"Touka, your orders—"
"Stay back this time."
"...Understood."
Eve, who had stepped back, did not raise any objections.
She had said she could not win.
An opponent that the strongest blood fighter could not face head-on.
Well, I could ask her to act as a decoy to distract the enemy.
But she might get injured.
She might suffer serious wounds.
I wanted to avoid that.
Eve's irreplaceable traits.
Night vision.
Hearing on the level of a sensor.
I did not want these two abilities to become unusable as a result of exposing her as a decoy.
There was no time to prepare a fusion technique with Pigi-maru before the monster arrived.
I hid behind a tree trunk and observed the situation.
Trees collapsed one after another with creaking sounds, falling to the ground.
The creature was too massive to weave between the trees.
The forms of those things had come into visible range.
Giant slugs.
The base part first brought that to mind.
On both sides of the top of its head, golden eyes were attached.
It reminded me of a dragonfly's compound eyes.
The mouth between those two eyes also had a dragonfly-like feel.
In addition, multiple things were growing from its back.
They looked similar to an elephant's trunk, perhaps.
Furthermore, humanoid arms grew from both sides of its body.
Thick, muscular arms with bulging veins.
And the finishing touch was its giant body.
In terms of size alone, it easily surpassed that soul eater.
Elephant slugs.
There were two of them.
Were these things humanoid types?
"..."
No, they were different.
Humanoid types had faces that looked much more "human."
Seras had taught me that during our journey.
The soul eater fit the description, but I did not think these did.
"Nuuun! Booooooooroooooooon!"
A deafening, bizarre roar shook the air.
Something that sounded like a bird flapped its wings and took flight.
It had probably sensed the presence of these elephant slugs and fled.
Even so—
"I see."
For a moment, joy almost overtook my composure.
"So it's you guys."
Dodo dodo dodo dodo dodo——!
The elephant slugs closed the distance in one burst, shaking the ground.
I had called them slugs, but their speed was nothing like a slug's.
Undulating at explosive speed...
It did not match the slow image of a slug at all.
It felt eerie.
Hm?
Ah, I see.
They were also using the arms on both sides to assist with direction changes.
The elephant slugs were swinging the tops of their heads wildly left and right.
"..."
They were probably searching for me or Eve.
I could feel it.
Joy and killing intent.
They had probably found suitable prey and were excited.
However, their perception ability seemed unexpectedly dull.
Their field of vision looked wide, but they were the type that was weak in sensing presences.
And then, within range—
"Welcome."
I had entered it.
"[Paralyze]"
Crack, snap——
Snap——
"O!? O, rooo... O——!?"
"The opponent that the strongest blood fighter cannot face head-on."
I snorted and stepped out from behind the tree trunk.
Well, of course.
"If you face them head-on."
I had no intention of facing them head-on.
Fair and square, a sense of fair play—screw all that.
Sneak attacks,
Ambush attacks,
Both were perfectly fine.
"You found the prey you had let escape again—and came running full of joy to continue the hunt... only to realize that the roles had reversed and you were now the ones being hunted."
The two paralyzed elephant slugs.
They stood towering like cliffs to my left and right front.
The killing intent and joy the monsters had been emitting had now changed into confusion and rage.
"O——O, ooon!"
I used other skills that could be stacked.
Of course, to increase the number of skills.
And for the finishing blow—
"[Berserk]"
Whoosh! Splatter!
The two elephant slugs sprayed fountains of blood from all over their bodies.
A rain of blood poured down around the monsters.
"O, goeee eee eee eee!?"
With both arms still thrust out, I looked up at the two giant demons.
"Sorry, but I will finish this quickly."
The more they struggled in the paralyzed state, the greater the damage would become.
But the monsters could not stop themselves from struggling by their own will.
They could not resist the berserk effect that had been added.
"O, go... gi, ri... ——"
The monsters sank into a pool of blood and fell silent.
Silence descended on the area.
[Level has increased.]
[LV1797 → LV1798]
"Oh?"
My level went up here...
There was also the accumulation of experience points from before.
But the two just now had probably given quite a bit of experience points too.
The combination of the two had pushed me to a level up.
"...My MP is also fully recovered with this."
Eve came running over.
"Is it over, Touka?"
"Yeah."
Her leopard eyes stared intently at the monsters' corpses.
"To defeat those monsters without any trouble... When I encountered them, escaping with my life was all I could manage. I am truly in awe of you..."
Just managing to escape from them already seemed impressive to me.
"If I had faced them head-on, I would not have won this easily. By the way, these are not humanoid types, right?"
