"Ugh... oh... ah..."
Raising voices that sounded like nothing so much as the groans of Zombies, the Centaurs carried out their excavation work.
The most grueling task—digging—was handled primarily by Set, so the majority of the Centaurs involved in the excavation had been assigned to hauling away the excavated soil.
...Though the unluckiest among them had been put to work digging up the ground themselves.
Rei had been searching for the Chief's tent alongside the Centaurs who weren't hungover and still had their wits about them. Glancing over at the excavation crew, a thought suddenly occurred to him.
There was a punishment, he recalled, where prisoners or convicts were made to dig holes pointlessly and then fill them back in.
The work currently underway wasn't entirely without purpose, of course. It was, ultimately, a search for something that likely lay beneath this settlement—something Rei had come to believe was no longer mere speculation but virtually a certainty.
So while the excavation had a clear objective, the problem was that they had no idea where within this sprawling settlement that something might be, nor at what depth. In a sense, it was tantamount to torture.
...Actually, the faint glimmer of hope that something might truly be buried down there arguably made it even harsher as torture went.
For the hungover Centaurs, though, battling headaches and nausea while hauling soil or clawing at the ground felt far more torturous than any punishment could.
Their one saving grace was the ample water Rei had prepared. He'd done it thinking hydration was essential for anyone working drenched in sweat, but as it happened, the most effective remedy for a hangover was simply hydration. Consuming around a liter of water was considered the best course of action. In that sense, Rei's gesture was itself a form of treatment for hangovers—not that he showed any awareness of that fact himself.
"Hm? Whoa!"
One of the Centaurs sifting through the tent wreckage suddenly let out a startled cry.
Naturally, a sound like that drew everyone's attention—what had happened?
Rei too tore his gaze from the excavation crew and looked toward the source.
There stood a Centaur holding a dagger—and not just any dagger, but one whose sheath was studded with gemstones.
"Yeah... well, that's to be expected," Rei said. "What the Dragonias are after is simply prey to satisfy their hunger."
The Centaurs nodded in understanding, though their expressions showed clear disappointment.
If Bandits had raided the settlement, it wouldn't have been surprising for them to make off with something like the jeweled sheath and dagger the Centaur had just found. But what the Dragonias needed was simply to satisfy their own hunger—Centaur meat.
Of course, that meat didn't refer solely to Centaurs; it also included the livestock raised in the settlement. But while such meat was one thing, gemstones and the like held no interest for them whatsoever.
Ah, but the gold-, silver-, and copper-scaled Dragonias possess high intelligence. Maybe they'd want gemstones too?
Dismissing the thought almost as quickly as it came, Rei nonetheless asked to see the dagger the Centaur had found. But even to his eye, the dagger—sheath included—looked like nothing more than a decorative piece. He couldn't possibly consider it a clue about the settlement.
After confirming it wasn't a lead, he called Rarie over just in case.
"Rarie, does this dagger look familiar to you?"
"Hm? Well... I don't recall seeing it. Someone was probably hiding it."
"Hiding it, huh. That might mean whoever owned it had something to hide."
Exactly how much value gemstones held on this grassland, Rei couldn't say. But considering the Centaurs' reaction when he'd shown them the gemstones Daskar had given him as operating funds, it was clear the stones were recognized as items of considerable worth.
A sheath and dagger encrusted with such gemstones would serve perfectly well as currency. And above all, if someone possessed something like that, it wouldn't be unusual for them to show it off.
Yet Rarie said she had never seen it before.
It could simply mean the owner had little connection with Rarie, or that Rarie had been disliked by them. But the most likely explanation was that the owner had wanted to keep the dagger hidden and had shown it to no one.
"In that case, is it all right for the one who found it to keep it?"
"Yes, I don't mind."
Rarie nodded readily to Rei's words. Given its considerable value, Rei had half-expected her to assert ownership as something belonging to the settlement, but she handed it over without a second thought.
For Rarie, asserting her own desires here would be nothing short of suicidal. She was one of only a handful of survivors from this settlement. Rebuilding with just those survivors was virtually impossible, which meant that once this matter was resolved, they would need to seek shelter in some other settlement. How she would be treated when that time came mattered enormously.
Rarie's ready relinquishment of the dagger was likely rooted in exactly that calculation.
"Let me know if you find anything else suspicious."
With that, Rei turned back to sifting through the tent wreckage for some kind of clue.
...Though whether any clues about the settlement actually existed here was, at best, a hopeful "wouldn't it be nice" sort of expectation. Still, driven by the desire for some lead, Rei continued combing through the debris.
But the Dragonias were not about to grant him the leisure to take his time. They had already made their next move.
"Grrrrr!"
Set, who had been working on the excavation, suddenly let out a warning cry.
What that cry signified was obvious to Rei without a moment's thought.
"Tch. They're here again? The Dragonias should at least take a break! Vihera!"
