"Too bad for you."
"Kyaa!"
Ara had spotted a fairy waving from a tree branch, but when Rei and the others looked, there was nothing there.
Ara was shaken by the situation, but then a voice suddenly sounded right beside her ear, making her scream.
...A scream so cute that anyone who only knew Ara's usual demeanor would not be blamed for being startled by it.
That said, since only Rei and the others riding Set were present, they had no idea why Ara had suddenly let out such a shriek.
"What's wrong?"
"Um, Lord Rei, Lady Elena... actually, on my shoulder..."
At Ara's words, Rei couldn't see from his position, but Elena, who was seated in front of Ara, turned around.
There, in the direction Elena looked, she saw a fairy standing on Ara's shoulder.
Even for a fairy, its appearance was completely different from the first one Elena had seen—the one that had nearly been caught by Rei and escaped via teleportation.
Given that, there was no doubt it was a different individual.
(That is, assuming it hasn't transformed.)
Ara, too, knew of fairies as beings that appeared in fairy tales and legendary stories.
This was only her second time seeing one directly, but even the first time, it had displayed the astonishing behavior of teleporting to escape from Rei's hand.
Having witnessed such a sight, if a fairy had transformed into a different fairy, she would be surprised but would likely accept it without question.
That was precisely why Ara couldn't be certain whether the being before her eyes was truly a different individual from the one moments ago.
"A fairy!?"
Elena reacted to Ara's words, and Rei also reacted swiftly.
He quickly leapt down from Set's back to the ground and directed his gaze toward Ara.
Sure enough, just as Ara had said, there was a fairy on her shoulder.
Now was the perfect chance.
Thinking so, Rei tried to secure the fairy, but...
"Hold on a minute."
Before Rei could act, the fairy on Ara's shoulder spoke up.
"I'm not going to run away even if you rush to catch me like that. You can tell just by looking at the fact that I'm bothering to talk to you like this, right?"
At those words, Rei hesitated over what to do.
Thinking about it normally, believing a fairy's words would be foolish.
The pranks the first fairy had pulled were far too vicious to be called mere pranks, so expecting him not to be on guard was unreasonable.
...But at the same time, it was also a fact that the fairy in Rei's line of sight, unlike the previous one, was a friendly presence.
At the very least, it showed no signs of doing something like launching a lethal prank without warning.
"A fairy?"
At Rei's question, the fairy—still standing on Ara's shoulder—replied with an exasperated tone.
"What else would I look like? Do I look like a monster or something?"
"...I wonder."
It was true that in Rei's mind right now, fairies were beings close to monsters.
That was precisely why, when counting them, he counted them as one beast, two beasts, rather than one person, two people.
At the very least, compared to the Lizardmen, whom he had treated as demi-humans and properly counted as one, two—even back when they could barely communicate—it was a significant difference.
That likely had to do with the fact that the Lizardmen had been forcibly teleported by the Wisp, whereas the fairies had come to the Treant Forest of their own will.
Above all, while the Lizardmen initially had difficulty communicating, once they became able to do so, they understood Rei's words and behaved sensibly.
...There were exceptions, of course.
Like Gaga, or Zaza.
Even Zozo, who now obeyed Rei, had initially challenged him to a fight.
That said, when a fairy was told to its face that it looked like a monster, it was naturally none too pleased...
"Hmph. Hey, the way you said that just now—aren't you really treating us the same as monsters?"
"Even if you say that, this is only the second time I've met a fairy. The first time, I had one direct Undead at me on the Seremuse Plain, and over here, I had a monster corpse almost dropped on my head from above. And you want me to not regard such an opponent as a monster?"
That was Rei's honest feeling, but at the same time, the fairy put on a dissatisfied expression as if to say it couldn't help being angry over something like that.
"Even so, pranking is our reason for existence, so it can't be helped. Pranks are carved into our instincts."
"...Discard that reason for existence and those instincts, then."
Rei told the fairy with an exasperated look.
The pranks fairies committed were absolutely unacceptable to those on the receiving end.
If these were at least acts truly worthy of being called pranks, it might have been understandable... but alas, to Rei... no, not just to Rei, but to anyone subjected to them, the fairies' pranks were something that could by no means be described with the word "prank."
That was why Rei said this, but even so, he judged that the fairy would almost certainly never stop pranking.
In the current situation, no matter what he said, the fairy on Ara's shoulder had no intention of listening.
"Boo! Don't steal our reason for existence!"
Seeing the fairy protest like that, Rei found himself involuntarily thinking it was adorable... which was probably exactly what made fairies so troublesome.
(Come to think of it, I recall reading or hearing somewhere that baby animals being cute is for survival. In that sense, is the fairy's appearance and speech pattern like this for the same kind of reason?)
Thinking so, Rei nonetheless opened his mouth toward the fairy.
"Your pranks could cause serious damage to us. In the worst case, people might die, you know?"
"Even if you say that, it's not my problem."
This nonchalance, or perhaps reckless disregard for consequences, was in a sense exactly what one might expect of a fairy.
Of course, for those on the receiving end of the pranks, it was anything but amusing.
