[Kiieek—!]
Bang—!
"Just goes down in one hit, huh?"
It had already been 30 minutes since we started dealing with the rats on the spot, and surprisingly, not a single problem had come up. At this point, calling it a "cleanup" almost felt embarrassing.
Leo carefully picked up a dead man-eating rat and stuffed it into a sack.
The rats that crawled up his legs like mad, despite their ferocity, were easily knocked away with a single gesture.
Now, cleaning up the corpses was more troublesome than fighting them.
I burned away the barrier overhead, dropping all the rats to the ground, and replied simply.
"That's because you're strong."
"Is that so…. Did you fill your sack too?"
"Yeah."
"Then let's clean up and go."
Leo said, looking down at the rats caught on the tips of his boots.
On the muddy ground, still wet from yesterday's rain, palm-sized rat corpses were strewn everywhere.
Watching the scene, Leo clicked his tongue.
"I know they need to be dealt with, but seeing this many is kind of pitiful. It'd be nice if there were a cure."
At that, I nodded.
These kinds of beasts are cases where ordinary animals later gain magical power and come to possess a core like humans, causing them to constantly thirst for magical power.
There's no method of treatment other than periodically infusing them with holy power. It would be nice if that alone could completely cure them, but even that isn't a fundamental solution.
'Yeah, when you look at it that way, it is pitiful.'
Feeling sentimental while staring at a swarm of rats desperately trying to tear off flesh was a sign of real leisure. Usually, people are too busy surviving to spare a thought for man-eating rats.
Leo was that kind of person even in the novel.
I don't remember the exact timing, but at some point, he even developed a cure specifically for beasts.
I tied the full sack, floated it in the air, and spoke.
"You can just make a cure. Why don't you try making one later?"
"Me? No way, even the adults couldn't do that."
"What?"
A hollow laugh escaped me in disbelief.
Thinking back, the part I'd read was still quite far off from now.
Either way, knowing what the future Leo would create, all I could do was laugh.
I turned back toward the starting point and lightly tapped Leo on the shoulder.
"If you don't do it, I will, so lend me your family's lab."
"Worry about surviving first."
After chatting pointlessly for a while, we arrived at a familiar place before we knew it.
A manager who happened to be outside spotted the two of us and greeted us.
"You finished quickly."
"We'll leave this here and head back in."
I set the sack filled with rats down in front of the building.
Seeing the bulging shape as if it were packed full of something, the manager approached with a puzzled look.
"Why is this so… huh?!"
After opening the sack, the manager couldn't close his mouth.
"Where did all these come from…. This is the first time I've seen this many man-eating rats in one day."
"Is it that many?"
"Yes, at this level, it looks like you've practically wiped them out. Usually, even when a lot are found, it's only five or six…."
"They probably sensed our magical power and showed up more than usual. They're beasts that are starving for magical power by nature."
At Leo's explanation, the manager nodded.
"I see. With this amount, we probably won't see this type for a while. Some of them have been showing up near residential areas lately, so it was a headache. This is a relief."
"I'm glad we could help."
"Well, I'll need to weigh it to be sure, but this should be at least fifty thousand."
The manager said after lifting the sack up and down.
I nodded at that. One hour of work, and I'd pocketed roughly five million won in value. You couldn't find a job like this anywhere else.
'We did catch them at extermination level, after all….'
Leo, who grew up without lacking anything in a money-overflowing family and thus had a weak sense of reality, also seemed fairly satisfied, likely thinking the pay-to-time ratio wasn't bad.
Stepping back inside the barrier, Leo shrugged his shoulders in surprise and spoke.
"So you can earn a month's allowance in just an hour like this. This kind of work is better than I expected. Thanks to you, I had a good experience."
"Yeah. But just in case, don't think you normally earn this much in one hour."
"I know… I know."
Leo replied, rolling his eyes.
Doesn't look like it. A textbook rich kid. At least it's a good thing he didn't follow the protagonist into the Imperial Palace to handle financial work later.
Noticing that I didn't believe him at all, Leo hurriedly changed the subject.
"Anyway, among the ones we investigated, we ran into some decent ones."
"Yeah."
