"I can see it."
About an hour after entering the grove, the female Centaur who had once lived in the settlement spotted it and cried out.
Many of those present turned their gazes in the direction of her voice.
The current state of the settlement was obvious at a glance.
It had been built within the grove, enclosed by fences designed to keep Dragonias at bay—yet most of those fences had been destroyed.
Back at the Campsite, when Rei had created trenches using Terrain Manipulation, he had consulted with Zai to ensure the trenches allowed free passage in and out. But the settlement here in the grove had needed to conceal itself from Dragonias as much as possible. Perhaps to secure an advantage in a defensive battle should they be discovered, its fences had been built as sturdily as possible. These were no simple livestock barriers, but proper defensive fortifications.
Now, however, most of them lay in ruins, reduced to a tragic state.
As for what had caused this, the answer was obvious without a second thought.
Come to think of it, they said they lived hidden in the grove, but what happened to their livestock?
The question surfaced in Rei's mind.
Centaurs made their living through nomadic herding. But raising livestock in a grove like this was—while not strictly impossible—clearly quite difficult. So how had they sustained themselves?
The most likely answer was hunting. Being a grove, it wouldn't be unusual for there to be a fair number of animals and birds. Or perhaps they had relied on nuts and berries. But whether either could sufficiently feed a settlement's worth of people was questionable at best.
In any case, before resolving such questions, they needed to actually go and see the settlement for themselves. After all, there was a possibility, however slim, that Centaurs might still be hiding within.
With that in mind, heading directly to the settlement should have taken priority over anything else... but Rei spoke up first.
"Halt."
It was not a particularly loud voice, yet it carried enough force to stop every Centaur in their tracks.
"What is it?" someone asked.
"...I can hear sounds coming from inside the settlement."
Rei's five senses were sharper than those of an ordinary human. Even compared to the Centaurs, whose sight, hearing, and sense of smell were keen from living on the grasslands, his sharpness surpassed theirs. And now his hearing had picked up sounds drifting from the settlement ahead.
What those sounds meant was obvious without needing to think.
They were not the sounds of surviving Centaurs cleaning up after a battle. That much was easy to imagine.
The women who had fled from this settlement understood it too. They wore serious, grief-stricken expressions as they stared toward the settlement.
"Wait here. We'll go in first," Zai said.
His proposal was likely motivated by a desire to spare them the sight of what was happening inside—Dragonias gorging themselves on Centaur corpses.
But the female Centaur shook her head.
"No. We're coming too. The ones in that settlement are our comrades. We won't abandon them."
They're already dead—what's left to abandon?
Some of the Centaurs thought this, but none voiced it aloud. They understood what she was feeling. Even if her comrades' corpses were being devoured by Dragonias, she wanted to see them with her own eyes and confirm their fate. That was what her words meant.
"Understood. But it won't do for everyone to come. There are non-combatants among you. Half will stay here."
Zai quickly divided the group into those who would remain and those who would advance. A few insisted on going, or wanted to stay behind, but Zai ignored their opinions. This was no time to deliberate. Speed was essential.
Naturally, Rei and Vihera were placed in the group heading toward the settlement. Zai had judged it foolish to relegate fighters of their caliber to rearguard duty when the enemy's presence was confirmed ahead. Better to deploy them where the threat was certain. Rei and Vihera offered no objection and simply nodded.
In truth, if a powerful Dragonias—say, a silver-scaled one—were to appear, the forces left behind wouldn't stand a chance. But Rei estimated that a silver-scaled Dragonias would only leave its base during nest-splitting, so there was little cause for concern on that front.
"Alright, let's go."
At Zai's word, those heading to the settlement set off.
As they drew closer, the sounds Rei had described became audible to everyone—the wet sounds of chewing, and the crack of something hard, likely bone, being crushed.
What those sounds signified was not difficult to imagine for anyone familiar with the hunger of the Dragonias.
Grit.
The sound of Asdena grinding his back teeth echoed through the air beside Rei. He wasn't the only one. Many of the Centaurs understood what was happening inside the settlement, and frustration, rage, and grief warred across their faces.
None of them had known the Centaurs who lived here. But as long as the dead were their own kind, the thought of them being eaten alive was unbearable.
"Listen. Our first priority is eliminating the Dragonias. But there might be—slim chance, but still—survivors hiding in the settlement. If you find anyone alive, rescuing them comes first."
Zai addressed the group, though it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. Rei understood, and since he could sympathize with Zai's feelings, he kept quiet.
Before long, they arrived at the edge of the settlement.
Hiding behind one of the few intact fences, Zai peered inside.
