As Rei's words rang out across the area, the adventurers responded instantly.
Some readied their weapons, while others, still not grasping what was happening, grabbed the scholars who had remained near the water's edge.
...Among them, for reasons beyond comprehension, there was even someone who somehow decided to wade into the lake of their own accord.
An adventurer hurriedly dragged that scholar back to shore, but rather than offering thanks, the scholar raised his voice as if to say, "Don't get in my way."
Under normal circumstances, the guard adventurer would have tried to reason with a scholar behaving like that. But these were far from normal circumstances. With a large shadow moving through the water toward the shore, a scholar entering the lake was tantamount to suicide. In a situation like this, no one had the patience to talk sense into someone acting so recklessly.
The scholar shouted in a high-pitched voice, but even one accustomed to fieldwork couldn't possibly overpower an adventurer in raw strength—let alone one deemed skilled enough to be assigned by the Guild. In the end, he was forcibly dragged away and tossed toward the cluster of other scholars.
The saving grace was that most of the researchers studying this lake had enough sense to follow the adventurers' instructions when danger was declared. Several scholars held back the one who had just been pulled from the water as he tried to rush back in.
Amid all this, as Rei and the others readied their weapons, a group of Lizardmen arrived from the direction of the Birth Tower, likely drawn by the commotion.
Naturally, the most eager among them was Gaga, who currently stood at the head of the Lizardmen.
"Rei! What happened!"
Hearing him speak their language so fluently, one would never take him for a Lizardman. Of course, given his sheer size—overwhelmingly larger than any other Lizardman—mistaking him for an ordinary one would be difficult anyway.
"An enemy. From the air, I spotted a huge shadow swimming toward shore through the lake. I can't say for certain whether it will land or whether it's truly hostile, but we need to stay on guard."
"Lord Rei!"
As Rei explained the situation to Gaga, Zozo appeared, calling out. He, too, had become capable of speaking fluently.
Though Zozo was Gaga's half-brother, he had no interest in leading the Lizardmen. His sole desire was to serve Rei. Given his appearance, however, he couldn't simply pass himself off as a Beastman—the only viable cover was to disguise his presence as a Tame.
Regardless, Zozo followed Rei's orders without question, so Rei gave him the same explanation: a highly probable enemy was closing in through the water.
"Grrrrr!"
Set suddenly let out a sharp cry.
While Rei had been briefing Gaga, Zozo, and the other Lizardmen, Set had never taken his eyes off the lake. For him to sound the alarm now, the meaning was obvious. And sure enough, the approaching shadow was already visible from the shore.
"You've got to be kidding..."
Who exactly muttered those words was unclear. But most of those who could now make out the shape—the shadow that had been hidden beneath the water, now exposed as the depth grew shallow—likely shared the same thought.
Rei was among them.
What had surfaced was a giant crayfish... or more precisely, a monster that looked like some unholy combination of a crayfish and a scorpion. From the tip of its head to the base of its tail—though said tail curved upward like a scorpion's, so only up to where the curl began—it measured nearly ten meters long.
The crayfish Rei knew from Earth had red shells. This one, emerging from the lake, was covered in blue armor. In reality, blue crayfish existed perfectly normally on Earth—Rei simply didn't know that.
Whatever it was, this creature—impossible to classify as either crayfish or scorpion—showed not the slightest distress upon leaving the water. If anything, it clacked its pincers together. Not the ordinary pincers of a crayfish or scorpion, but massive, vicious-looking appendages, snapping with a rhythmic clack-clack-clack, as if sizing up which prey on the shore to start with.
And Rei's hunch was right. The crayfish swept its emotionless eyes across the surroundings... then closed the distance to Set at a speed that was staggering for something so enormous.
Set was targeted for one simple reason: he was the largest creature on the shore. Gaga was large too, certainly, but from the crayfish's perspective, Set apparently looked more appetizing.
Set, however, was rated as an S-Rank equivalent monster.
He easily evaded the pincers slammed down at him, springing backward, and the instant his feet touched the ground he lunged forward.
"Grrrrrr!"
With a fierce cry, Set activated his Wing Blade skill, turning the outer edge of his wings into razor-sharp blades.
The crayfish's pincers were sheathed in a hard shell—whether Wing Blade could break through was uncertain. But that hardness only applied to the shell itself. A pincer required joints, and while those joints were partially covered by shell, they were far more fragile than the pincers they connected.
Set's wings sliced through the joint cleanly, severing it without resistance.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
A voice suddenly shrieked across the area. Rei, who had been winding up to strike with Death Scythe, thought for a split second that it was the crayfish's death cry. But the sound hadn't come from the monster. It came from the cluster of scholars some distance away.
The scholar who had been in the lake—the one forcibly hauled out by his guard adventurer—stood with his mouth agape, letting out what could only be described as a wail of despair.
(An invisible enemy?!)
