The morning after the annihilation of the Goblin settlement, Rei watched the women depart on the carriage.
Fortunately, the carriage was reasonably spacious, allowing all of the women to board.
It was still quite cramped, but from the women's perspective, being pressed close against their companions was likely a welcome comfort rather than a hardship, as no complaints arose.
"Well, this matter is settled for now... I suppose."
Beside Rei, who had been seeing off the carriage, the knight muttered with a subtle, indescribable expression.
For the knight, the fact that Goblins had built a settlement near his post—a few hours' walk away, admittedly—and had furthermore brought women there from somewhere was deeply troubling.
Additionally, having to write a report about the incident overnight or today had been an immense hassle, to be perfectly honest.
In this particular incident, he likely would have preferred the situation to progress a bit more slowly.
Of course, if the situation had progressed slowly, it would have meant the women would have continued to suffer sexual assault at the hands of the Goblins for that much longer. Considering those circumstances, perhaps the swift resolution was for the best.
"Yeah. That said, considering we let the High-ranking Species or Rare Species that was leading the settlement escape, I can't say for certain whether this is truly over. ...If possible, I'd want to take it down before it establishes a new settlement."
Rei stated this, but he knew full well that finding a new Goblin settlement would be difficult.
"Rei, can you take me and Fana back soon?"
"Yeah, sorry. Let's go."
Anastasia called out to Rei, who had been speaking with the knight.
With the women she had been worried about now safely on their way to Gilm, Anastasia's mind was likely already occupied with how to proceed with her Wisp research.
Beside her, Fana exuded a faint aura of exasperation at how quickly Anastasia had shifted gears.
As usual, Rei relied on Set, heading toward the center of the Treant Forest with Anastasia and Fana... but as expected, they encountered several Goblins along the way and struck them down one after another.
(Did they not return to the settlement? No, come to think of it, given Goblin intelligence, maybe they don't remember where the settlement was. ...That's disturbingly plausible.)
Given a Goblin's intelligence, it wouldn't be strange for them to not know where their settlement was, just as Rei suspected.
Having lost their way back to the settlement, they simply attacked Rei and his group when they stumbled upon them.
Even phrased that way, Rei found it entirely believable.
In any case, driven by the silent pressure from Anastasia and Fana riding alongside him on Set, Rei swung Death Scythe and dispatched the Goblins with ease.
Slaying Goblins as they went, Rei took slightly longer than usual to deliver the two to the center of the Treant Forest.
Had it been yesterday, Rei would have stepped into the underground space to check on the Wisp, but today he needed to return to the campsite as quickly as possible due to the Water Wolf situation.
That said, after spending the entire previous day together, he understood the Water Wolf's personality well enough... at the very least, he knew it was not hostile toward the people of this world, but rather a friendly entity.
"Alright, I'm heading back. I'll come again in the evening, so I'll leave the Wisp research to you until then. Ideally, I'd like you to make more progress on it."
"Don't ask for the impossible. Fundamentally, this kind of research is a painstakingly unglamorous process. You understand that much, don't you, Rei?"
"Yeah. But considering the nature of the Wisp, it's only natural to want to learn about it as quickly as possible, right?"
"True. Just keep in mind that if you rush researchers, some of them will readily abandon their work."
Anastasia spoke as if hinting that she herself was exactly that kind of researcher.
Given Anastasia's personality, Rei understood that even if pushed, she wouldn't actually throw her research away.
Instead, it wouldn't be surprising if she launched some form of attack against whoever was pressuring her.
"I'll keep that in mind. Anyway, I'll leave the research to you. I'm heading back to the campsite."
After exchanging those words, Anastasia and Fana headed toward the underground space.
Having concealed its entrance, Rei set off for the campsite with Set.
"Gruu!?"
Set had been running through the Treant Forest toward the campsite, but suddenly came to a halt.
In that instant, fire was unleashed from the trees above, scorching the ground just ahead of the stopped Set.
"What!?"
