Legend

「I would like to meet with Vosk regarding abnormal species, is he available at the moment?」

After selling the materials they had at the guild, Rei’s group went over to the Silva family residence via carriage, as they had done many times before.

Normally, one wouldn’t visit the three ruling families of Exil that often, but the Silva family, which hired a lot of adventurers, was different as adventurers would frequently come and go.

Regardless, the gatekeeper bowed his head slightly towards Rei before speaking.

「Yes, I will inform him immediately, please wait a moment.」

After that, one of the two gatekeepers went inside to inform Vosk, returning in a few minutes with permission to meet.

Sanctions, who was naturally the one to welcome Rei and Elena, didn’t bring them to Vosk’s office……but to the warehouse they had visited previously.

「As expected, you know what I have.」

Rei murmured with some admiration, but Elena responded as if it was natural.

「Of course. We met with adventurers from the Silva family on the 15th floor and the next day we ask to meet with Vosk and it’s about an abnormal species.」

「That’s right. And, in Rei-sama’s case, you also have an item box. Considering that, it’s not surprising. ……Honestly speaking though, I don’t understand how your party encounters abnormal species so frequently.」

Sanctions let out a small sigh and Rei shrugged his shoulders as he replied, equally troubled about it.

「It’s not like I run into them because I want to. To be honest, I don’t want to have to deal with them at all.」

Abnormal species were more powerful than ordinary monsters and their magic stones couldn’t be absorbed by the Death Scythe either.

Set seemed to be able to absorb the magic stones, but since the Death Scythe couldn’t, it was probably best that Set didn’t either.

And, the most troublesome part was that there was no clear way to tell if a monster was really an abnormal species or not.

(If you think about it, we don’t actually know if that huge Skeleton we killed was really an abnormal species or not. The only basis I have is information from the Silva family adventurers we met the day before.)

As he walked along and thought about that, they soon reached the warehouse they had previously been to.

「Well, Vosk-sama is waiting inside, so please come in.」

Prompted by Sanctions, they entered the warehouse and were greeted by a giant dog like monster about the same size as Set with its head split open and its tail chopped off at the base.

It looked like a monster that had been created by forcefully merging two giant monsters.

「This is……」

「Oh, you’ve come.」

As Rei’s eyes were focused on the monster in front of him, a voice called out from the back of the warehouse.

Turning to face the familiar voice, he naturally saw Vosk, the owner of this place.

Vosk had a stern face to begin with and his current smile looked vicious enough to cause a child to burst into tears on sight.

However, Rei was already accustomed to his expressions and didn’t seem to mind as he spoke.

「Is this monster……an abnormal species?」

「Yeah. It’s a monster that appeared on the 21st floor. Fortunately, it attacked a place where several parties were present, so we were able to secure the corpse.」

「I’m amazed they brought it back. Did they have an item box like Rei?」

Hearing Vosk’s words, Elena muttered half in admiration and half in surprise. However, Vosk replied with a wry smile as he shook his head.

「I don’t know if you two know, but the 21st floor is a forest. Look, you know the desert floors you’ve been through? Imagine that but a forest instead.」

「Oh, I see.」

Vosk’s explanation was easy for Rei and Elena to understand. After all, they had experience the same type of dungeon floor before when searching for the Altar of Inheritance.

「What, you’re not surprised?」

「I mean, after the 16th floor, which we’re currently on, the 17th floor is also a forest.」

「So you’ve gathered information in advanced. Anyhow, several parties were working together to kill a monster known as a Grand Treant, a higher ranking species of Treant. But……it seems this fellow attacked them along the way. In the end, they managed to kill it and brought it back on the cart that they had been planning to carry the Grand Treant in.」

Hearing Vosk’s words, Rei recalled the materials he had heard of since coming to Exil before speaking.

「A Treant’s body? ……Oh, I heard they could be sold at a high price to be used as building materials.」

「Correct. Of course, it’s not just for building materials. A Grand Treant’s branches are also useful in making wants used by mages and as alchemy materials. It’s a lot of work to bring back large monsters, but they’re worth it. ……What do you think, you’ll reach the 21st floor soon, right? If you can kill a Grand Treant, we’ll buy it from you at a high price.」

Vosk’s words implied that Rei could bring the body back a lot more easily with his item box and while he said it in a lighthearted tone, Vosk was actually being quite serious to Rei.

「Sure, I’ll remember that.」

In response, Rei also replied casually before turning to look at the monster lying in front of them.

It was over 2m long and, if you include the tail that had been cut off and lined up next to its body, it would be close to 3m in length. It had slash wounds, stab wounds that seemed to be from a spear and arrow like wounds all over its body.

There were also burn marks on its head.

(From magic, I assume.)

Sharp claws protruded from its limbs, looking sharp enough to easily cut through cheap weapons and armour.

「From what I can tell, it looks like a pretty high ranking monster.」

「Yeah. As I said, it was a monster that took 13 adventurers from several parties to kill. There were also two mages in the parties. Considering that, it’s at least B rank. The monster this seems to have been based on, a Shadow Wolf, is only a D rank monster.」

「……Shadow Wolf?」

Hearing Vosk’s words, Rei turned to look at the monster.

He had no objections to it being a wolf monster and not a dog monster, but its fur was blue. At the very least, it wasn’t a black that could be called ‘shadow’.

