The hornet nest that Rei and Set discovered after pushing deeper into the Forest of Magic was, in a way, unexpected—and in another way, exactly what they should have anticipated. It was underground.
To be precise, part of the nest protruded aboveground while the vast majority of it lay buried beneath the earth.
It wasn't just wasps, either. Many species of hornets built their nests underground. Given that, subterranean nesting was probably not unusual at all.
Above all else, these were giant hornets with a body length of roughly fifty centimeters. Had they tried to build a nest on a tree branch in the area, the weight would have naturally snapped the branch. Building underground to keep the nest from collapsing under its own weight was, therefore, not so strange.
...Even with most of the nest buried, the visible portion alone was enormous—an irregularly sized structure roughly as tall as Rei himself.
"Just how big is this thing? And the real problem is I have no idea how many are inside."
"Gurur."
Rei studied the nest's entrance from where he stood, weighing his options.
Set purred as if in agreement.
Keeping hidden among the surrounding bushes, Rei considered what to do next.
(If I had more time to spare, I could stake this place out for days. I'd be able to learn what kind of ecology these hornets have.)
So he thought—but given that they could only stay in the Forest of Magic for two nights and three days, prolonged observation was out of the question.
Alternatively, if he had any certainty that the Queen Bee was an A-Rank monster, he could have counted it as his remaining kill, since he'd already taken down the Giant Wolf. But without confirmation that a Queen Bee even existed here, betting on that was far too risky.
"Hornets... hornets, huh..." He muttered, thinking aloud. "I remember seeing somewhere that when you exterminate a hornet nest, you smoke them out. But with ordinary smoke... at the very least, even if I can't smoke them to death, if I could paralyze them... Paralyzing poison? Poison? Hmm?"
"Guruu?"
Noticing that Rei had turned to look at him mid-mutter, Set tilted its gaze toward him as if to ask, "What is it?"
Rei posed his question, loaded with the hope that perhaps—just perhaps—
"Set, you have Poison Claw among your skills, right?"
"Gururu."
Set nodded without hesitation.
It probably felt there was no need to even ask. Such a thought had likely crossed its mind as well.
After all, Set's Poison Claw was Level 6—a skill boasting an outstandingly high level, alongside Optical Camouflage and Power Crush.
That said, unlike Optical Camouflage and Power Crush, it was a skill that rarely saw use. From Set's perspective, it could defeat opponents simply by attacking normally. There was no need to go out of its way to use Poison Claw.
For that very reason, Set itself had somewhat forgotten about it.
"Alright, then here's the plan. You infuse some rock or wood with Poison Claw, we burn it, and funnel the poison smoke into the nest. If we do that, the hornets should take damage. ...Whether it'll actually kill them, I don't know."
Set wore a troubled expression at Rei's words. It was probably wondering whether something like that could really work.
In truth, Rei didn't necessarily believe this method was foolproof either. Since it was born from a sudden idea, that was only natural.
But if it did work, there was no doubt they'd achieve a significant result.
"Want to give it a try? Even if it fails, we can just run."
"Gurururu!"
Set accepted with a spirited purr.
Whether Rei's idea could actually work, even Set didn't know. But if they failed, all it had to do was run alongside Rei.
As far as Set knew, the hornets' flight speed wasn't all that fast. It didn't think they'd be caught even if they fled on foot rather than by air.
Furthermore, if they retreated to the hideout, there was a barrier. At the very least, hornets of the level Rei and Set had fought shouldn't be able to approach it.
"Alright, let's do this. First... yeah, that tree over there."
Rei's gaze landed on a fallen log. It hadn't rotted and crumbled to the ground—rather, it had been snapped, likely by some animal or monster colliding with it.
Rei's plan was to have Set generously infuse that log with Poison Claw, then set it ablaze.
As if understanding the plan, Set walked toward the fallen log.
"Gururu!"
Using Poison Claw, Set raked a gash into the log. Level 6 Poison Claw immediately began to spread—a purple substance, unmistakably poison, corroded outward from the wound at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"That's fast!"
Rei had expected the poison to spread more slowly and gradually. As expected of Level 6.
At any rate, with the poison spreading this quickly, picking up the log by hand was out of the question.
Reluctantly, Rei retrieved a spear from his Misty Ring. He could have used the Twilight Spear or Death Scythe, but he had no desire to touch the poison produced by Poison Claw. Given that, he decided a disposable spear was the better choice for carrying the infected log toward the nest.
"Go—over there!"
The spear swung with that shout sent the green log flying toward the hornet nest. ...At the same time, since it was a spear on the verge of breaking, it couldn't withstand the force of the throw, and the shaft snapped midway.
"Ah... well, whatever. It was disposable anyway."
It was unfortunate that the spear couldn't be used for throwing, but it had been bought at a throwaway price to begin with. Even broken, it had served its purpose sufficiently. If anything, it had delivered more than its price warranted.
The flying log soared toward the portion of the nest jutting aboveground... and eventually landed near the entrance.
"Alright. Now we just burn it and use the smoke to—"
"Guru!"
The moment Rei was about to use magic to ignite the wood, Set let out a sharp cry. Half on reflex, Rei went on alert—and caught an already-familiar buzzing sound.
