"Whoa! What's going on all of a sudden!?"
Rei, fighting in the grove, was surprised to see the Dragonias suddenly raise a war cry and start rampaging.
Until just moments ago, they had been unable to move, packed between the grove's trees and carefully avoiding breaking them. Yet now they were thrashing about wildly, completely unconcerned about the damage to their surroundings.
In fact, the grove's trees had already suffered considerable damage from the rampaging Dragonias.
The trees here were generally fairly sturdy, but given the Dragonias's physical capabilities, snapping them was effortless.
Of course, the trees in the grove varied somewhat, and among them were a few that even the Dragonias couldn't break easily. But such trees were naturally few in number, and wherever the Dragonias were gathered, the tree count was rapidly dwindling.
Of course, breaking trees wasn't the only thing they were doing. Attacks were naturally directed at Vihera, who had been weaving through the gaps between trees as she fought, and at Rei, who had been striking immobilized Dragonias from behind to deal damage. ...No, rather, in this case it would be more accurate to say the Dragonias that couldn't reach Rei and Vihera were simply rampaging through the forest.
"Whoa! Seriously, what happened all of a sudden? Well, it's not a bad situation for me, though!" Shouting that last part, Rei swung the Death Scythe he had drawn from his Misty Ring and severed the neck of a Dragonias that had been trying to sink its fangs into him.
The fact that the Dragonias had destroyed the surrounding trees and could now move freely naturally worked to Rei's advantage as well. Having the spatial freedom to swing the Death Scythe was the greatest possible advantage in combat. No, rather, in terms of being able to wield the Death Scythe freely, it was clear that overall, Rei had gained the upper hand.
The Dragonias, on the other hand, seemed oblivious to which side had gained the advantage, thinking of nothing but devouring Rei. Those Dragonias launched attacks at him simultaneously from all directions. The ones here were far from where Vihera was fighting, so it was likely a case of preferring an easy meal close by over a feast in the distance. That said, while it might have been an easy meal for the Dragonias, that so-called easy meal possessed ferociously powerful combat ability.
And so, the attacks the Dragonias unleashed one after another failed to catch Rei at all. Not only that, but with the surrounding trees broken and more space available, Rei fought using the Twin Spear Style with the Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear—and because of that, the Dragonias fell one after another.
As corpses piled up on the ground until there was no room to stand, Rei would shift to a new area of the battlefield. Corpses being mass-produced one after another. Seeing that, Rei continued fighting without any particular concern, and before he knew it, the Dragonias had been virtually wiped out.
"Phew. Gathering these up is going to be a real pain." The trees and undergrowth of the grove made it difficult to find the Dragonias corpses. Rei understood that as well, which was why he muttered that gathering them would be troublesome. That said, leaving the corpses uncollected could result in them becoming Undead, so he naturally couldn't just leave them behind.
Thinking thus, Rei headed toward the area where Vihera had likely been fighting... and there too, Dragonias corpses were scattered all over the ground. Just like Rei, she had probably moved to a new fighting area once the number of corpses on the ground grew too large. That was why bodies were lying everywhere, much like around Rei.
"Oh, you're finished over there too?"
"Yeah. I don't know why, but they suddenly started rampaging in the middle of the fight."
"That's exactly it. I wonder what on earth happened to make them act like that. Look." What Vihera pointed to was the trunk of a broken tree. Looking at the marks near the break, there was no mistaking that they had been caused by a Dragonias's attack. The marks were claw scratches, and while Vihera could also extend magical claws from her Hand Gauntlets, the claw marks were clearly different even though they came from similar weapons.
"Yeah, I was wondering about that too. At first they were being careful not to break the trees, so why did they suddenly start doing this?"
"The most likely possibility is that the silver-scaled Dragonias's orders stopped working? The fact that the Dragonias were fighting so carefully to avoid causing damage to their surroundings clearly suggests there was someone giving them some kind of command."
"I thought the same. Even when the Dragonias were packed between the trees, they didn't rampage or even move at all." As a result, the immobile Dragonias had been killed one after another by Rei. That said, the number of Dragonias actually killed by Rei was higher with the Death Scythe than with the Twilight Spear. This was largely because the Twilight Spear could only kill one at a time with thrusts, whereas the Death Scythe, which could be swung in a horizontal sweep, could strike multiple Dragonias in a single blow. As a result, the Dragonias destroying the surrounding trees had worked to Rei's advantage.
"Judging by how you're phrasing that, you didn't take it down, Rei?" Vihera wore a surprised expression. Since she hadn't defeated it herself, she assumed that Rei had taken down the silver-scaled Dragonias. But Rei said he hadn't defeated it either. If so, then who had? The answer was not a difficult one.
Rei and Vihera's gazes turned simultaneously toward the settlement.
What was there was Set. As an A-Rank Monster gryphon, its strength was extremely powerful—no, as a being created through Beast Magic that could use skills, it was clearly above an ordinary gryphon. After all, it had even been evaluated by the Guild in Gilm as equivalent to an S-Rank monster.
"If it was Set, it can't be helped."
