Dream Life

July 3.

We were heading east to investigate Aquila. Aside from the investigation, he had also been crusaded by Salamander, who arrived near the place where he was on the request form.

Until then it was a deep forest, but this place has become a wasteland with rocks gobbling and rolling, with scorching marks by the way.

"You do feel like you're here," Beatrice mutters.

"It's going to be night. I think the camp is dangerous here?

Beatrice agrees with Liddy.

"I think so, too. Do you want to go back to the woods?

When I tried to answer that word, I felt strongly like a killer. Shortly thereafter, a large bright red lizard appears about a hundred meters away.

Salamander is a large lizard about five metres long and one metre tall, featuring a bright red outer skin and a huge mouth. Highly defensive and agile, not as impetuous as a dragon-like brace, but sprinkles hot flames from your mouth like a flamethrower. Defense with armor is a demon that is difficult to defeat before it is approached for being difficult, and difficult to deal with in a party of general formation.

"Looks like he came out of the other side before that. Basically, we're gonna deal with this by magic. Liddy pulls Snow Storm (Blizzard) and Sharon uses Wind Attribute Magic. I will attack with an icicle spear."

Soon you will hear my instructions.

There were two salamanders. They both rush in with a big mouth open and intimidating.

Sharon unleashed a windy arrow (Gael Arrow) that he was good at.

An arrow in the vacuum (...) hits Salamander's face, but Sharon's magic, which is highly penetrating, does little damage and doesn't even slow him down.

Shortly thereafter, Liddy unleashes the magic of a snowstorm (Blizzard).

The dry air in the midsummer wasteland cools all at once. A sparkling snow shard enveloped the salamander in the wake of an orange sunset.

That's right, you don't like cold air, Salamander's leg stops. When Blizzard stopped in about thirty seconds, there was a salamander shaking his head firmly.

Immediately thereafter activates the spear (Isicle Lance) magic of the ice column.

Icicle Lance is a water attributed version of the Fire Class Prison Flame Spear (Hellflame Lance), a magic that flies ice spears about twenty centimeters in diameter and three meters long at high speeds.

Ice spears with cold air pierce the salamander that stopped the movement.

Lizard demons have strong epidermis and spear magic is often played. So I aimed it in my mouth, but that was a brilliant success.

Salamander, who was shot through his mouth, blew a flame out of the gap in the ice and stopped moving as it was. But there's still another one left. We're already approaching about thirty meters, and we don't have time to cast a spell.

"Mel will protect Liddy and Sharon with me! Beatrice, attack me from the side of him!

Big rocks get in the way, they don't come straight, but I remember the fear, though slightly, of a giant lizard thrusting at a rate as fast as a horse rush.

Mel sets up Ulrich's magic sword and wraps the blue light around him. Looks like he's going to end up with a blow.

Beatrice moves quietly to my right, and Liddy and Sharon slowly back down to avoid a rampage, with their swords in place.

I'll wrap the light around the magic sword, too, and finish preparing to intercept.

Salamander seemed to set his aim on me standing in the center, with his orange eyes wide open.

Avoid small to the right while showing them intercept from the front. And wave down your sword as it flows.

Ulrich's sword easily slashed and tore the hard skin of the salamander.

Mel was waving down his sword in the same way, and Salamander's torso was on the verge of chopping a thousand for the slaughter of the two.

He spits a lot of blood, and Salamander dies.

"You didn't get my turn," Beatrice laughs, but he keeps his spear on perimeter alert.

Recover the Demonic Crystal Stone and peel off the fangs, nails, and outer skin. Unfortunately, salamander meat is not suitable for consumption, so leave it there.

"When a third-degree salamander comes out so close to the city, I guess something's going on in the mountains."

"There are more other demons than usual," Mel nods in Beatrice's words.

I checked to see if there were any other demons, but because there were big guys, there were no other demons. We buried Salamander's body, which had finished stripping, in a magically dug hole, and decided to camp a little further away.

