After finishing their skill checks, Rei and Set resumed walking along the riverbank, heading upstream.
The Forest of Magic was vast—perhaps even more so than the Treant Forest.
Given that, the source of this river might lie somewhere within the forest, and Rei found himself wanting to see it.
That said, a river's source would naturally be located deep within the Forest of Magic, and venturing into such territory meant there was no guarantee they wouldn't encounter a monster on par with the Crystal Dragon.
With that in mind, Rei's desire to seek out the source quickly faded.
"Yeah, you're right. Let's push on for another two hours or so, then head back. We need to clear out of the Forest of Magic today, and getting lost out here would be no laughing matter."
"Gurur."
Set, carrying Rei on his back, purred as if he had no objections.
But right after that purr, he suddenly came to a halt.
"Set?"
"Gururururu."
Again, huh.
Hearing Set's warning cry, that thought crossed Rei's mind. Still, this was the Forest of Magic—it wouldn't be strange for any number of monsters to appear.
Fortunately, judging from Set's demeanor, there was definitely an enemy nearby, though it didn't seem ready to attack just yet.
Rei dismounted, took up Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear, and scanned the area... then noticed that Set wasn't looking toward the river but toward the forest. He followed its gaze.
Moments later, a giant ape came into view, snapping through the surrounding trees as it went.
Naturally, anything appearing in a place like this was no ordinary ape.
It stood nearly three meters tall, thickly muscled—gorilla would be a more fitting description than ape. But what set it apart most unsettlingly were its eyes: one split vertically on its forehead, and another on each shoulder.
Counting the ones in their normal positions, the giant ape possessed five eyes in total. The Giant Ape, upon spotting Rei and Set, bared its sharp fangs in a ferocious grin.
"Kiiiiiiih!"
With a shriek, it kicked off the ground and charged straight at Set.
To the Giant Ape, Set was larger than Rei—and therefore looked like the more rewarding meal.
It wasn't wrong about that. But at the same time, it was clearly underestimating Set, and more importantly, it was completely ignoring Rei.
"Like hell I'll let you! Flying Slash!"
Rei unleashed Flying Slash at the Giant Ape barreling toward Set.
The slash sailed through the air, but just as it was about to strike, the eye on the Giant Ape's right shoulder flashed—and the slash vanished.
It was a startling sight, but Rei didn't freeze. This was the Forest of Magic, after all. The unexpected was commonplace here.
Besides, the Giant Ape was clearly a High-Rank Monster. Not quite an A-Rank Monster, but likely an upper-tier B-Rank Monster.
Rei recognized that at a glance and, without a moment's hesitation, hurled the Twilight Spear.
"Take this!"
For an instant, he did wonder whether the Twilight Spear might vanish like the Flying Slash had—but between the two, the sheer class of the attack was worlds apart.
Sure enough, the eye on the Giant Ape's right shoulder flashed again, but this time it had no effect on the spear.
The Giant Ape must have judged the Twilight Spear as a genuine threat. It halted its charge toward Set and made the eye on its left shoulder flash instead.
In the next instant, the flying spear's trajectory lurched as if it had been struck by something invisible.
And not just once—it happened repeatedly.
A single shock didn't seem all that powerful, but stacked one after another, the effect compounded.
Hammered again and again, the Twilight Spear veered off course from the Giant Ape and plunged into the forest.
(Magic Eye of Shock, huh?)
Since Set possessed the same skill, Rei immediately understood what the Giant Ape had done. Of course, that was only his best guess—there was always a chance it was something different entirely. But his instincts told him he was probably right, so he recalled the Twilight Spear to his hand.
"Uho!?"
Letting out a surprised grunt more befitting a gorilla than an ape, the Giant Ape gaped at the spear now back in Rei's hand. He had deflected it into the deep forest mere moments ago, yet here it was.
The Giant Ape was probably thinking something along those lines, but the Twilight Spear's ability to return to its owner made that irrelevant.
"You sure you want to keep your eyes only on me?"
Rei wasn't sure whether the creature could understand him, but he muttered it anyway.
