There’s a saying that the mountain range is like the continent’s spine.
To easily understand this saying, imagine finding a dinosaur fossil underground.
Think of the continent as one dinosaur lying dead with a slightly curved back.
First, where the dinosaur’s flesh and meat were has melted away, leaving only traces.
That’s the land and the boundary between continent and sea.
The head faces right, roughly east.
Then that huge skull could be said to be the great forest in the eastern continent.
The kingdom encompasses the area from that head to the neck meat.
The body’s delicious rib meat area is the Empire.
As meat from ribs is traditionally delicious, the Empire’s continental territory was particularly fertile.
Isn’t that why long ago a man succeeded in declaring himself emperor and took the Empire’s name?
While the Empire is indeed the strongest nation, that doesn’t mean the Empire owns the continent.
Up in the snowfields are the northern barbarians.
In the desert near the tail are terrifying sultans, assassins, and necromancers.
There are countless islands in the southern seas.
Even the Empire’s scholars of all things don’t know what civilizations might exist in that archipelago.
Having gone around once, let’s return to the skull and neck bones.
The spine extending from the skull.
That’s the start of the mountain range.
Though its width can’t compare to the great forest, its length overwhelms it.
The kingdom’s north all belongs to the ‘mountain range’, and part of that mountain range extends even into the Empire.
In other words, the eastern mountain range and western mountain range can be called completely different regions.
Where Delfram is located was in the eastern mountain range.
“It was once sacred ground of the Oboe civilization.”
That was Pelerian’s explanation.
The Oboe civilization was said to be an ancient civilization from very long ago.
Apparently the humans then got along well with wyverns.
“There are many of their ruins. Where I built my dungeon was there.”
‘How did you build in such a treacherous place?’
“Naturally, I used dwarves.”
‘…Gray Hammer Village?’
“Yes.”
The dwarves of Gray Hammer Village had disappeared.
I hope it wasn’t related to Pelerian?
If it was, I don’t want to know.
‘What kind of dungeon is this? Each dungeon had its own concept, right?’
“Tsk, concept indeed.”
Pelerian seemed displeased with my expression.
But it was true.
The first dungeon I went to was a laboratory for raising chimeras.
The second was a magic stone storage.
The third was an armory.
Except for the first one, there were many things to take.
Would there be such things in this dungeon too?
“There might be… something.”
For some reason he lacks confidence.
Generally, when Pelerian shows this kind of reaction, it falls into two cases.
Either he doesn’t know well himself, or he’s hiding something fishy.
Or maybe both.
‘But, you said when you were about to die you’d come here to die, right? How does that work?’
“What do you mean?”
‘No, when you die you just die. If you die suddenly, you can’t come here. Do you mean you’d come here in advance when you knew you were going to die?’
“Both apply. I prepared so I could teleport here when I die.”
‘Isn’t teleport not something you can use freely?’
“It’s possible with sacrifices and limitations.”
Vows and restrictions? Seems like I’ve heard this somewhere.
Still, deciding your death place in advance, there’s something romantic about it.
When I said that, Pelerian made an uncharacteristically wistful expression.
“On a blue night, the snake that bit and killed Princess Kabbalah ultimately died with its head pierced. Do you know the sentiment of that tragedy…”
‘Wow that really… seems like it.’
He seems to be talking about some play but his eyes are too moist so I lost the desire to ask more.
That’s when it happened.
The wyvern mom brought lots of dry silvergrass in her mouth.
She spread plenty of fluffy silvergrass on the ground.
It was necessary work for making a new nest.
Unlike birds, wyverns don’t have feathers, so young wyvern babies need this.
“Pipipipi”
“Keeee!”
“Chuik!”
As soon as their mother appeared, the babies went close and rubbed their heads against her.
Though it looks cute, it’s basically a threat demanding nutritional porridge.
I also quietly approached that side.
Absolutely, absolutely not because I wanted nutritional porridge.
When I crouch nearby, the wyvern mom runs over with a worried expression and force-feeds me nutritional porridge.
Then I have to eat nutritional porridge until I’m about to burst.
The wyvern mom worried about me more and more.
Probably because my body wasn’t growing any bigger.
By now the wyvern baby triplets had grown three times bigger than me.
They were even showing signs of daring to rebel against this youngest brother.
‘I’m already fully grown.’
It’s frustrating not being able to tell her that.
But fortunately, should I say.
The wyvern mom didn’t share nutritional porridge.
Rather, she sternly pushed away the approaching babies.
I wondered what was happening, when suddenly she cried “kuguk” toward the sky.
Then one Black Wyvern from the group flew over as if it had been waiting.
It was one of the wyvern mom’s subordinates who had migrated to this Delfram area together a few days ago.
“Kuguk!”
It threw something it had been holding in its mouth into the nest.
Then immediately flew away.
‘What’s that.’
“It caught a terrible monster.”
The wyvern had thrown a still living monster.
The familiar appearance was clearly a Mosquito Rat.
However, it wasn’t an ordinary Mosquito Rat.
Five times bigger, with compound eyes that glowed strangely.
──────────────
[Giant Mosquito Rat lv32]
[Traits]
[Blood-sucking], [Stench]
──────────────
Since a Mosquito Rat was already baby fist-sized, even at five times bigger it was about pocket rat size.
But its terribleness far exceeded five times that of a regular Mosquito Rat.
Without exaggeration, it seems a hundred times more terrible.
Compound eyes resembling those of dung flies.
A long snout for blood-sucking hangs down like a leech.
It looks around as if unsatisfied with the current situation while gathering its front legs that resemble rat legs.
Just as it was about to escape.
“Tadak, tak.”
The wyvern mom clashed her mouth and emitted wyvern fear.
It didn’t affect the wyvern babies, and naturally didn’t work on me with mental attack immunity.
But the Giant Mosquito Rat, or GiMoRat for short, froze like ice.
