The first to charge into the Dragonias was Zai, likely the strongest among the Centaurs in the Reconnaissance Unit.
He swung his spear in wide arcs, launching suppressive strikes to keep the creatures at bay.
Following Zai's lead, the other Centaurs joined the attack.
They weren't just attacking, either. From the rear, several archers loosed arrows to harry the Dragonias.
Most of the arrows glanced off the Dragonias' scales, but that didn't mean they were entirely harmless. Whenever a Dragonias tensed to strike, an arrow would fly to preempt it, throwing off its timing. As a result, fangs and claws were dodged before they could reach Centaur flesh.
On rare occasions, an arrow would pierce an unprotected eyeball.
No matter how thoroughly hunger dominated a Dragonias, its pain receptors still worked. What hurt, hurt.
A Dragonias with a pierced eyeball would flail in confusion, sometimes even lashing out at its own companions. Perhaps because attacks between Dragonias actually connected, several had sustained significant damage from friendly fire.
(Eating your own pierced eyeball... I feel like that was in Romance of the Three Kingdoms or something. Though if it's a Dragonias driven by hunger, I wouldn't put it past one to do the same.)
Rei mused on this while shielding the Centaurs behind him—the ones who had been fleeing from the very Dragonias Zai and his warriors now fought.
In contrast to Rei's calm, the Centaurs he was protecting watched the battle with wide, astonished eyes.
The sight of multiple Centaurs fighting Dragonias was a familiar one. But while familiar, the sheer composure on display here was overwhelmingly superior to anything they had seen from the fighters back at their own settlement.
"This is... what exactly...?" one of the Centaurs murmured. But no one could answer him.
The Centaurs of the Reconnaissance Unit were locked in combat, and Rei and Vihera were watching the battle unfold with rapt attention.
The Centaurs actually fighting the Dragonias could only stare in dumbfounded silence at their own performance.
Attacks they had barely managed to dodge before, they now evaded with ease—and not only that, they could even fire off counterattacks in return. While most of their blows still deflected off scales, the raw power behind each strike that connected through that armor had clearly increased. And above all—
"Compared to Vihera, they're weak, weak, weak!" one Centaur bellowed mid-fight.
It was true. For the Centaurs who had endured repeated mock battles against Vihera, the Dragonias' attacks were slow, simple, and painfully easy to read.
Among the Centaurs from the Campsite who had joined the reconnaissance, some had missed out on most of Vihera's training sessions. Those individuals still struggled against their Dragonias as they always had. But objectively speaking, thanks in part to their numerical advantage, the Centaur side was unmistakably dominant.
"Amazing... to fight this evenly with Dragonias..."
Turning toward the voice, Rei saw a female Centaur in her mid-twenties. "Astonished" was the only word for her expression as she stared fixedly at the battle.
She wasn't alone, though. The other Centaurs were equally transfixed, watching their own kin overwhelm the Dragonias.
"Is it that surprising?" The one who addressed the astonished woman was Vihera.
She was clearly pleased—seeing the fighters she had trained holding their own and earning praise for it. Calling them disciples would be an exaggeration, but they were still the ones she had fought countless mock battles against.
The woman opened her mouth to respond to Vihera, then froze.
Vihera was dressed, as always, in the kind of sheer, translucent garments a Dancer or a Prostitute might wear. Being caught off guard was only natural. Add to that a beauty capable of captivating even fellow women, and the reaction was inevitable.
Still, no jealousy stirred within her—and that was likely because Vihera was not a Centaur, but a two-legged race.
"Y-yes. I know how strong Dragonias are. The men of my settlement... many were killed and eaten. To think anyone could be this strong..." She could hardly believe it.
Vihera offered a proud smile. "The Centaurs fighting over there? I trained them. Though due to time constraints, I couldn't train everyone."
"...You did?"
To the woman, Vihera didn't look all that strong. Had she undergone warrior's training herself, she might have grasped Vihera's true ability. But whether fortunately or unfortunately, she was an ordinary woman without such training. So even told directly that Vihera had trained those Centaurs, she couldn't simply accept it.
"Yes. Does that surprise you? But ask them once the battle is over, and you'll see for yourself."
Vihera's words were an undeniable fact. Even if she had lied here, it would have been exposed in short order. Not that Vihera would do such a thing—and so the woman found herself wondering whether what she was hearing could actually be true.
While she stood there bewildered, the battle raged on. The Dragonias' numbers had already been cut nearly in half.
Under normal circumstances, once the enemy's numbers dropped that far, anyone who had finished off their opponent would move to assist others. But this battle was being fought to confirm their own capabilities. As such, they held back from assisting allies, choosing instead to observe the situation.
Of course, they had no hesitation about stepping in if a companion was on the verge of death. But for now, while some were taking longer than others to land the killing blow, no one was in genuine danger.
