Rei had been standing guard at the Birth Tower, but there was nothing in particular he needed to do.
No mercenaries were attacking like yesterday. No axes rang out from woodcutters felling trees. No monsters or animals came charging in.
It would not have been strange to wonder whether a major battle had truly taken place here yesterday — but the fact remained that with nothing happening, there was simply nothing to do.
Of course, he stayed ready to respond at a moment's notice should any abnormality occur. Even so, there was not much for him to do. In a manner of speaking, Rei was at a loss for how to pass the time.
And he was not the only one. The other adventurers were in the same boat.
The sole exception was the knight, who — perhaps on Daskar's orders — was teaching the Lizardmen their language while keeping watch over the surroundings.
Among the Lizardmen, there were some who were reasonably intelligent or had a talent for language, and many of them attended the knight's lessons with genuine interest.
...Though a few had no patience for studying and were instead sparring lightly with their comrades.
What surprised Rei was seeing Gaga among the students.
Given Gaga's personality, it would not have been strange for him to come seeking a mock battle with Rei instead.
And yet, for whatever reason, there he was, studying the language.
"Gaga is one of the top five strongest in the Gran Dragonia Empire, but he's not an idiot, right?"
'That is correct. Brother Gaga himself is not particularly fond of studying, but there is no doubt he is quite intelligent. I have heard that even his tutors lamented why someone so bright devoted himself solely to martial prowess.'
"So that influence is part of what helped him reach that level of strength."
'When you put it that way, Lord Rei, I find it somewhat difficult to accept so readily.'
Beside Rei, Zozo wore a complicated, hard-to-read expression.
In terms of pure physical ability, Lizardmen were clearly superior to humans.
They also possessed a tail — a body part humans lacked — which they could use as a third hand or foot.
As a species, then, Lizardmen were more powerful than humans. And yet Zozo could not defeat Rei in a mock battle, even at his best.
Nor could Gaga, who was even stronger than Zozo.
So being told that Rei had "reached that level of strength" left Zozo feeling somewhat conflicted.
...In reality, Rei's body was a creation forged by Zephyle and his companions at the height of their craft, so it could hardly be called a pure human one. But that was beside the point.
Even setting Rei aside, Zozo had never lost a mock battle to anyone other than Byune, and Gaga had fought Vihera to a near-standstill.
Since none of them had revealed anything resembling a trump card, whether that meant they were truly strong remained an open question.
"I guess so? Well, either way—"
'Whoa!'
The moment Rei opened his mouth, an adventurer posted a short distance away — the one keeping watch — let out a startled shout.
Hearing that voice, everyone — adventurers, the knight, and Lizardmen alike — readied themselves for combat, assuming another attack was underway. But what emerged was not an enemy. It was Set, carrying a deer carcass in his beak.
A Lizardman child was riding on his back, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
Calling it a deer was almost misleading — it was clearly no ordinary one.
As far as Rei knew, a typical deer was roughly the same size as Set, maybe three meters long at most, with antlers under a meter.
Add this one's antlers to its body length, and it was larger than Set.
With no idea how much it weighed either, Rei found himself, uncharacteristically, unsure how to react.
Should he praise Set for bagging such a prize? Or scold him for fighting something this size while a Lizardman child was on his back?
He wavered for a few seconds — but before he could decide on either, Gaga spoke up cheerfully to Set.
Naturally, neither Set nor Rei understood a word of it.
"Zozo, could you ask the children where and how they ran into a deer this huge?"
'Understood.'
At Rei's request, Zozo turned to speak with the children.
While that was happening, Rei examined the massive deer Set had set on the ground.
Set could fly even while carrying a bear carcass larger than himself, gripping it with his front legs.
So carrying a deer about his own size by the beak was entirely plausible.
(But would an ordinary deer get this big? Is it a monster? No, I don't know enough about this type of creature. If it is a monster, is it a new species? Or just an unusually large animal? ...Setting the body size aside, with antlers that massive, how did it even navigate the Treant Forest?)
With antlers roughly a meter long, moving between the trees would naturally be difficult.
Even something as large as Set could weave through gaps in the forest where the space was mostly muscle and flexible tissue.
Antlers could not do the same.
(Maybe it got stuck because of the antlers and Set caught it off guard? ...Surely it didn't go smashing through trees with those things?)
No crashing sounds had reached them, so that was probably not a concern.
"Rei, what are we doing with this deer?"
One of the adventurers fixed him with an expectant look.
Judging by the sheer size of the animal, he was probably imagining an all-you-can-eat feast of fresh venison.
With ordinary animals — as opposed to monsters — the meat actually improved in flavor if left to rest for a while after being killed rather than being eaten immediately. But with a deer carcass sitting right in front of them, patience was evidently in short supply.
"For starters, let's drain the blood. ...Though doing it near the Birth Tower is probably a bad idea."
The scent of blood could attract monsters or wild predators.
Better to move a short distance away and handle it there, Rei decided, storing the massive carcass in his Misty Ring.
With blood drainage, the sooner the better.
Once something was stored in the Misty Ring, time stopped for its contents.
That meant he could buy at least some time before the draining needed to happen.
...The time already lost between Set killing the deer and carrying it here was beyond recovery, though.
