Legend Chapter 8

As the night moonlight poured down, Set ran through the forest at full speed. It was a griffon which held the characteristics of the eagle, the king of the sky, and the lion, the king of the beasts. In spite of the pale moonlight, Set’s blue eyes relied on it to cut through the forest at a fast speed without any danger.

Rei admired the view as he rode on Set’s back. He held out one of the few remaining Clara Fruits to Set as he stroked his neck.

「Guru~」

Set gave a joyful cry as he ran through the forest, chewing on the Clara Fruit in his beak with a crunching sound.

「According to Zeppairu’s knowledge, we should have been out of the forest a long time ago……」

Rei confirmed the surroundings as he muttered, the forest seemed to continue endlessly.

(Did the forest spread this far in a few hundred years? Well, with magic in this world, maybe it’s possible.)

While muttering in his head, he could not stop the unpleasant feeling in his heart.

As if to ignore unpleasant feeling, he talked to Set while stroking his neck.

「Still, Set is amazing. You don’t seem to be tired at all even though you’ve continued running since morning.」
「Guru~」

Because he was happy that Rei praised him, Set increased his speed further.

A wry smile floated on to Rei’s face, he admired the physical ability of the griffon as well as his simple mindedness.

Anyway, since Set started running, they had not been attacked once by beasts or monsters. At first, they encountered a monkey with three eyes, a wild boar with 50cm long fangs and rabbits with 1m long, blade like, ears. But they were all shaken off as none of them could catch up with Set as he ran through the forest at high speed.

For Rei, the purpose of fighting the Water Bear and the wolves was to gain combat experience. He hadn’t properly understood the physical properties of his body and he wanted to secure the magic stone to help the growth of Set and the Death Scythe.

But even though he was tempted to fight other monsters with Set after fighting with the Water Bear and the wolves, the highest priority goal was for Set to run and focus on exiting the forest.

「Gururu~!」

Then. Set abruptly gave a cry. Rei felt caution in the voice.

「Set, enemy?」
「Guru~」

Set gave a short cry at Rei’s words.

However, it wasn’t possible to find the enemies in the moonlight with Rei’s eyes.

Still, to counter attack at any time, he pulled out the mithril knife from the sheath at his waist and readied it.

「Gururu~!」

As Set continued to run, he sharply turned his face to the left. At the same time, something came out from the darkness.

「Tch!」

He clicked his tongue as he reflexively used the Dragon Robe to catch the incoming object while protecting himself.

It was unfortunate for Rei that the attack was from the left. If it had attacked from the right, Rei, who was right handed, could have intercepted it with the mithril knife. Or maybe it was lucky for the unexpectedly small object that had hit Rei. Thanks to Set, he didn’t roll off his back.

「Gyi~!」

The object that had been wrapped up in the Dragon Robe raised a cry. Putting the mithril knife in his his right hand into his mouth, he untangled the creature that was caught in the left side of the Dragon Robe and brought it before his eyes.

「This is, a flying squirrel?」

At first glance, it had the size and appearance of a squirrel, but something like a membrane could be seen between its hands and feet. Up to here, it was the same as the flying squirrel Rei knew. The difference was the tail. After all, a squirrel’s tail should have large bushy fur, this tail was like a blade.

However, the blade like tail fortunately couldn’t reach Rei as he held the body from the front.

「Gyiii~!」

It menacingly bared its fangs as Rei held its body. From Rei’s judgement, the fangs growing from its mouth were about 3cm long, long enough for the Flying Blade Squirrel (provisional name) which was about 15cm long.

Since there wasn’t enough time to leisurely search Zeppairu’s knowledge in this situation, while holding the body in his left hand, he used his right hand to break its neck. After confirming that it was dead, he stored it inside the Misty Ring.

「Guru~!」

Set gave another sharp cry. Rei took the mithril knife that was in his mouth back into his hand and thrust it at the Flying Blade Squirrel that attacked from above.

With a guyuu~ sound, the mithril knife pierced the forehead of the Flying Blade Squirrel, Rei frowned, pulled the knife out and stored the corpse into the Misty Ring.

A few minutes later. Flying Blade Squirrels were coming out from everywhere, the tops of trees and bushes like knives. Catching them in his left forefoot, Set killed them and ate them with his sharp beak, tearing them from his claws. But, the Flying Blade Squirrels continued attack without caring if their companions died, the number of corpses increased as time went on.

「Damn, there’s no end!」

Already accustomed to wielding it, the mithril knife flashed through the air. A Flying Blade Squirrel was bisected divided into the top and bottom half and fell to the ground, passing them in an instant.

In this situation, should he prepare a large scale fire magic and burn the whole area around them?　Rei thought at the time.

TLN: JUST DO IT!

「Gururururururu~!」

Listening to Set’s voice which was trying to draw attention, he redirected his line of sight. Then, in the view ahead, the thick trees which had grown endlessly finally broke.

「The exit, is it.」

While exhaling in relief, he quickly thrust the mithril knife at the body of a Flying Blade Squirrel that had attacked from a tree. After it ceased to breath, he stored it in the Misty Ring.

