“No.”
The guard captain muttered.
Zain frowned.
He clearly thought, what an insipid person.
“That monster corpse.”
“Yes, it looks like a Split-tongue Deer.”
“That’s right. The tongue is forked.”
The guard captain was a person who had grown up in the Greyrim domain, and Zain was a knight attendant of the hero Steel Gunter.
Both had deep knowledge of monsters.
They could immediately recognize it even looking down from this high cliff.
“It seems the neck was bitten, but strangely, the corpse is clean otherwise.”
“Why would it hunt and not eat it?”
“There are some that aggressively attack even if their territory is just invaded. Not necessarily hunting for food.”
“Hmm, is it very dangerous?”
Zain’s tone was a bit awkward as he asked.
He seemed to be cautious not to appear afraid as a knight.
The guard captain noticed this.
“Well, we shouldn’t have to worry. I’ll go down first. Sir Knight, you can come down last.”
“… No, I’ll go down first.”
Zain said.
The young knight’s pride was hurt by the guard captain’s consideration.
Although knights were quasi-nobles, Zain wasn’t a knight who had received a domain, but just one of the attendant knights.
And the guard captain was the deputy commander of Greyrim who had the lord’s trust.
There was some tension as the hierarchy between the two was ambiguous.
“Then I’d be grateful. In that case, I’ll guard the rear.”
“Yes.”
“It might be dangerous, so it’s better to go down in pairs. Hanson, you go down with the knight.”
A thick-armed soldier echoed the order.
Zain and the soldier began to descend the cliff, holding onto the rope.
It was a steep slope, almost vertical.
They had to carefully place their feet as they went down.
The rock under their feet crumbled and fell with a clatter.
Zain was inwardly chilled but tried not to show it.
His descent speed was faster than the soldier’s.
This much cliff descent was nothing, recalling the training he’d received so far.
Suddenly, Zain slowed his descent.
Rumble-
A vibration sound was heard from somewhere.
At first, he thought it was his imagination.
The soldier descending with him didn’t seem to notice.
Rumble rumble-
It wasn’t.
The vibration became clearer.
Zain instinctively looked down at the ground where he felt the vibration.
The monster corpse that he thought someone had killed and left as a display.
Something was approaching it.
“Stop!”
Of course, he wasn’t shouting at whatever was approaching.
Hanson, the soldier descending with him, had a blank expression as if to say, why are you suddenly acting crazy.
The urge to punch that face rose, but Zain held back.
Instead, he raised a finger to point at the ground.
The soldier’s eyes widened like saucers.
The ground around the deer carcass bulged up.
Bang!
Several legs shot up from the ground.
What appeared was a ‘monster’.
It swallowed the deer monster whole and left.
The whole process took barely a minute.
During that time, Zain and the others didn’t say a word.
Among those frozen still, the first to move was the brave knight.
“Let’s go down.”
“Down there?”
“Or do you want to keep hanging here?”
Zain glared with fierce eyes.
The thick-armed soldier just had an expression that said ‘Couldn’t we go up instead?’
When he looked up at the cliff, the guard captain also gave a hand signal to go down.
Zain and Hanson stepped onto the ground where only bloodstains remained.
And the soldiers who had remained above followed down to the ground.
The guard captain approached Zain, who was examining the traces on the ground.
“Can you identify it?”
Zain shook his head.
“What do you think, Guard Captain? I’ve never seen this monster before.”
“Of course, I don’t know all the monsters in the great forest… Yes, this is my first time seeing this monster too.”
“Same here.”
“It’s concerning that we can’t identify it at all.”
“That’s what bothers me the most too.”
The soldiers just exchanged glances at their conversation.
If they don’t know, they don’t know, what’s there to be concerned about?
It seemed like they were having a conversation only they understood.
“I remember it had eight legs.”
“I confirmed that too.”
“Could it be a spider?”
“I’ve been to the sea before. Judging by the carapace, it might be closer to a crab. Like the Red Mud Crab.”
