The translucent dome had trapped Al within. Though scorching flames raged wildly inside, not a trace of heat escaped outward. This was magic Rei had crafted using his own magic power to prevent flames from spreading, ensuring the raging inferno would not affect the surrounding area.

「……What in the world are you……?」

Seryl muttered in shock, the image of Al burning to ash in an instant still burned into her mind.

Rei replied with a faint smile.

「Well, just as you said, there’s no mistake. I’m simply a G-rank adventurer who recently registered with the guild.」

Speaking quietly, he snapped his fingers. The next moment, the roaring flames within the dome vanished as though they had been an illusion. With the fire gone, the translucent dome faded away as well.

All that remained was scorched, blackened earth and the half-melted bastard sword Al had wielded. His body and leather armour were entirely gone, leaving not even ashes behind.

His only mercy was that the searing flames had given him no time to feel terror or pain, killing him in an instant. Perhaps Al had not even realised what happened before he died.

「D-Don’t……don’t screw with me! A mere G-rank adventurer burning someone to ash in an instant!? How can you casually cast a spell that powerful without even scorching the surroundings?!」

Witnessing Al’s gruesome end, Seryl finally realised that the figure looking down from the roof was far beyond any ordinary G-rank adventurer.

The price for that realisation had been the lives of three companions, leaving Seryl as the sole survivor of Dark Night’s Star.

「……Let me clear up your misunderstanding. I am indeed a G-rank adventurer who recently registered with the guild. That much is true. However, the combat skills and magic I acquired before registering did not simply vanish. Your fatal mistake was arrogantly assuming that a freshly registered rookie had no real combat or magical experience. Information about what I can do must have circulated through the guild. Did you dismiss those rumours simply because I was a newly registered novice?」

Even Seryl had heard the rumours of how he had effortlessly dismantled the D-rank party Claws of the Hawk single-handedly, and she knew full well he was accompanied by a Griffon, an A-rank monster. Yet she had clung to baseless overconfidence, believing she could handle him herself. That arrogance had cost every member of Dark Night’s Star their lives, save for her own.

「Damn it! What does any of that matter now!?」

Seryl spat through gritted teeth, glaring up at Rei. Ignoring her outburst, Rei dropped lightly from the roof to the ground.

He landed on the dirt without a sound, a physical feat impossible for an ordinary G-rank adventurer.

「By the way, I’m not generous enough to let you die peacefully.」

Brandishing the heavy Death Scythe with a sharp whoosh, he kept his cold eyes locked on Seryl.

(Now that she knows how lethal my magic is, she’ll run the moment I start chanting. Ideally, I would have wiped out her and Al in a single blow earlier……well, corrupt or not, she’s still an experienced C-rank adventurer. I can’t underestimate her ability to dodge.)

Rei watched Seryl closely, waiting for an opening to finish her off.

Seryl knew Rei was waiting for an opening to kill her. Having witnessed his terrifying strength, she did not dare turn her back to run, choosing instead to retreat step by careful step.

She could not back away forever, however. Before long, her back struck the wall of an Orc hut.

Seeing her cornered, Rei offered a cold smile.

「Now then, we’ve wasted enough time. I need to get back to supporting the other parties in the night attack. I’ll finish this quickly……you don’t mind, do you?」

Halting the swinging Death Scythe, he levelled its heavy blade straight at Seryl.

「……Looking at things objectively, beating you here is going to be damn near impossible. But I’m not about to roll over and die. Now that it’s come to this, I’ll do whatever it takes to survive!」

Perhaps hoping to buy enough time for other adventurers to arrive, she shouted to steel her resolve, then hurled the shield in her left hand straight at Rei’s face.

「Trying to blind me?」

Rei poured magic power into the Death Scythe and slashed. Enhanced by mana, the blade cleanly cleaved the flying shield in two without the slightest resistance.

Having seen how easily Murgas and Sunyi had been cut down, Seryl knew an ordinary shield offered no protection against his weapon and had discarded it deliberately. If it could obstruct Rei’s vision for even an instant, it was a worthy sacrifice, for she needed an opening to land a decisive blow.

Had she fled the moment the shield was cut, she might have escaped if luck favoured her. But knowing she could never outrun him, she chose to inflict a severe wound so he could not pursue, wagering her entire fate on this single strike.

「Haaah!」

With a sharp cry, she thrust her blade toward his torso. The head was too small a target, and aiming for an arm meant the massive scythe would likely parry her blade. His torso was the only option. With a solid strike, she could wound him badly enough to prevent him from chasing her. The centre of mass was the largest target, and given his agility, targeting his legs would allow him to dodge easily. The torso offered the least room for evasion.

Betting everything on this strike like a cornered rat biting a cat, she launched a blistering thrust, her absolute best technique, straight at Rei.

As the cleaved shield fell, Seryl’s blade lunged toward Rei’s chest……

「Too bad for you.」

Even an attack carrying Seryl’s full weight and spirit was something Rei could easily react to.

As the blade bore down on his midsection, Rei swept the Death Scythe upward, bringing its massive blade against the incoming sword.

Seryl had poured all her physical strength into the thrust. Under normal circumstances, such an attack would have overwhelmed an opponent, but the sheer difference in physical power was absolute.

A sharp metallic screech rang out as Seryl’s steel blade was sheared in two, spinning through the air before embedding itself in the ground.

Missing more than half its length, the severed thrust failed to reach Rei’s body.