That night passes without a thing and we head east again from the next day. As yesterday, the demonic raids continued and even appeared in the fourth class demons.

Me and Liddy, Beatrice and I are on alert, so we haven't had a fatal ambush, but we were often the first to get ahead of ourselves.

"I knew it would be tough without Dan," he says without thinking.

"Right. I wish I could say no to you or me."

Beatrice shares the same opinion, but doesn't seem to have the idea that one of them will be ahead of the other.

"And if it wasn't for us, you wouldn't be able to make this request. No, I haven't succeeded yet, so I can't help it..."

We're all third-degree adventurers with levels of martial arts or magic beyond fifty. Combatatively speaking, it's lightweight because it outweighs the second-degree adventurer's party and puts luggage in my storage magic (inventory).

Even we are burning our hands at frequent demons.

If this is the average adventurer, he needs to fight with a heavy back sac (backpack) on his back and is likely to suffer fatal damage.

After noon on July 7th. The destination, the "Lion Rock”, was clearly visible.

It's not as lion-like as it looks in the long run, but it doesn't even look like a lion with some kind of open mouth and a great deal of tenderness.

It was called a destination, but it has only been a goal, not an investigation of this rock. From eyewitness testimony in Periclittle and its northeast town of Riccadale, it was just a hit that it was around here. This means that a few kilometres of error is normal.

"How do you look for it?" Mel asked.

"Once you get up to a place with a nice view, look for a place to open from there. 'Cause seeing a pillar of light wouldn't mean deep in the woods."

"Still pretty tough. Going further up the lion rock means you have to climb a cliff."

Beatrice had the best opinion, but I didn't have a good idea other than my plan.

It's not even a base camp that day, but I look for a place that looks safe and aim up the next morning.

The base camp was right under the lion rock, with a beautiful gorge nearby, and if not a dangerous forest, it was like wanting to barbecue.

I magically built a shelter with earthly attributes and decided to rest there.

July 8. The mountains of Aquila can be seen in the morning in cloudy skies.

"Rain will come after noon, won't it? You shouldn't go up there today."

Follow Liddy's opinion and start an investigation around the base camp.

Walk along a river with neglected trees and aim upstream. As usual, the demonic density was unusual when encountering a small serpent dragon (Sarpent) along the way or being attacked by a group of skeleton knights (Skeleton Night).

Continue walking for about five hours and hit the waterfall.

The drop is about thirty meters, and there is nothing I can't climb if I tell the trees, but the clouds have become more suspicious than in the morning, so I decided to have lunch here before returning to base camp.

We had lunch and after a short break we tried to turn back the route we had just come.

Sharon's voice echoes, "Look at this".

Turning her gaze to the point she pointed out, there was just a big rock about three meters in diameter. I don't know what Sharon cares about.

"What did you find?" Mel asks.

"The color of the soil around the rock is different from the others. Plus there's a lot of crabs going under the rocks. Isn't there something about it?"

Sure enough, there was a bunch of little crabs like Sawagani.

"Me and Beatrice will look into it. Liddy and Mel are on perimeter alert. Sharon, let me know if you've noticed anything from there."

I don't think there's a trap, but it's just a precaution.

When approaching the rock carefully, the surroundings and soil colors are obviously different. The soil around them is white gravel and sand accumulated in the gorge, but this place was like burnt black gravel.

"You smell burnt. That's like raw meat burned too," points out Beatrice, who wrinkled his nose.

If you look around the rock, there are obvious signs of movement. The question arose as to how I moved all this rock, but I was more concerned about what I was hiding under this.

"Roll a rock on a dirt wall (Earthwall). Beatrice needs to be vigilant so he can move at all times."

"Copy that. But be careful. You don't know what's coming out."

Behind her, Liddy and the others were watching this one too.

Lift the edge of the rock with a dirt wall (earthwall). I could roll it all at once, but for now I decided to lift it about thirty centimeters.