Fast, and big for rats, so they wouldn't be easy for non-mages, but for mages like us, it was just a matter of putting up a body barrier to keep them from tearing flesh—an easy opponent.
"Fifty thousand for this difficulty. If we stay here all night, you could earn enough to buy two of the things you want and still have leftovers, right? With me here too, it'll end even faster."
"Yeah. But it sounds like you're planning to stay here for a while too. I thought you'd say we should catch a reasonable amount and leave."
"Since we're already here, we might as well be thorough. Not many people volunteer to come, so I thought it'd be good to do it properly while we're here."
"Well, if that's how you feel."
At that moment, I stopped again.
Leo looked at me with an ominous gaze.
"What, smell blood again?"
"Yeah."
"You really have a crazy nose. I don't smell anything."
"This time it's cleaner. Not pus-mixed blood like before."
"…You can tell that much? If other people heard, they'd really think you're from Pleroma…."
Leo shook his head.
I brought a finger to my lips, signaling him to be quiet, and slowly moved my feet.
Once the voices stopped, only the rustling of small creatures and the sound of wind hitting leaves remained.
Tadadak—
'Hm?'
The moment I heard something foreign in the silence, a lump of something hard to identify sprang out of the bushes.
Kwaang—!
I frowned, pulled back the barrier, and stepped backward.
"That scared me."
"What was that?!"
Judging by the situation, it didn't seem like it was attacking—it looked like it had just been running wildly and crashed.
After confirming no further attacks were coming, I flipped over the grayish-brown lump sprawled on the ground.
"It's a rabbit. Not a contaminated one."
While I poured the water we'd brought to wake the rabbit's mind, Leo shouted from behind, apparently dissatisfied with my defense.
"Hey, if you're keeping that much distance, you can put full power into the barrier."
"Weren't you the one telling me to hold back before?"
"That was about the edge of the barrier. And this isn't sparring right now. Don't forget to distribute force by connecting your lower body to the ground too, considering the recoil!"
"Still a lesson, even in this situation."
He said it like that, but what Leo pointed out was something I'd felt myself while casting the spell just now.
'This is exactly why practice outside of sparring matters.'
To strike a balance between magical sparring as an academic discipline and magic meant for killing, spending time in real, practical situations was the most effective method.
Of course, in a place like this where only small things usually appeared, it was hard to see the full effect. And if I really couldn't find proper real combat later, I could always go beat up Pleroma or something.
'But….'
It's ambiguous.
I watched the rabbit scrambling to its feet and fleeing, lost in thought.
Can we really say there's nothing dangerous here?
That rabbit had come running in a panic without even checking what was ahead of it.
And on top of that, I'd smelled another trace of blood earlier.
'We should go back.'
The barrier around this place, which I'd checked on the way in, was a lower-rank barrier. That meant dangerous beasts weren't supposed to live here.
At worst, even if there were contaminated animals, they'd probably be rats or rabbits like the ones we'd seen earlier.
If they weren't beasts, there wasn't much to worry about—but still, there was no need to run into man-eating carnivores in the middle of the night.
I looked down at the footprints pressed into the dirt and spoke quietly.
"Leo, take a defensive stance. Let's turn back and avoid it for now."
"…I was just about to say that too. Those are wolf tracks, right?"
I hadn't heard any stories about wolves living around here.
But the footprints right in front of us were unmistakably from an animal around that size.
Leo adjusted his grip on the wand and increased the strength of his body barrier.
[Growwwwwl….]
At that moment, a hard-to-describe howl faintly spread through the entire forest.
Whatever animal it was, it definitely didn't belong to a herbivore.
Too late.
I slowly stepped backward.
Then, two red lights drew straight lines through the darkness.
[Kreaaaagh!]
Kwaang—!
"Ugh!"
I lowered my body and kept my balance.
The sheer force was on a completely different level from the rabbit.
Thankfully, because I'd followed Leo's advice exactly, the caster didn't get flung back by the recoil.
Instead….
'The barrier cracked.'
There was no way an ordinary animal could crack my barrier. Judging from that light earlier, this was very likely a contaminated one.
I rolled the wand in my hand and switched it to a sword.