Whatever it sensed in those words, the Giant Ape quickly went on guard—
"Gurururururururu!"
"Kikikih!"
—and Set's front leg struck it from the side, sending the Giant Ape flying.
In terms of sheer weight, Set and the Giant Ape weren't far apart. If anything, the Giant Ape was probably heavier. Yet Set's blow sent it skidding hard to the side with enough force to snap the bone in its arm.
Rei immediately hurled the Twilight Spear at the tumbling Giant Ape.
Landing a thrown spear on a target still being knocked through the air was no easy feat. But Rei had relied on spear throws in countless battles, and he struck the Giant Ape without the slightest deviation.
Normally, the Giant Ape would have used its Magic Eye to deflect the spear's trajectory as before—but even it couldn't manage that while being hurled through the air.
The Twilight Spear punched clean through the Giant Ape's torso.
"Gih... gikih..."
The Giant Ape crashed into a tree, snapping its trunk before finally grinding to a halt. But the sound coming from its mouth now wasn't the aggressive shriek from before—it was a piteous, whimpering cry.
With its torso pierced, that was only natural. At the very least, several of its internal organs had to be damaged.
This was, after all, a monster that inhabited the Forest of Magic and operated alone rather than in packs. Its abilities were undoubtedly high, and it might even possess some form of Regeneration Ability—though perhaps not on the level of the Dark World Tree or the Crystal Dragon.
Even so, with ruptured organs, a shattered arm bone from Set's strike, and the impact of being slammed full-force into a tree, despair would have been understandable.
It had initially attacked, judging the larger Set to be the more substantial meal. That turned out to be the Giant Ape's gravest mistake.
In most places, the vast majority of monsters would flee the moment they sensed Set's presence. But here in the Forest of Magic, most monsters chose to attack instead.
Not all of them, of course—there were still some that fled at the sight of Set. But that difference was likely another hallmark of the Forest of Magic's monsters compared to ordinary ones.
Recalling the Twilight Spear, Rei took Death Scythe in hand and spoke a single word.
"Sleep."
With that, he severed the Giant Ape's head in one clean stroke.
The head came away without resistance, dropping to the ground as blood spurted from the severed neck. The Giant Ape's body was large, so the blood gushing forth was substantial.
The blood pooling on the ground flowed toward the river... and before long, the Giant Ape's blood was mixing into the current.
(Wait... isn't this kind of dangerous?)
It was something he remembered learning back in Japan—sharks could supposedly detect even a single drop of blood from a kilometer away.
Of course, there were also claims that was an exaggeration, and that while a shark's sense of smell was keen, it wasn't quite that extraordinary.
Either way, Rei couldn't say for certain whether the single-drop story was true, but there was no doubt that sharks had sharp noses.
And right now, the Giant Ape's blood pouring into the river wasn't a single drop—it was several cupfuls, and it was still flowing.
Granted, this was a river, so he didn't expect sharks. But in their place, there were those bizarre fish-like monsters with hair growing from their bodies. And it wouldn't be strange if some of those creatures had a sense of smell even sharper than a shark's.
"Set, we're just going to extract this Giant Ape's Magic Stone and move out. With this much blood in the water, there's no doubt something will come investigating the scent."
"Guru."
Set nodded.
First, Rei repositioned the corpse so that no more blood would drain toward the river, angling the neck away from the water. Then he slashed open the torso and retrieved the Magic Stone. He stowed the Giant Ape's remains in his Misty Ring, checked that nothing unusual had been drawn to the blood already tainting the river, rinsed the Magic Stone in the current, and climbed back onto Set.
"Alright, Set. We're getting out of here."
"Guru!"
And with that, Rei and Set swiftly departed.
"This should be far enough."
They had put roughly ten minutes between themselves and the battlefield. But since that was ten minutes at Set's running pace, it amounted to considerable distance. Even if monsters had been drawn to the Giant Ape's blood, there was no danger of being caught up in whatever battle might unfold there.
"Gururu?"
