Legend

Chapter 453

Like lightning or a meteor falling on a clear day, Rei severed the head of the flying monster with an impressive strike before falling towards the sand alongside the monster’s corpse.

The monster’s corpse fell to the ground, guided by gravity, but Rei activated the Shoes of Sleipnir again just before landing, cushioning his fall momentarily before descending to the ground.

The sight of Rei’s Dragon Robe fluttering in the air gave off such a mysterious feel that Elena couldn’t take her eyes of him.

From the side, it had looked like Rei had leapt over 5m into the air to kill a monster.

Of course, leaping 5m into the air couldn’t really be called a leap anymore. However, Rei had still soared up and struck the monster down with a single blow, causing Elena to become distracted by the spectacle.

「Guru~?」

Set gave a cry, as if to try to bring he back to her senses and Elena recollected herself after hearing it.

「Rei, are you okay!?」

As she rushed over to Rei, who had landed next to the dead monster, he raised his hand to indicate he was fine.

The monster’s head had been cut off and blood and body fluids were pouring out. The heat from the desert had already started to create a strong odour around the corpse.

Elena gave a sigh of relief before turning to look at the headless monster.

The monster’s horns were over a metre in length. Taking into account the length of the horns, the monster was over 4m in length, close to 5m.

「I hadn’t heard about such a monster.」

「Yeah. Pleiades never mentioned it what he told us and it wasn’t in any of the information on monsters I had collected in advance either. ……Then, do you think it’s a new species? Or could it be……」

Stopping his words there, he turned to look over at where the men had previously try to change a Cactus Mimic into an abnormal species using a chaos seed.

Although their corpses had already been stored away, his line of sight still turned towards that direction.

However, Elena shook her head at his words.

「No, I think it’s safe to say this monster has nothing to do with the previous ones.」

「Why? Since they were the ones creating abnormal species, it wouldn’t be strange for them to create an entirely new species right?」

「If you ask me whether that’s possible or not, I would say it is possible. However, regardless of how they chose to use a Cactus Mimic into an abnormal species using a chaos seed, the fact that they chose this location was probably coincidental.」

Saying that, she turned to look at the dead antlion monster in front of them.

「If the Cactus Mimic had successfully turned into an abnormal species, from what they said, they would have probably turned a different monster species into an abnormal species the next time. Would they bring the corpses here every time if the failed? There is a possibility it would just jump out of the sand like when you fought it earlier. This is also not the only floor where abnormal species have been found. It’s highly unlikely that they would have placed such monsters on all floors.」

「……I see.」

Rei was convinced by Elena’s argument.

It was true that they had run into abnormal species on different floors. Given that, there was no doubt that abnormal species were being created on different floors. And, judging from what Rei had seen earlier, it was quite difficult for an ordinary monster to turn into an abnormal species.

(Well, if it were so easy to create abnormal species, we would have found many more of them.)

The number of abnormal species that had been discovered up until now was less than 30. There might have been more before the knowledge of abnormal species became public, but that couldn’t be helped.

「Then, is this really an unknown monster that happened to live here?」

「Possibly. I don’t know if it is known or not. Pleiades might not know all the monsters in the dungeon and it’s also possible that the dungeon core may have created or summoned a new monster.」

「And it was conveniently placed where an abnormal species was being created?」

Elena gave a small nod as she touched its armour like shell.

「Or maybe this monster was the reason they were experimenting with creating abnormal species here. The failed ones can be thrown over to where it was hiding and it would take care of it on its own.」

「……Is that likely? The most important thing to consider is that it would be troublesome if other adventurers found the corpse of a monster on the verge of transforming into an abnormal species. How would they dispose of a failed transformation if they experimented elsewhere to create an abnormal species?」

「Well, don’t ask me. All I’m saying is that it is a possibility. Maybe there’s some other reason that we can’t predict. ……But that is just putting theories on top of theories.」

Rei nodded, understanding her explanation without needing to say anything more.

Rather than worrying about the lack of answers, he decided it would be better to just go down to the 14th floor before leaving via the magic circle and bringing what they found to the Silva family.

「Then, I guess we’ll store away this monster and move on quickly.」

「Gururu~」

At Rei’s words, Set gave a cry as if to say he also wanted to move on quickly.

After the head and body were stored into the Misty Ring, the Death Scythe in Rei’s hands was also stored away.

「I still envy your item box, you can immediately take out your weapon when empty handed.」

Elena muttered enviously as she watched Rei, but Rei just shrugged his shoulders slightly as he replied.

「Is it……impossible with your magic pouch?」

「Yeah. Unlike an item box, I can’t take out items I want straight into my hands. I have to reach inside the pouch.」

「But, magic pouches are already a very rare magic item, aren’t they?」

「They’re rare, but it’s still incomparable to an item box.」

As they conversed with each other, they started to walk alongside Set.

