Volume 6, Chapter 45 – The Higher Species Appears

We continued deeper into the forest, mowing down vast numbers of monsters.

I suspect we’ve defeated more monsters now than we did during that night-long battle against Goblins in Chi Tien.

Naturally, the number of monsters began to dwindle, and more importantly, the kinds of monsters we encountered started to change.

Up until now, it had been overwhelmingly Goblins, Big Boars, Orcs, Forest Wolves, and Horn Rabbits, but we finally started seeing Ogres.

“Onee-sama! Something big is coming from over there!”

Straining my ears, I heard heavy, thumping footsteps coming from the direction Lu-chan was pointing.

I see. Those footsteps sounded even heavier than an Ogre’s. And they seemed to be moving quite fast.

“Gaaaaah!”

With a roar, a giant Ogre appeared, leading a pack of about ten other Ogres.

This giant Ogre was about one and a half times the size of a normal Ogre. Which makes it… roughly seven meters tall?

The power creep has gotten so ridiculous that my only impression anymore is just, “Yep, it’s big.”

“Is that the boss of this Monster Stampede?”

“Perhaps. An Ogre of that size… I’ve never seen one myself, but I believe it’s a Great Ogre, a Higher Species of Ogre,” Chris-san analyzed calmly.

“A Great Ogre, then? A Calamity-Class monster, just like the Goblin King, is it? Finally, an opponent with some backbone!”

With that, Shizuku-san charged at the Great Ogre.

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As if in response, Chris-san also charged, and Lu-chan gave orders to Mashiro-chan to launch Wind Blades.

As for me, my job for now was simply to maintain the Barrier and watch.

Closing the distance in an instant, Shizuku-san sliced through the legs of the Ogres surrounding the Great Ogre as if she were cutting through tofu, while Chris-san followed up by plunging her sword into the hearts of the fallen Ogres, finishing them off one after another.

Mashiro-chan’s Wind Blades struck the Great Ogre, leaving a few small cuts across its face.

“Gugaaaaah!”

The moment the enraged Great Ogre started charging toward us, Shizuku-san severed both of its thick legs in a flash. Suddenly deprived of its legs, the Great Ogre lost its balance and slammed face-first into the ground.

Chris-san leaped upon it, putting her full weight into plunging her sword straight into the Great Ogre’s heart. Spouting blood, the Great Ogre let out a cry of agony, convulsed once, and then stopped moving entirely.

Huh? It ended in the blink of an eye.

So… is it fair to call this “Calamity-Class (LOL)”?

“That was nothing, was it?”

“Yeah. Though the Great Ogre was certainly tough.”

“Indeed it was.”

O-oh, really? It didn’t look like there was any trouble at all…

We purified the Great Ogre’s corpse, extracted the purified magic stone, and put it into Storage.

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“Is that… everything then?”

“Onee-sama, not yet! There’s a pack of Treants over there. If we don’t defeat them, the forest will die!”

As expected, Lu-chan couldn’t overlook the Treants.

We struggled against them before, but we brought alcohol to start fires this time, so we should be able to manage… right?

“Well then, shall we head back once we’ve exterminated the Treants?”

“Yes. I believe that would be best.”

“Indeed. I am sure Fiene-dono is worrying about us.”

Guided by Lu-chan, we headed toward the pack of Treants.

◇ ◇ ◇

“What on earth is this clearing?”

A wide-open clearing stretched out before us.

The undergrowth had been cleared away as though it had been carefully mowed, leaving the ground completely bare.

Beyond the clearing, slightly deeper into the forest, we could see the pack of Treants.

The reason we could see so clearly into the forest was that the woods surrounding the Treants had completely withered.

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The undergrowth was dead, and only a few withered trees stood sparsely, leaving almost nothing to obstruct our view.

This, it seemed, was what Lu-chan meant by the forest “dying.”

“Could it be… the remains of some ritual?”

Shizuku-san said, pointing to the center of the clearing. In the middle sat a small altar-like structure that didn’t look particularly old.

However, there were no offerings on it, nor could I sense any particularly strong Mana.

What could this altar be?

“Onee-sama, more importantly, the Treants.”

As we were distracted by the mysterious altar, Lu-chan pulled us back to our original purpose.

“There’s one in there that’s awfully thick.”

Since the Treants were further back among the trees, I couldn’t tell exactly how many there were, but there seemed to be quite a lot of them, slowly making their way toward the town of Airoll.

And in the center of those Treants was one that was exceptionally thick and tall.

“As I thought, that is…”

“An Evil Treant, most likely…”

Chris-san and Shizuku-san seemed to have an idea of what it was.

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Lu-chan glared bitterly at the Treant.

“What’s an Evil Treant? Is it also a Higher Species of Treant?”

“Exactly. It is a Higher Species of Treant, and it is also a Calamity-Class monster. Like ordinary Treants, they’re quite troublesome because you have to uproot them to extract their magic stone. However, just like normal Treants, they’re weak to Fire Magic, so if you exploit that weakness, they’re actually among the easier monsters to subjugate… but…”

As Chris-san said this, she glanced at Shizuku-san. Shizuku-san winced and looked down.

“Hmm, what should we do? It’ll be a bit of a pain with them clustered together like that. Even normal Treants gave us a hard time recently.”

“But if they keep increasing, the forest will—!”

“Furthermore, it would be quite a disaster if they scattered Sleep Powder over the town of Airoll.”

I see. Both the forest and the town certainly seemed like they’d be in serious trouble, but I just couldn’t see us defeating that many Treants as we were.

I glanced at Shizuku-san, but she shook her head.

“Alright. Let’s retreat.”

They’re just a bad matchup for us, and once we’re back in town, there are mages who can use Fire Magic.

There’s no need to be reckless.

With that thought, I decided to retreat.