“I’ve lived next to the great forest all my life, so I’m not sure. This is in the forest after all.”
“… I see. It seems more likely to be a spider than a crab.”
“There’s a monster called the Grey Tarantula.”
“Does that one burrow?”
“No, it doesn’t. There are separate mole-type monsters. Like the Spine Mole or Blood Mole.”
They list monsters that might be related to that monster from earlier.
Their eyes meet.
“… It might be a chimera.”
“I think so too.”
Zain’s eyes widened.
Not many people recognized chimeras.
Zain had broadened his knowledge from following Steel Gunter.
He had seen those terrible chimera monsters a few times.
But wasn’t the guard captain too calm, even for someone with long experience?
“Do you know about chimeras?”
“To some extent, yes.”
“Chimera-type monsters like the Cockatrice are completely different from real chimeras.”
The guard captain glanced at Zain.
“Yes, I know. They’re artificially created monsters and the product of a great sin deserving divine punishment.”
He really seemed to know.
“We should track this chimera.”
“… What? That’s not the mission we were given.”
Zain was dumbfounded.
Chasing chimeras was a knight’s duty, not a guard captain’s.
Moreover, hadn’t they been asked by the lord to investigate the identity of the pillar of light right now?
The priorities were different.
“It seems right to do this first.”
“Finding where the light arose should be the priority, right?”
“Catching the chimera is important too.”
Zain finally lost his temper.
There were points that bothered him from the start.
“Guard Captain. Are you taking me for a fool?”
“…”
“You’re hiding something. Speak.”
The atmosphere turned chilly.
The soldiers gulped.
==
Gulp.
I swallowed.
It would be nice if there was popcorn.
Indeed, there’s nothing as fun as watching a fight.
I hid in a tree, watching them who suddenly appeared.
They probably didn’t realize that a mere snake was stuck to a branch, watching them.
“I’m not particularly hiding anything.”
The guard captain, my archenemy.
The enemy of my family and home.
He was confronting the knight with a stern expression.
“It’s strange that you know about chimeras properly, and is that pillar of light related to the chimera?”
“Yes, it is.”
Well done, Guard Captain. Don’t be intimidated by that young pup.
He’s clearly my archenemy, but for some reason, I find myself cheering for the guard captain.
Is it because I like that dignified mustache? Hmm.
“There’s nothing to hide, so I’ll tell you. Chimeras have been found in the great forest from time to time.”
“From time to time?”
“I’d say about once every few decades.”
“Is there a living black magician?”
“No. It’s ruins. A dungeon. Because Pelerian’s dungeons are scattered throughout the great forest.”
Pelerian.
The knight muttered that name a few times and then exclaimed in shock.
“Do you mean the Heaven Defier! The dungeon of that crazy fairy magician who defied heaven!”
Wow.
My whole body got goosebumps, no, my scales stood on end.
Heaven Defier, he says.
Isn’t that crazy?
That racist old fairy has an incredible nickname.
A magician who defies the heavens. It makes my tail curl.
It seems he’s still famous, even though it was over 300 years ago when he created that dungeon.
I wonder if he’s still alive? He did look really old, even for a fairy.
“I heard the Heaven Defier was already dead…”
“It’s a dungeon he made long ago. Light would often burst out from that dungeon. And there are occasional records of chimeras being discovered.”
“The lord didn’t tell me about this.”
“It’s not something that would be good if the story spread.”
“… Indeed, that’s true. If rumors spread that the Heaven Defier’s legacy remains.”
“I’d be grateful if you could keep this information confidential, Sir Zain.”
The knight nodded.
It seems that dungeon must have been something extraordinary.
To me, he just looked like a senile old man, though.
They agreed to track the chimera.
They decided to observe the opponent first and determine if it was at a level they could handle.
“Do you happen to have an Insight scroll?”
“Yes, I always carry one.”
“That’s fortunate. We should find it first.”
An Insight scroll, huh.
What does it give insight into?
More than anything, I was curious how they would track the chimera.
