Legend

A scimitar swung at Rei from the left, but it was only a decoy as the real attack came from a scimitar from the right. Rei parried both with the blade and shaft of the Death Scythe.

He gave a complex smile as he leapt back to avoid the last two scimitars, which tried to cut him in half when he blocked the other two.

「No way, I didn’t expect them to be magic weapons.」

Rei glanced at the scimitars the abnormal species was holding as he faced it from a distance.

It had four bony arms, two on each side, wielding four magic weapons, although they were all inferior to the Death Scythe.

(They probably weren’t originally magic weapons, but the weapons it had must have turned into magic weapons when it became an abnormal species……but that would only make sense if it had two scimitars, it has four. What does that mean? It can’t be that the number of scimitars increased when it became an abnormal species……)

Rei thought to himself as he watched the abnormal species, but immediately came to a realisation.

Considering the other abnormal species he had seen before, with the most drastic changes happening when they saw a Cactus Mimic get turned into an abnormal species, gaining two extra scimitars wasn’t that strange.

「……In that case, let’s do this properly!」

Saying that, he poured more magic power into the Death Scythe, which he had previously kept to a minimum, though still more than enough to cut through ordinary monsters. Dashing across the stone floor, Rei closed in again.

「Flying Slash!」

With that shout, a flying slash flew straight towards the abnormal species.

Since scimitars were metal weapons, Rei could have used Corrosion to fight against them effectively. However, since the scimitars were also low level magic weapons, Rei felt that it would be a waste to destroy them with Corrosion, so he decided to fight without using it.

(I’m sure I’ll be able to pull out the magic stone or destroy it!)

Scimitars were brandished to intercept Rei.

All four swung out like a storm towards him.

Rei avoided all the attacks by several cm, blocking those that couldn’t be avoided with the Death Scythe.

「Tch-! I knew it!」

Rei clicked his tongue as he swung the Death Scythe to repel another attack.

The reason lied in the Skeleton’s swordsmanship.

Most Skeletons had deteriorated skills compared to when they had been alive. Even Skeletons that used to be adventurers would have far inferior skills.

However, the abnormal species swinging four scimitars was clearly following some school of swordsmanship.

(Should I assume that it remembered the skills it had in life after becoming an abnormal species?)

A cleave aimed at his body was parried by the Death Scythe’s shaft while Rei used the blade to block another scimitar as the abnormal species’ upper right arm swung down towards his head.

The abnormal species was 3m tall, twice Rei’s height, but it still used skill to attack Rei rather than brute strength, making it very difficult to deal with.

Rei had fought many enemies that were larger than him before, but most of them had attacked with brute force, few focused on technique.

And above all……

「The fact that it’s an abnormal species just makes this worse!」

When Rei took some distance to the abnormal species, it moved forward and unleashed a pincer attack with its lower arms while its upper arms slashed down.

Crouching down to avoid the scissor like attack, Rei used the Death Scythe to block both downward slashes.

Using momentum from that, Rei succeeded in knocking the abnormal species off its feet with the shaft of the Death Scythe, causing it to fall to the ground.

Even though it was only made up of bones, its weight was still considerable due to the density of its bones, the weapons it was wielding, and its size. The moment it fell to the ground a loud roar echoed out.

「HAAAAH-!」

Seeing that, Rei quickly stood up from his crouching position and swept the Death Scythe up, succeeding it cutting off both right arms of the abnormal species.

Normally, the best solution would have been to use the Death Scythe to cut through the magic stone. ……If it were an ordinary Skeleton.

However this was an abnormal species. Set aside, if Rei cut its magic stone with the Death Scythe, he would suffer a shock from the back flow of magic power, like what had previously happened. And, as the magic stone was also the core of the monster, he also planned on handing it over to the Silva family. Because of these reasons, he went to the trouble of doing this the hard way.

The Death Scythe cut off the abnormal species’ left arms as it swung back before slashing the bones at its waist. Lastly, Rei used the shaft of the Death Scythe to shatter its neck.

Severing several rib bones from its body, that was now missing all four arms and its head, Rei forcibly pulled the magic stone out from the gap.

At that point, the abnormal species finally stopped moving as the hateful green flames in its eyes faded from its skull.

「……Phew, finally. that took some time.」

「Is that so? You say that, but you also cleaned it up all on your own.」

As Elena said that, all the Skeletons that were left, or those that had been destroyed, all disappeared into mist.

It was as if they had never existed to begin with.

「Guru~?」

Set tilted his head in confusion as the Skeleton he had been stepping on suddenly disappeared.

Rei muttered to himself as he saw Set’s reaction.

「In the end, they weren’t real Skeletons, but fakes created by the abnormal species. I had expected that they weren’t real monsters, but I didn’t expect them to just disappear like that. At least the body and weapons of the abnormal species are still here.」

「It’s a shame that this is all we get after all that hard work, but it’s better than nothing I guess?」

「Ah well.」

Nodding at Elena, Rei stored away the magic stone into the Misty Ring, followed by the four scimitars and the body of the abnormal species.

