Book 4: Chapter 9

Chochoriges is a bird monster with three heads and an earthworm tail. The color of its feathers were purplish blue, seeming to melt into the darkness of the forest, but the light from the bonfire reflected off the feathers, so it was not difficult to see them.

There is a saying which goes “blind as a bird at night”, so some people think birds are inactive at night time. But I have heard that this is not the case.

Otherwise, there would be no nocturnal birds like owls or migratory birds which cross the sky at night to avoid natural predators.

The chicken, which is a representative of poultry, has low eyesight and is completely inactive at night, so the saying “blind as a bird at night” came about.

「Surround them! Victory is ours if we can surround them, nura!」

「Why the hell are you flapping your wings when you can’t fly!」

「They saved us the trouble of going out to catch them, nu!」

The yellow-eyed Chochorieges rushed in with their wings spread. These birds, which are nearly 2 meters tall, are scary enough as an intimidation tactic when their wings are spread.

「Hyaah…」

Asha grabbed my arm and hid behind me. Fireballs emerged around her one by one.

「Nurii…」

Kimidori Gorn-san grabbed my arm and tried to hide behind me, but he was caught by Kimidori Papa and thrown to the front line.

「Kimidori Gorn! Show off your ferociousness, which was once feared as “a devil with an angel’s smile”, here once again!」

「Papa! That is a story from when I was 2 years old, nu!」

「No difference between 2 and 20 years old, nu!」

「Of course there’s a difference! And don’t give me this kind of weapon!」

Kimidori Gorn-san was slightly trembling, holding a vicious-looking metal bat with sharp thorns sticking out of it.

I think I understand a little. Kimidori Gorn-san might not be an athletic type… that is why he decided to live quietly on the lakeshore.

「Guah!!!」

「Be careful! Isasaka Norn is down!」

A dragonewt, whose name is a little hard to remember, was losing blood out of his arm which was gouged out by the Chochoriges’ beak.

Damn… that beak is ridiculously sharp.

「I missed one! Our guests, be careful!」

One of the monster birds rushed towards us with wings spread.

『Pigaaaaaaaa!』

10 meters before it reaches me and Asha.

That bird is certainly much larger than me and more intimidating.

「However…」

I raised my right hand towards the Chochoriges and invoked【Earth Magic】. A rugby ball-sized rock was created by mana, and spun around by the vortex produced with【Wind Magic】.

「The bigger you are, the easier to target.」

The rock was ejected at high speed with a sonic boom. Since it spun like a bullet, its trajectory was stable, and blew off the centre head of the Chochoriges.

『Pi!?』

『Gya!?』

The left and right heads were startled

「It’s too late even if you went on guard now.」

I shot two more rocks at each of the heads. Blood still spouting out the destroyed head, the Chochoriges ran away in a curving motion to the left, and finally tripped over its legs and fell into the bonfire.

「Ohhh! The guest is rocking!」

「With this, the winning percentage of the Dragonewt Army has increased to 98%, nu.」

「Rather, you mean there was a good chance of losing?」

「What is the remaining 2%, nu?」

The dragonewts got noisy, but they continued to fight for about 30 minutes and defeated Chochoriges. More than a dozen birds escaped.

I wanted to contribute more, but I had my hands full with protecting Asha who was completely scared of the monster birds and Kimidori Gorn-san who had escaped from the front line. I only shot about 3 magic shots.

「—How many did we get, nuro?」

「A total of eight birds, elder. One was brought down by the guest.」

「Hmm. That’s all, huh…」

「A few went in pursuit after one of the wounded birds.」

After the battle was over, the dragonewts started collecting the spoils and treating the injured.

「The battle is over now.」

「I-I’m sorry, Reiji-san. I was too scared to do anything.」Asha said.

「Me too…」Kimidori Gorn-san said.

「Everything happened so suddenly, so it can’t be helped. Don’t worry about it, I’ll make some tea.」

I brewed tea using the hot water in a pot boiled over the bonfire and the tea leaves that were in my tool bag. I received the tea leaves from Mimino-san back in the “Front World”.

