Chapter 113

Ailet and Kelly approached before I knew it, letting out low whistles of admiration.

“He really is a handsome fellow. Is he about three meters? Calling him a single-seater seems a bit modest for his size.”

Elizabeth let out a proud giggle at Ailet’s praise.

“Hehe, right? Let me introduce him. His name is Snoopy.”

“Snoopy…?”

I couldn’t help but interject.

“Hey. I’ve been wondering since you used Pooh… are you originally from Earth?”

“Earth? Is that a place in the Eastern Continent? I’ve never even been there.”

“Have you ever tamed a cat-type monster before?”

“I have. It was weak, so I let it go pretty quickly.”

“What was its name, by any chance?”

“Uh… what did I call it? Ah, right! Kitty!”

“…How about a rabbit-type?”

“Had one of those too. Fanny.”

“A duck-type?”

“Uh… Donald?”

“A tiger.”

“Tigger.”

“A crocodile.”

“Gucci.”

“…You little brat. You definitely came from Earth, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t! I’ve barely even left the Tubilan Empire, let alone visited the Eastern Continent.”

After Chel explained the scouting range and what to look for, and Elizabeth went through the process of relaying the orders to the Twin-Horned Wolf, the wolf finally dashed forward to begin the reconnaissance.

“Hmm… I wonder if it’ll go well.”

At Chel’s words, Elizabeth patted her chest confidently.

“He’s a smart boy. You can trust him.”

“Even a smart wolf is still a wolf… I honestly doubt if he even understood our explanation properly…”

An hour later.

The Twin-Horned Wolf returned from his scout, his rain-soaked body shivering as he rubbed his cheek against Elizabeth’s leg.

“Good job, Snoopy. So? What did you see? Yeah? Uh-huh… and… wait? What?”

Elizabeth, who was communing with the wolf, furrowed her brow and looked back at the group.

“What is it? What’s he saying?”

“Well… he says there weren’t any threatening monsters up to the fifteen-kilometer mark… but he saw something strange around there.”

“A monster?”

“No, not a monster. What? The ground is weird?”

After communing for a while longer, Elizabeth looked troubled.

“He says it’s hard to explain and that we should go see for ourselves. He’ll lead the way.”

Kelly reached out and roughly stroked the wolf’s head.

The wolf panted happily, sticking his tongue out.

“Oh, this guy speaks well. Fine. Let’s do that.”

Two hours later.

Just as the wolf said, we managed to travel fifteen kilometers without encountering any enemies except for a few easy monsters.

“The ground… has been vitrified.”

We had no trouble finding the place the wolf described as strange.

Chel and Kelly stared in disbelief.

“Vitrified, huh. Is the diameter about one kilometer? That’s a massive range.”

“You can tell just by looking that the temperature must have exceeded tens of thousands of degrees.”

Ailet chimed in after them.

“This is a classic fire-attribute breath trail. For the record, the way it melted cleanly—exactly where the breath touched like a drawn line—means the heat was controlled without any waste. It was done by someone highly skilled.”

“Hmm…”

Chel and Kelly exchanged looks.

“Does that mean it really was a dragon kin…?”

“Judging by the size of the breath, it looks like at least an intermediate level.”

For context, dragon-type monsters start at twelve stars by default. Considering that thirteen stars and above are Transcendents…

‘It means he’s the type who could eat Grand Masters or 9th-circle Archmages for breakfast.’

Chel asked quietly.

“Ailet. When was the last time a dragon kin launched a raid?”

“Seven years ago. The Elven Kingdom fell because of it.”

“…Should we take a detour?”

That was when I raised my hand.

“I don’t think we necessarily need to do that.”

“Huh? Oppa? Why do you think so?”

“Look at the vitrified ground. It’s weathered. Doesn’t that mean a fair amount of time has passed, even if it hasn’t been ages?”

“Hmm…”

“True…”

The group nodded at my words. However, Ailet raised an objection.