Of the four adventurers who were watching in shock, Nakuto was the first to step forward and call out to them.

「I’m sorry for dragging you into this trouble. Thanks to you, we survived. I’m Nakuto, the one with the spear is Esetus. The other man is Goto and the woman is Tivia.」

Nakuto introduced himself first as he thanked them and bowed his head.

Rei shrugged his shoulders as he replied to Nakuto.

「We’ve run into abnormal species several times before and we got information from the Silva family that there might have been one on this floor. Don’t worry about it.」

「……Wait. You knew that there might have been an abnormal species on this floor? Then why didn’t you let everyone know! If you had, Tivia might not have ended up losing her arm!」

When he heard Rei’s words, blood rushed to Esetus’s head as he shouted out.

However, before Rei could respond, it was Tivia who took action.

Grabbing Esetus’s shoulder with her left arm, she proceeded to slap him across the cheek.

As expected from a one armed strike, her weight distribution wasn’t that good and her slap wasn’t that strong. Esetus just staggered back several steps before stopping.

That said, it seemed like he hadn’t expected Tivia to hit him. He seemed stunned by the fact that Tivia had slapped him rather than the slap itself.

「W-What?」

「What are you doing! Normally, no one is required to share information they personally received with others, it’s the same for us as well. Did you tell anyone about the Goblin settlement we ran into previously? We kept that to ourselves, didn’t we?」

「But, if we had that information, you wouldn’t have lost your right arm……」

Tivia, who was sweating from the pain of her injury, spoke as Esetus tried to explain his reasoning.

「You understand? As an adventurer, everything we do is at our own risk. This is a dungeon, right? We came down here knowing that there is danger. Yes, it hurts to lose my arm, quite literally right now. But, I’m here knowing that. If I was afraid of danger, I wouldn’t have become an adventurer in the first place. I’d be working in some shop!」

「Ku-kukuku…….」

As soon as Tivia finished speaking, she heard laughter.

The source of the laughter was Rei, holding his Death Scythe and followed by Set.

「No, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t think that you would say that after losing an arm. ……Yes, as an adventurer, everything we do is at our own risk.」

At Rei’s words, not just Esetus, even Nakuto and Goto didn’t have great expressions on their faces.

But, as Esetus was about to speak up again, Rei pulled a container out of the Misty Ring and tossed it over to Goto.

「-! ……Eh? This is.」

The container in Goto’s hand held a light blue liquid. Goto immediately knew what it was.

It was the same thing as what he had in his backpack, that he had thrown aside when they were attacked by the abnormal species.

「Is this really okay? Isn’t this potion a high quality item?」

At Goto’s request for confirmation, not only Esetus and Nakuto, even Tivia’s eyes went wide.

However, Rei just nodded back at them to indicate it was fine.

「Didn’t you say it yourselves? Adventurers are responsible for their own actions. In that case, I’m giving you this potion at my own risk.」

「……Thank you. Tivia, I’ll remove the bandages for a moment.」

As he said that, Goto sprinkled the potion Rei gave him over the unbandaged wound.

「Ngh, Nngh……ahhh……」

Tivia voice as the sensation of pain disappeared caused Esetus, Nakuto, and Goto to become distracted momentarily.

It was fortunate for both Elena and Rei that her voice didn’t seem to elicit any reactions from Rei.

「……Thank you. I feel much better now.」

「It’s not like your arm will grow back though.」

Esetus murmured in response to Tivia, his cheeks slightly red. However, he quickly recollected himself when he heard Nakuto’s exasperated sigh.

The redness in Nakuto’s cheeks had already faded. His immediate reaction was probably sign of his experience.

「Of course. If there was a potion that could regrow limbs, it would probably be worth a few light gold coins. A high grade potion and a severed arm would be a different matter……but we didn’t have time for that, did we?」

「……Yeah.」

Tivia’s right arm had been severed when she tried to confront the abnormal species before a large number of Skeletons started to chase after them. She didn’t have the time to retrieve her arm and it had been trampled by all the Skeletons as they ran away.

Hearing their exchange, Tivia gave a sigh of relief as the pain in her arm had faded considerably and bowed her head to Rei.

「Thank you very much, the potion you gave us has made me feel a lot better. I know it’s brazen of me to ask for a favour after that……but, could you please escort us to the room with the magic circle?」

The moment Rei was about to reply, with a frown on his face, Tivia spoke again, as if to preempt him.

「Of course! Of course, I’m not saying it will be for free. I’ll make sure you’re paid well for it.」

「Even if you say that, to be honest, I’m not short for money……what would like to do?」

Having said that, Rei did like Tivia’s attitude and did want to help her out.

Luckiliy for him, his like for Tivia was one of appreciation towards a fellow adventurer and not towards the opposite sex, so Elena didn’t take issue with it.

「It would be good to let Vosk know about the abnormal species and hand over the corpse and magic stone to them earlier, wouldn’t it?」

「Gururu~」

「Kyu!」

With Elena nodding and Yellow and Set giving cries of agreement, their decision was easily made.