"Haa... it's over for now, at least."
Rei muttered under his breath as he surveyed the surroundings.
Scattered across the ground before him lay the corpses of nearly a hundred Dragonias. Beyond them, the Centaurs who had fought past their limits lay collapsed where they stood, utterly exhausted.
Even with the lower bodies of horses, Centaurs still collapsed onto the ground, huh.
The thought crossed Rei's mind, but having witnessed similar scenes several times before, it was nothing new at this point.
During training with Vihera, in particular, it wasn't uncommon for someone to push past the limits of their endurance.
Those individuals would sometimes end up in exactly the state now spread before his eyes once their mock battles concluded.
That said, unlike mock battles, there were massive numbers of Dragonias corpses lying near those currently collapsed on the ground.
At the moment, they didn't seem to care much about that through the haze of exhaustion, but eventually—once their fatigue had subsided to some extent—they would notice, and unpleasant expressions would likely follow.
Well, until then, they can just rest.
With that thought alone, Rei left the exhausted Centaurs where they were and walked through the settlement to have a look around.
There was a possibility—a real, if slim, one—that Centaur survivors remained somewhere inside the settlement, and he couldn't rule that out.
"Oh? Where are you going?"
The one who called out to Rei was Vihera, wearing a satisfied smile.
An enemy force of a hundred Dragonias must have been enough to satisfy her to some degree.
...Though "to some degree" was the operative phrase. Rei could tell she wasn't truly satisfied from the bottom of her heart.
Even so, the fact that she had settled down for the moment came as a relief.
"I'm going to take a look around the settlement. There might be survivors."
"Is that so?"
Vihera's response made it abundantly clear she didn't think there were any.
Anyone who understood the hunger that drove the Dragonias would think the same, no matter who they were.
Rei could see her point, but considering the one-in-a-million chance, he figured it was better to search now while he still could.
"It's the least I can do. Honestly, I also think the odds of finding survivors are low. But it's not impossible that others who fled the settlement—like the ones who joined up with us—might come back."
That was, at best, a slim possibility.
The Centaur women who had joined Rei's group had only been saved because they encountered his party by pure chance.
Such fortune couldn't possibly be granted to many.
The Centaurs who had managed to cross paths with Rei's group had been extraordinarily lucky.
Besides... I might be able to figure out what makes this settlement special.
This settlement was unusual in several ways.
Despite being near the Dragonias headquarters—at the very least, far closer than Zai's settlement—why hadn't the Dragonias eaten the trees growing in the grove?
How had they even found this settlement, tucked away deep within the grove?
And why send an overwhelming force of nearly a hundred Dragonias against a settlement of moderate size?
...No. Considering that the Centaurs Rei had encountered earlier were being chased by Dragonias, the number that had attacked this settlement must have exceeded a hundred.
Assembling a force that large was something Rei simply couldn't make sense of.
"At first, I thought Dragonias that had split off from a nest might be using this settlement as their own base."
"What? About this settlement?"
"Yeah. If they planned to use it as a base, I figured there should've been a silver-scaled Dragonias here. But there wasn't one."
"...Even setting us aside, would Dragonias actually choose this place as a base? Even Centaurs, who are smaller than Dragonias, had a hard time getting here, you know."
Vihera's words carried considerable weight.
Indeed, there were obvious practical issues with using this location as a base.
"But the fact that it's difficult to reach should also mean it has high defensive value. If you're stationed here, enemies can't get to you so easily... and fundamentally, there's the advantage of being hard to find."
Even though it had been destroyed, the fact that this settlement had survived until today despite sitting within the Dragonias headquarters' sphere of influence was proof enough.
...That said, if asked whether a silver-scaled Dragonias would truly build a base here, even Rei couldn't honestly nod in agreement.
The Dragonias he knew of were aggressive creatures, ruled by hunger.
While there were more intelligent specimens—like the silver-scaled and golden-scaled Dragonias—that could command ordinary ones, the fundamental nature of the species shouldn't have changed.
That was exactly why Rei had floated the idea of this place being used as a base, even though he himself didn't buy it.
If the Dragonias possessed more developed intelligence and weren't driven by hunger, they might have been able to pull off something like that.
"But if so, we're back to the question of why the Dragonias attacked this place in the first place."
"True. The fact that they haven't eaten the plants here is suspicious too."
"I was thinking maybe something is buried underground. What do you think?"
Vihera seemed to find the idea plausible.
She nodded, then lightly kicked the ground with her Foot Guards.
"But wouldn't that raise the question of what's actually buried? If there was something worth expending this much effort to dig up, why haven't they done anything about it until now?"
"Right. If the Dragonias headquarters is nearby, they should have had countless opportunities to attack this place before now. And yet, why today? Why did they attack right as we approached? Digging around might shed some light on that... but I doubt the survivors would take it well."
Rei muttered that, anticipating the reaction of those who had fled this settlement and been rescued by his group.
