Before Rei lay the corpse of the Cerberus, all three of its heads severed.
He had been unsure what to do with the Cerberus's blood at first, but then he remembered the Monster Encyclopedia noting that it wasn't particularly useful as a material. With that in mind, he hung the body upside down from a nearby tree branch to drain it.
"Grrrr."
"Yeah, I'm counting on you."
Set rumbled, indicating he would keep watch. Rei thanked him and stored the Cerberus's heads in his Misty Ring.
Its fangs and eyeballs could serve as alchemy materials. The skulls, too, could be used in advanced alchemy—provided all three were collected together.
Rei surveyed his surroundings as he gazed at the headless corpse.
Set was already on alert, so Rei felt no need to stay vigilant himself. Still, with the corpse of a B-Rank Monster like a Cerberus lying here, other monsters might come drawn by the remains.
Under normal circumstances, Set's presence alone made it unlikely that monsters would approach.
But as the Cerberus's own attitude had demonstrated, some monsters would attack without hesitation even with Set around.
Of course, that only applied to creatures known as High-Rank Monsters.
Since this is the Frontier, it wouldn't be strange for High-Rank Monsters to appear near Gilm.
It was precisely because such creatures could surface without warning that this region was called the Frontier.
...Though that didn't mean High-Rank Monsters would never appear in places beyond the Frontier, either.
Next up is dismantling the Cerberus. Should I leave the actual dismantling to the others? I'll take the magic stone for myself, though.
Given the Cerberus's abilities, there was a good chance he'd obtain some kind of fire-based skill.
That was how strongly its Fire Breath had left its mark on him.
"Cerberus is... the gatekeeper of hell, wasn't it? Over here, they seem to exist normally, without any connection to that sort of thing."
Rei muttered, recalling something he had once seen or read back in Japan.
"There should have been an Orthrus with two heads, too. I wonder if one of those will show up."
He muttered the thought, figuring that if one did appear, he'd let Set handle it—but fortunately, that didn't become a jinx that summoned one forth.
Perhaps because it was a High-Rank Monster like a Cerberus, blood gushed forcefully from the severed necks of the body suspended upside down.
But the supply wasn't endless.
With blood spraying out that vigorously, what remained inside the Cerberus naturally dwindled.
Once the flow began to weaken, Rei lowered the corpse to the ground—placing it a short distance from the pool that had formed beneath it.
Using the moon's faint glow in the night sky as his light, Rei drew a Mithril Knife from his Misty Ring.
Come to think of it, it's been quite a while since I last used this. Well, lately I've been fighting monsters plenty, but I haven't had much occasion to do harvesting work.
With that thought, he drove the Mithril Knife into the spot where the Cerberus's heart should be.
A Cerberus, upper-tier even among B-Rank Monsters, had fur in which every single strand was harder and sharper than a shoddy piece of metal.
So much so that an ordinary knife bought off a random shelf would struggle just to scratch it.
Rei could manage it partly because of his own physical strength, but more than anything, it was because he was wielding a Mithril Knife.
Infused with his mana, the blade sliced through the Cerberus's hardened skin with ease.
Under normal circumstances, a Cerberus pelt would fetch a high price from the Guild for its ornamental value.
But that was only if it was intact.
In the case of the one Rei had killed, all three heads had been severed by Death Scythe, rendering it useless for that purpose.
That said, the fur—harder than most ordinary metals—was an ideal material for armor, so it wasn't as if there were no uses for it whatsoever.
Once he had cut open the area around the heart, he reached inside and felt around the body cavity.
After ten-odd seconds, he located the magic stone and extracted it.
With the magic stone secured, the Cerberus corpse could be dismantled by a specialist later. He stored it in his Misty Ring.
Next, he produced the Dagger of Flowing Water and used it to wash the magic stone and the Mithril Knife.
The water generated by Rei's mana was of a quality that could only be called Celestial Nectar. If most people learned he was using water of that caliber to rinse off a magic stone and a knife, they would undoubtedly cry out, "Why would you do such a thing!?"
...To Rei, it was true that he could produce water of supreme quality, but as long as he had mana, he could generate as much of it as he wanted.
In other words, no matter how delicious the water was, it was ultimately just water.
It was water he could produce in unlimited quantities.
After storing the washed Mithril Knife back into his Misty Ring along with the Twilight Spear, he called out to Set, keeping only Death Scythe in hand.
"Set, I'm using the magic stone!"
"Grrrrl."
Set responded to Rei's call and immediately appeared before him, fixing Rei with a gaze full of interest.
He was clearly eager to see what kind of skill Death Scythe would acquire.
With Set's eyes on him, Rei finished his preparations, tossed the magic stone into the air, and brought Death Scythe down in a single stroke.
[Death Scythe has acquired the skill 'Multi Slash Lv.3']
The announcement message rang through his mind.
But upon receiving it, a question surfaced on Rei's face.
He was glad to have acquired a skill. He was also glad that it was a level-up for Multi Slash.
Even so, what gave him pause was the question of why the skill he'd acquired—no, leveled up—was Multi Slash of all things.
The Cerberus had used Fire Breath. Rei had been fully convinced he would obtain a fire-based skill.
But for some reason, what he'd gotten—what had leveled up—was Multi Slash.
"Grru?"
Set, having heard the same announcement message, looked at Rei with the same puzzlement, as if asking, "Why?"
Feeling a spark of fondness at Set's expression, Rei cast his mind back to the battle with the Cerberus...
"Ah."
A sound of understanding escaped him.