"Fight as a unit! If an attack is about to hit an ally, cover them!" Zai's shout rang across the battlefield.
By the way, Zai had been fighting a Dragonias on his own, but he'd already dispatched it and was now supporting his allies. He had always possessed enough skill to fight a Dragonias solo, though finishing one off had still taken time. Yet perhaps because he had engaged in more mock battles with Vihera than anyone else, his abilities had improved dramatically—to the point where, even if he couldn't defeat a silver-scaled Dragonias, he could hold a defensive stance long enough to buy considerable time.
"Yeah, I guess innate talent plays a role after all," Rei mused.
"Naturally. I wouldn't say the gap in talent is absolute... but talent does undeniably exist."
Though she spoke of differences in talent, Vihera wore a slightly wistful expression—likely because she understood all too well the vast gulf between her own talent and that of others.
Then again, since there were people like Rei, Elena, and Marina who possessed enough skill to fight her on equal footing, she no longer felt particularly troubled about it.
"It's over," Rei announced.
He hadn't intended to help Vihera change the subject or anything—he was simply stating the fact. The last surviving Dragonias had finally collapsed to the ground. There was no light left in its eyes. It was dead.
"Truly... not a single casualty, against the Dragonias..." The woman behind Rei breathed the words, her voice thick with disbelief.
There were wounded, but no dead. In her settlement, fighting Dragonias without a single fatality was extraordinarily rare. Unless you were exceptionally lucky, one or two would always die.
One could simply write it off as their warriors lacking skill, and leave it at that.
"Now then." The woman flinched. Seeing Rei mutter and turn toward her, she tensed.
Only then did she notice that the two weapons he had carried—a scythe and a spear—had vanished at some point. But she decided there was no point asking about that now, and tentatively opened her mouth. Everything she had seen told her the man before her was the leader of the group that had just obliterated the Dragonias. In reality, the leader of the Reconnaissance Unit was Zai, and Rei was more of a hired helper—but she had no way of knowing that.
Regardless, the overwhelming presence she had felt when they first passed by, combined with the words Rei had shouted to Zai and the others, had instilled in her a half-instinctive understanding that this was someone far beyond her ability to handle.
Slightly stung by being feared so suddenly, Rei spoke.
"The Dragonias that were chasing you—those guys took care of them. So I wanted to ask: the fact that you were fleeing through here means your settlement is somewhere nearby?"
"...Yes."
For a moment, she considered deflecting the question. But facing Rei, she realized that if she lied and it was discovered later, the consequences would be dire. She nodded honestly.
"Good. That's convenient, then. We came here to crush the Dragonias' headquarters. Do you have any leads that might help?"
The woman clearly hadn't expected that question. Her expression went blank with sheer surprise. By all rights, they had just fought a dangerous enemy on her behalf. It wouldn't have been strange for them to demand some form of compensation.
Of course, as the overwhelming victory Zai and the others had just demonstrated made plain, to Rei's group, ordinary Dragonias—anything short of a silver-scaled or golden-scaled individual—were no longer particularly formidable opponents.
(Next time, I'll have to make sure they can each beat a Dragonias on their own, not just as a group.) Vihera, having finished watching the battle, formed this thought... and the Centaurs who had just finished fighting felt a sudden chill run down their spines for reasons they couldn't quite explain.
"So? Do you know where the headquarters is?" Rei pressed, noting the woman had fallen silent.
She thought for a moment, then shook her head. "Our settlement prioritized staying hidden so the Dragonias wouldn't find us, so..."
Rei was disappointed to hear it. If they had been hiding seriously, they would have sent out reconnaissance units to gather what intelligence they could, using it to conceal the entire settlement more effectively. But from what he could see of the woman before him, there had been nothing so methodical about their approach. It sounded more like they had simply feared the Dragonias blindly and hidden away.
(She might just not have been told because she's a woman, though.) He considered it, but Centaurs as a rule weren't known for extreme gender discrimination. There were plenty of female Centaur warriors, and men who handled menial tasks. But that was only what he had observed in the Centaur settlements he had visited so far. Other settlements—especially this far out, where Zai's people had never had any contact—it wouldn't be impossible for one to practice extreme discrimination. Though asking about that here served no purpose.
"I see. Then why were you running?"
"Our settlement was discovered by the Dragonias... those who could fight threw themselves into battle, but even so..." She trailed off, shaking her head.
Rei didn't need to hear the rest to understand what had happened. He didn't press her further about the fate of the settlement.
Instead, he asked something else. "Where is your settlement located?"
There was no guarantee that a Dragonias stronghold or headquarters lay anywhere near it. But the fact that it had been attacked meant the possibility couldn't be ruled out. If he found out where the settlement was, searching the surrounding area might—just might—turn up the Dragonias headquarters.
In truth, it was nothing more than a faint hope.
"Our settlement is..." In response to Rei's question, the female Centaur honestly described where her settlement lay.