The vast Underground Space that had served as the Dragonias headquarters.
Having confirmed it and verified that the Dragonias had truly been annihilated, the party decided there was no further business here and set out immediately.
Another reason was to avoid the trouble of other Dragonias potentially arriving again, drawn by the Queen's orders issued mid-battle with Rei, should they wait there.
From Rei's perspective, if there were rare Dragonias among them — white, black, transparent, seven-colored scaled... or golden-scaled Dragonias — he would have wanted to secure their corpses if at all possible.
But when it came to ordinary Dragonias driven by hunger, he already had their corpses stuffed en masse into his Misty Ring.
Of course, once this matter was settled, obtaining Dragonias corpses would likely no longer be possible.
Depending on Grimm's disposition — the one currently connecting Elgin to this world — there was even a possibility he would never be able to return to this world at all.
Thinking of that, perhaps he should have secured even more ordinary Dragonias corpses than he already had.
Rei considered this belatedly, but it was already too late.
That said, even ordinary Dragonias scales possessed enough defensive power to withstand Rei's magic, so there was no mistaking their extremely high value as materials.
...However, to use Dragonias corpses as materials, they first needed to solve the problem of the corpses becoming unusable by the next day.
Since the Alchemists had hardly begun researching them yet, there was no telling when that would actually become possible.
Rei's hope was simply that some progress would be made before the Dragonias corpses disappeared.
On top of that, what worried him slightly was... even if ordinary Dragonias corpses could be used as materials, whether the corpses of other intelligent Dragonias could be processed the same way was honestly uncertain at best.
Even among monsters in Elgin, it was not uncommon for a base species and its High-ranking Species to have different material properties.
Considering those circumstances, caution was indeed necessary in this matter.
While he was thinking about all this, a Centaur leading the party at the front called out.
"A grove! The grove is coming into view!"
Normally, finding a grove wouldn't warrant making such a loud fuss.
After all, groves and forests existed commonly enough on this grassland, even if not in great numbers.
Nevertheless, the lead Centaur loudly announced finding a grove because...
(Seems they're alright.)
Several Centaurs were traveling at a distance from Rei.
Those few were the survivors of the settlement that had been within the grove.
Originally, they had sensed the danger of the Dragonias and relocated their settlement into a grove where Dragonias struggled to enter.
But the greatest misfortune for those Centaurs was that a Spirit Egg had been buried beneath that settlement.
As a result of fleeing from the Dragonias, they had built their settlement right on top of the Spirit Egg the Dragonias were searching for. Consequently, that settlement fell under attack from a Dragonias swarm when the egg was discovered for some reason — Rei suspected it was likely the Queen's Spirit Magic, but regardless, the egg was found and the settlement was assaulted.
"Are you sure you don't want to stop by?"
Rei asked this of the few survivors of that settlement.
The Centaurs who were asked nodded at Rei's words.
When they had discussed returning to their respective settlements after defeating the Dragonias, the survivors of the grove settlement had said there was no need to stop by there.
From Rei's perspective, he felt it was their own settlement where they had lived, but to the survivors, it was the place where their family and friends had been eaten alive by Dragonias.
They couldn't possibly want to visit the settlement in their current state of mind.
At least if more time passed and their hearts healed somewhat... in the future, it might be possible for them to return to that settlement.
"I see. Then we'll keep going as planned. There's still plenty of time before sunset, so we should cover as much ground as we can."
Zai, who led the Reconnaissance Unit, nodded as well, having no objection to Rei's words.
From the sun's position, Rei estimated it was currently around three in the afternoon.
If he wanted to know the exact time, he could simply check the pocket watch stored in his Misty Ring... but right now, he didn't feel the need to go that far.
In the first place, to those living on this grassland, time wasn't that critical a concept.
It wasn't exactly a case of "when in Rome, do as the Romans do"... but still, Rei somehow accepted the Centaurs' way of doing things.
(If it's around three now, that gives us three... maybe four hours until sunset? With that much time, the Centaurs could cover a fair distance. ...Even so, we probably won't reach the settlement.)
The entire surrounding area was near the Dragonias headquarters, so aside from the settlement hidden in the grove, the situation was close to total annihilation.
Traces of the settlements would likely remain, so if they wanted to repurpose them, they probably could — but Rei had no intention of going out of his way to do such a thing.
Inside the Misty Ring were tents for everyone participating in the Reconnaissance Unit, and food and water were no issue at all. Additionally, with Terrain Manipulation now at Level 5, surrounding a campsite with earth walls and digging moats had become dramatically easier than before.
However, any Dragonias that had bases around the headquarters or happened to be in the area had, by yesterday, attacked the Centaurs remaining on the ground under the Queen's orders — and been annihilated before Vihera and Set... as well as the trained Centaurs.
Given that, there was no need to worry about nighttime raids.