"So, Zozo. What did the kids say?"
Noticing Zozo approaching just as he finished stowing the carcass, Rei asked.
He had watched the Lizardman children chattering excitedly among themselves.
He figured teasing out the full story — the precise details — would be difficult, but seeing Zozo return to his side suggested the task had somehow been accomplished.
'Yes. It seems that while they were walking through the forest on Set's back, the deer suddenly charged at them from ahead, trying to gore Set with its antlers. Set broke its neck with a single strike of his front leg.'
"Ah... Come to think of it, there were no obvious external wounds, but the neck was snapped. Glad to see Set's learned some restraint."
Set was a gryphon — an A-Rank monster — and possessed tremendous physical power.
Ara's strength arguably pushed the limits of what a human body could achieve, and yet if Set went all out, he could toss her around like a child.
On top of that, he wore the Bracelet of Herculean Strength on his front legs, a Magic Item that amplified his raw power. A single strike without proper restraint would not merely have broken bones on impact — it would have reduced the deer's entire head to a mist of blood, flesh, and shattered bone that splattered across the surrounding trees.
The fact that only the neck was broken meant Set had held back considerably.
"Still, if it was a deer, it should have understood the absolute gulf between itself and Set. Why attack?"
Rei had assumed Set had spotted the deer and taken it down as a souvenir, but according to the children, the deer had attacked first.
There was no reason for them to lie, and Zozo would not lie to Rei.
That made it an undeniable fact: the deer had attacked Set unprovoked.
'Perhaps Set wandered into its territory.'
Rei nodded. That made sense.
Growing up in the Tohoku countryside, right beside the mountains, he had spent plenty of time playing in the hills and had seen deer on many occasions.
He had always thought of them as animals without a strong sense of territory, but he once heard from a friend of his father's — a hunter — that deer did in fact stake out territory. That had surprised him.
It was possible the deer had been enraged by Set intruding on its turf and charged to drive him out.
At the same time, Rei found himself wondering — did deer really get that aggressive?
Of course, the deer he knew were not the deer of this world. They were the deer of Japan, and specifically the mountains of rural Tohoku.
The one Set killed could well have evolved uniquely for this world.
What was more, this was the frontier. A deer born and raised here had no business being ordinary.
Even facing a gryphon, perhaps that kind of boldness was simply necessary for survival.
"Maybe. But if something that big has wandered into the Treant Forest, we should have heard something by now. ...Is it because of the Birth Tower situation?"
'Hard to say. But if things continue like this, the woodcutters you're guarding may be in danger as well, Lord Rei. Fortunately, it seems no one has come to log today.'
"Woodcutters, huh... You're right. If there are more deer like that one out there, it could be dangerous."
Since he had not fought the deer himself, Rei could not say exactly how strong it had been.
But judging by the size and sharpness of those antlers, a woodcutter — even one with some confidence in his strength — would be no match for it. An adventurer might handle it, but a woodcutter was a different story.
"Rei, you can explain that stuff to the Guild later. More importantly, let's drain the deer's blood already. You don't get venitor that looks this delicious very often. Oh, and leave the butchering to me. I know I don't look it, but when I was a kid, I used to help my old man. He was a hunter."
"Fine by me."
Rei nodded without hesitation.
He had grown used to dismantling monsters, but it was far from his specialty.
And a deer was an animal, not a monster.
...He was fairly confident when it came to breaking down a chicken, but he certainly could not treat a chicken and a deer the same way.
Better to hand it off to someone who actually knew what he was doing from the start.
That was why he agreed so readily.
"Alright, let's get the blood drained. ...How far do you think we need to go?"
"Let's see... Given the size of that thing, there's going to be a lot of blood. I'd say we should get a decent distance from the Birth Tower."
"Got it. Zozo, I'm stepping out for a bit — I'll leave things here to you. Even if mercenaries show up, with Gaga around it shouldn't be a problem."
Whether he heard his name or not, Gaga turned his gaze toward Rei.
Rei waved it off as nothing and followed the adventurer into the Treant Forest to handle the butchering.
"Whoa, this is incredible."
When Rei returned from the forest and began pulling the butchered cuts from his Misty Ring, everyone gathered around in awe.
Strip loin from along the backbone, haunch meat, spare ribs from the ribcage, heart, liver — and, somewhat unusually, tongue.
He had loved beef tongue back in Japan, and pork tongue from the supermarket had been a regular fixture on the dinner table.
But deer tongue was something he had never tried.
According to the adventurer who did the butchering, it was remarkably tasty, and skipping it would be a waste — so he had set it aside.
(Wonder how it'll be? Well, even if it's no good, this one will probably eat it, so I guess it won't go to waste.)
The butchering had taken time, and the hour was already slightly past noon.
The reason everyone had waited was not consideration for Rei and the adventurer — it was, quite naturally, the venison they were bringing back.
Not only had a campfire been lit, but someone had built a makeshift hearth and placed an iron plate on top of it. They were fully primed for yakiniku.
They had gone to the trouble of moving away specifically so the smell of blood wouldn't be a problem — and now they were grilling meat right here? Was that not defeating the purpose?
Even so, Rei found himself powerless against the pull of freshly grilled meat...
"So good!"
Exclamations of delight rang out across the gathering.