After confirming the capabilities of the Magic Reflection skill that Set had acquired from the Carbuncle's magic stone, Rei and Set pressed deeper into the Forest of Magic.
...Incidentally, the fruit that had led to Rei's encounter with the Carbuncle in the first place was duly harvested and split between the two of them for a snack.
If anything, Rei's honest impression was that he wished the fruit had been chilled.
Naturally, it was precisely because the fruit was sweet that he felt that way.
"Set, once another hour or so passes, we should call it a day for today's exploration."
"Gruu?"
Is it really okay to stop that early? Set seemed to be asking with that sound.
Given that it was still daytime, even after another hour passed, it would barely be approaching evening. If so, it was only natural for Set to think there was still more time to explore.
However, even seeing Set's reaction, Rei had no intention of changing his mind.
As a general rule, monsters grew more active once night fell. In terms of searching for monsters, it might actually be better to explore the forest at night.
(Thinking about Beast Magic, that really would be the way to go. But I'm pretty exhausted from the fight with the Giant Wolf today, and it's the first day... I'll save the night hunts for tomorrow. Since it's a two-night, three-day exam, it's better to pace ourselves.)
Even so, he couldn't deny that if the goal was to encounter an A-Rank Monster, nighttime would indeed be better than daytime. After all, if monsters were more active at night, A-Rank Monsters would likely be more active as well.
In that sense, the Giant Wolf that had been active during the day was perhaps a bit unusual.
"Anyway, we're still going to explore for a while, so stay alert. Your senses are sharper than mine, Set."
"Gruu!"
Set, who possessed the Sense of Smell Enhancement skill, had an especially outstanding sense of smell among the five senses.
As long as monsters were living creatures, they would inevitably carry some sort of scent—unless they possessed a special skill or unusual biology.
In that regard, the sense of smell likely carried far more weight than the other senses.
(If only I could level up the Sense of Smell Enhancement skill a bit more... ah...)
Following that train of thought, Rei's mind inevitably wandered from Sense of Smell Enhancement to dog-type monsters... to wolves... to the Giant Wolf.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no."
The thought that Set might end up strengthening Sense of Smell Enhancement if given the Giant Wolf's magic stone made him shake his head in a panic.
That said, Rei didn't necessarily think Sense of Smell Enhancement was a useless skill. It couldn't be used in combat, but it was undeniably handy when keeping watch like this, or when tracking someone or something.
Even so, the idea that the skill strengthened by the magic stone of that Giant Wolf—an A-Rank Monster—would be Sense of Smell Enhancement was something he simply couldn't accept.
"Gruu?"
Watching Rei's behavior, Set purred as if asking what was wrong. Rei had suddenly shaken his head so vigorously that it was only natural for Set to react that way.
"No, it's nothing. I was just thinking about how handy your Sense of Smell Enhancement skill is."
"Gruu! ...Grurururu!"
Perhaps those words of praise had been a flag.
Praised by Rei's words, Set let out a warning cry the next moment...
And before long, the sound of buzzing wings reached them.
Judging by the sound alone, it wasn't impossible to mistake it for the mosquito Rei had defeated earlier. But that buzzing carried a certain heaviness that was clearly different from a mosquito's.
"At least it's not a dragonfly."
He recalled the monster he had encountered in the Forest of Magic—the only hostile monster that had escaped without him being able to land a single hit—but the buzzing he heard now was nothing like that. It was an entirely different sound, and the type of buzzing alone was enough to give Rei a bad feeling.
After all, the number of buzzing wings was steadily increasing as time passed.
"Whoa... this is... Set, we might want to prepare for a wide-area attack—whoa!"
Rei called out to Set, but at the same time, he sensed an incoming attack and swung Death Scythe in a near-reflexive motion. His eyes clearly caught the enemy's attack flying straight toward him.
"Needles!"
They were simple needles—there had been a time when a monkey had attacked Rei with something similar—but given the buzzing sound, he imagined an entirely different creature.
And the creature that emerged from deep within the Forest of Magic was exactly the one Rei had pictured.