The process of the guard captain and knight identifying the chimera’s nature was admirable.
From Grey Tarantula to Blood Mole, they roughly figured out the chimera’s identity from just one sighting.
There was a lot to learn watching them.
“Dig the ground.”
The soldiers immediately took out their field shovels and started digging.
Aren’t they afraid of the chimera coming?
Meanwhile, the guard captain had his ear to the ground.
The soldiers dug deeper and deeper.
Actually, I had already tried this. I used earth magic to flip over where the chimera appeared, but there was no trace.
Indeed, digging the ground yielded nothing.
The soldiers also had blank expressions.
“Dig deeper.”
The guard captain ordered them to dig deeper with a stern expression.
And a little later, one soldier was suddenly sucked into the ground.
“Aack!”
“W-what! Are you okay?”
“Y-yeah, I’m fine. Ugh, the smell.”
The soldier who fell into the ground seemed to be alright.
The guard captain lit a torch and went in.
“As expected, there was a tunnel far below.”
“Did you predict this?”
“Yes, such a huge creature couldn’t move while digging the ground in real-time. It blocked its retreat with soil when crawling up to the surface, but inside there was a pre-dug passage.”
So that’s how it was!
The guard captain seemed very knowledgeable about monster ecology.
“Hmm, there’s something like a spider web spread out. It seems to sense vibrations with this.”
And probably can smell blood too.
The chimera only came when blood was spilled.
I wanted to give that advice.
The guard captain climbed out of the tunnel with the help of the soldiers.
He brushed off the spider webs on his body and said,
“Subjugating it will be simpler than expected.”
What did you say, you bastard…
I’m pissed.
How dare he speak so lightly. He seems to be underestimating the chimera too much.
“We should be able to handle it ourselves.”
“Shall we make a plan?”
I listened as closely as possible to eavesdrop on their plan.
And I couldn’t help but admire it.
These bastards are vicious.
The scariness of humans… Humans were more wicked than snakes.
I quickly snatched a beetle crawling on the tree branch.
Crunch crunch.
I’ll eat this instead of popcorn while I watch.
Even if you catch the chimera, the leftovers are mine.
==
The humans gave me a truly great spectacle.
They made thorough preparations to hunt the chimera.
After finishing those preparations, the thick-armed soldier Hanson remained in place.
And the other soldiers moved far away and suddenly started singing.
“Rest one beat, rest two beats, rest three more beats and one two three!”
Well, those weren’t the exact lyrics, but it was that kind of song.
Because Hanson started dancing.
He stomped the ground and jumped up and down to his comrades’ clapping.
“Yeah, as expected of Greyrim’s best dancer!”
The guard captain is truly a terrifying guy.
Because his expression didn’t change at all while saying such things.
Knight Zain was standing next to the guard captain holding a scroll.
When the chimera appears, they would lure it into a trap, and in that time, tear the scroll to assess its strength.
It was to decide whether to subjugate it or run away.
The soldier named Hanson danced so hard he was out of breath.
And there was clearly a reward for his efforts.
Rumble rumble-
The vibration sound started to be heard.
Hanson flinched and stopped dancing.
“Keep dancing!”
That crazy guard captain.
Hanson’s dance moves slowed down.
It was like forcibly making ‘the quietest kid in class’ dance on stage at a school event.
Hahaha.
A painful memory came to mind.
I almost raised my mental attack resistance.
Rumble rumble rumble-
The vibrations intensified.
The guard captain also stopped his cruel act.
“Pull him up!”
And Hanson’s body floated up.
It wasn’t because he was a flying human.
They had tied a rope around his waist and hung it over a rock outcropping on the cliff, and the other soldiers all pulled on the rope at once.
Anyway, Hanson secured sufficient distance from the ground.
And the ground bulged up where he had been dancing.
Bang!
Eight legs bit at the empty air.
Rip-
Zain tore the scroll.
‘Insight,’ was it?
Unlike that plain name. Something I couldn’t have imagined happened.