“That may be true… but the fact that time has passed doesn’t guarantee that the dragon kin has left this area. To stake our lives on such an assumption…”

I wagged my index finger.

“That’s not all. There are other monsters roaming around here.”

“…Pardon?”

“We’ve already taken down dozens of monsters near here. If something like a dragon kin was still lurking around, would these low-level mobs be hanging out here? If it were me, I wouldn’t even come near this place.”

Ailet opened her mouth as if to argue for a moment, but soon gave a bitter smile.

“I see. Now that I hear it, you seem to be right. There’s no need to give up on the route we prepared.”

“Right? Then let’s keep going. Since it’s the first day, let’s stop exactly at the thirty-kilometer mark.”

On the morning of the third day.

“Oppa! You have to catch it!! If it gets away, it’ll call other monsters!!”

“Leave it to me!”

A monster was fleeing frantically through the dense trees. It had a build like a gorilla but was far faster than a monkey.

Having encountered similar groups of monsters a couple of times over the last two days, we were well aware of their habits.

1. They hang from trees and use ranged attacks by throwing things.
2. Once they feel their prey is sufficiently exhausted, they swarm in for the kill.

The peculiar thing was that they usually attacked in groups of thirty to fifty… But they always left one behind in the rear, so that if they were defeated, that single survivor would go call a new pack. If there were others of their kind, they’d bring them; if not, they’d even bring different types of monsters.

Because we had suffered quite a bit last night due to this, we had already devised a strategy for when we met them again.

Well, it wasn’t exactly a grand strategy; it was just that I would take charge of chasing down that final survivor.

“Hup!”

Using the momentum of my sprint across the ground, I pulled the Recall Dagger from my belt and threw it.

Swish! Thud!!

Despite the dagger burying itself in its thigh, the gorilla-like monster didn’t even flinch and actually increased its speed.

Of course, I didn’t intend to stop there.

“Call Lightning.”

Lightning struck from Astraphe, which I held out like a wand.

Rumble, crash!!

“Kieeeeeek!!”

The gorilla let out a scream and collapsed, convulsing.

‘Shia.’

‘Yeah.’

Even the magic didn’t end with a single strike. Inside my Imagery, Shia implemented the pattern once more, completing a Dual Casting.

Thunder erupted from the tip of my sword again, and the Recall Dagger embedded in the creature’s body created a ghastly line of light.

Rumble! CRASH!!

“Kieeeeeeeeek!!!”

Unable to endure any longer, the gorilla tumbled from the tree. I closed the distance in a single leap and lopped off its head.

Slice!!

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“As expected of you, Oppa. Great work.”

“You too.”

“Good job, Sword God. But I swear, I get so awkward I don’t know what to do with myself every time you use magic.”

“What are you talking about? You use magic too.”

“No, I’m an Elf. Being able to circulate body mana and mind mana simultaneously is a trait of a Merina Elf. But you using magic is like… watching a puppy try to meow?”

“…Honestly, I have no choice but to agree with the Guild Master. Ah, of course, I’m not trying to disparage your magical aptitude, Mr. Sword God.”

“Mr. Sword God is quite accomplished both as a low-level mage and a battle mage. To be honest, it’s the first time in my life I’ve seen a low-level mage handle Dual Casting so skillfully. It’s truly amazing. It’s just that, well…”

Ailet struggled to find the right words. Elizabeth just came out and asked for her.

“Why beat around the bush? This is what you want to ask: Orabeoni, why do you even need magic? Wouldn’t it be way better to just throw your dagger or swing your sword one more time instead of wasting time on a spell?”

“I use it because I can. Does there need to be a reason?”

“Don’t you think you’d get much stronger if you practiced your swordsmanship in the time it takes to learn magic?”

“Practice? That’s for amateurs. For someone at my level, I get stronger just by breathing. Sigh. Oh, would you look at that. I just got stronger again.”

“Ugh, you piece of trash.”

“No flexing allowed, Oppa.”

