The moment they saw the settlement under attack by Dragonias, several Centaurs burst from the Reconnaissance Unit's ranks and charged ahead.
Rei thought they were acting recklessly, but when he remembered that those Centaurs were from the very settlement being swarmed, he understood why they had rushed out.
"We're following too!"
Zai's shout rang out behind the surging Centaurs, reaching Rei's ears.
Spurred by Zai's words, the other Centaurs ran forward, brimming with fighting spirit.
"Gruu?"
A moment later, Set turned to Rei with a questioning sound, asking what they should do.
Rei considered it for a beat. Deciding that helping the settlement took priority, he nodded and gave Set's neck a light tap.
"Let's go."
"Grurururururuh!"
At Rei's word, Set let out a roar and broke into a sprint toward the settlement.
Despite carrying both Rei and Vihera on its back, its speed was by no means inferior to the Centaurs'. No—watching it overtake one Centaur after another, it was fair to say its speed was simply overwhelming.
The Dragonias corpses stored in the Misty Ring. I can't pass up a chance to add more.
With that in mind, Rei drew Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear from the Misty Ring.
He anticipated collecting more Dragonias corpses, but alongside that thought came a question—and a quiet understanding.
So killing the Queen truly hadn't stopped the Dragonias' behavior.
Then again, he had known this all along. Even after Rei had slain the Queen, the Centaurs on the surface had still been fighting the Dragonias she had summoned.
But several days had passed since they departed from where the Underground Space lay. During that time, they hadn't encountered a single Dragonias. That was exactly why Rei was surprised to find a settlement under attack now.
Though still a fair distance away, they could see Centaurs battling Dragonias near the settlement's edge.
However, those fighters were by no means strong. They likely possessed a respectable degree of skill, but compared to the Centaurs in the Reconnaissance Unit—the ones who had sparred repeatedly with Vihera—their technique inevitably appeared inferior.
The Reconnaissance Unit Centaurs seemed to realize this too. They could tell the settlement's defenders were outmatched.
To the Reconnaissance Unit members, who had fought Dragonias time and again and even sparred with the far stronger Vihera and Rei, seeing Centaurs struggle against ordinary Dragonias raised an eyebrow.
Nevertheless, seeing those warriors fighting at the settlement, they knew the priority was to eliminate the attacking Dragonias as quickly as possible.
"Uooooooooooooooh!"
One of the Centaurs—presumably a native of that settlement—let out a deliberate war cry to signal that reinforcements had arrived.
The settlement's warriors turned their gazes toward the voice even as they fought.
And they noticed a familiar figure charging toward the settlement.
"Hey, it's Deoredas! Deoredas and the others are back! Reinforcements are here!"
At those shouts, the other Centaurs raised their own war cries, and morale surged.
The Dragonias appeared momentarily startled by the Centaurs' sudden shift in spirit, but driven by hunger, they immediately bared their fangs to devour their prey.
Yet the same warriors who might have taken damage from those attacks moments ago now evaded them, buoyed by the surge in morale. Some even launched counterattacks mid-dodge.
At this rate, the settlement would have been wiped out entirely. To receive reinforcements then—and led by one of their own, no less—it would have been impossible not to rejoice.
Though a few Centaurs wore complicated expressions as they watched Deoredas and his group.
Deoredas and his comrades were skilled, but they weren't the settlement's true top warriors. Like other settlements, this one had sent its finest to the Reconnaissance Unit—Centaurs who were top-class, but not the absolute best. Those who remained harbored a pride that they were the settlement's true elite.
Yet even they had been overwhelmed by the Dragonias swarm.
If there had been fewer of the creatures, they might have managed. But such thoughts were pointless now.
And their expressions froze when Deoredas and his group launched their attacks.
As warriors of top-class ability, they had expected to hold their own against the Dragonias to some extent. But seeing a single Centaur take on a Dragonias one-on-one was entirely unexpected.
Nor was it just Deoredas. Every member of his group from the Reconnaissance Unit was engaging a Dragonias solo.
Not only that, but the other Reconnaissance Unit members arriving behind them were each fighting one-on-one as well. And Zai, commanding the unit, was handling several Dragonias at once.
By all conventional wisdom, it took multiple Centaurs to bring down a single Dragonias. Where had that common sense gone?
With the Reconnaissance Unit joining the battle, the number of Dragonias plummeted.