Seeing Rei relax, Set asked what he intended to do with the Magic Stone. Set probably wanted it for himself—and Rei understood why.
What had caught Set's interest was most likely the Magic Eye of Shock the Giant Ape had used. Between its instant activation and the complete lack of any telltale windup, it ranked among the most practical skills in Set's arsenal.
But its power was weak in proportion to that speed. It could startle an opponent caught off guard, but it couldn't deal a fatal blow. After all, Set's Magic Eye of Shock at Level 2 could barely scratch a tree trunk.
Yet the Giant Ape had used the same skill to deflect the Twilight Spear mid-flight. In other words, the Giant Ape's Magic Eye of Shock possessed enough raw power to serve as a legitimate offensive weapon.
...Assuming, of course, that what the Giant Ape used was actually the same skill. It was entirely possible that the end result looked similar but the underlying mechanism was something else entirely.
Above all, the Giant Ape had extra eyes on its shoulders and forehead. Even if the skill Set acquired turned out to be Magic Eye-related, there was a chance he might end up learning something completely different instead.
Rei understood all of that. But weighing the situation, he still concluded that if anyone was going to use the Giant Ape's Magic Stone, it should be Set.
(Well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious what skill Death Scythe might pick up from it.)
If Death Scythe absorbed the Magic Stone and gained a Magic Eye-type skill, would an actual eyeball sprout on the scythe? Or would swinging it unleash the effect? It wasn't as if he lacked curiosity on that front—but if Set wanted it, that was the right call.
Thinking about the Giant Ape's attack method, there was also a chance it might bump Power Slash up a level instead. That thought had crossed his mind too.
"Here, Set. This one's yours. ...But you already know—even if you absorb it, there's no guarantee the Magic Eye of Shock will level up. You might end up with something else entirely. Given the Giant Ape's abilities, in your case it could be something like Power Crush or Power Attack."
Set purred in acknowledgment, took the offered Magic Stone in his beak... and swallowed it.
[Set has acquired the skill 'Magic Eye of Shock Lv.3']
The announcement echoed in his mind.
"Alright! You did it, Set!"
"Gururururu!"
Set purred with unmistakable delight.
There was no question he had wanted the Magic Eye of Shock to level up. At the same time, considering the Giant Ape's overall abilities, he had known it wouldn't come that easily.
But in the end, it had worked out exactly as hoped. The Magic Eye of Shock had been strengthened.
There was no way Set couldn't be thrilled.
They each savored the moment for a few minutes... and then it was time to see just how much power Level 3 had brought.
"At Level 2, it could barely scratch a tree trunk. So at Level 3... what, rock?"
With nothing else nearby to test on, Rei suggested trying it out on a boulder a short distance away.
Set had no objections. He fixed his glare on the rock and activated the Magic Eye of Shock.
"Gururururu!"
The next instant, a crack scored itself into the stone—the result of the shock that had slammed into it.
[Set]
'Water Ball Lv.5' | 'Fire Breath Lv.4' | 'Wind Arrow Lv.4' | 'King's Intimidation Lv.4' | 'Poison Claw Lv.6' | 'Size Change Lv.2' | 'Tornado Lv.4' | 'Ice Arrow Lv.5' | 'Optical Camouflage Lv.6' | 'Magic Eye of Shock Lv.3' (new) | 'Power Crush Lv.6' | 'Sense of Smell Enhancement Lv.5' | 'Bubble Breath Lv.3' | 'Crystal Breath Lv.1' | 'Earth Arrow Lv.2' | 'Power Attack Lv.1' | 'Magic Reflection Lv.1' | 'Acid Breath Lv.1' | 'Wing Blade Lv.1' | 'Underground Dive Lv.1'
Magic Eye of Shock: Deals shock damage to wherever the user is looking the instant it activates. However, power scales with the distance between Set and the target—the farther away, the weaker the effect. At Level 1, even at maximum power, it only glances off the surface of wood. At Level 2, it can scratch a tree trunk. At Level 3, it can scratch rock. Its key advantage: the interval between activation and the damage manifesting is virtually instantaneous.