A fair distance from where they had defeated the bandits—about two hours by Seto's wings—a grassland covered in blooming flowers spread out below.
Since it was nearly noon, Rei suggested they have lunch there while admiring the flowers. Seto happily descended toward the ground.
For Seto, flowers weren't particularly rare. They bloomed commonly outside Gilm, and naturally, various flowers had been blooming in the Forest of Magic where he had stayed until recently for his Promotion Exam.
...Though since they were flowers from the Forest of Magic, Rei wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if they turned out to actually be a type of monster.
"Grrrrrrru!"
Landing on the grassland, Seto left Rei behind and bounded happily around the flowers.
They weren't flowers with any special properties, nor were they particularly rare. Besides, it was summer—peak season for plants. Of course, many plants bloomed in spring or autumn, so it wasn't an absolute rule.
"Seto, come back once you've played to your heart's content."
"Grrru!"
He let out a cry as if to say "Got it!" and resumed racing through the flowers to his heart's content.
Rei wondered if running around among flowers was really that entertaining, but since Seto was enjoying himself, he had no particular objection.
"As long as Seto's happy, that's what matters."
Saying that, Rei spread a cloth on the grassland and sat down.
As he was thinking about what to eat for lunch, he suddenly sensed a presence and turned his gaze toward it.
The presence was coming from a grove of trees some distance away. And it wasn't simply approaching—it was being chased by something.
"Adventurers?"
Rei braced himself, thinking this could be trouble, ready to react at a moment's notice...
"Wait, seriously?"
What appeared were five children around ten years old. Three boys and two girls. Some clutched short daggers, while others held stones. Such children came running desperately from the grove.
"Why are there children?"
Rei had his doubts, but then wolves—ordinary animal wolves, not monsters—emerged from the grove. Five of them.
Seeing that, it wasn't difficult to guess how this situation had come about.
Abandoning the children would leave a bad taste in his mouth, so he grabbed Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear and broke into a run.
"This way! Come this way!"
The children heard Rei's words and picked up speed.
The opponents were children around ten, and Rei appeared to be about fifteen. In that sense, under normal circumstances, Rei too would have struggled against wolves.
Of course, that was strictly if Rei were an ordinary fifteen-year-old.
The children ran desperately toward Rei, but naturally, being only around ten, they weren't fast. Still, perhaps because their lives depended on it, they pushed toward him with everything they had...
"You did well."
Telling them that as they passed, Rei inserted himself between the children and the pack of wolves.
"Awooooo!"
One of the wolves running at the front lunged at Rei. Normally, thanks to Seto's presence, they would never have approached on their own, but perhaps they were too worked up from attacking the children—they attacked without the slightest hesitation.
However...
"Too slow."
These were ordinary wolves, not monsters.
When Rei swung Death Scythe, the lead wolf's head was cleanly severed and sent flying through the air. The strike was so sharp and smooth that the headless wolf landed on the ground, took a few steps, lost its balance, and collapsed, blood gushing from its neck.
The other wolves, focused on pursuing the children, may not have noticed the lead wolf's death. They lunged at Rei one after another, each dying in quick succession.
It took only a few seconds to annihilate the entire pack. In those few seconds, the wolves died—heads severed, skulls crushed.
"Alright, that should do it... hey, are you okay?"
Rei called out to the children, who had kept running during those few seconds and were now even further away.
The children seemed to finally come to their senses at Rei's words. They stopped and looked toward him with fearful, hesitant expressions, wondering what on earth had just happened.
To the children, even ordinary wolves that weren't monsters were foes of despair. Even with daggers and stones, they were not opponents they could defeat. Such a despairing—something that could be called a symbol of death—existence had been effortlessly struck down by Rei.
It was hard to believe, no doubt. But seeing multiple wolf corpses scattered on the ground, they couldn't deny it either.
"W-we're saved...?" one of the children holding a stone muttered fearfully.
Looking at the child trembling with fear and shedding tears, Rei stored Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear in his Misty Ring and nodded.
He did so because he felt that in front of children, while the Twilight Spear was one thing, Death Scythe's appearance was too shocking.
Fortunately, the children were focused solely on the fact that they had been saved and hadn't noticed Rei holding Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear.
"Yeah, you're saved. So... what exactly are you kids doing out here all by yourselves?"
"Huh? Oh, um..." The child who had been holding a dagger looked at Rei as if snapping back to reality, then opened his mouth with a hesitant expression.
"Um... we were looking for something to eat..."
"Something to eat?"
Those words convinced Rei while simultaneously raising another question.
In a summer forest or grove, there would be various edible plants, or if they were lucky, they might even manage to hunt an animal. That was true, but even so, children going into a grove or forest alone was normally unthinkable. The attackers this time had been wolves, but there was every possibility that monsters could attack instead.
Since this wasn't a frontier like Gilm, powerful monsters likely wouldn't appear, but even weak monsters like Goblins would be more than these children could handle.