At this distance, it wasn't just the sounds that reached them—the thick, coppery stench of blood was unmistakable. Whose blood it was went without saying.
"No survivors... Dragonias count is... nearly twenty from what I can see. Across the whole settlement, we could be looking at a hundred. Stay sharp."
Everyone nodded.
Zai timed his strike and bellowed.
"Go! Avenge our kin! Make those Dragonias bastards pay!"
"Ooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
The other Centaurs raised their voices in response. The war cry was meant to intimidate the Dragonias, but it also served to crush the fear that still lurked within their own hearts. They knew they had grown stronger through Vihera's training. They knew it. But the terror that Dragonias inspired still lived inside them, and they needed to kill it.
While the Centaurs steeled themselves, Rei and Vihera walked into the settlement without any particular display of resolve.
The Dragonias inside, hearing the Centaurs' war cry, stirred at the arrival of new enemies—no, new prey. From their perspective, fresh victims had come to satisfy their ravenous hunger. It was exactly what they wanted.
"Garrahahajaeaa!"
With a hideous screech, a swarm of Dragonias lunged at Rei, Vihera, and the Centaurs.
Sure enough, a lot of them are going after Vihera. Is she giving off some kind of pheromone that only Dragonias can sense?
Seeing the disproportionate number of Dragonias swarming Vihera, Rei couldn't help but wonder. Short of something like that, the phenomenon was impossible to explain. It must have been simply that, to the Dragonias, Vihera looked like prime meat.
"Oooooh! Let's go!"
Zai let out a battle cry and charged the nearest Dragonias. The settlement was reasonably large, and the fences had been smashed apart in the earlier fighting, leaving plenty of open space to do battle.
Fortunately for the Centaurs, the more Dragonias crowded in toward Vihera, the more they jostled and got in each other's way. Exploiting those openings, Zai's warriors struck.
The Dragonias, for their part, couldn't ignore opponents attacking them outright, no matter how fixated they were on Vihera. Irritated at being interrupted, they swung their claws at the Centaurs harassing them.
But such careless attacks had no hope of landing against the Centaurs now. They dodged and delivered swift counters.
The Dragonias were covered in tough scales, so the Centaurs' blows didn't kill outright. But that didn't mean they could block everything. Even strikes against scales still transferred impact, and occasionally an attack found the gap between them.
After all, the battle here hadn't ended that long ago. The settlement's Centaurs had largely been defeated and devoured, but they hadn't gone down without a fight. Many had counterattacked with the resolve of the doomed. The missing scales on so many of the Dragonias were proof of that—a desperate parting gift from the fallen.
Those wounds were now proving to be an unexpected vulnerability. The Dragonias, their intelligence degraded by starvation, likely had no understanding of why they were taking damage.
Attack after attack landed, each one chipping away.
Meanwhile, Rei swung Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear with practiced ease, cutting down every Dragonias in his path. Even with scales intact, those weapons could bisect a torso without effort. In this situation, the Dragonias were little more than moving scarecrows to him.
The only issue was that Vihera, the Dragonias, and the Centaurs were all clustered together, which made wielding long-handled weapons somewhat awkward. If the shaft of Death Scythe or the Twilight Spear struck a Dragonias, no problem. But if it hit a Centaur fighting alongside them, that was another matter entirely. He couldn't attack his own allies, so rather than focusing on kills, Rei had to be even more careful about avoiding friendly fire.
"Vihera, move to more open ground! It's too tight here—we'll end up hitting our own people!"
"You're right. That would be best!"
Even as she spoke, she released a burst of magical force from a palm that had barely grazed her target, shattering the Dragonias from the inside. Magic Impact Palm—her signature technique and ultimate skill—still required nothing more than a touch, yet its power was astonishing even from Rei's perspective.
No, the startup is definitely faster than before, and the output seems higher too. Well, she's been training. It's only natural her technique would improve.
With that thought, Rei batted aside a Dragonias that several Centaurs had sent flying with a coordinated strike, using the shaft of the Twilight Spear. Then he activated his Sleipnir boots, leaping skyward and kicking off the air itself to gain even more height.
From that high vantage point, he could see Dragonias from quite far away closing in, drawn by the commotion.
Close to a hundred, just as I thought. But why send this many to a place like this?
It was the same question that had surfaced when they first entered the grove. The settlement wasn't particularly large, and according to the woman who had fled, it hadn't fielded many warriors. That meant the Dragonias had deliberately dispatched nearly a hundred of their number. There had to be a reason.
But the answer eluded him, and for now, Rei set the question aside. Annihilating the Dragonias came first.