The battle on the grasslands took about 30 minutes.

In terms of strength, to be blunt, the enemies were weak enough to be called small fry. However, during the fight, nearby monsters were drawn in and joined the fray.

“Hmm…”

During the battle, I had lowered my altitude, but once it was over, I returned to my usual cruising height and scanned the area. All around were corpses with their heads or abdomens blown apart.

I didn’t use 【Danrem’s Thread】 since I couldn’t risk altering the terrain, but the scene was still quite the hellscape.

No sign of life remained nearby—only corpses.

Their strength was nowhere near comparable, but this reminded me of the old battles against the Demons.

Looks like I wiped out all the monsters in this area…

Every single one of them died from a single kick, and even just swinging my tail served as an effective deterrent. Akame and the others also finished them off in one bite.

It took a fair amount of time, but I hardly expended any energy.

These guys are definitely weaker than normal monsters.

Which means they might’ve been monsters that had already settled in this grassland.

Up until now, whenever I hunted outside, even in non-demonic regions, I only did so in established hunting grounds with dense magic elements, so I hadn’t really thought about it—but there are all sorts of monsters outside the demon territories too.

“All right… For now, I guess I’ll head to the city and ask them to handle cleanup…”

Even if they’re small monsters, there are over 50 of them. It’d be tough to handle that here.

That means I’ll have to transport them to the city, but at this volume, it’ll take five or six wagons… maybe more?

The Knight Order’s wagons alone might not be enough—we might have to rely on merchants or the Adventurer Guild as well.

I’d tried to keep the monsters grouped together as I took them down, but even then, some ended up scattered after being kicked away.

I could use my tail to drag and gather them all into one spot, but… time’s an issue.

The sun’s still high, but if I waste too much time here, I’ll end up putting a burden on everyone else.

Also, if we leave a mountain of corpses sitting out for too long, more monsters might be drawn in.

I’ve memorized this location—time to head back.

I straightened my body from its downward tilt and launched the 【Floating Orb】 toward the city of Arios.

◇

Along the road between Riana and Zelkis lie four large cities, including Arios.

They’re spaced out fairly evenly, and it takes nearly four days to reach the border city of Sol. Because of that, word might not have spread yet that I’ve been patrolling this road. But Arios, which is right next to the domain capital, had already been informed, so I was able to delegate the monster cleanup task to them.

The group that was dispatched consisted of soldiers from the Knight Order, along with merchants and adventurers serving as both escorts and laborers. With seven wagons and a total of twenty people, it was quite a sizable squad.

About half of them were armed, and unlike when I was here, they didn’t encounter any monsters on the way, allowing them to return smoothly to the site.

Having escort targets with them might’ve helped… or maybe monsters are picky about who they attack?

Either way, we arrived at the scene.

While the merchants and adventurers unloaded their gear, the soldiers stood guard. I ascended slightly and scanned the surroundings again, noticing that none of the scattered corpses had been disturbed by other creatures.

I was fine thanks to 【Water’s Garment】, but as we approached the site, the others started to grimace—it had to smell absolutely awful, yet nothing had touched the corpses.

The wind was blowing—not toward the forest, but it should still have spread the scent. It wouldn’t be strange if other monsters had shown up.

I took down a decent number, so maybe I really did wipe out all the monsters in this area?

At the very least, I couldn’t spot any animals larger than a rabbit nearby.

“…Did I really wipe them all out?”

Maybe someone heard my murmur—an adventurer, who was both guarding and working as a laborer for the merchants, spoke up.

“No way you got them all. But with this kind of awful stench in the air, any monsters around would think something seriously dangerous is lurking and wouldn’t come near.”

“Hmm… Makes sense.”

A few corpses wouldn’t be too strange—but when they’re scattered everywhere like this…

The monsters that attacked me saw me directly.

Even with Akame and the others beside me, I myself didn’t look all that threatening. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for them to think they could win if they just rushed me in numbers.

But from the time I left for the city to now, I wasn’t even present here—all that was left was a mountain of corpses.

Even monsters with dull instincts probably wouldn’t want to approach.

As I nodded in understanding, another adventurer called out.

He had been unloading tools earlier, but it looked like he was done.

“You did all this on your own?”

“Hmm? Yeah. Well, I had the snakes with me though.”

“I see…”

He looked surprised upon hearing my answer.

I guess it does look impressive by the numbers… but even after killing all of them, I didn’t get a single Holy Coin…

They weren’t exactly noteworthy enemies.

“Well, in that case, I guess we can trust you to watch over us while we work.”

“Yeah, and there are also soldiers from Arios here, so it should be fine.”

“All right then, we’ll leave it to you.”

With that, he walked off to begin collecting the corpses without waiting for my reply.

Everyone else had started on the retrieval work too, while the soldiers spread out to keep watch.

Guess I’ll help with perimeter security too.

I raised the 【Floating Orb】 to an altitude where I could oversee everything and began keeping watch over the team at work.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Sera ・Blessing・【Hideout】+1【Prayer】【Mira’s Blessing】【Water’s Garment】
Blessed Items ・【Floating Orb】+1【Shadow Sword】+1【Scarlet Bee Needle】【Fairy’s Eye】【Dragon’s Lung】【Amber Sword】【Danrem’s Thread】【Serpent’s Tail】【Ankle Bracelet】【Amber Shield】【Purple Wings】【Red Sword】【Monkey’s Arm】・8 cards

Seriana ・【Area Identification】・【】・0 cards

Elena ・【】・【Green Fang】【Amber Sword】・4 cards

Alec ・【Power Strike】・【Red Shield】【Fierce Horned Trumpet】・10 cards