Dungeon conquest, day two. Rei's party cleared the first floor with ease and now found themselves in the forest of the second floor.
"No rock plant after all. I was hoping there'd be one in the same spot," Reliu muttered.
He had wanted to bring a flower made of rock home as a souvenir for his wife, Schmine. That was likely what he'd been hoping for.
But they'd checked the left side of the Y-junction, where the rock plant had been yesterday, and found nothing. In other words, rock-type plants were spent once uprooted.
"Well, there's no fruit either. Considering that, it's not strange there's no rock plant," Rei murmured, eyeing a nearby tree — one they had relentlessly stripped bare yesterday, with almost no fruit left on its branches.
The few fruits that still remained were either ones they'd missed during yesterday's harvest, or ones that had been too small to bother with and had ripened to perfection in the span of a day.
Rei wasn't sure which it was, but with so few fruits, there was no reason to go out of his way to pick any today. Though Ielo did fly up to pluck them and carry them down to Set so the two could eat together — but that was neither here nor there.
"For now... the question is, which direction do we head?"
Since this forest had formed inside a dungeon, Rei's party was naturally the first to set foot here. As such, there were no convenient trodden paths through the woods. Instead, they could make out several animal trails — paths that appeared to have been carved by passing monsters or wildlife.
But with trails going in multiple directions, there was no telling what kind of monsters lay ahead. The size of each trail gave a rough idea of how large the creatures using it might be, but without knowing exactly what kinds of monsters or animals inhabited this dungeon, that was only a loose guideline.
That was precisely why choosing a direction posed such a dilemma.
"For now, why not head toward the larger animal trail? The big game in this forest — in other words, the stronger enemies — should be taken down early," Vihera suggested.
Having a large body and being strong were by no means the same thing, but for Vihera, if she was going to fight anyway, she preferred a formidable opponent. That was the reasoning behind her proposal.
Several other ideas were raised, but none offered a decisive argument. In the end, they followed Vihera's suggestion and set off along the largest animal trail.
"Hmm... fewer monsters showing up than I expected," Vihera said, her tone laced with dissatisfaction.
At her feet lay three dead Orcs. That they weren't merely unconscious was obvious enough — all three had broken necks, their heads twisted at angles they shouldn't have been.
The Orcs, drawn in by the beauty of Vihera and the others, had attacked only to face a one-sided slaughter, reduced to corpses in under a minute.
Rei stored the Orc bodies into his Misty Ring without so much as batting an eye. Given Vihera's strength, he'd never expected three Orcs to pose any kind of threat.
"It's a bit hard to tell whether this dungeon is newly formed or not," Reliu murmured, scanning the surroundings.
It featured vast open spaces like this forest on the second floor, yet the variety of monsters encountered so far wasn't particularly large. If higher-ranked monsters had appeared — like the Basilisks or Cockatrices Vanilas had worried about yesterday — they would've been in for a much harder fight.
"Guru!"
As if in response to Reliu's words, Set let out a sharp cry.
Everyone present caught the wariness in his voice and immediately readied themselves for combat. Byune, possessing the lowest combat ability among them, shifted toward the rear of the formation and readied her Long Needles, prepared to provide support at a moment's notice.
Several seconds passed. Then, without warning, an enormous beak emerged from the nearby bushes.
It had a smooth, lustrous sheen, yet looked thoroughly vicious — a beak so massive it could easily swallow a human head whole. The creature bearing it gradually revealed its entire body from beyond the foliage.
Its appearance could, without exaggeration, be called a giant bird. However, it wasn't a bird that soared through the sky — it was one specialized for running across the ground.
(An ostrich?)
That was Rei's first impression upon seeing the monster.
Its overall build did resemble an ostrich, but its leg muscles were far more developed than any ostrich Rei had seen on TV or in books, and its body was wrapped in green plumage that gave it far more bulk. And the most striking difference from an ostrich: a single horn jutting from its forehead.
More accurately, it was a blade rather than a horn — and it was unmistakably a deadly weapon.
"A Grinbo!?"
The sight of the ostrich-like monster drew a startled cry from Marina.
But before her voice even reached the others, the Grinbo had likely already sensed Rei's party through their presence. The monster opened its beak wide upon spotting them.
"Everyone, scatter! It's Wind Breath!"
Rei's party reacted instantly to Marina's warning — she knew what a Grinbo was capable of.
If they'd been Golts adventurers, they never would have responded to Marina's shout so quickly. They would've been caught off guard, stammering in confusion — and in the next instant, they would have taken a direct hit from the Wind Breath erupting from the Grinbo's beak.
Despite its name, what erupted from the Grinbo's maw was no ordinary wind. That blast contained a tremendous number of what could only be called Wind Blades. Anyone caught in the full force of it would have their entire body slashed to ribbons.
The Wind Blades themselves possessed sharp cutting power, though the wounds they inflicted weren't especially large. But when countless tiny blades filled the air around a person... it would be like having their entire body assailed by thousands of razors at once.