Regaining his balance atop Set's back, Rei quickly scanned the surroundings.
They had clearly been attacked.
Wondering what kind of enemy had attacked them, he carefully surveyed the area... and noticed Set staring intently at a tree branch.
What is it?
Rei looked at the branch Set was watching with that thought in mind... but when he saw the branch move, he drew Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear from his Misty Ring, ready to swing them at a moment's notice.
"Shaaaa!"
"No way... I didn't notice it at all."
Crying out, the tree branch... no, the snake monster that had been camouflaging itself as a tree branch moved.
A snake with two heads was undeniably a monster.
Its body length was roughly two meters, making it a troublesome foe without question.
And what made it even more troublesome...
Shaa!
Both heads simultaneously unleashed fireballs.
Not an attack like Fire Breath, but an attack that fired orbs of flame.
Set dodged those two fireballs by leaping away from the spot.
"Flying Slash!"
From the back of the leaping Set, Rei swung Death Scythe and unleashed a flying slash.
The slash flew straight and succeeded in severing the tree branch where the snake had been at its base.
"Don't... use fire in the forest!"
Along with those words, the Twilight Spear was thrown, but the snake, which had been falling along with the severed branch, kicked off the branch midair and leaped away, evading the Twilight Spear's strike.
"Impressive."
"Gruu!"
Set nodded in agreement with Rei's words.
There was no doubt it was an extremely troublesome enemy—one that could camouflage itself as a tree branch and unleash fireballs from both heads.
"For now, we need to defeat that enemy as quickly as possible. ...If we needlessly drag out the fight, at worst the Treant Forest will catch fire. Well, it's not a mountain, so a forest fire? No, that's not right either. Was it a wildfire?"
Uttering those words, Rei landed and fixed his gaze firmly on the two-headed snake so it couldn't escape.
As he readied himself to respond to whatever attack the enemy might unleash... the coiled snake used its body like a spring to leap high, opening its mouths midair and unleashing fireballs.
However, unlike the large fireballs from before, it rapid-fired smaller fireballs in succession.
"Tch, what an annoying trick!"
Swinging Death Scythe infused with magical power, Rei slashed through the small fireballs one after another.
For the two-headed snake as well, the fireballs were likely powerful but not an attack that could be spammed rapidly.
Having fired fireballs to its limit in the few seconds it was airborne, it began to descend toward the ground...
"Grrrrrru!"
Set swung a front leg at the two-headed snake as it came down to the ground... but the next instant, the snake wrapped its body around a nearby tree branch, arresting its fall.
It should have been a direct hit from the front leg, but the two-headed snake successfully evaded the attack.
That movement alone made it immediately clear to Rei that the snake was battle-hardened.
...Even so, that was only relative to ordinary monsters. Set was a gryphon—an extremely blessed species—capable of using skills through Beast Magic, and had fought numerous battles against formidable foes.
For Set, a two-headed snake that was merely somewhat battle-hardened was an opponent that, while mildly surprising at first with its behavior, was not impossible to deal with once he regained his composure.
"Grrrru!"
With Rei still on his back, Set kicked off the ground.
The two-headed snake unleashed fireballs from both heads to intercept the incoming Set, but Set leaped, kicked off a tree trunk, and using the Triangle Jump technique, swung his front leg and shattered one of the heads.
"Grrrrrru!"
After delivering the front leg strike, he used Magic Eye of Shock, freezing the two-headed snake's movement for an instant—though it now had only one head—and...
"Take this!"
The Twilight Spear Rei unleashed pierced through its body.
"Sha..."
The remaining head let out that sound as it died and fell from the tree branch.
"Phew. That was sudden. ...Well, being outside Gilm, I suppose it can't be helped."
"Gruu."
At Rei's words, Set purred in agreement.
As long as they were outside Gilm, it was never strange to be attacked by monsters at any time.
After all, monsters including Goblins were reasonably common here.
Even so, this two-headed snake with its camouflage and fireball attacks had been quite a formidable foe.
