Still marveling at the overwhelming performance of Multi Slash, Rei moved on to his next course of action for the time being.
...To be precise, it wasn't so much Rei's own action as it was testing the performance of Seto's enhanced Fire Breath and Power Attack.
Fire Breath in particular had the potential for a significant boost now that it had reached Level five. Based on his past experience with Beast Magic, a skill's performance surged dramatically upon reaching Level five, so it was only natural to assume Fire Breath would follow suit.
"The fact that this spot was by the river was a saving grace, at least."
Their current location was beside a river. Had he tested Fire Breath in an area surrounded by nothing but trees, the entire forest could have caught fire.
If that had happened, the animals and monsters in the forest would naturally flee, and there was no denying the possibility that the village from earlier could suffer damage as a result.
Many of the villagers feared Rei, who had single-handedly trampled the two-headed rhinos that they themselves could do nothing against. But that didn't mean he would wish for forest monsters to flee and cause harm to them.
Still, had such a situation arisen, the villagers would have assumed Rei was responsible. And honestly, if something like that happened within mere hours of Rei entering the forest, expecting them not to suspect a connection would have been unreasonable.
"Alright, Fire Breath first. I don't want to think about what would happen if fire spread through the forest, so unleash it toward the river."
"Gurururu!"
Following Rei's words, Seto opened his beak wide and unleashed Fire Breath toward the river.
A roar!
The flames that erupted were distinctly more powerful than Fire Breath at Level four—a blazing inferno.
The river water boiled up, and the fish swimming within were instantly cooked to death. Additionally, the unleashed flames evaporated much of the river water, generating a massive amount of steam in the surrounding area.
"This is... well, I expected it to be powerful, but I never imagined the output would increase this much. I wonder what'll happen when it goes up even more levels."
"Gurururu."
Seto must have heard Rei's words. He purred with a proud look on his face.
"Kyah... kyaa! W-wait, what? What? What on earth just happened!?"
Rei, who had been petting Seto after he used Fire Breath, snapped back to reality at the sudden voice.
When he turned his gaze toward the source, he found Nielson flying around in a confused state, just as expected.
She had been fast asleep until moments ago, and light shaking from Rei hadn't shown any sign of waking her. But the steam generated by Seto's Fire Breath flooding the area all at once must have been enough to rouse her.
"You're awake, Nielson. Over here."
"Ahh! Hey, Rei! What on earth did you do!? I mean, why am I in a place like this...? I mean, what is going on here!?"
Nielson noisily flew around the area, calling out to Rei like that. She was in a complete state of confusion—wondering what was happening around her, why she had been sleeping here, and again what was going on with her surroundings.
Rei thought to himself that she was as noisy as ever when awake, but the truth was he felt somewhat relieved by Nielson's behavior.
The reason Nielson had been sleeping—or more precisely, had fainted—was because she had been inside the Dragon Robe while Rei was fighting the two-headed rhinos.
However, Nielson was now focusing her attention on her surroundings—something far more interesting to her—rather than the reason she had fainted.
From Rei's perspective, it was better if she just forgot about the incident during the battle, so he answered her questions.
"I was just checking Seto's skills. We haven't used them lately."
"...And that resulted in this situation?"
Nielson said that while looking at the river, which had been the source of the steam, but it had already returned to normal. The larger stones at the river's edge were faintly reddened, but even that heat was being cooled by the river water continuously flowing past, returning them to their original state.
The fish that had been instantly boiled by Fire Breath were also being carried by the current, already heading downstream.
"Yeah, that's the situation. ...I think I went a bit overboard, but it's a good thing I got a solid grasp of Seto's power. What's left is... I want to check Power Attack's performance too, but that'll be a bit difficult around here."
Power Attack was a body-slam skill. At Level one, it could snap a tree trunk as thick as three adults holding hands. But none of the trees growing near this river had trunks that thick.
They would need to go deeper into the forest to find a tree thick enough for Seto to test it on.
"Hey, you're still planning to do something? ...I'm telling you, next time you do something like that, make sure I'm in a state where I can properly understand what's going on!"
Well, was that really how it worked?
Rei almost retorted to Nielson's words, but reconsidered that it was better than being blamed for the incident.
There was no doubt that a considerable number of fish had died from the Fire Breath just now. No, not just fish—the creatures living in the river had likely taken significant damage as well.
And that was not for the sake of eating, but to test how effective Fire Breath was.
Depending on the person, it wouldn't be strange for someone to get angry, demanding to know what business he had taking lives so wastefully.
Rei didn't think Nielson would get angry for that reason, but even so, the fact that he didn't have to worry about that was a relief.
(Well, it's not like the boiled dead fish went to waste just because I or Seto didn't eat them. If they get carried downstream, other animals might eat them, so in that sense, their lives weren't truly wasted. And even if they don't get eaten, they'll rot and become soil, which will definitely nourish the plants.)
Thinking such thoughts, Rei turned his attention back to Nielson.
"Fair enough. When I test Seto's Power Attack, I'll show you too."
"I don't know what it'll be like, but I'll give you a little praise!"
