Episode 15: SGS-08A
“As you’ve heard, Stun Mantas have appeared near the southern highway. The bounty is 10,000 per manta, and the material buy-back will be discussed separately depending on the condition, okay? We’ll send out a recovery team, so hand them over. The team that finds the nest gets a 100,000 bonus. If multiple teams find it at the same time, it’ll be split. Mount rentals are free, but be careful, if you injure them, that amount will be deducted.”
““““Yeah!””””
“Iserina-san, are you going out too?”
“It’s a request from the Knights Order. They seem to want a quick resolution.”
Monsters lingering on a highway with heavy traffic could become a major problem for the country.
“Well, we can’t lose.”
“If Iserina-san goes out, we won’t be able to catch up.”
“This time it’s a wide-area search, okay? I can’t handle it alone.”
The subjugation team of adventurers is a sizable group of 6 teams, 22 people. I thought there would be more hot-blooded guys, but surprisingly, many people are listening calmly.
“Have any monsters other than Stun Mantas that aren’t usually seen appeared?”
“I haven’t heard anything. At least, it hasn’t been reported yet.”
“Is it the forest side of the southern highway? Or the mountain side?”
“They seem to have been sighted in both.”
“Which means… I see.”
The adventurers ask questions one after another, seeking answers. They aren’t exactly well-coordinated, but everyone is listening intently, which shows that they are the elite chosen by the Guild.
“What if the Knights Order finds the nest first?”
“Of course… Guilty.”
“Ha, roger that! Let’s depart immediately!”
““““Ooh!””””
“Those who want to borrow a Mount, take a tag and go to the Mount shop.”
I could run, but it’s unclear how much area I’ll need to cover this time. I’ll borrow a Mount.
“Iserina-san, I’ll use a Mount too.”
“Understood, or rather, Claffy-kun, you’ll be acting with me, okay?”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, you haven’t been to the southern highway, have you?”
Ah, that’s right.
“…That’s true.”
“It’s not a place where you’d get lost, but Claffy-kun, you look like a child, so letting you act alone is, you know?”
“Well, I can understand that.”
“Well, probably only part of the way. I prefer to be light on my feet too.”
“Understood.”
“Then, let’s go together. I hope there are some good Mounts left.”
“Speaking of which, what kind of Mounts are there?”
“Probably the Ogre Horse is what you can borrow.”
“Ah, the big one, right?”
Wasn’t that a C-rank horse monster?
“Is there only one at the moment?”
“It’s abnormal to have even one, since they aren’t supposed to be here in the first place.”
Iserina-san and I arrived at the site in about an hour riding the Ogre Horse. From there, we wandered around, mainly keeping an eye on the sky, but we found a total of five. I only defeated one myself.
The adventurers selected by the Guild are moving well, and the Knights are also running around, so there aren’t many opportunities for me.
“It certainly seems like there’s a nest. It feels like they hatched from eggs and scattered after growing to a certain size.”
“But they aren’t moving like a pack.”
“We can probably leave the easily found areas to the Knights. Which do you think is the right answer, the forest or the mountain?”
“Isn’t it the mountain?”
“Hmm? I’ll ask just in case, what’s your basis?”
“If they’re in both, I thought they might be flowing down from the high mountains. It’s hard even for monsters to go from low to high places.”
“Not bad. You’re probably right? But I’m going to the forest.”
“?”
“We have to let the other adventurers get the credit. I’m a Guild employee, after all.”
“Is that how it is?”
She’s a good person.
“Yes, so Claffy-kun, you can go to the mountain, or you can come to the forest? What will you do?”
“I’ll go to the forest too. I want to avoid getting in the way of the other teams.”
Most of the people are moving in teams, even if they are small. I probably can’t join them, and climbing the mountain from this time of day makes me a little worried about the return time.
“Let’s act separately in the forest. There seem to be few adventurers entering the forest, so please take care of as many Stun Mantas as possible.”
“Understood.”