"Right. But there's also the possibility that Zai and the others worked together to defeat it instead of Set... no, that's unlikely. No matter how much stronger they've gotten from training with Vihera, they're not yet at the point where they can fight a silver-scaled Dragonias." Rei considered that it might have been Zai and the others, but immediately rejected his own words. In reality, if Zai and the others banded together and challenged the Dragonias, they might be able to win, but even then they would certainly suffer heavy casualties. Something on the order of half their number dying. Before that could happen, Set would have definitely intervened.
Thinking about it that way, asking Set to protect the settlement was the best choice after all. ...Well, he didn't know for sure whether a silver-scaled Dragonias had actually shown up at the settlement, though. Thinking thus, Rei headed back toward the settlement with Vihera, but...
"Copper...?"
"Gruu!"
What Rei and Vihera saw upon returning to the settlement was a copper-scaled Dragonias, clearly smaller than a normal Dragonias.
"Gold, silver, bronze... well, it's not impossible for it to be a coincidence. It's not the Olympics, after all." While petting Set, who was showing with his body language something like Amazing, right? Praise me, praise me, Rei muttered those words involuntarily.
Olympics? Those who didn't recognize the word tilted their heads at Rei's remark, but they knew that Rei and the others had come to this grassland from somewhere else. In other words, they figured it must be something from Rei's homeland, and without asking further, they left it at that.
Vihera, who was also regarded as being from the same place as Rei, naturally didn't know the word Olympics either. However, Vihera knew that Rei had come to their world from another world. Given that, she was satisfied that it was likely a word related to the place Rei had been before, and she too didn't ask about it now. She was thinking she'd ask later. It seemed interesting, after all—or so she must have thought.
Unaware that Vihera was thinking such things, Rei released his hand from Set and stored the copper-scaled Dragonias in his Misty Ring. If it were a normal Dragonias corpse, he wouldn't have bothered collecting it, since they were already in his Misty Ring in quantities that made him not want to gather any more. But a copper-scaled Dragonias—a creature presumed to be a lower-tier variant of the silver-scaled Dragonias—might be useful in some way later on. Or so he thought, prompting the action.
"Rei, about this Dragonias... what do you think they came to the settlement for?" While asking this, Zai's gaze was directed toward a part of the settlement—the area where excavation work was being done. He was asking what their purpose was out loud, but his attitude clearly showed that he believed it was virtually certain they had come seeking something in this settlement, something that they themselves were trying to excavate.
That opinion was likely shared not only by Zai but by the others as well. They directed their gazes toward him and waited for Rei's words.
"Just as Zai guessed, they probably came seeking something buried underground in this settlement. That said, this incident wasn't without its gains."
"Such as?"
"The fact that these Dragonias arrived at this settlement at this time of day means there's a high likelihood they came after seeing us attack the settlement—or more precisely, after seeing the smoke from burning the Dragonias corpses or something like that. There's also the possibility that they just happened to be heading toward this settlement as reinforcements, though." If they had come here after seeing the smoke from burning the Dragonias corpses, then it was possible to calculate how far the base of the group led by the copper-scaled Dragonias—or the Dragonias's main stronghold—was from this settlement. Since Dragonias weren't as fast as Centaurs, the distance likely wasn't all that great. Or so Rei reasoned. It was only speculation at best, but even so, it was certain that the search range had narrowed considerably compared to searching for the Dragonias's base with no basis whatsoever.
"I see. Whether these fellows came from their main stronghold or from a base, that much is unclear, but even so, it's a strong enough possibility." Zai apparently agreed with Rei's opinion, murmuring as much.
That said, while Dragonias were slower than Centaurs, they were still faster than a human walking normally. Considering that, along with the time it took from burning the Dragonias corpses to when Set sensed them approaching the settlement, the Dragonias's activity range was actually quite wide. Of course, it was still true that the range was far narrower than searching with no leads whatsoever.
"In any case, searching for the enemy's main stronghold will have to wait until tomorrow. We should all just sleep today."
"In this situation, it seems like a lot of them won't be able to sleep, though." The battle had just ended. If this had been some kind of mock battle, it would be a different story, but this was a life-or-death fight. And their opponents were the Dragonias, the sworn enemies that had been seizing Centaur territory one region after another. With a battle against such foes just behind them, it was only natural that many were still in the grip of excitement. If asked whether they could sleep while still hyped up, the answer was no, and...
"For now, drink this and go to sleep. Tomorrow—no, is it already today? Anyway, things are definitely going to be busy." Saying that, what Rei took out from his Misty Ring was a barrel. It was alcohol he had purchased in Gilm. Rei hadn't bought it for himself to drink, but rather for use in some kind of trade... or for moments like this.
The Centaurs were surprised by the sudden appearance of alcohol, but they rejoiced. Rei had brought it out intending it as a nightcap, but their delight was such that they looked ready to throw a banquet.
Was that a mistake? Rei didn't drink, so he hadn't expected that seeing it would cause such an uproar. That said, now that things had come to this, there was no point in worrying about it. If anything, trying to take the alcohol away here might even spark a rebellion. ...In reality, since Zai was the one leading the Reconnaissance Unit, the term "rebellion" might not be appropriate.
In any case, while exasperated by the Centaurs, Rei judged that it might actually be just right for relieving their accumulated stress, and took out several more barrels of alcohol from his Misty Ring.
"I'm telling you now, just because you get a hangover doesn't mean I'll let you skip tomorrow's work."
Saying only that, he left the cheering Centaurs behind and walked away from the scene with Set and Vihera.