Nielson declared rather haughtily for some reason, but Rei simply nodded without paying it much mind.
"If you enjoy it, I'm happy too. ...Now then, I've finished what I needed to do here, and sleeping Nielson has woken up. I suppose it's fine to head deeper into the forest soon. I also need to find a tree to test Seto's Power Attack on."
"Guru!"
Hearing Rei's words, Seto purred as if to say, "Leave it to me!"
And so, Rei proceeded deeper into the forest with Seto and Nielson.
Inside Nielson's head, whose interests jumped from one thing to the next, there was no longer any room left for questions about why she had fainted or been sleeping.
"Hey, look. Rei. Check that out over there. Those berries are really bitter. I've seen them in a place I was before."
Rei was traveling as usual, riding on Seto's back, but Nielson was flying freely around him.
In the village, her only option had been to stay inside the Dragon Robe, and she must have been dissatisfied with that. She was a fairy by nature—brimming with curiosity and acting on whatever caught her interest.
Naturally, staying still inside the Dragon Robe was difficult for her. The only reason Nielson had been able to endure it was because the Chief had told her not to do anything that would cause trouble for Rei.
But in the forest, there were no prying eyes, so there was no need for Nielson to stay inside the Dragon Robe.
"Berries? They're bitter? In that case, they're of no use."
"Hmm... another kid told me they put them in an adventurer's food before, you know?"
"No, is that really a good idea?"
Rei knew that fairies were fond of pranks. But using bitter berries for something like that—was that really appropriate?
Then again, it was not uncommon in the world to find a way to make use of things that seemed useless. It was possible that if the bitterness could be removed through some method, Nielson's berries might actually be delicious to eat... there was a chance.
...That said, Rei couldn't help but wonder whether going to that much trouble was really necessary.
"Hey, Rei. Should we pick them? Those berries, should we pick them?"
"There's no need. They're bitter, so they're useless."
A fairy might use them for pranks, but Rei couldn't imagine what he would do with bitter berries if he obtained them.
Or perhaps adding just a little to a dish could have the effect of tightening the flavor, but whether they could actually be used that way was something he wouldn't know without trying.
At the very least, Rei had no desire to attempt such a thing himself.
"Ehh, there are all sorts of uses for them."
"Those are uses from your perspective."
As far as Rei was concerned, berries that were merely bitter had no use. If, say, they were a poison that paralyzed whoever ate them, then there would at least be various applications.
If it were a monster or an animal, their wild instincts or past experience might alert them to the danger and make them notice the paralytic poison.
But with humans... for instance, even if you mixed paralyzing berries into a bandit's meal, they wouldn't notice unless the taste was noticeably off.
...Of course, if it was just a matter of defeating bandits, Rei could win in a fair fight normally, so he had no need to resort to such methods.
Even so, in the event something happened... for example, if someone was captured by bandits, such a method would definitely have its uses.
"Come on, let's go. We need to move deeper to find the Smog Panther, and we also need to encounter the spider, deer, and lizard monsters the village chief told us about, as well as any other monsters. Besides, this forest is quite vast. There's a possibility of unknown monsters existing beyond the ones the village chief knew about."
"You actually want to encounter monsters that badly? Even if you do have magic stones, you're still weird, Rei."
From Nielson's perspective, naturally, the fewer encounters with monsters, the better.
She was decently skilled at magic, but that didn't mean she was good at combat.
"You and I just differ there... oh, there's a perfect tree."
Rei had been advancing while talking with Nielson, but upon spotting a reasonably large tree growing within his field of vision, a pleased smile spread across his face.
What stood there was a tree with a trunk thick enough that about four adults could join hands and circle it.
"Alright, Seto. Want to test it out?"
"Gurururu!"
Rei hadn't said specifically what they were going to test, but it seemed that was enough to get through to Seto.
He immediately activated the Power Attack skill and charged toward the tree Rei had found.
"H-hey, Rei!? Is that okay!? At this rate, Seto's going to crash into the tree!?"
This was probably because Seto had suddenly charged at a tree.
Nielson had apparently completely forgotten that they had been talking about testing skills.
As Nielson flew around Rei's face making a fuss, Rei spoke in a reassuring tone.
"It's fine. To begin with, do you think something would happen to Seto just from crashing into a tree?"
"But that's—! That tree is so thick!?"
Even if the tree didn't look problematic from Seto's perspective, to Nielson the fairy, it must have appeared overwhelmingly thick.
Nielson shouted in a panic...
A dull thud echoed through the area, followed by the sounds of cracking and splintering.
Rei understood perfectly well what those sounds were. Also, since the Fairy Dwelling existed within woods and forests, Nielson apparently understood what those sounds were too.
Nielson floated with an expression of disbelief, while Rei wore an expression that said this was only to be expected. At the end of their two gazes... the tree broke precisely where Seto had body-slammed it, and the large tree fell in the opposite direction from where Seto had hit it.
"Gurururu."
Beside the falling tree, Seto purred with a thoroughly confident air and approached Rei.
Rei caught Seto as he came, and stroked the head of Seto, who was nuzzling his face against Rei as if demanding praise.