Rei's party had evaded the Wind Breath by instantly following Marina's instruction. Just how devastating the attack was became obvious from the countless small gashes that riddled the trunk of a tree standing beside them.
"I'm taking its head off!"
Rei dodged the Wind Breath, kicked off the ground, activated his Sleipnir boots, and launched himself through the air. Closing the distance with a Triangle Jump, he already gripped Death Scythe, drawn from his Misty Ring.
The Grim Reaper's Blade swung down.
Death Scythe, its cutting power dramatically enhanced by magic, sliced through the Grinbo's neck without the slightest resistance — as effortlessly as cleaving through water.
Like an ostrich, the Grinbo's long neck presented a large target, and that proved to be its fatal misfortune.
The massive head dropped to the ground, and the Wind Breath it had been spewing ceased at once. The cut was so clean that there was a brief delay before blood began spurting from the severed neck.
"There are more!"
Grinbo weren't solitary creatures — they moved in groups. Keeping his distance from the blood geysering from his kill, Rei spotted more Grinbo emerging from nearby bushes, identical in appearance, and called out a warning.
The others leapt into combat at his voice. Three Grinbo emerged from the foliage in total. One of them appeared to be a juvenile, only about half the size of the adults.
"Goooooooooo!"
The three Grinbo charged into battle just as the rest of Rei's party engaged.
But giving the Grinbo time to act meant risking another volley of Wind Breath. Understanding this, everyone pressed the attack to prevent the monsters from getting off a shot.
Vihera moved first. She kicked off the ground, closed the distance, and raked magic-forged claws at a Grinbo's throat.
But the Grinbo she targeted noticed her approach and instinctively swung its beak to intercept her —
"Gooh!?"
A Long Needle from Byune pierced its eyeball in the same instant. The Grinbo shrieked — and in that moment of shock and searing pain, Vihera's magic claws tore open its throat.
Unlike Rei's kill, she hadn't severed the neck outright — she'd slashed it open. It was certainly a fatal wound, but not an instant kill.
Blood sprayed from its neck like a fountain as the Grinbo bolted, desperately trying to flee.
"It can still run in that state!?"
Vihera had expected some movement despite the torn throat, but the Grinbo breaking into a full sprint in that condition was entirely beyond her expectations.
As she stared in disbelief at the Grinbo spraying blood while galloping away, Mirage — now in whip form — shot past her.
Catching up to the fleeing Grinbo, Mirage entangled its legs with the whip-blade and severed them clean in one stroke.
No matter how freely a Grinbo could move with its throat slashed, running still required legs. Deprived of those, the Grinbo crashed face-first into the ground at full speed and tumbled wildly.
Of the remaining two, the juvenile was immobilized by Marina's Wind Spirit Magic, then Set slammed his front leg into it, scattering its head. Unlike the one Vihera had struck down, it had been pinned by Spirit Magic, so it didn't go bolting around headless — though there was a world of difference between a slashed throat and a missing head.
The last one fell to Reliu, who used his Sword Skills to sever its neck in the same manner as Rei. The Grinbo lunged at the approaching Reliu with its prized beak, but he dodged the strike with ease and cut through its neck in one fluid motion.
The Grinbo, decapitated mid-swing, plunged into the dirt with its own momentum. Blood gushing from the stump soaked the ground flashily, but Reliu couldn't have cared less.
As the battle — lasting less than a minute — ended, the thick stench of blood hung over the area.
"Rei, you've got an Item Box, right? Then how about we move away from here? No guarantee other monsters won't catch the scent and come looking," Reliu suggested.
No one objected. Rei swiftly stashed the Grinbo corpses into his Misty Ring, and they departed the scene.
"Still, following the Yellow Birds, that Grinbo was another bird monster. Could it be that this dungeon — no, this forest — has bird monsters as its main force?"
"Oh, but there were Goblins, Cobolts, and Orcs too — three different kinds. They're falling to their deaths outside the dungeon and we ran into them on the first floor, so they're probably living somewhere in this forest, don't you think?" Vihera replied.
Her words jogged Rei's memory. Monsters were falling to their deaths from the dungeon entrance on a daily basis, so it stood to reason their nests were somewhere inside. And since the first floor had only a single Y-junction and nothing else of the sort, the natural conclusion was that this forest served as the Goblins' base.
"Going down the stairs to the first floor every day just to fall and die — that's puzzling, though."
"Reconnaissance, maybe? I don't know the reason, but if we find any, we should deal with them," Reliu said.
"Dealing with them" in this case meant wiping out every last Goblin, Cobolt, and Orc in their lair.
Doing so would strip Golts's residents of their ability to harvest Magic Stones, Subjugation Proof Parts, and materials from the monsters that fell from the cliff to their deaths.
Rei understood that perfectly well. But when it came down to choosing between someone else's interests — and not even interests earned through their own combat, but rather profits scraped from scavenging the corpses of monsters that had essentially died by accident — versus the sheer hassle of fending off Goblin attacks every single time... it went without saying which took priority. It was, of course, the latter.