"It seems not. However, humanoid types are not the only strong enemies among monsters. There are many terrifying monsters that are not humanoid types."
"Yeah, I know. More than enough."
The monsters in the Ruins of Disposal were a good example.
Eve let out a low, bitter groan.
"Touka."
"Hm?"
"Just before fighting these monsters, did you not say something that sounded like you had encountered them somewhere before? I think you said something like 'So it's you guys.'"
Her ears really were sharp.
"These are probably 'Nazort.'"
I called out to Seras, who was approaching while leading Liz.
"Seras, help me out."
She seemed to have caught on already.
Seras placed a hand on her chest.
"Yes, leave it to me."
By the way, Liz did not seem particularly confused.
She had remained calm even when the monsters appeared.
Somehow—she had eyes that said she believed in us.
That was how it looked to me.
I stepped into the pool of blood and lightly lifted one of the humanoid arms.
A hemisphere was embedded in the monster's palm.
It had a squishy feel.
If I had to describe it—it was like a cat's paw pad.
Well, the feel was worlds apart from a cat's paw pad in a bad way...
I checked the hardness of the monster's skin.
All right.
It looked doable.
I drew the short sword from my waist.
"What are you going to do with that, Touka?"
"I am going to cut off a portion of this paw-pad-like part."
"What? This...? Y-you are not saying you are going to use this as food, are you? It does not look like something you would want to take into your body proactively..."
Eve looked slightly repulsed.
"Kus— It is not that, Eve."
Seras gave a wry smile.
"Right, Touka-dono?"
"Yeah. I am not taking it into my body."
It seemed Seras had already seen it in the Forbidden Arts Compendium I had lent her.
The "Nazort" I had mentioned was the formal name for the elephant slug.
"This is one of the materials."
Yes,
"For Pigi-maru's strengthening agent."
"Pi."
Probably because its name was called.
Pigi-maru responded.
Eve finally looked convinced.
"Mumu, so that was it. But—"
Eve tilted her head.
She had a difficult expression.
"What is it?"
"You said you are not taking it into your body... but since it is Pigi-maru's strengthening agent, that means—"
"Puyu?"
"Only Pigi-maru will end up taking that creepy squishy thing into its body, will it not?"
"...Pigii!?"
Pigi-maru looked terrified.
But it is fine, Pigi-maru.
When the strengthening agent is completed, the appearance should no longer be a problem.
"..."
Probably.
▽
About an hour had passed since we collected materials from the elephant slugs and left the area.
It happened without any warning.
"――――――――ッ"
What...?
Zash!
We turned our backs to each other and stayed alert to our surroundings.
"Eve, do you sense anything?"
"...No, I do not."
"Seras."
"N-no... I do not know what is happening either..."
But it was definitely there.
The presence of a monster.
Suddenly, a presence had appeared.
Of course, this was different from Pigi-maru's presence.
Pigi-maru was also bewildered.
Eve, Pigi-maru, me, Seras.
None of the four of us had noticed the approach.
There had been no signs, nothing.
Only the presence of the monster had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
It was close.
It was right there.
What was it?
What exactly was happening...?
Moreover, I did not feel any hostility.
There was no killing intent.
On the contrary, that made it even more eerie.
I could not quite grasp the degree of threat either.
Only a strange, unidentified feeling drifted in the air.
It felt different from any monster I had encountered so far...
"Where is it coming from?"
Even when I looked around, there was still nothing.
Only rows of trees continued endlessly.
Even if something was hiding, if it was close, I should be able to locate it by its presence.
Seras readied her bow toward the sky.
"—It is not from above."
And it was not from below either.
A surprise attack from underground had been the first thing I had assumed.
But the position of the presence was not underground.
No, rather this was—
"Is it me?"
—Crack—
There was a sound.
The presence suddenly grew much thicker.
"Pigii—!"
At the same time as Pigi-maru's cry, I removed my backpack.
It seemed Pigi-maru had also sensed something from "me."
"This...?"
Eve readied her sword.
"Inside the backpack...?"
Liz clung to Eve with an anxious expression.
Seras broke out in a cold sweat while entering some kind of preparatory stance.
She was preparing her spirit equipment.
"—Ah."
One thing occurred to me.
"Could it be—"
I thrust my hand into the backpack.
—Crack—
"...This is it."
I gently placed "it" on the ground.
I took one step back and called out to everyone.
"Stay on guard."
It was only natural that I had sensed the presence myself.
Because the source of the presence had been "that" inside my backpack.
Seras looked at me.
"Touka-dono, this is..."
"Yeah."
That black egg we had obtained in the Mils ruins.
Yes, that thing—
"Seems like it is about to hatch."