"Hornets?! No, but this..."
From the sound, there was no mistaking it was hornets. But the buzzing came from the direction of the nest.
He'd assumed hornets that had been outside were returning, but that apparently wasn't the case.
Just as Rei expected, several hornets emerged from inside the nest. He slipped into the bushes with Set to observe—but the hornets didn't simply fly away. Instead, they approached the fallen log that had landed near the nest.
(You've got to be kidding me.)
Normally, hornets wouldn't pay any mind to a fallen log near their nest. But that was only true of ordinary hornets. What now sat in Rei's line of sight were hornet monsters with a body length of fifty centimeters—by no means ordinary. If that were the case, it wouldn't be strange for them to try to eliminate the log... or more precisely, the log infected by Set's Poison Claw, as a dangerous threat.
"But even so—I can't let you do that!"
Shouting, Rei hurled the Twilight Spear. The weapon pierced through the hornet's body and blasted it apart before it even registered the spear's presence.
With things having come to this, it wouldn't be surprising if new hornets appeared at any moment.
"Now I just use magic to... no, that's wrong. What I need to do is funnel the smoke into the nest hole. Set, move a little closer and use Fire Breath to burn that fallen log!"
"Guru!"
Set immediately complied. Bursting from the bushes, it closed in to Fire Breath's effective range, opened its beak wide...
"Gurururururu!"
It unleashed Fire Breath, and the flames traveled straight to the fallen log and set it ablaze.
That said, Set clearly understood that the goal wasn't simply to burn the log, but to produce as much smoke as possible. The Fire Breath was noticeably weaker than what Rei knew it could be.
"Wind Hand."
Holding Death Scythe, Rei activated the Wind Hand skill. Level 4 Wind Hand could extend up to a maximum of two hundred and fifty meters—more than enough to reach the burning wood from his current position.
"Set, sorry, but keep doing what you just did. Use Poison Claw on more wood and toss it into the fire. I think I can control the smoke on my end, but it won't be perfect, so stay sharp."
"Guru!"
Set immediately obeyed. Watching it move, Rei focused his concentration on Wind Hand.
Purple smoke was rising from the burning wood—undoubtedly due to the poison. Using Wind Hand, he guided it toward the nest.
It was probably thanks to his experience using Wind Hand when creating Fire Whirlwind. Funneling the poison smoke into the nest went far more easily than he'd expected.
"Alright!"
Even while concentrating on manipulating Wind Hand, Rei couldn't help muttering with satisfaction.
That said, it was a fleeting moment. Unlike when creating Fire Whirlwind, he now had to carefully control the smoke without burning the wood too much. He couldn't afford to let his guard down.
The biggest challenge was continuously controlling the smoke so that not even a wisp drifted elsewhere. When creating Fire Whirlwind, once the tornado became self-sustaining, Wind Hand was no longer needed. Now, however, he had to maintain constant control for as long as possible.
This continuous control proved unexpectedly difficult. Set kept tossing in wood infused with Poison Claw one after another, causing fluctuations in the smoke's movement that Rei had to adjust for. On top of that, wind naturally blew through the Forest of Magic, and he had to compensate for that as well.
Still, despite the difficulty, after concentrating for a certain amount of time, he did begin to grow somewhat accustomed to it.
During all this, several hornets burst from the nest. Perhaps trying to escape the poison smoke, or perhaps trying to do something about its source—Rei couldn't tell which. But the hornets that flew out had almost no strength left by that point. Unable to eliminate the burning wood on the ground, they simply dropped.
And once they hit the ground in this situation, they ended up inhaling the poison smoke being funneled into the nest at point-blank range—and went still.
This sequence repeated several times. Among them was one individual—perhaps particularly robust—that, rather than immediately dropping, charged straight into the burning wood.
But in the end, that one was enveloped even more densely by the poison smoke, and its body was consumed by flames on top of that—meeting a fate far more miserable than the other hornets.
This continued for over thirty minutes. Just as Rei was thinking it was approaching the one-hour mark, he finally stopped funneling the poison smoke.
"Gururu?"
Is that enough? Set purred.
For whatever reason, the cooperative work with Rei seemed to have been fun for Set—even if that work involved creating poison smoke and funneling it into a hornet nest.
"Yeah. Honestly, since those hornets are monsters, I don't know how much damage this actually did. And... I know this is really late to be saying, but the nest is too narrow for us to enter. All we can do now is wait for the Queen Bee to come out."
If it were the nest of a monster with a massive body like Dragonias, Rei might have been able to go inside. But while the hornets were giant, they were still only about fifty centimeters long. There was no way Rei could fit inside their nest.
No matter how not-tall Rei was, there were limits. And Set, at nearly twice Rei's size, absolutely couldn't fit.
"Come to think of it, the nest being underground... that works against me. If it were a normal nest up in a tree, I could just destroy it and deal with things from there."
To the muttering Rei, Set purred as if to comfort him—but in the next moment, it directed a growl toward the nest in the ground.
What was it?
At the end of Rei's gaze, where that thought had just crossed his mind, the earth exploded outward—and from the crater, an existence even more gigantic than the already enormous hornets revealed itself.
"Queen Bee."
Rei's voice echoed through the surrounding forest.