That said, just as the fairy itself had mentioned earlier, pranks were nearly instinctual behavior for fairies.
No matter how much Rei told it to stop, it would almost certainly not comply.
Understanding that from the fairy's demeanor, Rei started to say something further but stopped himself.
He could thoroughly air his grievances to the fairy here, but doing so would only put the fairy in a bad mood.
If that was the case, rather than doing that, he needed to talk with the fairy right now.
The reason Rei had been walking around the Treant Forest with Elena was ultimately to make contact with the fairies and... to ask why they had come here.
"Well, setting that aside... the fact that you deliberately came out in front of us without pulling any pranks means you had some business, right?"
"Business, or rather... hmm, I heard you tried to capture one of our companions, so I thought I'd see what kind of people you are."
"...I see."
Rei said so with an exasperated tone, but given the fairy's personality, it was understandable.
However, perhaps dissatisfied by Rei's attitude, the fairy waved its hands in displeasure on Ara's shoulder.
"Hey, I came to check on you, so you could at least act a little surprised. Fairies showing themselves in front of people basically never happens, you know."
"That's so you don't get caught when pulling pranks, right?"
"Ugh..."
Rei's words must have been true, because the fairy was at a loss for words.
Still, if they pranked that frequently, shouldn't there be more fairy sightings? Rei wondered slightly.
"Setting that aside, why did you come to this forest... the Treant Forest?"
"Eh? Well, the magical energy felt nice, and the atmosphere was sort of good for us."
Felt nice, sort of, good.
All vague expressions, but for a fairy, even such expressions were understandable.
It struck Rei that fairies simply followed their sensibilities.
"In other words, the Treant Forest is comfortable to live in?"
"That's right."
At Rei's words, the fairy nodded readily.
...Honestly, Rei hadn't expected it to nod so easily, and was somewhat taken aback.
Even so, from this fairy's words, he could guess that a considerable number of fairies had come to the Treant Forest.
"Just to check, but how many of you came to the Treant Forest? ...If possible, it would help us if it wasn't too many."
"Lots."
"...No, give me a specific number."
"Lots."
Rei asked again, but the only word that came from the fairy's mouth was again "lots."
Could it be that they couldn't count? he wondered, but he understood that fairies possessed high intelligence.
Given that, it was easy to surmise that there was an appropriate reason for not revealing the exact number.
"Let's set the number aside for now. If the Treant Forest is comfortable, does that mean you intend to live here?"
"Hmm, I wonder. We haven't decided on that yet, but... I think it'll probably end up that way. This forest—the Treant Forest, right?—is really comfortable."
"...I see."
In a sense, his worst-case prediction had hit the mark.
That said, this Treant Forest was nominally owned by Daskar, the lord of Gilm.
But given the fairy's personality, it would likely show no concern whatsoever about whose private land it was—so what?
That was why, for Rei, this situation was close to the worst possible outcome.
"Currently, the trees in this Treant Forest are being felled by us... more precisely, by our companions. If that continues, I imagine we'll eventually end up felling the areas where fairies are living, too..."
"Hmm. ...If you think you can, then go ahead?"
Those words indicated through attitude that if anyone tried to fell the trees where they were, they would resist.
The problem was that, as far as Rei knew, all fairies could use magic.
And not just basic magic—they wielded powerful magic.
Rei didn't know exactly how many fairies there were.
But considering that the fairy before him had said "lots," it was safe to assume there were quite a few.
...It was also entirely possible that there were only a few and it was simply being evasive.
(Then again, if the fairies truly got serious, it would be difficult for us to handle them. After all, they have teleportation abilities... and even higher-performance teleportation than what the seven-colored Dragonias possessed.)
The teleportation ability of the seven-colored Dragonias Rei had fought was certainly troublesome in combat.
But the distance it could teleport was very short—it couldn't disappear from Rei's field of vision.
The fairy was different.
At the very least, the fairy Rei encountered before lunch had teleported to a location out of sight in a single teleportation.
(Well, this is inside a forest, so I can't rule out the possibility that it simply teleported somewhere out of our line of sight.)
The place where Rei had fought the Dragonias was an underground space.
A vast space created by the Queen using Earth Spirit Magic.
Because it was so vast, there were almost no places to hide.
Compared to that, where Rei and his group currently were was inside the Treant Forest.
Moreover, an area where the Woodcutters had not felled at all.
Given that, there were countless places to hide.
If the fairy that had escaped from Rei's hand using a fairy circle's teleportation had hidden in a nearby tree branch or thicket, even Rei and his group would have had difficulty finding it.
Given all that, Rei needed to investigate exactly what level of performance the fairies' teleportation ability possessed.
"We don't want to do something like that from the start, either. But the trees of this Treant Forest are absolutely necessary right now for Gilm... a city a bit away from here that's undergoing expansion construction."
"So you're telling us to get out?"
"I'm not saying that. But since we both have business in this Treant Forest, don't you think we need to find common ground? We also have people called the Green People who can accelerate plant growth. ...What do you say?"
At Rei's words, the fairy displayed an expression of deep interest at the mention of someone who could accelerate plant growth.