Without Sleipnir boots to create footholds in midair like Rei and Elena, or Spirit Magic to manage something like Marina could, surviving a fall from fifty meters was all but impossible.
Well, Vihera, who absorbed Unbris, might be able to manage somehow... but for Ilse, even ten meters would probably be fatal.
Listening to Ilse, who was still clinging to Set and screaming, Rei spotted the Treant Forest ahead.
Thanks to the hard work of the woodcutters and adventurers, the forest had thinned out somewhat.
Even now, Rei could see a tree toppling in the distance — likely felled by a woodcutter.
From the way a tree fell, Rei could generally tell whether it had been cut by a woodcutter or an adventurer. Of course, that was only a rough guess, not a certainty.
Trees felled by woodcutters fell away from the paths where people walked, as expected of professionals. They were also carefully angled to avoid striking other nearby trees.
By comparison, trees cut by adventurers inevitably tended to be cruder. They sometimes fell across footpaths, and there had even been incidents where a felled tree slammed into a neighboring tree and snapped it.
"Eek! Let's land already, Rei-san!"
For Ilse, the sight of trees being logged was the least of her concerns — getting her feet on solid ground was the absolute priority.
Even looking at the trail carved by the Gigant Turtle's passage, all she wanted was to reach the ground that much sooner. Watching her frantic state, Rei gave Set the signal.
"Set, take us down."
"Guru!"
Maybe it would've been better to fly faster and get here more quickly after all.
The thought crossed Rei's mind again as he observed Ilse, but since she herself had refused, there was nothing to be done.
Besides, for Rei and Set, the difference in time was negligible. He set the thought aside for now.
After all, they had come to the Treant Forest — to the place where Ajas, the man suspected of being Ilse's enemy, was waiting.
Given that, neither Rei nor Ilse could afford to stay in the carefree mindset of a leisurely flight.
...Though, truth be told, Ilse at this moment could think of nothing but getting on the ground as fast as possible.
As Set descended toward the earth, Ilse let go at a height of about one meter and hit the ground—
"Kyah!"
—only to fail to match her footwork to the speed of landing and tumble flat onto the ground.
Rei watched her for a moment, then leaped off Set's back. Thanks to his natural physical abilities and countless prior drops from Set's back, he landed as smoothly as ever.
Set, having delivered them both, settled onto the ground as well.
"Guru?"
The griffon padded over to Ilse, who had already scrambled back to her feet, and purred as if asking, Are you okay?
Ilse gave Set a reassuring pat on the head to signal she was fine, then started walking toward Rei.
Relieved that her tumble hadn't resulted in a twisted ankle or any other injury, she spoke.
"...Let's go."
Her expression was so deadly serious it was hard to believe she had been screaming just moments before. Naturally — the place where her family's killer was likely lurking was right there.
Nodding at her resolve, Rei led the way into the Treant Forest with one person and one griffon in tow.
At the forest's edge, several adventurers stood on watch, keeping vigilant for monsters.
They eyed Ilse, who had arrived alongside Rei, with open curiosity.
It was hardly surprising — she had come flying in on a gryphon with Rei, after all.
...Never mind that she had been screaming the entire flight.
And when she landed, she'd failed to stick the landing and ended up rolling across the ground.
She clearly wasn't the sort of adventurer who could operate alongside Rei — or so they thought. The fact that she was also quite beautiful probably factored into their interest.
"Keep up the good work," Rei said, offering the adventurers a small bow. They returned the gesture, seeming genuinely pleased.
Are these guys really going to be okay as guards?
Watching the exchange, Rei felt a flicker of doubt. But since this group had operated without any major incidents so far, he said nothing more and entered the Treant Forest.
"Ah, Rei-san!"
One of the woodcutters called out cheerfully and waved upon spotting him.
A few of the woodcutters disliked Rei, but the majority were friendly toward him — and understandably so. Since Rei hauled their felled trees for them, the woodcutters never had to worry about transporting lumber. All they had to do was cut.
"How are the felled logs looking?"
"Good, we've got a fair amount. Um, and... who's that?"
The woodcutter, clearly curious about Ilse, asked.
"My name is Ilse. I'm accompanying Rei-san today to observe his work."
"Huh... Rei-san's? That sounds like quite an ordeal."
"Ahaha. Well, I'm treating it as adventurer experience."
While Ilse and the woodcutter exchanged words, Rei stored the nearby felled logs into his Misty Ring.
"Ilse, we're heading deeper."
"Ah, right."
Ilse replied lightly, but if the woodcutter had been more observant, he would have noticed how tense she was. Even while smiling and chatting, her hands were clenched tight, knuckles white.
Her grip wasn't particularly strong, so it wasn't a problem — but if she'd had more strength than average, her nails likely would have pierced the skin of her palms and drawn blood.
"Calm down."
Sensing her state, Rei offered the quiet caution as they made their way through the forest, side by side.
"Ah... ahahaha. I know. But I just... can't help it."
She was about to come face-to-face with her family's killer.
Of course, she couldn't launch an attack here and now.
But even so—
With that thought burning in her mind, Ilse pressed deeper into the Treant Forest alongside Rei.
Along the way, she encountered several more woodcutters and adventurers. Each time, she tensed for a split second before recognizing them as the wrong person and immediately flashing a smile and a greeting.
After about ten minutes of walking through the forest—
"Huh? Rei? You're here again today?"
A voice called out to them.
Ilse froze mid-step.
She recognized that voice.
When her father, her mother, her older brother — when Ilse's entire family had been slaughtered, she had heard that voice.
It was a voice from years ago, one that under normal circumstances would have faded into the depths of memory. But there was no way Ilse could ever forget the voice of her family's killer.
Unconsciously, she clenched her jaw tight.
Either unaware of Ilse's reaction or simply indifferent to it, Ajas smiled and continued addressing Rei.
"Hm? Who's the woman? Bringing along quite a beauty again, I see."
"Yeah. The Guild asked me to let Ilse get a taste of the work. So we're moving together for now."
"Huh. Well, even watching your work, I doubt the average adventurer could learn much from it, but... hm?"
Ajas paused, his gaze fixed on Ilse's face.
Ilse stared back at him, careful not to let her eyes turn into a glare.
The emotions each held, however, could not have been more different.
"Hey, you... Ilse, was it? Haven't we met somewhere before? I feel like I've seen you somewhere."
Spoken casually, the words could easily pass for a pickup line.
But hearing them, Ilse fought back with everything she had the urge to scream.
She couldn't let him realize who she was — couldn't let him know she was the one who had survived that day.
Compared to when her parents were killed, Ilse had grown considerably and looked more mature. But traces of her younger self remained.
Ilse's family had been peddlers. While traveling, they had hired Ajas as an escort — and he had turned on them and murdered them all.
By sheer luck, Ilse had been playing in a flower field some distance away when the slaughter occurred... or so the story went. That was why she had been spared.
"Is that so? This is my first time meeting you, Ajas-san."
"...Hm? Huh? Umm... really? Was it just my imagination?"
"I believe so!"
Suppressing the thirst for revenge that raged inside her, Ilse exchanged words with Ajas, wearing a puzzled expression to match his own.