I Mean… Whatever.

“Well, who cares? You can brag about killing a slime, right?”

“That’s it—why was a slime even in a place like that?”

“Huh?”

“No matter how you look at it, that thing was way too strong to be there.”

“…Yeah.”

Maybe the high from defeating the slime had faded, because Kuon’s expression turned serious too.

“Don’t you think something’s going on? Something that would make one of those reach this far.”

“…”

At Kikori’s words, Kuon fell silent… and if that was true, then something seriously bad was probably happening… Kikori found himself thinking that.

The weak monsters that were supposed to be there had vanished, and strong monsters that shouldn’t have been there were showing up.

No matter how you looked at it, that was strange.

When something that had been treated like a rule suddenly changed, there was a very high chance it was a sign of some abnormality.

But even if he understood that—what then?

Kikori wasn’t like those “geniuses” people said had appeared in the past.

“This is just a maybe, but…”

“You have an idea?”

“Deeper in, an aberrant evolved variant might’ve appeared.”

“An aberrant evolved variant? You mean the one that shows up sometimes—”

An aberrant evolved variant. Far stronger than normal monsters, and yet a monster so uncontrollable it even attacked others of its own kind.

Its strength was absurdly high—Kikori remembered a book saying that when an aberrant evolved orc appeared, there had been a huge number of casualties.

“An aberrant evolved variant, huh… If we run into one, we’ll die for real this time.”

“Pretty much. But if an investigation team’s already out there, I think we’ll hear the details sooner or later.”

Kuon laughed, saying they might’ve even put it down already.

Well, if Kuon was right and an investigation team had been dispatched, then they were probably veteran adventurers—far stronger than Kikori.

Maybe as soon as tomorrow, they’d hear news that the aberrant evolved variant had been hunted down.

“But if that’s the case… we might not be able to hunt until then.”

“Yeah. If a slime shows up again like today, that alone…”

“Just one more and we’re done.”

Kuon said he had no way to counter it, and Kikori was out of mana after a single Break.

“I’ve got money to spare, but what about you, Kikori?”

“Mm, well…”

As long as he stayed at Aria’s place, he saved both lodging and food costs.

And Aria wouldn’t accept money even if he tried to hand it over.

When she told him, “I don’t need pocket change like that—just make sure you come home properly tomorrow too,” Kikori was left with no choice but to answer, “Okay.”

“I’m… fine too.”

“Got it. Then tomorrow, let’s ask around at the Adventurers’ Guild and hear the details.”

“…Yeah.”

But there was no way Kikori could actually tell Kuon any of that.

With a strangely conflicted feeling, Kikori headed back to Aria’s house.