"Supporting all the earth, God of the earth (Reams). Give me your incarnation and the walls of the earth. I do not give my life to you. Earthwall"

Activate magic with the image of building walls more slowly than usual.

The rock rose diagonally, and the crabs, surprised by it, fled towards the gorge in unison.

Beatrice's surprise voice goes up, "What is this guy..."

What came into our eyes was a burnt, man-shaped corpse. Human shapes and the like are due to their head, torso and limbs, but they are carbide outside, and it is impossible to tell if they are human beings or demons such as orcs.

"I'll get the rocks out of the way and then dig them out in the earthwall. Stay back a little bit."

With that said, he hands on the ground and casts a spell.

Rolling the rock that was on the lid reveals the full contents of the hole. The diameter was less than three meters and inside it was filled with human-shaped corpses.

Explore the bottom of the hole to dig it out, but deeper than you thought. Discover the bottom about twenty meters and hang the earthwall magic.

Slowly lifting the bottom, the body overflowed the perimeter. The body rolled up to where I was, so I stopped the magic once.

"It looks like it's about twenty meters (melt) deep. Assuming all the bodies are in this diameter, there will be quite a few buried."

When I say that, while Beatrice points to one of the bodies with a spear,

"Gatai is big for you. Man if human. You don't seem to have an oak line in shape."

I don't know exactly, but a lot of them are over one hundred and eighty centimeters tall, and also a matching shape that feels muscular, but hasn't bellied, and certainly seems unlikely to be an oak.

Depending on the fold, there seems to be at least fifty. I don't know when it was burned because it's so burnt that it carburizes, but from the smell, it doesn't even seem that long ago.

"Sounds like you should dig it all out."

I used magic and dug it all out, and there were sixty-four bodies. There were a few of them that were relatively unburnt, and it looked like crabs were flocking to them.

Crab had eaten me and I was in a terrible situation, and I didn't know the race in the end, but at least it wasn't an oak. I'm just curious about the length of my teeth. He had dog teeth longer than normal humans and looked like vampire fangs.

"Don't you feel like a vampire," asks Liddy and Beatrice.

"If you make me a vampire, my body feels big. I don't know what kind of race it is."

"I think so, too. Because I've never heard of a vampire with so much muscle development."

I also asked Mel and Sharon for their opinions, but they still only returned the answer that they didn't know.

There are no orbs or other remnants at all, and the Demonic Crystal Stone seems to have been removed and is not left behind. You'll be fine when this happens. There is no hand in carrying one corpse as evidence, but it is too unnatural unless it reveals the existence of storage magic (inventory).

I checked the perimeter, the bottom of the hole, etc., but I couldn't find anything to lead me to.

It takes time to investigate and the rain begins to fall.

I don't know if it has anything to do with the pillars of light, but there is no doubt that something has been done here.

"I can't help being here any longer. Better stay in the rain somewhere."

I didn't disagree with my point and decided to go back to base camp.

It will also rain the next day and the investigation will be abandoned.

The next day was a summery blue sky, which resumed its investigation, but although sticky for two days, it did not find anything to indicate an anomaly other than the first body found.

July 16th. Returned safely to Periclitle.

Head to the East Branch of the Adventurer Guild to report the results of the crusade and investigation. The report was not an official of the reception, but of the Information Section at Headquarters.

Upon completion of the report, the official will have an indescribable look.

"... sixty or four bodies were buried... I'll give you a reward for success, but I can't tell what to do with this information. I may ask for an additional investigation, but at that time I may request a nomination, so thank you."

"I don't mind, but if you're taking someone, make it a second-degree request. It's not the right reward for this one."

"Surely if that's all demons attack you, you won't have a choice. I'll tell you about it."

If this puts in a nomination request, it becomes a second-degree request and Beatrice can be promoted. We've had enough requests for the third level, and we've got about half the time to get promoted.

However, there was no subsequent request for an additional investigation. That's because of the succession of suspicious demonic information in Riccadale, the frontline city.