A sigh of relief escaped Rei's lips as he arrived before the barrier.
He had known he was following some vague instinct toward the hidden base, but seeing the barrier actually materialize before his eyes still brought him a wave of comfort.
This was likely because Rei harbored complicated feelings about the Forest of Magic in general.
"Gurururu?"
Seeing Rei's expression, Set purred quizzically, as if asking what was wrong.
From Set's perspective, since they had arrived at the hidden base, shouldn't Rei simply be happy? That was probably what he thought.
"It's nothing."
Rei said as much and stroked Set. He couldn't stand there forever, though, so he moved to enter the barrier... but not before scanning the surroundings. The black snake was already gone.
Well, when he had stepped outside the barrier after resting at the hidden base earlier, the black snake had already vanished. Perhaps it was only natural that it still wasn't here.
"Gururu?"
What's wrong? Set turned his gaze toward Rei.
"No, I was just thinking the black snake really isn't here after all. I would've liked to communicate with it a bit more... not a real conversation, exactly, but at least exchange intentions."
The black snake could understand Rei's words, but its own words — or what one might call snake language — were beyond Rei's comprehension.
(When I was reincarnated, if I could have received more of Zephyle's knowledge, maybe I would have known about that black snake too.)
When Reiji was reincarnated — or perhaps possessed — Rei, Zephyle's soul served as the catalyst.
As a result, Rei had obtained only the bare minimum of knowledge.
That was why most of what Rei knew about the era when Zephyle was alive came from research in libraries and similar places, or from what he heard directly from Grimm, who had lived through that time.
(In that case, should I ask Grimm about the black snake after all?)
Grimm had held the Zephyle Clan in deep regard — Zephyle in particular.
No, it would be more accurate to call it admiration rather than respect.
Given that, if the black snake had some connection to Zephyle... it wouldn't be strange for Grimm to know something about it.
That said, Grimm was currently focused on developing a Magic Item to maintain the connection to the Centaur world.
Considering that, honestly, Rei didn't want to disturb Grimm right now if he could help it.
"For now, there's no point just standing here. Let's go inside. ...It's getting close to evening, too."
As evening arrived and the sun sank lower, the sunlight filtering into the Forest of Magic grew sparse.
In its place, the patches still bathed in the setting sun were dyed a vivid crimson, as if they were actually ablaze.
"Ah, it's precisely because it's summer that the monsters in the Forest of Magic might be behaving a bit differently than usual."
Why had the Orc Nagas been traveling in a group?
Perhaps they were overwhelmed by the summer heat and seeking a cooler place.
That was what Rei thought, but on reconsideration, the Orc Nagas had been using water-based magic.
If so, cooling themselves down wouldn't be all that difficult.
Thinking along those lines, Rei crossed the barrier together with Set.
Naturally, there were no other living creatures within the hidden base's grounds.
Not only monsters, but even ordinary animals and birds were nowhere to be seen.
"Not having insects around isn't bad, though."
When summer came, many insects grew active in the forest.
Among them, troublesome ones like mosquitoes wouldn't cause any particular harm, but they were still a nuisance in everyday life.
In that sense, life inside this barrier was quite comfortable.
Of course, Marina's house, which served as Rei's base in Gilm, also had spirits that kept such insects from entering the grounds.
"Gurururu."
Whether agreeing with Rei's words or wanting to say something else, Set purred.
"For now, we should get a good night's sleep tonight to recover from our fatigue."
In reality, he had taken a short nap when he first arrived at the hidden base.
But after that nap ended, exploring the Forest of Magic had led to fighting a great many monsters.
Most of them hadn't been particularly powerful, but among them were clearly high-rank monsters like the Giant Wolf and the Queen Bee. Battling them — if not physically draining — was more than enough to take a mental toll.
(That said, it's not like I fought the Giant Wolf or the Queen Bee head-on in a fair fight. That's exactly why we were able to win without any real injuries, though.)
In the Giant Wolf's case, it had clearly underestimated them when facing Rei and Set.
While it was caught in that overconfidence, Set used King's Intimidation. Although he couldn't stop its movements entirely, he succeeded in slowing it down, and in that situation where the Giant Wolf couldn't move as it normally would, they unleashed powerful skills one after another and brought it down.
As for the Queen Bee, Set used his level six Poison Claw to infuse wood with poison, then burned it to create poison smoke. Rei guided the smoke into the nest using Death Scythe's Wind Hand, making the Queen Bee inhale a heavy dose until it could endure no longer and emerged to the surface. Only then did they engage it.
Neither battle had been won in a true, fair, head-on fight.
One might wonder if that was acceptable for the promotion exam, but the requirement was simply to slay two or more A-Rank monsters — it didn't specify that they had to be fought face-to-face.
With that in mind, Rei judged it would be fine.
"Gurururu, gururu, gurururururu!"
I'm hungry! Set conveyed to Rei through his demeanor.
In truth, Set had worked quite hard today.
Of course, Rei had pushed himself just as much, but since Set loved eating above all else, he had probably been looking forward to this meal.
In that sense, Rei was also looking forward to dinner, so he couldn't exactly fault Set.
"Right. It's still only around evening, so let's take it easy today. ...Before that, though — what should we eat? Given the numbers, there are quite a lot of Orc Naga corpses."
Aside from that, there were also hornets, but Rei had no idea how one was supposed to eat hornets.
