Episode 245: Snack Time
The Wyvern that crashed wasn’t seriously injured.
It adjusted its posture to land and tried to get up, but.
“This is a Hame Koroshi!”
“That’s not what it means.”
Asahi was delighted with her mysterious technique, which she called a long-range strike. With a downward swing of its foreleg, the Wyvern was slammed back into the ground.
If the strength exerted by that foreleg was directly applied to the Wyvern…
“The Wyvern seems to have lost its Defense Membrane.”
The Wyvern, pinned to the ground, shook its head in agony. However, the Wyvern, caught between the mysterious force and the ground, had no escape.
With a creaking sound, the Wyvern sank into the ground. Unable to withstand the load, the surrounding soil was compressed.
“That long-range strike seems to be able to generate continuous load!”
The indentation in the ground was roughly the same size as the foreleg of ＜The Reflector＞ when it stomped. The Wyvern struggled in the center, but with its body structure likely lightened for aerial specialization, it couldn’t seem to break free.
“The Wyvern’s body strength, or rather, its degree of reinforcement, is comparable to ＜Rain Croin＞, but structurally, it’s quite fragile, with thin skin, little muscle, and many holes in its bones. It probably isn’t very resistant to that kind of pressure!”
Even as Asahi explained, the Wyvern seemed to be taking damage.
Foam bubbled from its mouth, and its struggling movements had turned into convulsions.
Then, with an even louder thud as the ground caved in.
The Wyvern fell completely silent.
“According to the video analysis, it’s assumed that the Wyvern sustained critical internal damage. Its ribs and spine are likely broken.”
“Ugh.”
“Haaah. Some kind of incredible Monster just suddenly appeared! What should we do about this?!”
Meanwhile, the Wyvern blown away by Spatial Detonation was in a terrible state.
Having taken the full force of the explosion, its neck and wings were bent in unnatural directions as it crashed through the trees of the forest.
“Based on the explosive force calculated from the video, I don’t think it would be able to penetrate the Wyvern’s Defense Membrane.”
At ＜Ringo＞’s analysis, Asahi on the other end of the line shook her head with a resigned expression.
“It’s an attack using Magic (Fantasy). It wouldn’t be surprising if it easily penetrated the Defense Membrane! It seems we need to counter magic with magic after all!”
“So, that long-range stamping doesn’t have any magical power in it?”
“Perhaps. We haven’t made any progress in analyzing magic at all, so I can’t say for sure, but maybe it’s just transmitting force. Spatial Detonation also has the property of destroying Barriers, but the long-range strike might just be purely transmitting force.”
Now that she mentioned it, that might be the case. The Wyvern’s Defense Membrane was effective against the stomp from the long-range strike. However, no light patterns were observed during the Spatial Detonation.
“＜The Reflector＞ has resumed its movement.”
Having confirmed the defeat of the two hostile Wyverns, ＜The Reflector＞ slowly began to move. It started walking towards the Wyvern it had crushed from a distance.
Its movements appeared very slow, but its size was enormous.
With each step, its body advanced tens of meters. Its pace was leisurely now, but turtles are surprisingly fast creatures. There was a good chance that this ＜Spirit Turtle＞ species could also move at high speeds.
“Confirming life or death, or perhaps predation! But I don’t think it would bother confirming life or death, so it’s probably predation!”
Asahi continued her lively commentary, and ＜The Reflector＞ reached the Wyvern’s side. It extended its long neck and bit into the Wyvern’s corpse.
“It’s just eating it normally.”
“Haaah. Even at that size, it needs to hunt. I still don’t understand how it maintains its life activities, but it needs at least some kind of nutrient. Well, unless it’s creating something from nothing or controlling nuclear fusion or fission reactions, it can’t construct its body without taking in elements from the outside.”
From its size and activity level, the amount of food needed to sustain its life activities could be estimated to some extent. Considering that ＜The Reflector＞ had been mostly inactive for at least several decades, hunting prey only rarely and otherwise remaining still would be a correct ecology in terms of conserving calories.
However, could it survive on land, a relatively harsh environment, with only minimal intake?
“Even so, this time it’s two Wyverns! Considering the size ratio, wouldn’t that be a sufficient amount of food!?”
“I hope it doesn’t start moving around actively after eating enough…”
“That’s unknown! However, considering it was moving around energetically immediately after waking up, I think it’s the type to wait for its prey!”
“Based on the surrounding vegetation, it’s estimated that it hasn’t moved from that location for at least 40 years. If it moved, it would have knocked down the surrounding trees.”
The area around where ＜The Reflector＞ was sleeping, which Akane had shown, was full of well-grown trees. Therefore, at least enough time had passed for substantial trees to grow.
“Onee-sama. It’s tearing apart that Wyvern as it eats. When we investigated it, it had a toughness that required a high-convergence laser cutter…”
As Ichigo said, ＜The Reflector＞ seemed to be tearing off pieces of the Wyvern’s body from the edge. The Wyvern’s body had high resistance to structural destruction due to the influence of a mysterious mineral, tentatively called ＜Magic Stone＞.
The fact that it was gobbling it down meant it had an extremely strong jaw.
“It might have the ability to nullify the structural reinforcement from the Magic Stone.”
Indeed, it had been observed that simply cutting it off removed it from the influence of the Magic Stone. If it could nullify the structural reinforcement with some kind of Magic (Fantasy) effect, it could easily tear it apart.
As they watched, ＜The Reflector＞ completely devoured one of the Wyverns.
Then, it started moving again. This time, it headed towards the individual it had defeated with Spatial Detonation, lumbering along.
Naturally, the forest was being leveled by its massive body. All the trees along ＜The Reflector＞’s path of movement were knocked down.
“It’s going to eat the other one whole too, huh?”
“It eats a lot!”
The estimated weight of the Wyvern was around 2,000 tons. However, since the estimated weight of ＜The Reflector＞ itself was 470,000 tons, it could probably fit that much in its stomach.
Even considering 4,000 tons for two, it was less than 1% of its weight. It would be like saying a 180kg tortoise ate 1kg of food, which would seem about right. It might even be on the low side.
However, the thing it was eating was an animal called a Wyvern. Compared to a herbivorous tortoise, it was high in calories.
“Wait, is this turtle carnivorous?”
◇◇◇◇
The roar emitted by ＜The Reflector＞ was observed in cities and villages over 100km away. That was how much sound pressure it had.
The residents, and especially the monks stationed for governance, were very wary of the mysterious sound echoing from the depths of the Demon Forest. The information that the Reidia Kingdom had been destroyed by Monsters had been firmly conveyed to the villages and towns around the Demon Forest.
The Warrior Monks were on high alert, and sensing the atmosphere, the residents tended to stay locked in their homes.
And the change was not limited to the monks and residents.
Froz, the male parent of the ＜Fenrir＞, and Yarun, the female parent, who had claimed the area around the Reidia Kingdom’s capital as their Territory, were also beginning to move around restlessly.
They were likely sensing the presence of a powerful enemy and increasing their vigilance.
If ＜The Reflector＞ was carnivorous, the Fenrir parents could become prey if they carelessly stepped into the sensing range of that Threat Creature.