"…Hm…"
A bewildered voice slipped from Rei's lips as he stood enveloped in crimson mana.
It was only natural. He'd been trying to test whether the Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor could withstand the Queen's attacks, but the Queen, visible in the distance, showed no sign of striking.
At first, he'd felt a certain tension and a faint anticipation for just how much defensive power the armor possessed. But after walking for twenty minutes without so much as a hint of an attack, boredom naturally set in.
Set and Vihera, advancing a short distance behind him, had also started out tense. Now, with no sign of any incoming assault, they too had relaxed.
"What exactly is the Queen thinking? The way things are, it's a perfect opportunity to attack."
Rei muttered in dissatisfaction.
He'd been walking toward the Queen for about twenty minutes, but the distance didn't feel as though it had shrunk much. Part of that was simply because the Queen was so far away, but the main reason he wasn't closing the gap was his own deliberate pace.
After all, Rei's goal was to test whether the Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor could block the Queen's attacks.
But whether the other side understood that or not, for whatever reason, there was no sign of any attack whatsoever.
(Could it be… that some kind of condition is required to use Spirit Magic?)
If such a condition existed, it would explain why she couldn't so easily launch an attack at him.
He'd considered the possibility a short while ago but had immediately dismissed it, given what the Queen was. Now, though, Rei was starting to think that maybe he'd been right the first time.
He kept walking for another ten minutes. When still nothing happened, he made his decision.
"Vihera, Set. Just walking slowly like this isn't going to make the Queen feel any sense of crisis. That could be the very reason she isn't attacking. I'm going to close the distance all at once. Any objections?"
"Close the distance? I don't mind, but… are you sure you'll be all right?"
"Well, probably. I've got a solid grasp on just how incredible the Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor is. If it's something like that Earth Spear from earlier, I should be able to block it without a problem."
He wasn't exactly brimming with confidence, but when Rei said it likely wouldn't be an issue, Vihera thought for a moment and nodded.
Set, too, looked between Rei and Vihera and rumbled in agreement.
Taking in their reactions, Rei fixed his attention on the Queen in the distance — and then broke into a sprint.
Rei's body had been crafted with the pinnacle of the Zephyle Clan's techniques. Even in his base state, his running speed was inhuman. On top of that, the Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor was active, enhancing his physical abilities further still.
As a result, Rei was moving at a speed that even a Centaur at full gallop couldn't match. And yet Set, with Vihera on his back, kept pace effortlessly from a short distance away.
Though separated from Rei, Set maintained a constant gap without falling further behind — proof that the creature's physical abilities were on par with Rei's armor-enhanced ones.
(Now then, what's your move?)
Even as he glanced at Set running alongside him, Rei kept his eyes fixed on the Queen — that enormous mass of flesh looming ahead — watching for any change in her behavior.
Rei and Set were running at a speed utterly incomparable to the leisurely pace Rei had set while trying to bait an attack. At this rate, if the Queen simply waited as she had before, they would reach her in no time.
Which meant she had to act before he arrived.
That action would, naturally, be either preventing Rei from closing in — or dealing with Rei himself.
Or so Rei had thought. In the next instant, he half-reflexively swung the crimson mana enveloping him in a horizontal sweep.
The blow was devastatingly powerful, effortlessly crushing whatever had dropped on him from above.
(Crushed? No matter how you look at it, wasn't that way too soft?)
He'd launched that strike on reflex, without holding anything back. Yet even against the transparent-scaled Dragonias he'd fought before, while they might have been sent flying or suffered broken bones, the point of impact being outright crushed was something that simply hadn't happened.
So why had the transparent-scaled Dragonias from just now been so weak?
(Where was it hiding in the first place… no, wait…)
Something clicked. Rei understood the true nature of the creature.
When they'd first encountered the Queen, she had been in the process of giving birth to several new Dragonias. In other words, the transparent-scaled Dragonias from a moment ago had likely been freshly born.
(Softshell Crab… was it? Something like that? Not that I'm going to eat it.)
Knowledge from a manga he'd read back in Japan surfaced in his mind.
A softshell crab — a crab immediately after molting. Crabs typically had extremely hard shells, but one that had just molted had a soft shell, tender enough that the entire creature, shell and all, could be eaten when deep-fried.
It wasn't exactly the same as a softshell crab, but the principle held: precisely because it had just been born, the transparent-scaled Dragonias's scales couldn't exhibit their usual toughness. It made perfect sense.
…Though now that the thing was already dead, pondering it served little purpose.
(But wait… there were quite a number of Dragonias the Queen was trying to produce. If they've all been born, they could come at us as fresh combat power. That'd be a pain.)
A pain — but only that. Rei was certain he could win.
