"Chuchu!"
The female Centaur Vihera had brought over looked at the Centaur child—a girl—lying collapsed on the ground beside Rei, and let out that cry.
Her voice was thick with tangled emotions: disbelief that the girl was alive, relief that she had survived, and so much more.
Hurrying to the girl called Chuchu, she reached out to check whether she was still breathing.
Once she realized the child was only unconscious, a wave of profound relief washed over her.
"It looks like the tent collapsed on her, and she was caught in the wreckage and knocked out. The Dragonias didn't notice the groans coming from her mouth—she got lucky."
To be precise, they had been so consumed by hunger that they prioritized stuffing themselves with the Centaur corpses they'd killed in the settlement, and simply hadn't cared about the faint groans coming from the tent debris.
But once every corpse was devoured and the food supply of Centaur bodies was completely gone, there was a very real chance they would have noticed those faint sounds.
In that sense, there had been just enough time for Rei and the others to return to the settlement.
Understanding this, Rei swept his gaze across their surroundings.
A short distance from the tent wreckage, two Centaur corpses lay on the ground.
Those might be her parents.
There was no doubt that surviving the Dragonias attack had required immense luck on the girl's part.
But at the same time, the settlement had been reduced to this devastated state. With so few survivors remaining, Rei couldn't honestly say whether the girl's survival was truly a blessing.
At the very least, given the current state of the settlement, living here again was out of the question.
Whether it was good luck or bad luck—Rei couldn't make that call. But having survived an assault by nearly a hundred Dragonias, it certainly couldn't be said that her luck was all bad.
Making that judgment, Rei turned to the female examining the girl and asked.
"So, how is the child? I couldn't tell if she was injured—I don't know much about Centaur anatomy."
"She's... fine. She has some bruises, but nothing serious like broken bones. Though I'm no expert when it comes to medical treatment, so I can't say for certain."
"I see. Then we should bring someone who knows more about this."
Among the Centaurs waiting outside the settlement, there were naturally those with knowledge of medicine.
They hadn't studied it systematically—it was simply the medical knowledge passed down among their people—but even so, the accumulated wisdom of years of lived experience was nothing to scoff at.
In fact, that knowledge had saved many lives.
The Centaur who arrived moments later knelt to examine the girl lying on the ground.
"...Yeah, I think she's fine for now. She was probably wedged perfectly between the pillars."
The circumstances had likely been explained on the way here.
The Centaur murmured, sounding genuinely impressed.
With worse luck, the pillars could have crushed her body—rupturing organs or shattering bones.
Though even that would have been a kinder fate than being eaten alive by Dragonias.
"I see. Thank goodness... Still..."
The female who had fled from this settlement wore a complicated, indescribable expression.
She was glad the girl had survived, but she couldn't possibly believe that life from here on would be a happy one for her.
In the midst of all that, Rei spoke words that hit the female like a thunderbolt.
"So, I'd like to dig up this settlement. Would that be alright with you?"
"...Huh?"
The words that left Rei's mouth were clearly the last thing she expected.
A blank, bewildered sound slipped out before she could stop it.
It was understandable. No one ever asked permission to dig up the place where someone had been living.
Moreover, this settlement had been nearly annihilated by the Dragonias attack. They hadn't been settled here long, but it was still their home—the place they called their own.
"Are you joking?"
"No, I'm serious. A hundred Dragonias showing up here isn't normal, no matter how you look at it. Which means there has to be a reason. And given that the grove's trees haven't been touched by them, I'm thinking the reason might be something buried underground."
"That's..."
His words left her unable to argue back.
She knew it was true. Thinking about it calmly, it didn't add up.
As Rei had said, nearly a hundred Dragonias descending on this place was not something that made any sense under normal circumstances.
And if that were the case... it hit her that they had been living, of their own accord, in a place that drew Dragonias attacks.
That said, whether she could accept those words so easily was another matter entirely.
"Could there... perhaps be some other reason?"
"Maybe. It's possible there's a special tree growing here, for instance."
What Rei recalled was the World Tree in Marina's settlement.
If something like that existed here, it would make sense for the Dragonias to come seeking it. But from what he could see, no such tree existed.
Or perhaps a massive boulder imbued with some kind of power could produce a similar effect—but naturally, no such boulder was present either.
That left only one conclusion: something was buried underground.
"But... this place is our..."
"I understand how you feel. But if we figure out what's buried under this settlement, it could give us a decisive weapon against the Dragonias. Don't you want to avenge your comrades? Besides—Centaurs relocate their settlements on a regular cycle, don't you?"
If so, there was no real need to be so attached to this particular spot.
At Rei's continued reasoning, the female's expression grew troubled.