“Ahem. Where do you get off jeering at the party’s only priest? Keep it up and I won’t heal you when you’re hurt.”

“Wow, Orabeoni. You’re so obnoxious.”

“Yeah. Really obnoxious.”

Hey. If you guys put that much sincerity into a ‘joke,’ it’s actually going to hurt my feelings, you know?

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Anyway. After finishing another grueling battle, we decided to make a few changes to our scouting method using the Twin-Horned Wolf. Communicating through Elizabeth as a middleman was proving to be more cumbersome and inefficient than expected.

Pant, pant, pant…

Kelly spoke as she stroked the head of the Twin-Horned Wolf, which was sprawled out with its tongue hanging out.

“The Twin-Horned Wolf knew those annoying gorillas were here from the start. The problem was that he had no way to accurately relay that to us.”

Chel nodded.

“True. All we got was the gist that there were gorillas somewhere around this part of the map.”

Ailet also expressed her agreement.

“If we could have accurately received what the Twin-Horned Wolf saw, we could have avoided half of the monsters we encountered on the way.”

At that, Elizabeth, feeling like she had somehow messed up, shrank back and mumbled a question.

“B-but, I can’t commune any more precisely than this… Like I said, I can’t share his vision or anything…”

The group fell into deep thought. Tilting my head at why they were so worried, I spoke up with the solution.

“We can just use the Twin-Horned Wolf as a familiar.”

Ailet tilted her head at my suggestion.

“I’m not very good at familiar magic… and besides, it’s impossible to use a tamed monster as a familiar.”

“I don’t mean use it as a literal familiar. I mean like a familiar… like, stick an action cam on the dog’s head and use him as a drone.”

“Huh? An ‘action cam’? A ‘drone’?”

“Let me explain it simply. First, attach an artifact to the dog’s head that shares video in real-time.”

“Share video? Ah… you mean a Clairvoyance artifact?”

“Exactly. That. And Elizabeth. You said you can relay your will to your pet regardless of distance, right?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah.”

“Then it’s settled. Instead of going through the trouble of hearing reports from the dog’s mouth, let’s just remote-control him in real-time and see what we want to see directly. A drone isn’t exactly high science.”

Low gasps of admiration escaped Chel and Kelly at my words.

“Ah… that’s true. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”

“As expected of Oppa…”

Elizabeth nodded her head.

“I-I’ll reduce his size a bit more then. That’ll lower his energy consumption and increase his active time. It doesn’t seem like we’ll need him for combat anyway.”

“That works too. Then let’s hurry up and modify that doggo into a drone.”

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And so… when they saw the significantly shrunken Twin-Horned Wolf, Kelly, Chel, and Ailet were collectively speechless.

As he got smaller, the Twin-Horned Wolf’s appearance had become younger as well, making him unimaginably cute.

“It’s a puppy.”

“A puppy…”

“A puppy…”

It wasn’t just them; he really was incredibly cute. Even I, who am not particularly fond of dogs, felt a surge of desire to pet him just once.

Of course, I wasn’t as obsessed as the other women, who looked like they were about to start drooling.

“Hey. You guys already bullied Elizabeth into bringing out that chick thing, the ‘Saint Sol’ or whatever, yesterday… are you doing it again?”

For the record, Elizabeth had tried desperately to protect her chick(?) from the clutches of the two elves…

But unable to withstand the two elves’ threats and enticements—like, “Khehe. You don’t have any friends, do you?” or “Kehehehe. We’re telling you we’ll be your friends!”—she eventually handed the chick over.

And so, that chick, whose only skill besides mental defense was being cute, was reportedly unsummoned while chirping “Peep!” after being squeezed into a dough-like state.

Yet, despite turning the chick into ‘what used to be a chick,’ the two seemed to have learned nothing.