The thought flashed through Rei's mind, but a quick scan of the surroundings revealed no sign of any small monster lurking about. So then, what was that scream about?
His question was answered when the scholar opened his mouth again.
"What are you doing! That is a rare monster inhabiting this lake! How dare you injure it! Capture it alive—without harming it!"
"Grr?"
At the scholar's outburst, Set—who had just severed the crayfish's pincer at the joint—let out a bewildered purr and pulled back from the creature. For Set, the last thing he expected to hear in the middle of a fight was a demand to capture the enemy alive.
The adventurers near the scholar stared in disbelief. Even his fellow scholars fixed him with looks that said, What on earth are you talking about? And who could blame them? If they failed to capture the crayfish alive and it broke free, the odds were high that every last one of them would die.
"Are you out of your mind? Do you understand what's happening right now?!" one scholar shouted at the man demanding the monster be taken alive.
But the other scholar only raised his voice louder.
"You're the one who doesn't understand! That giant monster is a creature from another world! What kind of scholar refuses to study it!"
"Ugh..."
For a fleeting moment, the second-guessing scholar wondered if he was actually in the wrong. Then one of the adventurers bellowed:
"Rei, forget it—take the thing down! If we don't kill it here, the whole area is going to suffer heavy casualties!"
What that adventurer was thinking of were the scholars, yes—but also the Lizardmen. And above all, the Birth Tower, where many children were currently staying. The thought of those children being killed—or devoured—by this crayfish was enough to decide him. They could not afford to let the monster run loose.
The scholar who had demanded they stop attacking glared at the adventurer with venomous intensity. In terms of combat ability, a scholar stood no chance against an adventurer. Yet something in that glare made the adventurer recoil half-reflexively. Even so, he had no intention of backing down. The crayfish had to be put down as fast as possible.
"Uooooooh!"
But while the humans argued, someone had already sprung into action, utterly indifferent to their bickering.
Gaga, greatsword in hand, let out a war cry and charged straight at the crayfish.
The crayfish caught Gaga's mighty swing with its one remaining pincer. Gaga might have been weaker than Rei, Elena, or Vihera—but that was only because the comparison was unfair. Before being transported to this world, he had been a prince, and his abilities had been held in high regard. Not simply because of his title, but because he genuinely possessed formidable skill. The devotion of the Lizardmen who had traveled with him spoke for itself.
In that sense, perhaps it was Rei and his companions who were the abnormal ones for defeating Gaga even in mock battles.
Regardless, Gaga was a textbook power fighter, wielding raw strength befitting his massive frame and a greatsword that—even gripped in the hands of a three-meter-tall Lizardman—still earned the name. It was a devastating blow. Yet the moment the blade struck the crayfish's pincer, it rang out with a high-pitched metallic clang and skidded off.
"Wha—whoa!"
Gaga hadn't expected his strike to have no effect, and the surprise was audible. An instant later, the pincer swept horizontally and he scrambled backward to dodge.
Every Lizardman watching tensed in shock. They had never imagined Gaga being forced back, even momentarily.
But Gaga was already charging in again. Had it been Set, he would have gone for the left pincer's joint, just as he had severed the right. Gaga, however, saw that the pincer was tough and chose to break through head-on. If he'd been certain his attacks couldn't crack the shell at all, he wouldn't have been so fixated on a frontal assault—he would have adapted, like Set.
"Uooooooh!"
The greatsword swung down with another war cry. The crayfish moved to catch the blow with its pincer—no, to bat Gaga aside entirely. But then—
A faint crack.
Faint, but unmistakable. The sound cut through the air.
Hearing it, Rei stowed Death Scythe in his Misty Ring and gripped only the Twilight Spear in his right hand. His target was not the crayfish's head, but the tail curled up like a scorpion's. At its tip sat a venom stinger, and there was no telling when it might fire.
With both its pincers compromised, the crayfish had few options left. Strictly speaking, the left pincer wasn't destroyed—only cracked. It could still serve as a weapon. But that crack had been inflicted when the shell was at its hardest. What would happen if the blows kept coming needed no imagination.
That was why the crayfish would resort to its greatest remaining weapon—the tail's venom stinger. That was Rei's prediction.
"Kishaaaaaaaaa!"
But the crayfish's next attack was not what Rei had anticipated.
The antennae sprouting from its head lashed out like whips—no, like tentacles—swinging at Gaga.
"Grrrrr!"
Seeing the crayfish lash at Gaga, Set apparently judged that leaving things as they were would be dangerous. He let out a thunderous cry, activated Power Crush, and slammed into the crayfish's body from the side.
"Huh?"
The stunned gasps came from the watching scholars and adventurers—and from the Lizardmen, who had kept their distance so as not to interfere with Gaga.
It was no wonder they were speechless. Set, far smaller than the monstrous crayfish, had struck it from the side and sent that colossal body—its exact weight an utter mystery—hurtling nearly ten meters through the air.
For everyone watching, it was only natural to wonder if they were seeing things.