In the current situation, she had no real way to counter what he was saying.
"I'm not asking for your answer right now. But it would help if you could give me one by tonight—or tomorrow at the latest."
Rei was asking for her decision, but in truth, there was only one real option.
There was still far too much they didn't know about the Dragonias.
Any scrap of information they could glean was something they couldn't afford to lose.
Rei fully intended to excavate this site, no matter what.
Well, if she absolutely refuses... I could always dig just outside the settlement instead. But considering the Dragonias specifically attacked here, the settlement itself is still the most suspicious spot. Tricky.
There was also the possibility that Dragonias passing through had simply stumbled upon the Centaur settlement and, overcome by hunger, attacked.
Among the Dragonias Rei and the others had slain, there had been no silver-scaled Dragonias.
Naturally, there were no golden-scaled ones either—which made that possibility entirely plausible.
If that were the case, then for the Centaurs who had lived here, it had been the worst possible stroke of luck.
"I understand."
Seeing the female Centaur nod, Rei decided to pull back from the area for now.
"Then we'll take our leave for now. When the child wakes up, she'll be confused enough without strangers surrounding her."
"Especially since Rei and I look nothing like Centaurs... she'd find us even more alarming."
Vihera's words were something Rei could completely understand.
The gazes the Centaurs directed at them as bipeds were often tinged with confusion.
For Centaurs, who naturally had four legs, two-legged creatures must have seemed quite bizarre.
That had caused trouble on more than one occasion, so Rei understood the concern perfectly.
...That said, the one unconscious this time was a girl—still a child.
He couldn't imagine such a small one causing any real problems upon seeing them.
She fled the settlement, got chased by Dragonias, joined up with us, came straight back here... fought Dragonias again, and now the only things left in the settlement are her companions' corpses. Half-eaten ones at that. Finding even one survivor among all that—she must have so much running through her mind.
And on top of all that, Rei was telling her he wanted to dig up the settlement. It wouldn't be strange at all if she couldn't even process it.
"Then let's head back. Zai and the others who fought should have recovered their stamina by now, and they should at least gather the corpses."
"Just so we're clear—keep the Centaur and Dragonias corpses separated."
"I know. Besides..."
Vihera paused, turning her gaze toward a Centaur corpse a short distance away that had been reduced to little more than bones.
Flecks of flesh still clung to it here and there—a ghastly sight.
How it had ended up like that required no imagination to figure out.
"Gathering corpses like that is pretty rough work, you know?" Vihera murmured, quietly enough for only Rei to hear.
In truth, the Centaur corpses left behind after the Dragonias' feeding frenzy were rarely intact.
Driven by ravenous hunger, the Dragonias tore into the Centaurs while they were still alive.
Naturally, the Centaurs thrashed and fought back in their death throes.
As a result, there were very few complete bodies left.
Under these conditions, trying to gather the remains and identify which body belonged to whom was practically impossible.
From what Rei had seen, there were signs that the Dragonias had crushed Centaur bones whole, making the task of collecting the dead even more difficult.
On top of that, the livestock kept in the settlement had also been slaughtered, their remains scattered everywhere—complicating matters further.
"For now, let's head back. The Dragonias corpses are clustered near the settlement entrance."
Since the Dragonias that spotted Rei and his group had all charged at once, the fighting had taken place near the breach where they'd entered.
In reality, it wasn't an entrance at all—just a gap in the broken fence.
"Right."
Vihera nodded, and the two headed toward the fence.
There were Dragonias corpses along the way that Rei had killed, but he decided they could gather those all at once later and left them for now.
When they returned to the area that had been the fiercest battleground...
"Well, this is..."
Surprise colored Rei's voice.
Ahead of them, not only the Centaurs who had fought, but even the non-combatants who had been left behind a safe distance from the settlement had gathered together, piling the Dragonias corpses in one place.
Though... burning them here with magic would be risky. With the Dragonias headquarters nearby, there's a chance they'd see the smoke and suspect something happened here.
Dragonias driven by hunger couldn't intentionally set fires.
But if smoke rose from here...
Actually, wait. No, maybe it's fine? This is a Centaur settlement, after all. I don't know how they concealed their smoke when they were living here normally, but they were attacked—smoke rising wouldn't be strange at all.
Even if they'd had some method of hiding smoke, a Dragonias attack could easily have destroyed whatever they used, making any smoke perfectly visible.
Thinking of it that way, burning the Dragonias corpses here shouldn't pose any problem.
"Alright, let's burn the Dragonias first. The Centaur remains... we'll deal with those later."
With those words, Rei set to work alongside Vihera and the others, moving to set the Dragonias corpses ablaze.