「T-This makes no sense……that was my best strike! Sliced through so easily……」
「……A pity. Our basic physical abilities are simply on different levels.」

Rei spoke quietly. Having knocked the sword aside from the lower left, he held the Death Scythe poised at his upper right, ready for an upward diagonal cut.

Rei caught her movement instantly. Stunned by her broken sword, Seryl leaped backward, but she was a fraction too slow. The heavy blade slashed diagonally upward, biting deep into her torso. Only her desperate, reflexive recoil kept her from being cleaved in two.

「Guh!」

Letting out a wet groan of agony, Seryl dropped to one knee. The wound cut deeply from her left shoulder down to her right hip, bleeding profusely. Even pressing both hands to the gash could not stem the flow. Watching blood pool onto the dirt, Rei raised the Death Scythe to deliver the finishing blow.

「No……ugh……I can’t die here!」

Groaning through the pain, she scooped up the loose earth at her feet……no, the mud formed from her own pooling blood, and flung it at Rei’s face.

Rei neither dodged nor shielded himself with his robe, swinging the flat of the Death Scythe through the air instead.

A heavy shockwave boomed through the clearing. The sheer wind pressure scattered the bloody mud, blowing it away completely.

「A futile struggle……no, wait. I see.」

Rei was about to mock her desperate distraction, but seeing her actions, he realised her true intent. From a pouch at her waist, she had hastily pulled a potion that Hobbes had distributed before the night attack and was pouring it straight over her wound.

The strike had cleaved through her leather armour and flesh, but Rei could see the deep gash knitting together under the potion’s effect.

「Hah, does the bare skin of a mature woman really do nothing for you?」

Covering her exposed chest with one hand as she treated her wound, Seryl spoke spitefully. An instant later, she pulled her hand away, deliberately flaunting her half-naked body.

「Hey, what do you say? If you let me go, you can do whatever you want with me. Want to make a deal?」

Seryl looked up at Rei with seductive eyes. She was an attractive woman, and flaunting herself half-naked would have tempted most men who did not know her character.

「……Even though I just killed three of your companions?」

Rei looked her straight in the eye as he spoke those chilling words. Seryl merely shook her head.

「Those guys knew the risks of being adventurers. If they died tonight, that was simply the limit of their abilities.」
「I see.」

Rei murmured quietly. Gathering her strength, she leaned forward to press her bare chest against him……

「Those companions of yours must be rolling in their graves right now.」

Rei stepped aside with ease. Reaching for an embrace that wasn’t there, Seryl stumbled over her own feet and crashed face-first into the dirt.

「Wait, what the hell are you……ah……」

Falling like a stone, she scowled furiously. Yet Rei was nowhere to be seen in front of her.

「Hey, why are you doing this!? Didn’t you hear me say I’d give you my body if you let me go!?」
「You might have said so, but I don’t recall accepting your offer.」

Rei murmured coldly, recalling how desperately Al and Sunyi had fought beside this woman.

The archer had trusted her vanguard implicitly, using him as a decoy.

Even after she fell, the man had fought on, knowing full well he was outmatched.

Neither had been particularly strong, being roughly on par with Claws of the Hawk, whom Rei had crushed upon arriving in Gilm.

Yet the loyalty they showed one another earned a degree of respect. By contrast……

He looked down at Seryl, who gazed back with pleading eyes. Her face was handsome, bearing the maturity of an experienced woman. But Rei saw through to the vile, rotten nature within. To him, her face held no more appeal than that of an Orc.

「Even if I held you, a woman as rotten as you is far too revolting to touch. Your body has no value to me, even if you paid me to take it.」
「What did you say!?」

Though aging, Seryl took great pride in her looks. Hearing that he wouldn’t touch her even for money sent the blood rushing to her head.

「Listen here! Normally a woman like me wouldn’t even look at a lowly G-rank rookie like you! You……」
「Enough. Shut up.」

Deciding it was pointless to listen to her boast or beg any further, Rei raised the Death Scythe high into the air.

「Eeeek!」

Screaming in sheer terror, the last thing Seryl saw was the massive blade descending toward her neck.

 

 

「People say the frontier attracts skilled adventurers, but in the end, it’s just a mixed bag of the good and the vile.」

Cleaving her head from her shoulders, Rei gazed down at Seryl’s decapitated body as blood pooled in the dirt.

He showed neither guilt nor fear over taking a human life, though his brow furrowed at the gruesome sight.

「Gururu~」

Seeing Rei standing there, Set emerged quietly from the darkness and gently nudged his head against Rei’s side.

「Yeah, you’re right. With good adventurers like Axe of the Thunder God out there fighting, I can’t just stand around and leave them to die.」

Rei scratched Set’s head, shaking his own to clear his mind as he smoothed the Griffon’s feathers.

「Well then, Set. Time to get back to work. I wonder if the Orc leader has shown up on the battlefield yet.」
「Guru~」

Set answered with a cry, and Rei mounted his broad back, a position that had become second nature to him.

「First, let’s keep an eye out for another Orc Mage and an Orc General while supporting the other parties. We already have six Orc Archers stored away, so we don’t need any more of them……well, if we run across any, we’ll still take them down.」
「Gurururururu~!」

Letting out a resounding cry into the night, Set took a few running steps before leaping into the air.

One person and one animal soared smoothly into the cloudless, moonlit sky.

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