“Slurp… Sword God. Just as ‘pour-over’ is ‘pour-over’ and ‘dipping’ is ‘dipping’, a chick is a chick, and a puppy is a puppy.”¹

“That’s right, Oppa… isn’t it the law of nature that you want something salty after eating something sweet, and something sweet after eating something salty? Puppies and chicks have different ‘flavors’!”

With such nonsense, the two approached the Twin-Horned Wolf, panting with bloodshot eyes. Surprised by the gazes burning with desire, the wolf—a rank-8 monster supposedly equal to a Blaster—tried to growl with dignity, but…

“You scoundrel. How dare a mere monster be so arrogant! Take my ‘Cuddles of Justice’!”

“Hehehehe!”

“Yelp!!!”

The two pounced like lightning and instantly subdued the poor puppy—no, the Twin-Horned Wolf. And then,

Stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke~

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze~

Rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, rub~

Nuzzle, nuzzle, nuzzle, nuzzle, nuzzle~

“Gurgle…!”

The wolf, checkmated before the fight(?) could even begin, let out a suppressed scream through its shut muzzle. It kicked its paws, twisted its body, and shook its head with all its might, but…

“…Whimper.”

In less than twenty seconds, it seemed to realize that its desperate movements only served to excite these monster elves further, and it finally stopped resisting.

“Whine…”

Having finally felt the difference in power, the wolf closed its eyes quietly as if resigned, wearing an expression that said, ‘Ugh, just kill me.’

The madness in the eyes of the two elves intensified as they noticed the wolf’s resignation.

“YELP! YIIIIIIP!!!!”

And so… a cruel(?) violation began that was almost too painful to watch.

“Ohoho~ You little rascal. You act like you hate it, but your body is honest~ Sword God, don’t just stand there, come over here and feel him. This doggo’s fur quality and ‘meatiness’ are killer!”

“Oppa. Look how much he likes it. Hey~ if you want to hide it, you should do something about that wagging tail first~ Hehe… Oh, the reaction around the tail is quite firm too~ There, there.”

“That’s it. Chin out, stretch. Do you like it here? Or here? You must feel pretty good to have your tongue hanging out like that. This naughty horn! How dare you get in the way of my petting! I’m gonna bite it! Hehe…”

“Senior. Let’s swap places again. I want to properly knead the chin and ears too.”

“OK.”

“Yelp! Yip! YIIIIIIIP!!!”

“…Hey. Elizabeth. As the owner, are you really just gonna let him get treated like that? Didn’t you say you could communicate with your pet? Isn’t he begging for his life right now?”

“If he was, I would have stepped in already. Snoopy is actually just loving it to death right now.”

“Is that so…?”

And so, ten minutes later.

The Twin-Horned Wolf, who had been panting with his belly completely exposed, finally began to struggle and yelp as the two elves stepped back with deeply satisfied faces.

“…He’s asking for more, isn’t he?”

“Do you even need to ask?”

As we watched the Twin-Horned Wolf with pathetic eyes… he suddenly seemed to realize what was going on. With a look of ‘Huh? Oh snap!’ he scrambled to his feet.

After busily tidying his messy fur with his tongue and forepaws, he stood up straight and put on a brave face befitting an 8-star monster.

“Grrr! Snarl! Growl!!”

“…Like that’s gonna work now.”

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There had been a bit of an incident, but regardless, the group began to attach the prepared artifacts one by one to the body of the Twin-Horned Wolf in his puppy disguise.

A clairvoyance artifact the size of a ping-pong ball went on top of his head. A sound-gathering artifact went on his flank. And finally, a spatial pouch containing a map and various other pieces of equipment was hung around his neck.

Ailet warned the Twin-Horned Wolf in a stern tone.

“Mr. Snoopy. These are very expensive artifacts, okay? You have to be really, really careful. Especially the clairvoyance artifact on your head; its durability isn’t that high, so be extra cautious. If you happen to break it… I’ll make you and your owner run the generators in the guild basement until you die!”

“…Gr-growl.”

“Hey. Won’t you answer properly?”

“…Woof.”