And once Rei, Set, and Vihera entered the fray with Anastasia providing Spirit Magic support, the result was pure, one-sided slaughter.
The battle that had painted the settlement warriors' faces with despair ended in the annihilation of every Dragonias in under ten minutes.
Before Rei's group arrived, several Centaurs had been devoured and killed. After their arrival, there were injuries but no further deaths.
That said, not everyone was satisfied. Several—particularly those close to the Centaurs who had died before reinforcements arrived—directed resentful looks at Rei's group. The only reason they didn't voice their frustration, demanding to know why they hadn't come sooner, was the understanding that such a complaint would be unreasonable.
Though the Reconnaissance Unit received those looks, Zai and the others said nothing. Had they been in the same position, they would have felt exactly the same way.
So the Reconnaissance Unit members made no overtures to the settlement's warriors, instead methodically gathering the Dragonias corpses and piling them before Rei.
Previously, Rei would have either burned the Dragonias remains or used Terrain Manipulation to bury them. But today he chose neither, storing every corpse in his Misty Ring instead.
The reason was straightforward: opportunities to obtain Dragonias corpses would only grow scarcer from here on.
With the Queen dead, no new Dragonias would ever be born. The ones currently in this world were the last of their kind.
The Misty Ring already held a considerable number of corpses, but aside from the intelligent Dragonias, most were red-scaled specimens. Red-scaled Dragonias were certainly rare, but the other scale colors were equally precious—of that there was no doubt.
What kind of Magic Items could be crafted from Dragonias materials, Rei didn't know. He wasn't even certain anything usable could be made at all. That was exactly why he wanted to secure as many corpses as possible, just in case.
Fortunately, the settlement's people said nothing about Rei's behavior. In fact, many cast grateful looks his way for handling the cleanup.
Dragonias varied in size, but most stood roughly three meters tall. At that scale, they weighed a corresponding amount. Hauling those corpses was no small task even for Centaurs. With Rei doing it for them, gratitude was only natural.
Left where they lay, the corpses would rot and spread disease with their stench—or worse, become Undead. Either outcome was catastrophic.
Thus Rei succeeded in storing every Dragonias corpse in the Misty Ring. Naturally, scattered fragments—severed fingertips, gouged eyeballs, bits of flesh and viscera blown apart by Set's strikes—couldn't be collected and remained strewn about.
The settlement folk will have to handle the rest. Gathering every scrap of flesh would be a hassle.
With that settled, Rei's gaze shifted to Zai. The Reconnaissance Unit leader had been directing the others to gather corpses, but now that the task was done, what came next?
"Zai, what's the plan? Do we head out right away, or make camp near the settlement?"
"Let me think. I'd prefer to set out immediately, but... we just came out of a battle."
Though it had been a one-sided rout, that didn't mean the unit wasn't tired. If anything, the letdown after such an overwhelming fight left them more drained than usual.
"I'm good to go. The others are too," Asdena said, and the rest nodded in agreement.
But Zai's eyes were on the non-combatants, not the fighters.
Those who had fought weren't particularly exhausted. The non-combatants were a different story. Unlike the ones who had trained relentlessly through Vihera's sparring sessions, they had undergone no real preparation. As Centaurs, they had natural physical stamina, but setting out immediately would be difficult—not so much in body as in spirit.
"No, we rest briefly before moving on."
That was Zai's final call.
The reason he didn't propose staying overnight at the settlement was likely because the settlement itself had just been attacked and would be consumed with aftermath. Rei had taken the Dragonias corpses, but there were still the dead to tend to—Centaurs who had been devoured. Having outsiders present at such a time would only complicate matters.
"Zai, I could enclose the settlement with an earth wall, if you'd like. Or I could build a walled shelter adjacent to the settlement."
Zai hesitated at Rei's offer, then decided to consult the settlement's chief before making any decision. No matter how well-intentioned, he couldn't just arbitrarily build walls around someone else's home.
Though there was a practical limitation: Centaurs were nomadic herders. Even if Rei enclosed the settlement, they couldn't take an earth wall with them when they moved. And they couldn't stay in one place forever.
"Come here a moment."
Zai called Deoredas over. The settlement native listened to the proposal—technically Rei's—and immediately went inside to consult the chief.
Given that the settlement had just survived a Dragonias attack, the decision was made. Rei would create a walled refuge adjacent to the settlement, enclosed on all sides by earth walls.