However, the reason the buzzing was so much louder than what Rei was familiar with also became immediately apparent.
Right. If the body gets bigger, the wings get bigger too, and naturally the buzzing gets louder.
What appeared in Rei's line of sight was a hornet.
Its appearance resembled an Asian giant hornet—though naturally with some differences—but the problem was its size. As Rei had muttered, it was clearly different from a normal Asian giant hornet.
True to their name, Asian giant hornets were fairly large, with body lengths of three to four centimeters. That alone made them quite large for a hornet, but the one that appeared before them had a body nearly fifty centimeters long—more than ten times that size.
With over thirty such giant hornets appearing in the sky at once, it was, by any standard, nothing short of a threat.
"Whoa..."
The words slipped from Rei's mouth involuntarily.
If only one or two had shown up, Rei would have charged into combat without a second thought. But with this many attacking at once, he couldn't help but feel exasperated.
"Grururu!"
Unlike Rei, Set let out a threatening cry toward the hornets that had appeared before them.
Perhaps sensing danger from Set's intimidation, the swarm of hornets halted their movement...
"Gurururururururu!"
Seizing the opening as the swarm froze, Set unleashed Bubble Breath to strike first.
Normally, Set would have preferred to use Ice Arrow, which could likely kill the opponents in a single hit. But Ice Arrow took some time to generate, and even after forming, required a brief moment to fire. Set disliked that delay and opted for Bubble Breath, which took effect instantly.
When it came to skills that activated instantly, there was also Magic Eye of Shock. However, while Magic Eye of Shock activated quickly, it lacked power. Moreover, the number of targets it could strike at once was limited.
By comparison, Bubble Breath spewed out countless bubbles one to three centimeters in diameter. When those bubbles burst upon contact, they transformed into an adhesive liquid.
As a result, nearly ten hornets lost the ability to move their wings due to the bubbles and dropped to the ground.
"Nice, Set!"
Rei thrust the Twilight Spear into the ground, pulled out disposable spears—ones with chipped blades or spearheads about to fall off that he had frequently used in the past—from his Misty Ring, and hurled them at the grounded hornets.
If asked why he deliberately used disposable spears instead of the Twilight Spear, Rei would have answered that he didn't want to soil the Twilight Spear with Bubble Breath's sticky liquid or the hornets' bodily fluids.
In truth, the adhesive liquid created when the bubbles burst was not something he wanted coating his weapons. In that regard, Rei's response was by no means a mistake.
For each spear thrown, a hornet died.
But naturally, the hornets weren't about to just take it lying down.
Breath met breath—the remaining hornets still hovering in the air unleashed their breath attacks simultaneously.
"Hornets using Breath!?"
Even Rei found that unexpected. That said, this was the Forest of Magic. Given that these were hornet monsters inhabiting such a place, it wouldn't be strange for them to be capable of using breath.
Furthermore, the hornets' breath wasn't particularly powerful.
...However, it appeared to be an Acid Breath of some kind, and the plants it touched dissolved.
Even so, the only plants that dissolved were the grasses growing from the ground. The trees of the Forest of Magic showed no particular damage even when splashed by the Acid Breath, suggesting that the breath's power itself wasn't all that strong.
Granted, the fact that mere worker bees—not a Queen Bee or anything of the sort—could each unleash Acid Breath was a threat in its own right.
"Set, are you okay!?"
"Grururu!"
In response to Rei's words, Set purred as if to say I'm fine!... and then generated Ice Arrows as a counterattack against the Acid Breath.
Earlier, Set had used Bubble Breath because firing took a slight amount of time, but now he must have judged that it was better to defeat the remaining hornets even at the risk of that delay.
Naturally, Rei wasn't just standing by watching Set's actions. Just as he had done with the grounded hornets, he took out spears one after another and hurled them.
Spears thrown with Rei's arm strength would normally have difficulty piercing through hornets that inhabited the Forest of Magic. After all, every one of those spears had been deemed no longer usable and treated as garbage.
But when Rei threw them, it was a different story.
