Having camped overnight in the forest on the second floor of the Dungeon, Rei and his party naturally resumed exploring their surroundings the next day.
Under normal circumstances, sleeping outdoors would not fully restore one's fatigue. Depending on the situation, it was not uncommon to feel even more tired than before going to sleep.
However, Rei's party had a Magic Tent, and sleeping soundly inside it naturally allowed them to recover from their fatigue.
Granted, Rei and Reliu slept on sofas and the floor rather than beds, but even so, it was undoubtedly far more comfortable than sleeping in the open.
And so, Rei and his party proceeded through the forest in near-perfect condition.
"Guruu!"
While advancing through the forest, Set suddenly let out a cry.
Judging from the cry that an enemy was nearby, everyone readied themselves for combat... but after a dozen or so seconds passed, there was no sign of an attack from any direction.
"Is that... Set?"
Rei, holding his Death Scythe and Twilight Spear at the ready, turned his gaze toward Set, who had let out the cry.
Set, receiving that gaze, eventually moved to the front of the group and...
"Gurururururuu!"
Let out a loud cry, and simultaneously, five arrows made of earth materialized around him.
It was Set's Earth Arrow skill.
...Granted, it was still at Level 1, so the number of earth arrows was not particularly large, and the power was by no means overwhelming.
Even so, it worked perfectly fine in a situation like this.
That was because the goal was not to defeat the enemy, but rather...
"Gishaaaaaaaaa!"
The Earth Arrow pierced into a tree trunk, and the moment it did, that cry echoed throughout the surroundings.
And right near where the Earth Arrow had struck, a face suddenly materialized.
"A Treant? ...But did Treants make that kind of cry?"
Rei muttered as he recalled the Treants they had fought in the Treant Forest, but the Treant, having taken a preemptive strike from the Earth Arrow, paid no mind to their attitude and swung its branches wildly.
The next moment, the leaves attached to the Treant's branches were launched.
Leaf throwing... if one considered only the words, it did not seem like that powerful an attack.
In reality, however, the unleashed leaves rained down on Rei and his party like throwing daggers.
(No, not daggers... more like shuriken or chakrams, something like that?)
Watching the countless leaves being deflected off in random directions by the Wind Barrier that Marina's Spirit Magic had instantly produced, Rei recalled the throwing weapons he had seen in manga back in Japan.
(Come to think of it, throwing weapons aren't that common in this world. Though maybe I just haven't seen many of them myself.)
The most commonly used were throwing daggers.
There were a few others, but the throwing weapon Rei saw most often was probably Byune's Long Needles.
The Eye of Nebula that Rei possessed could also be classified as something close to a throwing weapon.
(Should I try making shuriken sometime? But the shuriken I know of are just knowledge from manga and such. Whether they'd actually be useful or not, I'd need to test it out for real to know.)
The shuriken Rei knew of were the cross-shaped variety that immediately came to mind when one heard the word.
Whether such shuriken could actually be used effectively could only be determined by actually trying them out once.
(If they work, they might catch on somewhat. ...I wonder.)
Even as Rei was thinking about shuriken, the Treant whose true identity Set had seen through did not cease its attacks.
Not only leaves, but also fruits with purple mottled patterns were thrown at them.
However, even though they were fruits rather than leaves, they were deflected by the Wind Barrier Marina had created and struck a nearby tree.
Then, upon the impact of hitting the tree trunk, the fruit burst... and when liquid seeped out from the crushed fruit, the tree trunk began to faintly dissolve.
"Fruits filled with dissolving liquid? What an unpleasant plant."
Looking at the tree, Reliu said with genuine distaste, and then, still holding his longsword, called out to Marina.
"Guild Master, release the Wind Barrier. That Treant isn't particularly strong, but it's a nuisance. I'll finish it off in one go."
"Yes, understood. ...But I'm not the Guild Master anymore."
"Ah... sorry, Marina... san."
When Reliu had begun making a name for himself in Gilm, he had been helped by Marina on numerous occasions.
He naturally felt grateful for that, so he simply could not bring himself to call her by name alone.
...In truth, Reliu was inwardly impressed that Rei referred to Marina without any honorific, but he would never let that show.
"Fufu, then that's fine, yes?"
Marina asked with a smile that seemed to say she could see right through Reliu's feelings, and Reliu nodded silently, partly to hide his embarrassment.
Seeing that, Marina made a request to the wind spirits... and the next moment, a portion of the Wind Barrier was released for just an instant.
The Wind Barrier was released for truly just an instant, less than a second, but for Reliu, that much time was more than enough.
Instantly slipping out of the Wind Barrier, Reliu closed the distance to the Treant with his beloved longsword in hand.
The Treant noticed Reliu's approach and, apparently recognizing him as a threat, rapidly threw fruits filled with dissolving liquid and leaves with sharp cutting edges.
However, Reliu dodged every single one of those attacks flying toward him.
What was astonishing was that while evading, he did not slow his forward advance in the slightest.
Without reducing his speed, he advanced forward while dodging all the attacks purely through footwork, without even swinging his longsword.
To the Treant, such a Reliu must have been nothing less than a threat.
It increased the density of its attacks, but... for Reliu, evading attacks of that caliber was not difficult.
Eventually, it even unleashed a strike from a branch swung like a whip, but that too was effortlessly dodged by Reliu.
"Haa!"
In the end, not a single attack landed... moreover, not even a scratch was inflicted, and the Treant allowed Reliu to close in. With a sharp battle cry, Reliu swung his longsword in a single flash.
That single flash severed the Treant, whose trunk had been as thick as an adult's torso... and it toppled to the ground.