I created a new barrier toward the sky and shattered it, briefly lighting up the area where we stood.
'…!'
This is insane.
Not just me—Leo couldn't hide his shock at the fleeting sight we caught just before the light went out.
"…This is…."
It wasn't just a wolf.
Inside the wolf's ears, solid horns had grown. My mouth wouldn't close at the incomprehensible combination.
'This is crazy.'
Those horns probably played a part in how easily the barrier cracked. But that wasn't what shocked me most. Up to that point, it was still barely within the bounds of common sense.
My gaze moved to the wolf's legs.
Unlike its chest, where long, thick gray fur grew, its legs were short and covered in yellow fur.
It wasn't just a difference in fur color. Anyone could tell those were the legs of a different animal.
There was no time to analyze the situation further.
The wolf, reacting to our magical power, began rampaging even more violently.
[Kraaaaaaagh—!]
Bang—! Kwaang—!
I continuously fired magic to obstruct the wolf's vision.
At that moment, the surrounding plants thickened and stretched out, clinging to the wolf.
It was the same spell Leo had used on me before. The attempt to bind its legs failed, but it managed to grab its horns.
Because its legs weren't its own but belonged to a herbivore, the wolf easily lost its balance.
I seized the opening and swung the wand. The tree behind the wolf bent the opposite way and crashed down.
Kwaang—!
The wolf's scream was swallowed by the deafening explosion.
I hadn't held back at all, but this time, Leo didn't say anything either.
Leo, pale as a sheet, wiped the blood splattered on his skin and looked away from the corpse.
"…It's a chimera."
"Yeah."
Stitching together different animals so crudely and making them move as one body was normally impossible.
The only thing that could make such nonsense possible was magic—but even then, magic wouldn't naturally occur to fuse different animals together. Anyone could tell this was clearly a product of human hands.
"I felt it earlier with the barrier too, but even in the materials you found, this place wasn't supposed to be that dangerous. So why something like this…."
At Leo's words, I nodded.
There was no mention of anything like this when the protagonist passed through in the novel either.
I'd considered the possibility that different beasts might appear due to a difference in timing—but never that something so obviously shady would show up.
"The barrier here was lower rank to begin with. That means it's not a place where things this dangerous are supposed to appear."
After confirming the creature's breathing had completely stopped, I knelt on one knee and examined the beast closely.
"Leo, come take a look. What do you think this thing's base body is?"
"Ha…."
Letting out a deep sigh like he really didn't want to see it with both eyes open, Leo took position on the opposite side.
"…From the head to the chest, it's a wolf. The horns and legs look like a mountain goat. So the wolf should be the base."
"Yeah, that's what I thought too."
"Then who in the world would do something like this…."
Leo's face twisted.
I shook my head and stood up.
"Think about that later. Get up. This is just the beginning."
"What?"
"No matter how much of a chimera it is, its habits will follow those of its base body. Do you remember the footprints we saw earlier?"
"...."
Realizing what I meant, Leo's face stiffened instantly.
The carnivore footprints, slightly smaller than a human palm, flashed through my mind. But they didn't belong to the wolf we'd just killed—they were from a different individual.
Leo muttered quietly.
"…With mountain goat legs, there's no reason wolf tracks would be left."
"Right. Following wolf habits, they'd be living in packs."
"Usually, how many are in one pack?"
"Hard to say. If we're lucky, fewer than ten."
I adjusted my grip on the wand.
A magical power wave distinctly different from a human's brushed against my skin. It was getting closer.
[Grurrrrk….]
It was too late to call for reinforcements now.
The moment we turned our backs, they'd chase us like mad without caring about anything else. Wolves starving for magical power wouldn't just leave mages alone.
Even if we somehow managed to shake them off, if they went down to residential areas, countless lives would be at risk.
'There's a barrier, so should we try once?'
No, that won't work. A barrier is just an auxiliary tool—it's not perfect.
Just hearing that rats occasionally made it down to residential areas was proof enough that the barrier couldn't guarantee safety.
I spun the wand in my hand.
A crimson-colored bar of light formed.
"We need to deal with all of them before dawn, don't we?"