When he was in Japan, he knew there were regions that ate hachinoko, but what he had secured were adult hornets, not larvae.
...Even if they had been larvae, he didn't exactly want to eat insects.
(Now that I think about it, there was a manga that cooked up dragonflies, earthworms, diving beetles... and even maggots... Yeah, I'd rather not eat things like that if I can help it.)
Recalling the cooking manga he had read back in Japan, Rei decided he would after all pass on eating hornets.
And yet he had no problem eating ingredients like snake meat that weren't commonly eaten in Japan, so there must have been some kind of distinction that only Rei himself could make sense of.
"Gururu!"
At Rei's words, Set purred happily.
He must have remembered how incredibly delicious the bull monster's meat had been when they defeated it before entering the Forest of Magic.
That was why he could be certain the meat of the monsters they had taken down in the Forest of Magic would be delicious too.
Set had always been fond of Orc meat.
Rei also liked Orc meat, so inside his Misty Ring was a large stockpile of it from previous kills.
Because of that, Set was probably looking forward to the Orc Naga meat from the Forest of Magic as well.
Rei felt the same way. He immediately retrieved an Orc Naga from his Misty Ring.
"Now, the question is... the upper Orc body aside, what do I do with the lower snake body?"
Rei had butchered Orcs countless times before, so there was no particular difficulty in dissecting that part.
But could he properly butcher the snake portion on his own?
That doubt lingered in Rei's mind, but he decided to try anyway.
It was still evening, and he had plenty of time.
"Even when butchering the snake portion, I should start from the upper body. ...Damn, I should have drained the blood first. Ah, wait. Then I should use this one instead."
Rei stored the Orc Naga corpse he had taken out back into his Misty Ring and retrieved one whose magic stone had already been removed.
Since this corpse had already been partially drained of blood, he figured he could finish the job that much faster.
Using Death Scythe's Terrain Manipulation, he dug a hole, tied a rope around the tip of the snake portion's tail, severed the head, and lowered it into the hole.
More precisely, since it was suspended by the rope, it would be more accurate to say it hung in mid-air inside the hole.
The suspended Orc Naga corpse continued to drain blood into the pit.
With the head severed, the blood flowed out in a torrent.
"For now, let's eat something to pass the time."
What Rei produced as he said that was dried fruit.
He had pushed his body hard today, and it was craving sugar.
The sweetness, concentrated by the drying process, stimulated Rei's taste buds.
He naturally handed some to Set as well, who purred with delight.
Set must have been fond of sweet treats like this.
They spent a leisurely while snacking on dried fruit... and once the Orc Naga's blood had fully drained, Rei hauled the corpse back up from the hole.
The next step was separating the upper and lower halves.
With the upper body being Orc and the lower body being snake, dissecting both at once would be difficult.
Once it was split apart, the upper portion was no different from the Orcs he had butchered many times before, so he took it apart efficiently.
The snake portion of the lower body took a bit more effort to skin, but even so, working through it piece by piece wasn't all that difficult.
"All things considered, I've gotten pretty good at butchering, haven't I."
The reason that thought came to him was probably because this place was close to a homeland for Rei.
When he had first awakened in this Forest of Magic, his physical abilities had been extraordinary, but as an adventurer he was still a complete amateur.
For that same Rei to have become reasonably skilled at dissecting monsters — it was only natural that it stirred something in him.
"Alright, done."
By the time Rei finished butchering the Orc Naga, a pile of meat was ready before him.
The unnecessary parts had been tossed into the hole.
In reality, some of those parts might have been usable as materials, but since Rei wasn't well-versed in Orc Nagas, he had no intention of investigating.
There were plenty of Orc Naga corpses stored in his Misty Ring, so he saw no need to painstakingly collect materials from just one.
Given how many Orc Nagas there were, no one would complain about him using them this way.
(The alchemists back in Gilm might complain, though.)
As monsters that inhabited the Forest of Magic, their materials — regardless of which part — would be extremely rare.
Even the parts Rei had discarded into the hole, which he had judged useless, could very well be a mountain of treasure as far as alchemists were concerned.
Thinking about it that way, perhaps he should have stored even those discarded parts in his Misty Ring and brought them back.
"Well, no need to think about that right now. For now, eating this Orc Naga meat takes priority."
"Gururu!"
Set let out a cry of agreement with Rei's words.
Set had been snacking on dried fruit, but he was clearly brimming with curiosity about meat he'd be tasting for the first time.
Rei was no different...
"I think it's fine to treat it like Orc meat, but since I don't know exactly what it tastes like, let's start with skewers. That works for you too, right, Set?"
"Guru."
Hearing Rei's words, Set purred as if to say, of course.
Skewers, being simple, let you clearly gauge the flavor of the meat.
Naturally, simple cooking was deceptively deep in its own right.
At Rei's level of culinary skill, he fell far short of professionals.
But for the purpose of firmly confirming the taste of Orc Naga meat, it was by no means the wrong approach.
"For now, let's season it with just salt..."
Rei cut the Orc Naga meat into bite-sized pieces, threaded them onto skewers, prepared a campfire, and propped the skewers in the ground around it.
He did have a cauldron Magic Item, but when it came to skewers, Rei felt an open flame was better than a pot.
In a way, one could call it a preference. ...Though it wasn't that strict of one.
Regardless, while preparing the skewers, Rei found himself pondering how he ought to cook the rest of the Orc Naga meat.