After all, the seven-colored scaled Dragonias, the apex among all Dragonias — he'd already killed four of them. As long as no new species stronger than that appeared, he had absolute confidence in victory.
"The Queen's produced new Dragonias!" Rei called out to Vihera and Set. "But maybe because they've just been born, their scales are still soft! They're easy to take down!"
For the moment, the Queen's focus appeared fixed solely on Rei; she showed no sign of attacking Set or Vihera. Logically, Set — carrying Vihera on his back — would seem like the easier target. Yet the Queen seemed to have judged Rei as the greater threat, since the transparent-scaled Dragonias had come straight for him.
(Not that you can read an enemy's entire strategy from a single Dragonias.)
The Queen had likely produced a new batch. If all of their attacks converged on Rei, it would simply mean the Queen was prioritizing his elimination. That much was plausible.
But so far, only one Dragonias had attacked — a single transparent-scaled specimen in its softshell state.
(Though I guess considering the ratio of ordinary Dragonias to intelligent ones, it makes sense that few individuals with intelligence would emerge in a single batch.)
Even among the intelligent ones, with the Queen and Rei's group so far apart, the number of enemies that could actually attack was limited. Only the mottled or white-scaled Dragonias with ranged attacks, or the transparent-scaled ones with Optical Camouflage and extraordinary jumping power.
…And there was still a considerable distance between Rei and the Queen. Even Blood Lasers or Breath attacks wouldn't easily reach from her position to his.
Which was probably why the attacker had been a transparent-scaled Dragonias — the one type that could cover that gap in a single leap.
"So, what's the plan?"
"Plan? For what?"
Vihera asked Rei, who'd been staring at the corpse of the transparent-scaled Dragonias — its upper body pulverized — lost in thought.
Honestly, he had no idea what she was getting at.
"What do I mean? Even if we're heading for the Queen, we still need to figure out how to deal with whatever she throws at us. …Though if it's only Dragonias we can crush that easily, maybe we don't need to worry about it."
"Even so. I've got no intention of stopping. Whatever she's thinking, in the end I need to close the distance and… take her down."
Rei understood full well that the Queen wanted the Spirit Egg. But he also understood that handing it over was not an option.
Which meant that right now, not approaching the Queen and not defeating her simply wasn't on the table.
"Right. Then that's fine."
Vihera looked satisfied. She'd likely been worried that after the latest attack, Rei might hold back and try to observe the Queen rather than press the offensive.
But Rei had no such intention. He made it clear he was going to attack, and that was exactly what Vihera wanted to hear.
"Guruu."
It wasn't just Vihera — Set was equally pleased.
If the plan had been to sit and watch for a while, it would have meant a dull time for Set as well. …Though in Set's case, as long as Rei was there to play with him, it might not have been a problem at all.
"We don't know how long it takes the Queen to produce new Dragonias. The sooner we reach her, the better."
"True. …Though the newborn Dragonias didn't seem all that strong."
Vihera nodded, but her tone carried a note of disappointment. She understood that even if she fought them now, she could crush their bodies effortlessly without even needing Magic Impact Palm.
Against Dragonias still soft like softshell crabs, even Centaurs would make short work of them. The reason Centaurs normally needed superior numbers was simple: they couldn't pierce Dragonias scales. That forced them to target the gaps — joints, eyes, mouth, ears — any spot not covered by armor. A single fighter couldn't reliably pinpoint those areas, so they attacked en masse, and… bluntly speaking, as long as someone's blow managed to do damage, that was good enough.
Repeat the process enough times and the Dragonias would eventually die.
But the Dragonias wouldn't just stand there and take it. Given the slightest opening, they'd tear off chunks of an attacker's flesh without a second thought — even while under assault themselves.
For Centaurs, Dragonias were an absolute nightmare.
But a freshly born Dragonias with soft scales — one whose armor a Centaur's weapon could easily pierce, sever, and shatter? That changed everything. Such a creature would be well within a Centaur's ability to defeat.
(In that sense, the more time passes, the more dangerous the Dragonias become. …Well, that goes for any living creature, I suppose.)
Monster or animal, the longer something lived, the more experience it accumulated and the smarter it grew. That was simply a fact.
"Then for now, we just have to push forward. Let's go. The longer we wait, the more likely the Queen is to pull another stunt. And there's always the chance she'll produce even more Dragonias."
"Right. Let's head for the Queen, then. After all, she still hasn't attacked us, even now. Come to think of it, dodging that Earth Spear earlier was a real missed opportunity."
It had been a reflexive move, but even so, Rei couldn't help but regret it.
That said, what was done was done. For now, the only thing that mattered was closing the distance between him and the Queen.