It was precisely because it was Rei and Set that they defeated it so easily, but had the woodcutters or their adventurer escorts encountered it, significant casualties would not have been surprising.
(I should spread word about a monster like this existing.)
Knowing its abilities in advance wouldn't make dealing with an encounter easy, but the chances of survival were far higher than encountering it knowing nothing at all.
"Gruu? Grrrru, grrrrrru."
Looking at the two-headed snake's corpse, Set purred as if asking, Aren't you going to dissect it?
Prompted, Rei judged that while the two-headed snake was fairly long at roughly two meters, there was only one of them, so the dissection wouldn't be too laborious. He decided to dissect it on the spot.
...Dissecting it at the campsite risked drawing other monsters with the smell of blood, which was the primary reason for doing it here.
Though given that they were always eating meals there, Rei felt that concern was almost moot at this point.
In any case, one of the two-headed snake's heads had been shattered by Set's front leg strike, so he severed the remaining head with a short sword and then sliced open its belly.
"Ugh."
Rei muttered in disgust because an undigested Goblin corpse appeared from inside its stomach.
For the time being, he placed the stomach into a hole he had dug using Death Scythe's Terrain Manipulation, and considered whether any of the other internal organs could serve as materials.
Unfortunately, Rei knew nothing about this two-headed snake, and it wasn't listed in the Monster Encyclopedia. After pondering for a few seconds, he extracted the magic stone from its heart and stored the corpse in his Misty Ring.
In the end, all he had on hand was one magic stone.
And Rei had already decided what to do with it.
"Set."
"Gruu?"
As if understanding what Rei wanted to say, Set let out a cry as if asking, Are you sure?
But from the moment he saw this two-headed snake, Rei had decided the magic stone would go to Set.
Judging from the skills the two-headed snake had used, it would likely raise the level of either Optical Camouflage or Fire Breath.
Hoping that Optical Camouflage would level up, Rei nodded to Set.
He handed the magic stone, washed with the Dagger of Flowing Water, to Set... and Set swallowed it.
[Set has acquired the skill 'Fire Breath Lv.4']
The announcement voice echoed in his mind.
Hearing it, Rei couldn't help but mutter, "So close!"
Of course, Fire Breath wasn't a useless skill.
Fire Breath, which spewed intense flames, had both high power and a wide attack range.
Additionally, for Set—who was known as the tamed monster of Rei, Bearer of the Crimson Moniker—it strongly reinforced that image to those around him.
Beyond that, skills underwent a dramatic power increase upon reaching Lv.5, and Fire Breath was currently at Lv.4, just one level away from Lv.5.
In that sense, this level-up was by no means bad.
It wasn't bad... but even so, Rei's honest feeling was that he wanted Optical Camouflage to level up instead.
Optical Camouflage had already surpassed Lv.5, crossing the threshold for a significant enhancement.
But when considering which skill—Fire Breath or Optical Camouflage—encountered more enemies, Optical Camouflage was undoubtedly the more frequently useful one.
"Gruu..."
Seeing Rei's reaction, Set purred apologetically.
Rei hastily stroked Set's head, telling him it wasn't a problem.
"You got stronger, Set, that much is certain. So don't worry about it. Alright?"
At Rei's words, Set narrowed his eyes in relief.
[Set]
'Water Ball Lv.5' 'Fire Breath Lv.4' NEW 'Wind Arrow Lv.4' 'King's Intimidation Lv.3' 'Poison Claw Lv.5' 'Size Change Lv.2' 'Tornado Lv.3' 'Ice Arrow Lv.4' 'Optical Camouflage Lv.5' 'Magic Eye of Shock Lv.2' 'Power Crush Lv.6' 'Sense of Smell Enhancement Lv.4' 'Bubble Breath Lv.1' 'Crystal Breath Lv.1' 'Earth Arrow Lv.2'
Fire Breath: Spews out intensely hot flames. Not a fireball like those unleashed by wyverns, but a breath. The power of the flames can be adjusted by Set's will.