"Hey, Rei... when we go back over there, what am I going to do?"
The deer Anastasia was riding came up beside Set, and she asked Rei that question.
Yesterday... no, even into today, the deer that Anastasia and Fana had been riding were afraid of Set — but now, though still somewhat frightened, they had overcome their fear enough to keep running normally.
What exactly had enabled them to do so, Rei couldn't say.
(Because we traveled through the Underground Space together, maybe? ...Nah, no way.)
While puzzling over the deer's behavior, Rei turned toward Anastasia and spoke.
"Probably the same Wisp research as before, I'd imagine?"
At the words "Wisp research," Anastasia wore a conflicted expression.
For Anastasia, doing Wisp research was by no means something she disliked.
In fact, she had been researching the Wisp purely following her curiosity right up until this world and the Underground Space where the Wisp had been became connected.
But now that she knew of the existence of another world, she undoubtedly held curiosity toward this world just as strong as what she felt for the Wisp.
That was precisely why she couldn't simply nod in agreement when told she'd be doing Wisp research.
"I see... will I be able to come here?"
"Honestly, I don't know. That depends on Lord Daskar's judgment."
As far as Rei had seen, Daskar had been quite worried about Anastasia during this incident.
Because of that, whether he would let her do Wisp research the same as before was, honestly, uncertain even to Rei.
However, Anastasia was extremely curious.
So much so that Rei could readily agree if someone said half of Anastasia's very being... or perhaps an even greater proportion, was made of curiosity.
Given how Anastasia was, being forbidden from coming to this world and even forbidden from researching the Wisp... even if it was out of concern for her well-being, she would never be able to accept it.
Moreover, the fact that Anastasia was an exceptionally capable and trustworthy researcher to Daskar was an undeniable truth.
There were others who could serve as replacements... but whether anyone existed who matched Anastasia in both excellence and trustworthiness — or even fell short of Anastasia but came reasonably close — unfortunately, he could only shake his head.
That was just how outstandingly competent Anastasia was as a researcher.
"Hmm... I'd be happy if they entrusted me with research in this world, but... what do you think?"
"Wouldn't that be difficult? For Lord Daskar, in the current situation, he'd want as much money as he could get."
Expanding Gilm — the only city in the Kingdom of Mireana's sole frontier — to the level of a proper city.
Naturally, the costs involved were enormous.
They were utilizing timber from the Treant Forest as construction material, but that alone couldn't cover everything.
There were also vast quantities of other necessary materials, and wages to pay those working on the expansion construction.
As the sole frontier, Gilm had considerable funds, but when it came to money, more was always better.
Having funds available in case of emergency was hugely important.
"If he wants money, why not trade with this world... especially with the Centaur settlements? I don't know what they have, but since it's another world, there must be plenty of things we can't get in Gilm."
There was reason in those words. ...No, not just one reason — two, three, or perhaps an even greater logic, Rei could understand that.
However, while Rei understood that the possibility was quite high, when it came to what exactly they would trade, that was a problem.
What came to mind immediately for Rei were things he himself was interested in — Magic Items and food.
But as far as Rei knew, among the Centaurs, those who could use magic at all were a small minority, let alone those who possessed Magic Items.
That left foodstuffs, but what the pastoral Centaurs could sell would ultimately be meat... and while that meat was perfectly tasty, whether it was meat worth going so far as to trade for was another question, and the answer was no.
In the first place, Gilm's frontier status meant monster meat was available in abundance.
And monster meat, the higher the rank of the monster, generally became more delicious.
Since monster meat was fundamentally tastier than ordinary animal meat, whether anyone would want to buy the meat the Centaurs raised through grazing — the answer was no.
There would certainly be some who desired it if it were openly revealed to be meat from another world, but... at least from what Rei had tasted, being meat from another world didn't make it significantly different from meat in Elgin.
"In other words, you'll search for things in this world that could be used for trade, Anastasia?"
"Yes. It's a job that suits me, isn't it?"
Put that way, Rei could only agree.
In fact, he thought that with Anastasia's curiosity, she would likely find something rare for them.
But since Daskar would ultimately be the one to decide such matters, Rei couldn't simply nod along to Anastasia's words.
"I won't say anything either way. But if Lord Daskar accepts it, wouldn't that be fine?"
It was an undeniable fact that Daskar was worried about Anastasia, but if trade with this world became possible, that carried great significance.
Which Daskar would prioritize — the private individual or the public official — was not for Rei to decide.
(Well, in that sense, he'd probably have no choice but to permit it... but then the problem becomes what to do about the Wisp research.)
Ultimately, since the number of researchers trustworthy to the same degree as Anastasia was small, Daskar would undoubtedly struggle with the decision... but for now, Rei concluded there was no point in him thinking about it, and decided to leave the problem entirely to Daskar.