Hearing Rei’s query, Elena shrugged her shoulders as she spoke.

「Rei, abnormal species change greatly in shape and appearance compared to the original monster they are based on. This shouldn’t be surprising considering that we’ve fought or seen several abnormal species before, right?」

「……Now that you mention it, you are right.」

At that moment, Rei thought of the abnormal species Skeleton they had killed today.

Most Skeletons Rei knew weren’t 3m tall with four arms and holding magic scimitars in each arm.

「So, Vosk. I’ve got the body of an abnormal species we killed……do you want me to put it next to this monster?」

「No, I’ll prepare another spot right away if you can wait a minute. If you put it next to this Shadow Wolf, it will get in the way of our investigations.」

After saying that, Vosk gave instructions to some people nearby.

A platform was built and moved over to Rei immediately.

「Please put it here.」

Nodding at Vosk, Rei searched through the list of items in the Misty Ring in his mind before selecting the abnormal species.

The next moment, a huge 3m Skeleton appeared on the platform.

Vosk’s eyes widened at the strange appearance of the Skeleton.

The reason he didn’t show even more surprise was mostly because there was an even more powerful abnormal species already present.

「Heh, is this……an abnormal species of Skeleton?」

「Yeah, probably. yesterday, on the 15th floor, I ran into adventurers from the Silva family……um, the adventurers that we had met during the Sword Bee incident. They told us that they had seen one around that floor.」

「……I see. Even so, it has four arms. I feel like it would be hard to fight like that.」

Vosk muttered as he made a gesture of swinging a great sword, which was what he used.

As expected, he didn’t actually swing his weapon around inside the warehouse.

「That’s because you use a great sword. This abnormal species used four scimitars. By the way, here they are.」

Scimitars appeared from nowhere again.

Vosk aside, none of the researchers in the warehouse seemed to show a reaction to seeing Rei’s Misty Ring.

That was probably because they had already seen the Misty Ring being used several times before and because they knew Rei was on good terms with Vosk.

「Are these magic weapons?」

Vosk muttered as he picked up one of the scimitars that had been placed next to the abnormal species.

「Yeah. They aren’t the highest quality, but they’re definitely magic items.」

「Wait. Then, doesn’t that mean? Is it possible to create magic items by using chaos seeds to create abnormal species from monsters?」

Vosk asked Rei with a sharp, piercing gaze.

However, Rei took that gaze head on and shook his head with seemingly no concern.

「Even if you ask me, I wouldn’t know. In the first place, I’m not the one giving chaos seeds to the monsters. If you want to find out, you’ll have to look for those who are creating the abnormal species.」

「Oh, yeah. That’s true.」

「……Just in case, you’re not thinking of using chaos seeds to mass produce magic items, are you?」

Rei looked at Vosk with a sharp gaze, as if returning Vosk’s earlier gaze directed towards him.

Rei was only cooperating with Vosk because he wanted to solve the issue with abnormal species, not because he wanted to benefit the Silva family.

If Vosk decided that there was a possibility of mass producing magic items and tried to copy the research into abnormal species, he would use whatever means possible to stop him. Vosk nodded after a few seconds of silence in response to the question directed at him.

「Yeah. It would be a lie if I said I didn’t consider it for a moment, but my goal is to make Exil prosper.」

「……Rei, you can trust him. He’s not lying. No, if he really planned to doing anything, he would have told you openly.」

Hearing Elena’s words, Rei gave a small sigh before nodding slightly.

「It is true that you don’t look like someone who would keep secrets. ……But, listen up okay? If you plan to intentionally create abnormal species, you’ll find out why I’m called Crimson.」

For just a moment, Rei’s blood lust shot through Vosk.

Because it was only a brief moment, the researchers and other people within the warehouse didn’t seem to notice anything.

However, Rei had definitely projected his blood lust directly towards Vosk.

「Hmm, okay. I’ll remember that.」

That said, Vosk didn’t seem to show any response to Rei’s attack and even smiled as he replied.

Looking at Vosk for several more seconds, Rei gave a sigh as he shrugged his shoulders.

What will happen if I take the wrong path? Based on Rei’s response, Vosk understood what would happed if he did.

Depending on how things went, Rei was willing to use any means possible to stop him.

「Well, that aside. ……How much would you pay for this abnormal species?」

Rei suddenly changed the topic and Vosk calmly spoke after thinking for a few seconds.

「……How about 1 platinum coin?」

The amount Vosk offered was by no means small. No, considering an adventurer’s work, it was an incredible amount to earn in a single day.

In reality, Rei had only spent several hours in the dungeon.

However, Rei still frowned slightly.

「That’s a bit cheap. It was 4 platinum coins for the abnormal species of Cactus Mimic, right?」

「Most of that was for the three men who created the abnormal species rather than the abnormal species itself.」

「Aren’t there also 4 magic weapons?」

「That’s true. Actually, with regards to the two headed wolf, we only gave 6 gold coins for it. The price includes the magic weapons. Besides, the magic weapons themselves aren’t that high quality anyway, right?」

Being told that, Rei had no choice but to accept the offer. With a small sigh, negotiations were concluded with at single platinum coin.

「By the way, were you able to find out anything regarding the three men?」

「We’ve learned quite a few number of things, but……as expected, it’s not something I can tell you right now.」

And so the discussion concluded.