「Mmm…」

「This is good, nu.」

Asha, who was sitting down and sipping on the tea, looked so cute that I couldn’t look straight at her. But Kimidori Gorn-san sat next to her, so I was able to keep my heart from going crazy.

「Reiji, you were amazing, nu. You used magic… wasn’t it, nu?」Kimidori Gorn-san asked.

「Yes. I just happened to acquire that kind of skill.」

「I don’t know how many skill orbs are there even in the Dragonewt City.」

Skill orbs have become such an extremely rare item.

When I stood up, thinking to at least cast【Healing Magic】on the injured,

「I was just wondering if that bracelet is a magic tool, nu?」

Kimidori Gorn-san asked, pointing to the bracelet on my left arm.

「Oh… this is just GPS.」

「Jee-pee-es?…What’s that?」

「Ahaha. It’s not a magic tool for using magic.」

I didn’t attempt to explain further. If Kimidori Gorn-san wants to go on the path of magic tool research, I wouldn’t mind explaining about it, but the treatment of the injured comes first right now.

I kept wearing the bracelet as I received it when entering the Lev Magic Empire. Actually, the output of the magic stone had decreased, so I refilled it with mana.

There is a small chance that the signal transmitted from this bracelet may reach the world beyond the crack in the sky—is it too unreasonable to hope for that?

But even in Japan, there was a standard like LPWA.

LPWA (Low Power, Wide Area) was a standard that emits radio waves over a wide area with a small amount of power. I recalled my father, who was a civil servant, talking about how to adopt it into the local government. From what I could gather at the time, radio waves can be transmitted over a wide area, but the amount of information that could be transmitted was small.

But there was also talk about gas meter readings being disrupted if LPWA becomes widespread.

That said, it is usually only used to transmit information over several tens of kilometers, and not too often over 100km.

And it seems that the transmission of information by mana depends on the quality of the mana that fills the atmosphere of the world.

As far as can be measured with【World Ruler】, this “Back World” has a high concentration of mana. I don’t know how compatible it is with the mana wave transmitted by the magic tool, but it is still better to have a high mana concentration than a low one.

In conclusion, the possibility that the information on the bracelet will be transmitted to the other world—isn’t it just a little higher?

「Alright, then. I can use【Healing Magic】, so I will cooperate with the treatment.」

I said to the dragonewt who was trying to clean and bandage the wounds.

「Are you serious, guest!?」

「Wow, you can use magic, huh…」

「How much can you heal them?」

I cast magic on wounds that need to be stitched. I explained that the bleeding can be stopped, but the ruptured cells cannot be restored immediately.

Curiously, there were some who had just the tips of their fingers cut off, but I refused them. Because my mana is finite, after all.

「…………」

During that time, Kimidori Gorn was closely watching the healing magic invocation by my side.

「With just this amount of Chochoriges, the meat will not reach all the citizens, nura…」

「It can’t be helped, red elder. At least young people and children should be able to eat it.」

「Let’s collect the eggs when it gets bright.」

I heard such a conversation.

(Did the Chochoriges abandon their nest? If there are eggs left, then livestock farming should be… No, it is not that easy…)

I don’t know the number of Chochoriges still remaining in the wild, but it would be quite difficult to raise Chochoriges as livestock by trial and error at this point. I don’t know if there even is a concept of ​​livestock in the first place.

However, even if the dragonewts leave the birds alone and wait for their numbers to increase, the birds might attack instead, sensing weakness.

If the nest is still functioning, it would be better to leave it alone and come back to hunt when the numbers have increased enough.

「Elder! The team that went in pursuit of the Chochorieges is back!」

Several dragonewts returned from the depths of the forest.

Although there were large monster birds carried on their backs, that was not the only thing they were carrying.

「Elder! Elder! There is a wounded! Serious injury!」

An unconscious Kimidori Papa was brought in.