"I know."
From a short distance away, where she had been picking through tent wreckage, Vihera called back swiftly. She too understood exactly what Set's cry meant—and with Rei shouting to her as if for good measure, she grasped the situation at once.
But... the very day after yesterday. Today is fine. Tomorrow will probably be fine too. The day after that won't be a problem. But beyond that—will the Centaurs' stamina hold out?
As far as Rei knew, Dragonias existed in enormous numbers. Even a single base could hold over a thousand of them. If multiple such bases kept sending forces to this settlement again and again, the outcome was grim.
For Rei, Vihera, and Set, fatigue wasn't much of a concern—their overwhelming strength compared to the Dragonias saw to that. But for the Centaurs, who needed several fighters to handle a single Dragonias, the endlessly arriving waves of enemies were nothing short of a threat.
If such battles continued, there was no question that both physical and mental fatigue would accumulate.
If they could ride Set through the sky, move freely, and take the offensive themselves, then having Rei, Vihera, and Set would be more than enough to handle things. But right now, they needed to defend this settlement and couldn't move as they pleased. Moreover, they were burdened with the Centaurs, whose combat power was inferior to the Dragonias—to put it bluntly, they were dragging along dead weight.
Under these circumstances, having the Dragonias wage a war of attrition was brutal.
At this rate, things are going to get troublesome. If possible, I'd like to uncover this settlement's secret—whatever's buried underground—and get out of here before that happens. ...No, an even better option would be to crush the Dragonias headquarters right away.
Ultimately, as long as the headquarters existed, reinforcements would keep coming endlessly. To prevent that, they needed to do something about the source.
Or else, destroy every outpost sending reinforcements, one after another.
If immediacy was the priority, that was the fastest approach.
Also, since there were essentially no landmarks on this grassland, they had refrained from aerial reconnaissance when they'd been at the previous Campsite or Zai's settlement. But their current base was this settlement—located at the heart of a grove that sat like a gaping hole in the middle of the grassland. As a landmark, it couldn't be more prominent. Even with Rei and Set being somewhat directionally challenged, aerial reconnaissance would pose no problem.
The real issue was who would defend the settlement while Rei and Set were away. With Vihera present, combat power wouldn't be a concern, but no matter how strong she was, she was ultimately just one person. If the enemy came slipping through the grove from multiple directions, she'd have a hard time covering them all.
...But the Dragonias tend to target Vihera when they spot her, so depending on how she handles it, she might manage... Rei mused as he issued orders to the Centaurs.
"Enemies. I know it's the day after yesterday, but it's probably Dragonias again. Just like yesterday, Vihera and I will intercept them in the grove. You hold the line inside the settlement and protect the noncombatants—same as yesterday. And hangovers? The Dragonias don't care about that."
Giving them the Alcohol had been a mistake. Rei regretted it in hindsight, but he hadn't expected attacks this consecutive. Then again, he had to admit his own thinking had been naive. There had been Dragonias occupying this settlement initially, and then additional Dragonias had arrived. Considering that—as the saying went, twice meant thrice—there was every possibility that even more reinforcements would be dispatched.
"Understood!"
One of the Centaurs barked a short reply and bolted from the spot. And not just one—those assigned to combat immediately began preparations, while the noncombatants started moving clear to stay out of the fighters' way.
"Rei, let's go too."
"Yeah. But I need to give Set instructions first."
Set obediently followed Rei's orders, but even more than that, it adored him. If Rei was heading into the grove to fight, it was only natural that Set would want to come along. That was exactly why Rei needed to call out to it now and tell it to stay out of the grove.
Vihera, having known Rei for a long time, understood just how deeply Set was attached to him. Grasping what Rei was worried about, she nodded without hesitation. It also helped that yesterday's incident had shown them the enemy wouldn't emerge from the grove the instant Set detected them—there was a certain amount of time to spare.
"I'd love to fight the copper-scaled Dragonias that Set killed yesterday... but do you think it would come straight from the grove?"
As they headed toward Set, Vihera posed the question to Rei.
Rei considered her words for a moment... then shook his head.
"No, that's unlikely. From what I saw, the copper-scaled Dragonias was quite small. It probably doesn't fight head-on—it prefers setting traps and that sort of thing."
This was Rei's guess, but he didn't think he was far off the mark. The copper-scaled Dragonias's body was small, and in terms of sheer physical ability, it didn't seem capable of besting the silver-scaled Dragonias. Being a special individual, it might be superior to ordinary Dragonias, but...
Rei gave his explanation, only to find Vihera walking beside him with a look of sheer exasperation in her eyes.
"What?"
"Listen, Rei. You're also below average in height, aren't you? But you swing Death Scythe around, dual-wield it with the Twilight Spear... your physical ability is anything but ordinary. Are you really going to leave yourself out of that comparison?"
At Vihera's words, Rei couldn't argue back.