“The recovery team can’t easily enter the depths of the forest, so it would be good to put a Monster Repellent Sachet on the corpses of the monsters. Do you have any?”
“I have some.”
I should have some in my Spatial Storage.
“…Come to think of it, you don’t need them. I’ll take them all later.”
“Ahahahaha.”
Because I can store them.
“Well, it’s fine. And leave the Ogre Horse to the recovery team. We can’t run it through the forest, after all.”
“Understood.”
Even so, it seems we’ll be acting together until we reach the forest. Iserina-san takes care of me in many ways.
“Well, it’s good that I could test out my short sword.”
When I entered the forest separately from Iserina-san, the behavior of the Stun Mantas changed.
The guys who were swimming in the sky in the highway, or rather, the plains, were now sticking to the trees or clinging to the ground in the forest.
I haven’t seen any swimming in the trees yet.
They are within the reach of my short sword, so it’s easier to defeat them than with a bow…
“There seem to be more than I thought.”
Also, there are quite a few corpses of monsters that have been defeated or, rather, eaten by the Stun Mantas. Is it because they are carnivorous monsters? Nyolspores and Running Wheat, plant-based monsters, are left untouched.
Did they come down from the mountain because of a food shortage?
“It seems like they’re struggling.”
Conversely, I can see the corpses of Stun Mantas that have been defeated and eaten, as if they were counterattacked. Judging from the remains, it’s probably a wolf-type monster?
“I see. They attack from the sky, so they’re C-rank.”
I heard that the Magic Stone rank is D, so if they can’t swim freely in the forest, they sometimes lose to monsters of the same rank.
But why are they swimming so low?
“And, I’ve come to a pretty open space.”
And there are quite a few Stun Mantas. I don’t think there are a hundred…
“Ah, is this bad?”
I sense a human presence a little distance away, near a large tree. They seem to be holding their breath, but I can sense them at this distance. It wouldn’t be strange if they were found at any moment. Or maybe not? There’s a presence of someone with considerable skill nearby.
“…Still, leaving them alone is bad.”
There’s no guarantee that a skilled person will help someone who’s hiding. That person seems to be in the middle of a battle.
However, each one isn’t a big deal, but defeating this many at once would be tough and time-consuming.
I put my hand on the ground, grabbed some gravel, and threw it, using telekinesis to throw it into the swarm of Stun Mantas.
““““!!!””””
They didn’t raise their voices, but the ones clinging to the ground rose up and all turned to face me.
“I guess I’ll clean up.”
There are no eyes on me, so I take out a weapon from my Spatial Storage.
What I took out was the SGS-08A, an assault rifle-type Magic Gun developed by Sorcerer & Gunsmith.
This is an assault rifle, but the barrel is short, so it’s convenient to use in the forest. Also, the firing sound is surprisingly quiet. But the total number of bullets is higher than other assault rifles, so it’s a convenient weapon when dealing with a large number of enemies.
“But is the recoil a little too big?”
When I used it before, I was an adult, so I didn’t care much, but the recoil is greater because the barrel is short. It’s not a problem because the target Stun Mantas are quite large, but if I increase the distance too much, some bullets will miss.
While thinking about that, I responded to the Stun Mantas that rushed towards me. I lured them all towards me into the forest, and while pulling back, I steadily defeated them one by one.
I pull the trigger once per manta, so it’s easy.
While being careful of my back, I continued to pull and shoot, and the number of Stun Mantas quickly decreased. Some of them strayed to the side, but I’m using a weapon with a range of over 300 meters, so I won’t let them escape.
While fighting like that, when the bullets ran out, I exchanged the Magic Core, which is the magazine, reloaded, and shot again.
Gradually, my vision cleared, the number of enemies decreased, and there was no need to retreat.
I put away the SGS-08A and put my hand on my short sword.
“I wanted to do a little more break-in driving.”
It probably wasn’t just my imagination that the Stun Mantas’ faces looked strained.