Something important might be buried beneath this settlement. Maybe.
Even if they were told he wanted to dig on those grounds, no one would readily agree.
From what Rei had heard, they had moved their settlement into this grove to escape the Dragonias threat, meaning they likely didn't have an especially strong attachment to the place itself. Even so, it remained a fact that this had become the final resting place of those who had lived here.
Under the circumstances, he didn't expect them to nod along to a request to dig up the ground.
"I think so too. But... we, or more accurately the Centaurs, know almost nothing about the Dragonias. If digging here could reveal their objective, then isn't that something we absolutely have to do?"
"That's... well... hmm?"
Rei had been nodding along to Vihera's words when he suddenly stopped.
His gaze landed on a tent. Whether it had been destroyed during the battle between the Dragonias and the Centaurs defending the settlement, or wrecked afterward during the occupation, was impossible to say—but there it stood.
...If that had been all, Rei wouldn't have given it much thought.
But if a groaning sound was coming from inside that tent, that was another matter entirely.
"Vihera!"
"Eh?"
Rei's sharp call drew a startled response from Vihera, as if asking what had suddenly come over him.
Though her fusion with Unbris had enhanced her senses, she apparently hadn't caught the sound.
Understanding that, Rei spoke as he moved toward the source.
"I just heard a groan. There are likely survivors."
"...Really...?"
A skeptical note crept into Vihera's voice—understandable for someone who knew the hunger of the Dragonias.
But the sound had definitely reached Rei's ears.
If Set had been here, he would have picked up on the groaning even faster.
"It's real. Anyway, come with me."
Normally, Rei could have just hurried over on his own, but if there was something he couldn't handle alone, he'd need Vihera's help.
For that reason, he made his way toward the source of the sound with Vihera in tow, and...
"Oh, there really is a voice."
As they drew closer, the groaning that only Rei had been able to hear must have become audible to Vihera as well.
Her expression tightened, belying her casual tone.
They arrived at one of the crushed tents—exactly as Rei had expected.
Whether it had collapsed during the fighting or been destroyed afterward, sounds were definitely coming from inside the wreckage.
"Right... let's tear this tent apart for now."
"Agreed. But the fact that we can hear a voice from inside—or rather, from underneath—means if we carelessly rip it apart and haul it away, we might hurt the Centaur trapped inside. Be careful."
Rei nodded at Vihera's warning and began working the wreckage free from the top down.
Though it was called a tent, it wasn't the kind adventurers used in Elgin. It was a Centaur tent, which was closer to a makeshift house in scale.
Naturally, its framework was correspondingly sturdy. Taking a hit from one of those beams wouldn't end with just a bruise.
The fact that groaning could still be heard from inside meant the Centaur beneath had either been caught in a gap between support poles or shielded by other beams and fabric from a direct hit—something along those lines.
At any rate, Rei and Vihera carefully removed the wreckage piece by piece.
Each piece was light enough for Rei to lift effortlessly, but true to Vihera's warning, moving one fragment would cause others beneath it to shift and threaten to collapse further.
Vihera would brace the shifting debris, or Rei would pull a piece free and then immediately take the one Vihera was holding. After continuing that delicate operation for about ten minutes, they found a Centaur beneath the wreckage.
"Found one!"
"Yes, it looks like... they're unconscious. But if we could hear groaning, they might be injured?"
"Hard to say. Either way, they're alive. Could you go get some of the Centaurs from this settlement? From the looks of it, I can handle the rest on my own."
The tent wreckage had already been mostly cleared. Rei managing the remainder alone was a reasonable assessment.
"Understood."
With that, Vihera broke into a run toward where the Centaurs were gathered.
Enough time had passed since the battle that even those who had been completely exhausted should have recovered somewhat.
...If anyone still claimed fatigue and refused to move, they'd find Vihera's training waiting for them as punishment for their lack of stamina.
In reality, many of them had received almost none of Vihera's training, so it wouldn't have been surprising if that happened.
After seeing Vihera off, Rei cleared away the remaining wreckage.
What emerged was a child. One who didn't even look to be ten years old yet.
Rei didn't know Centaur biology in detail, so it was possible someone who appeared ten could be older—or younger.
At any rate, having freed this Centaur, who was without question a child, he checked for injuries. From what he could see, there were no obvious wounds.
"Looks like they're fine... Though being a Centaur, they might be hurt somewhere I wouldn't even think to check."
Given that the child had been groaning even while losing consciousness, a broken rib or two wasn't out of the question.
But that was something Rei couldn't determine on his own.
Once Vihera returned with the Centaurs, that would become clear.
With that conclusion settled, he reached down to lift the unconscious child—and hesitated.
If this were a human child, he could have scooped them up without a second thought. But Centaurs had the lower body of a horse, and he had no idea how to go about lifting one.
Not knowing... he decided to wait for Vihera to return with a Centaur who could help.