However, looking at the children again, Rei understood why they had come to such a place.
(Orphans, huh.)
The children's clothes were visibly old and torn in multiple places. All of them were thin, and it was obvious they weren't getting enough to eat. If that was the case, Rei had no choice but to accept their explanation that they had come to the grove to find food.
"Yeah. Everyone else is waiting, hungry. So we..."
The child talking to Rei had tears welling up in his eyes, but he quickly rubbed them away.
Watching the child do so, Rei wondered what he should do in this situation. Should he ask why they hadn't entered an orphanage? Or should he give them food or valuables from his Misty Ring? He wasn't sure.
If they were adults, he would simply tell them to get a job.
"For now... I don't need those wolf corpses, so I'll give them to you."
"Huh? Really!?"
Rei had offered the wolf corpses thinking it might at least serve as a conversation opener, but for the children, it was a stroke of luck.
If these had been wolf-type monsters, the meat would have been reasonably tasty thanks to mana, but these were just ordinary animals. Of course, their meat wasn't inedible, but for Rei, regular monster meat was tastier than wolf meat.
For the children, however, it was different. With this much wolf meat, depending on how many of them there were, they could stave off their hunger for a while.
"So, what'll you do? With these wolf corpses... if you're taking them back, you can carry them as they are. Or if you want to butcher them here, I can help."
"Huh? ...You'll help? Why go that far?"
For the children, who were orphans—or in a position close to it—they couldn't understand why someone would go this far for them. It wasn't strange for them to have such doubts.
"Even if you ask why... obviously, abandoning children in a place like this would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Once the wolves are butchered, I'll escort you back to where you live, so don't worry."
At Rei's words, the children's faces lit up.
Making it to the grove was one thing, but whether they could make it back to where they lived on their own was another matter entirely. After all, if they hadn't encountered Rei, they would have been devoured by the wolves.
"Grru?"
"Kyaaah!"
One of the children screamed at Seto's sudden appearance.
Only one screamed, but the others were also frightened by Seto and stepped back.
"Grru..."
Seeing the children react that way, Seto purred sadly. Being feared by someone he was meeting for the first time wasn't unusual, but just because it was common didn't mean it wasn't disheartening.
"Don't worry. This is Gryphon Seto. My Tamed Monster... my partner."
Rei didn't think the children would understand the term Tamed Monster, so he phrased it that way.
At his words, the children stopped their retreat. To them, Rei was the person who had saved them. Given that, it wasn't unreasonable for them to think that if Rei said so, then it must be safe.
Children like these wouldn't normally trust someone so easily, but Rei was different. He had saved them when they were being attacked, so it didn't seem like he was plotting anything. Also, the fact that he had given them the wolf meat was likely another reason they believed him.
"Anyway, let's start butchering... Just to check, is there anyone among you who can do it?"
Rei asked the children, but naturally, no one responded.
If they were a hunter's child or an adventurer's child, it wouldn't be strange for them to know how to butcher at around ten years old. But from the looks of these children, none seemed to have such parents.
The children showed expressions of frustration, disappointment, and sadness.
Looking at them, Rei thought for a moment before speaking.
"Alright. Then I'll teach you the basics of how to butcher."
"Huh? Really!?"
The children showed surprise. Naturally—given their lives so far, they never expected this turn of events to lead to something that would benefit them.
Of course, if Rei were pressed for time, he wouldn't do something like this. He was doing it simply because he had time to spare.
He had the goal of going to Egginis, but it wasn't as if he needed to rush there. Rather, since the Crystal Dragon corpse situation was likely to cause trouble in Gilm, he wanted to delay that.
In that sense, taking it easy until he arrived in Egginis was no problem at all. If anything, taking it slowly would delay his stay in Egginis, putting off the time spent on sightseeing and purchasing Golems even further—which suited Rei just fine since he wanted to kill time.
"Here, use this. Butchering with a dagger like that would probably ruin the edible meat."
Rei handed a knife he had taken from his Misty Ring to the boy who had been holding a rusty dagger.
"Can I really use this?"
"Yeah. It's a cheap one anyway. Ready? I'll teach you how to butcher."
Saying that, Rei began butchering the wolves.
Even though they were animals and not monsters, the butchering method itself wasn't so different. The differences were that since they weren't monsters, there was no Magic Stone embedded in the heart, and there was no need to cut out a Subjugation Proof Part. In that sense, butchering them was actually easier than butchering monsters.
"It's fine if you're only butchering enough for yourselves to eat, but otherwise... for example, if you try to sell this pelt, you need to butcher it cleanly."
In Gilm, pelts from monster materials were so abundant that there was no demand, but this wasn't the frontier of Gilm. Given that, Rei expected that if animal pelts were properly skinned and processed, they could sell for a reasonable price.
Of course, judging by the children's appearance, they might be bought cheaply, and negotiating would be difficult.
Thinking such thoughts, Rei reflected deeply that he never expected to end up teaching butchering techniques.