He had no proof, and it was truly just a gut feeling, but he thought he had an idea why Multi Slash had leveled up.
The Cerberus had three heads, each attacking simultaneously or with slight time differences between them.
That, he suspected, was what had influenced the level-up of Multi Slash.
In any case, the exact mechanics by which Beast Magic determined which skill to acquire remained unclear.
There were even times when he gained skills he had never imagined at all, so in that sense, Multi Slash was still on the more comprehensible end of the spectrum.
After explaining his reasoning to Set, Rei decided to test the Multi Slash skill right then and there.
At Level 2, two additional slashes were added beyond the original strike. Does that mean at Level 3, three additional slashes will be added?
He could make any number of predictions, but whether the skill would actually behave as expected was something he wouldn't know unless he tried it.
That was why he needed to test it in practice.
"For now, this tree should work."
The tree Rei chose was not the one he'd used to hang the Cerberus for blood drainage, but one a short distance away.
The drainage tree had blood smeared on its trunk from the process.
The tree he cut down with Multi Slash was intended to be handed over to the alchemists as construction material.
If Cerberus blood was stuck to the trunk, the alchemists might once again give in to unnecessary curiosity.
That was why he was testing it on a clean tree.
"Grrrrl."
Set purred as if to say "do your best" and took a few steps back.
After confirming that, Rei swung Death Scythe toward the trunk.
"Multi Slash!"
The strike, unleashed with the skill activated, cleaved through the trunk with ease.
But that wasn't what mattered this time.
The severed tree toppled over with a crash.
...The fact that no animals or birds fled at the sound was probably because they had already scattered during the fight with the Cerberus.
Rei, engrossed in combat, hadn't noticed at the time.
In any case, he examined the fallen trunk on the ground.
Aside from the slash Rei had delivered himself, there were two other slash marks on the wood.
"...Two?"
Given that there had been two at Level 2, he'd expected three additional slashes at Level 3.
"Does that mean the power of the additional slashes has gone up instead?"
"Grru!"
As Rei stood there studying the trunk, Set suddenly purred.
What is it? He looked over and found Set staring at the severed stump.
Seeing Set looking somewhat excited, the thought Could it be? sprang to Rei's mind.
Spurred by that thought, he moved to where Set was—and found exactly what he'd hoped for.
Slash marks were clearly visible on the stump.
"Three, huh."
The effect of Multi Slash reaching Level 3 was, just as Rei had predicted, an increase of one to the number of slashes.
Wait. But if that's the case, what happens when it hits Level 5?
From past experience, skills that reached Level 5 gained a rank-up in performance, even within the same skill.
And Multi Slash, even at low levels like 1 or 2, was already powerful.
It couldn't perform ranged attacks like Flying Slash, nor could it reshape the ground within a given area like Terrain Manipulation.
But in the single domain of close combat, it was undeniably an extremely effective skill.
"Grrrrl!"
Set let out a happy cry toward Rei.
He was probably delighted that the leveled-up skill had worked exactly as expected.
It wasn't as though Set had acquired the skill himself, but having his beloved Rei grow stronger was a joy for him nonetheless.
"Thanks. ...Alright, we can't stay here forever. Let's head back soon. If we take too long, they'll start worrying."
With that, Rei stored the severed tree in his Misty Ring, cast one final glance at the site of the Cerberus battle, and climbed onto Set's back.
"Hey, Rei. Took you a while. ...I heard something that sounded like a tree falling a minute ago. Was that you?"
Upon returning to the Birth Tower, an adventurer called out to him.
Landing directly at the camp with Set would have prompted some people to mistake the gryphon for an enemy and react defensively, so Rei had touched down a short distance away and walked the rest.
...Though between the campfires and the ongoing glow of the still-burning slime, it might have been fine to land directly from the sky after all.
"Yeah. Ran into a Cerberus and had to fight it. That was just some collateral damage."
"A Cerberus!? ...Seriously?"
As a high-ranking monster even among B-Rank creatures, it was not an opponent that even the skilled adventurers stationed here could defeat easily.
Among those currently serving as guards for the Birth Tower, the number who could take one down solo was exceedingly small.
"Yeah. Want to see the corpse? I didn't have much time, and dismantling isn't exactly my specialty, so I just drained the blood and took the magic stone. Brought the rest back whole."
"Ah... right. A Cerberus is certainly fascinating, but unfortunately, with things the way they are right now, we can't give it a proper look. I'll have you show me tomorrow morning once it's light out. Deal?"
At the adventurer's words, the others standing watch alongside him nodded in agreement.
It was obvious that if the Cerberus corpse were produced on the spot, everyone's attention would fixate on it and the watch would suffer.
Better to examine it carefully in a well-lit place the following morning.
In truth, as someone with reasonable confidence in his dismantling skills, that adventurer was hoping Rei would entrust the Cerberus's dismantling to him as they talked.
The other adventurers also wanted to examine the Cerberus thoroughly later, so they nodded in agreement with their colleague's words.
[Death Scythe]
'Corrosion Lv.5' 'Flying Slash Lv.5' 'Magic Shield Lv.1' 'Power Slash Lv.3' 'Wind Hand Lv.4' 'Terrain Manipulation Lv.4' 'Pain Burst Lv.3' 'Penetrate Lv.3' 'Multi Slash Lv.3' 'Blizzard Slash Lv.1'
Multi Slash: Enables multiple attacks in a single strike. At Level 2, two additional slashes are added beyond the original attack, and at Level 3, three additional slashes are added.