「Set, if we’ve come here, it’s safe to fly. We’ll leave the Flying Blade Squirrels behind in one go. Go!」
「Gururururu~!」

Ok, Set’s high pitched cry seemed to say, the wings that had been folded in so far expanded. Even with a single wing, the wing size was near 2m.

For the run-up, enough speed had already been built up by running here. While at that speed, he flapped his wings greatly……after a few seconds, Set kicked the ground and a floating sensation was felt, the figure of Set went above the trees in the thick forest.

The moonlight shined on the ground as there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. In such a night sky, Set flapped his wings and flew through the sky. Though it may be because it was night, there was nothing in the sky except for Rei and Set. From the private plane like view, Rei strongly recognized that this was a different world.

However, this state didn’t continue for long.

「Gururururu~!」

Set gave a sharp cry as if to guard against something. When Rei heard the voice, his consciousness immediately returned and he observed the surroundings keenly.

「……What?」

As Rei looked around, something entered his vision. Innumerable shadows emerged from the forest the same way that Set had come, shadows and shadows. Although he couldn’t grasp the exact number because of the moonlight, the number was still around 100.

Looking at the size of the shadows, he reflexively understood what group was following them. They were no doubt the Flying Blade Squirrels that chased them relentlessly before.

(According to common sense, flying squirrels can only glide from high places, to be able to fly by themselves……indeed this is a fantasy world. However, we have already gone out of the forest. In other words, we don’t need to be worried about a fire like before. Until now, they’ve been chasing us relentlessly, now it’s time to deal with them.)

The Death Scythe was removed from the Misty Ring. It was set up so as to not knock against Set’s wings.

It was only the second day since Rei was reborn in this body. In addition to sitting on Set’s back while flying, it was the first time he had used the Death Scythe on Set’s back. If he used the it unskillfully, he could injure Set’s wings. The probability of surviving a fall from this height was very low.

It was different from the forest before. While holding the handle and pointing the 1m blade at the flock of Flying Blade Squirrels in pursuit of Set, he said an incantation.

Even though he said it wasn’t in the forest, they are still in the sky above it. In other words, if wide area spell was used here, it was necessary to restrict the range to sky above the forest.

『Dancing flames, dance. Light up the surroundings with your magnificent dance, burn as you dance and captivate the people.』

The range of the spell was specified while saying the incantation. The last phrase was said.

『Dance Fire Snake!』

The world was rewritten with Rei’s magic power and it’s appearance was shown.

Hundreds of flames, ten times the size of humans, appeared and freely moved through the sky. As the flames moved through the air, the surroundings lit up brightly, it was surely a scene where you could say the flames were dancing. Though the Flying Blade Squirrels who were caught in the dancing flames continued to resist desperately, even if it boasted of a blade like tail and fangs, they couldn’t show any effects against the flames. The bodies which had been completely burnt like cinder dropped to the earth. Though there were Flying Blade Squirrels that decided not to follow their companions and flew to the forest, most of them were caught by the dancing flame moving through the sky and were burnt to cinders in an instant. Still, several Flying Blade Squirrels succeeded in running away from the range of the magic Rei had specified. They ran to the forest without looking back.

A few minutes passed after using the magic. There were already no more Flying Blade Squirrels illuminated by the moonlight, with a click from Rei’s fingers, the flames that had been created by magic disappeared as if they had never existed. The only things that remained were the fluttering of Set’s wings as Rei rode on his back.

「Guru~」

Rei, who had been imagining fireworks as he looked at the magic was brought back by Set’s voice.

「My bad, I was thinking of something……yeah. For the time being, please move away from the forest. Then let’s take a rest.」
「Gururu~!」

Set’s cry echoed high in the night sky where Flying Blade Squirrels and flames had been a few minutes ago, as he flapped his wings, they left the forest.

Along the way, Rei anxiously searched Zepairu’s knowledge for information on the Flying Blade Squirrels. Same as the Water Bear, the information didn’t exist.

(Why did it turn out like this?　After the Water Bear, there’s no information on this either, even if you say it has been several hundred years, there is a sense of incongruity. This, could it be……）

A bad feeling went through Rei’s chest, he determined that there wasn’t any other way to check his suspicions, the Death Scythe was moved to accommodate it and a Flying Blade Squirrel removed from the Misty Ring.

He cut open the body of the Flying Blade Squirrel with the mithril knife that was at his waist. There was a magic stone several centimeters large in the heart.

「Monster, is it. But……」

Rei recalled the previous battle. At that time, Set had bitten and consumed a considerable number of Flying Blade Squirrels. Naturally. the magic stones should have been absorbed by Set as well, however, he didn’t have the memory of a skill announcement message appearing. Even when he checked Set’s skills to be sure, it hadn’t changed and only Water Ball Lv.1 was displayed there.

Wondering about this, Rei searched Zepairu’s knowledge again.

According to it, it seems that learning a skill didn’t necessarily occur if a magic stone was consumed. In other words, acquiring Water Ball after only consuming the magic stone of the Water Bear was an exception.

Also, there was the newly discovered fact that it was almost impossible to get an ability from a magic stone if the monster was too weak.

Chapter end