Rather than felling a tree by swinging an axe down repeatedly like a woodcutter, he severed the trunk with a single slash of his longsword.
How much skill that required need not even be imagined.
...Granted, most of those present here could do the same thing.
"Good sword stroke. It seems you've improved again, which is what matters."
While releasing the Wind Barrier, Marina said this to Reliu.
At Marina's straightforward praise, Reliu showed a slightly embarrassed expression as he turned his gaze toward the Treant's corpse.
"It seemed a bit stronger than a normal Treant. Is it a Rare Species or a High-ranking Species of Treant?"
A normal Treant would not do something like throwing fruits filled with dissolving liquid.
As Reliu continued speaking, everyone was at a loss for words.
Amidst that, Rei voiced his question.
"For a Rare Species, it didn't seem that different from a normal Treant, did it? Those fruits filled with dissolving liquid were surprising, but ultimately, that was it. If you think purely in terms of raw strength, it wasn't much different from a normal Treant."
"...But just that point about the dissolving liquid fruits is enough to qualify it as a Rare Species, isn't it?"
"Let's decide the details about that after we take this Treant to the Guild and report it. Fortunately, we won't have any trouble bringing a Treant back."
A dead Treant was, for all intents and purposes, not much different from an ordinary tree.
In other words, they would be bringing back a tree whose trunk had been severed.
Moreover, from a Dungeon located on a cliff wall.
Under normal circumstances, this would be nearly impossible, but with Rei who possessed a Misty Ring, it was a different story.
"Let's do that. Even if it's not a Rare Species or anything, Treants fetch a decent amount of money."
As one could see from looking at the Expansion Construction in Gilm, Treants were highly sought after as building materials.
Additionally, even branches that could not be used as building materials were perfectly serviceable as materials for a mage's staff or Magic Items.
...Of course, the Treants that had been in the Treant Forest near Gilm were different from normal Treants, so they could not be used as materials for staves or Alchemy.
Watching Rei store the Treant's corpse in his Misty Ring, Reliu was once again astonished.
To think he could casually store such a massive tree.
However, seeing Reliu directing his astonished gaze toward him, Rei apparently misunderstood and thought he was being seen as having stolen the prey that Reliu had taken down, so he hastily spoke up.
"Don't worry. The money from this Treant will properly go to you, Reliu."
"Hm? No, I don't need the reward for the Treant. The reason I'm here with you all in the first place is purely because of a request from Lord Daskar... no, I didn't get paid, so is it a request? It's something like that. Plus, you've been feeding me delicious cooking and all."
Though he did not say it aloud, being able to spend time with Set was also significant for Reliu.
Rather, being able to interact with Set this much, he even thought he would gladly come as free reinforcements as many times as needed.
One could call him the epitome of a Set enthusiast.
Of course, if they were Set enthusiasts like Mirene or Yohanna, they would surely share Reliu's sentiment.
"Is that so? If you say so, that helps us out. ...Alright then, let's move on. I wonder what kind of monsters will show up next."
Saying so, Rei and his party resumed advancing through the forest.
However, the monsters that attacked them along the way were mostly the already-familiar ones—Goblins, Cobolts, Orcs, and the like.
Aside from those, given that it was a forest, there were a fair number of Treant-type creatures as well.
After continuing to walk for several hours... just as noon was approaching, a river appeared before Rei and his party.
Granted, it was not that wide a river, more of what one would call a stream.
"Let's take a break here."
No one objected to Rei's words, and they decided to take their midday rest near the river.
Even though it was autumn, the daytime still did not feel particularly cold.
Even with the river nearby, they felt refreshment rather than coldness.
...Of course, the fact that they felt that way might have been because it was only a stream.
"So, what's for lunch? Today's breakfast was delicious too, so I've got high hopes for lunch."
At Reliu's eager question, Rei produced a spicy soup packed with vegetables and fish they had caught at the sea, a large quantity of Sandwiches, and skewers of Orc meat.
Of course, he had not forgotten to prepare large blocks of meat for Set.
As they enjoyed a meal so lavish it was hard to believe they were eating inside a Dungeon, Ielo suddenly took flight.
Not understanding what prompted the sudden takeoff, Rei and the others who had been talking found their attention drawn to Ielo's action.
"Kyu, kyuukyu!"
Landing on a branch of a nearby tree, Ielo let out short cries while performing some kind of task.
From below, branches and leaves obstructed the view, so it was unclear what Ielo was doing, but after a few minutes passed, Ielo descended from the branch.
However, despite the fact that Ielo had flown up to the branch alone, the Ielo that came down was carrying a squirrel with an enormous tail—one that was more than half its body length.
For a moment, Rei wondered if it had caught the squirrel as prey, but if that were the case, Ielo would have killed it immediately.
While not enough to inflict a fatal wound on a human-sized opponent, Ielo's claws and fangs were sharp.
For prey of that squirrel's size, killing it would have been easy.
The fact that it had not killed it meant Ielo had not captured it to kill, but for some other purpose.
"Even inside a Dungeon, it's a forest, so it wouldn't be strange for animals to be here... oh, it's injured."
As Vihera said, the squirrel had wounds on several parts of its body.
"Hmm, so Ielo brought it here wanting to help this squirrel?"
"Kyu!"
At Elena's words, Ielo let out a cry affirming that was exactly the case.
"What should we do? I've got a fair amount of potions. Should we use one?"
"No, for wounds of this degree, my Spirit Magic is more than enough."
As Rei tried to take out a potion from his Misty Ring, Marina told him briefly and covered the squirrel's wounds with Water Spirit Magic.
Then, the wounds gradually disappeared... and the squirrel stared at the water covering its body with a puzzled look.