After they left, the direct sunlight evaporated the remaining blood and body fluids of the monster that had spilled onto the sand, generating a strong odour that was blown away by the desert wind.

Even so, the faint smell of blood brought monsters to the location, albeit with nothing actually there to fill their stomachs. No, in a sense, there was food to fill their stomachs. There were those, who like themselves, had smelled the scent of blood.

As a result, fights broke out which could only be described as monsters eating each other. This caused other monsters to appear……smelling the strong scent of blood that was spilled.

In the end, the winner of this battle for survival was a huge three headed serpent monster, which became the top of the food chain in the area for a while due to the Cactus Mimics in the area making it a place where few adventurers passed by.

Unaware of what happened after they left the area, Rei’s group proceeded through the desert.

As one would expect, there were on a path that few adventurers would take, so they were attacked by a fair number of monsters. However, most of the monsters were ones they had previously encountered such as Sandworms, Goblin Bandits, and Sand Snakes, all of which were a bit of disappointment to Rei, who was hoping for new magic stones.

「Tch, if only a Sky Fang, Rock Spider, or a new monster like that Antlion would appear, that way I would have more magic stones……no, wait.」

As Rei was walking through the desert and complaining about the monsters that had appeared so far, storing all the monsters they killed despite his complaints, he suddenly saw something that made him smile.

At first glance, what lay at the end of Rei’s line of sight was nothing but desert, as he took out the Death Scythe with a ferocious smile.

However, as evidence to show that what lay ahead wasn’t just desert, Set was also staring forward with a sharp gaze as he gave an alert cry.

Elena also gave a small smile as she held her sword whip.

「There are monsters that blend in with rock like Rock Spiders. So, it’s not surprising that there would be monsters that would blend in with the sand.」

「That is right……-!」

The monsters seemed to realise that Rei’s group was ready to fight and that waiting to ambush would only put them in a further disadvantage. The sand in front of their eyes……no, the monsters in the sand started to move.

It wasn’t just 1 or 2 of them. There were 10 to 20.

「Sand Ants, huh? Well, since there are monsters that look like antlions, I suppose it’s only natural that there are ant like monsters.」

The largest ones were about 2m in length while the smallest was 1.5m in length.

The ants, which were about the same size as humans, went straight for Rei’s group, determined to not let any food they found escape.

Seeing the horde of ants heading straight for them, Rei cast his magic with a mocking smile on his face.

『Flames, become like arrows that burn everything and fall like rain.』

The number of fire arrows that appeared behind Rei was close to 50. The moment all the fire arrows, which were as long as his arm, were created, Rei invoked his magic.

『Fire Arrow Rain!』

The fire arrows rained down on the ants that were approaching Rei’s group.

Some of the ants felt danger from the falling fire arrows, but most of the others continued to advance, only to be pierced one after the other by the rain of fire arrows pouring down.

As soon as the hard shells of the Sand Ants were pierced, they were burned from the inside out, turning to charcoal.

After the fire arrows stopped falling and the dust cloud from their impact subsided, there were only four Sand Ants left.

They had been somewhat smarter and luckier than the ones in front, which had served as a shield for them.

Even so, they weren’t unscathed and each of them had various injuries. They were met by Elena, who was wielding her sword whip as she attacked them with pure strength, taking their lives.

The Sand Ants were quickly extinguished by what could only be called excessive force.

As they advanced, the 20 or so Sand Ants were nothing more than sitting ducks to Rei, who had a means of widespread attack.

However, Rei’s attack method wasn’t without its downsides.

「……It’s not good. The shells are almost completely destroyed.」

Rei gave a sigh as he stored away the dead Sand Ants.

Magic stone aside, the shells of Sand Ants were their most valuable material.

In Exil, when beginner adventurers ranked up from E rank to D rank and started to earn a bit more, one of the better choices for armour was light armour created from the shells of Sand Ants. Of course, this material was no good if it had holes in them.

Because of the characteristics of the material, it wasn’t possible to cut off pieces of the shell to connect to other pieces, so if there were holes, particularly holes that were large and in the middle of the shell, its use was severely limited.

「Cheer up. If we had fought that many of them normally, it would have taken a lot more time. Considering that, it would still be better to sell them off cheaply, don’t you think?」

At Elena’s consoling words, Rei gave a sigh as he recollected himself.

「Well, anyway, we now have to find the stairs to the 14th floor as soon as we can so we can pass the information to the Silva family.」

Regaining his composure, they continued to make their way through the desert and finally found the stairs to the next floor after several more hours, killing any monsters that came at them. Going down to the 14th floor, they returned to the surface using the magic circle.