They pierced through hornets' bodies, shattered their heads, tore off their wings... claiming numerous hornet lives, or sending them crashing to the ground unable to fly.
Rei's onslaught was so fierce that the hornets hesitated over which target to attack—Rei or Set... but that hesitation dealt them the worst possible outcome.
Fifty Ice Arrows were unleashed simultaneously. Every surviving hornet was pierced through the body by the barrage of ice, killing them instantly.
And so, the battle ended in a surprisingly short time, even considering the sheer number and ferocity of the opponents.
"That said, these giant hornets are ultimately just worker bees. If we get swarmed like this again, it'll be a hassle. I'd rather take out the Queen Bee now while we can... which means we need to find the nest."
If the hornets were fifty centimeters long, just how massive would their nest be?
Back in Japan, Rei had watched TV programs about exterminating hornet nests several times. In particular, the hornet extermination conducted by an idol group that actively engaged in agriculture had left a strong impression on him.
The nest that idol group had exterminated was enormous. Even ordinary hornets built nests that large.
If so, just how large would the nest of a hornet monster more than ten times—nearly twenty times—the size of a normal hornet be?
It wouldn't be surprising if it was as large as the hideout Rei was currently using as a base.
(A nest that size would be easy to spot... though it also wouldn't be surprising if it were under attack by other monsters.)
The trees in this forest were large, certainly, but whether they were enormous enough to truly live up to the name Forest of Magic was debatable. Given that, if there really was a nest as massive as the hideout, riding Set and searching from the sky might reveal it immediately.
That said, as the Hippogriff incident had shown—and the hornet and dragonfly encounters as well—flying monsters were plentiful in the Forest of Magic.
If Set took to the sky, the monsters that claimed the airspace above the forest as their territory might swoop in to attack without hesitation.
In terms of collecting magic stones, that might not be a bad thing, but being assaulted from all directions while airborne would make it difficult for Set—carrying Rei on his back—to properly respond to attacks.
(In that case... we search from the ground.)
Having made his decision, Rei stored about thirty of the hornets into his Misty Ring.
From the last two remaining hornets, he used a knife to extract their magic stones, washed them with water from the Dagger of Flowing Water, and then, for Death Scythe's share, tossed one into the air and bisected it with a single swing.
[Death Scythe has acquired the skill 'Pain Burst Lv.4']
The familiar announcement message echoed in his mind.
Pain Burst, by its very nature, couldn't be fully understood without actually testing it on someone. Accepting that it couldn't be helped, he handed the remaining magic stone to Set...
[Set has acquired the skill 'Acid Breath Lv.1']
That announcement echoed in his mind as well. Since it was the very breath the hornets had been using, Rei accepted it without any particular objection.
[Set]
'Water Ball Lv.5' 'Fire Breath Lv.4' 'Wind Arrow Lv.4' 'King's Intimidation Lv.3' 'Poison Claw Lv.6' 'Size Change Lv.2' 'Tornado Lv.4' 'Ice Arrow Lv.5' 'Optical Camouflage Lv.6' 'Magic Eye of Shock Lv.2' 'Power Crush Lv.6' 'Sense of Smell Enhancement Lv.4' 'Bubble Breath Lv.1' 'Crystal Breath Lv.1' 'Earth Arrow Lv.2' 'Power Attack Lv.1' 'Magic Reflection Lv.1' 'Acid Breath Lv.1' new
[Death Scythe]
'Corrosion Lv.5' 'Flying Slash Lv.5' 'Magic Shield Lv.1' 'Power Slash Lv.3' 'Wind Hand Lv.4' 'Terrain Manipulation Lv.5' 'Pain Burst Lv.4' new 'Penetrate Lv.3' 'Multi Slash Lv.4' 'Blizzard Slash Lv.3' 'Flying Needle Lv.1'
Pain Burst: When slashing an enemy with Death Scythe while the skill is active, the pain inflicted on the target increases. At Level 2, four times; at Level 3, eight times; at Level 4, sixteen times.
Acid Breath: A breath of acidic liquid. At Level 1, it has enough power to partially dissolve plants it touches.