Legend

Ray, who watched as the green carpet spread beneath his eyes passed away while he saw it, then turned his gaze to the sky.

Until not long ago there was a spring sun, but now it was covered in clouds and covered up and hidden from the sun.

Fortunately, the clouds weren't like rain clouds?

(Looking for an alchemist from now on, but if it rains, it's troublesome.)

Please, it was Ray looking at the sky praying that it wouldn't rain like this, but I notice Seto moved his face.

"What's up?

"Grrrrrrrr......"

It was Ceto looking into the woods, but by the trees in the woods Ray doesn't know what Ceto is looking at.

Still, Seto decides there must be more to it than he sees, and gently slaps Seto in the neck.

"Get off me."

"Gru."

He nods instantly at Ray's words and Seto heads to the ground with his wings winged.

As we approach the ground that way, Ray also understands what Seto cared about.

It smells of iron rust drifting from the ground.

That's thick enough not to be one or two.

There was also a mixture of rotten odors inside, and that alone made me understand what the situation was on the ground.

I understand this, but I don't understand why this situation is happening.

"Did the monsters fight each other? But there's no way that there's such an intense smell of rot and blood."

Monsters attack monsters mostly to feed themselves.

As a bait, naturally the monster's body should fit in his belly, and I didn't think he'd smell intense rot or blood so far.

If a corpse has been left to the point where it smells like rot in the first place, the smell of blood that naturally drifts thick cannot remain.

In other words, there will be a mix of corpses on the ground today that are long enough to produce a rotten odor and corpses that smell fresh blood.

Such Ray's predictions will be centered in a way that is no more the moment Seto lands on the ground.

There were countless bodies of monsters rolling unconstitutionally.

It can only be described as innumerable because there are few prototypes left in the monster's body.

Almost every corpse was in a piece of meat, which would be the right way to describe it as ground beef, because it seemed so.

Some monsters thought they were eating that corpse, but they're not in Ray's sight anymore.

When Seto... noticed a high-ranking monster named Griffon coming down, he must have escaped.

A less intelligent monster like Goblin might have eaten meat without realizing even if Seto was there, but I guess the monster that was here before Ray and Seto came down was a legitimate monster.

"What, this. Even if the monsters kept fighting each other in groups? You smell like this as soon as you get off the ground..."

"Gah."

Ray squeaks as he holds his nose to the sight that spreads in front of him.

For Ray, who originally has a sharper five senses than normal, the rotten odor that spreads in front of him is quite harsh.

For Seto, who has an even sharper sense of smell than such a ray, the sight that spreads in front of him was inflicting incomparable damage to Ray.

When I dived into the hierarchy with the undead in the dungeon before, I was prepared in advance, so I managed to endure it, but this time it was totally unintended.

I could totally smell rot when I was flying in the sky...

"It's tough for Seto to be here for now. Go up to the sky and wait for me. A little away from here, it hardly smelled."

When Ray tells Seto, who was pressing his face to the ground and holding his face further with his forefoot, Seto quickly wings up to the sky.

Having looked up at such a ceto, Ray next looks around again.

I don't know the exact number of corpses of monsters that are rolling because most of them become flesh pieces and many more are rotten, but I still notice that there are quite a few, not one, but several, or dozen.

Corners, fangs, winged bones, tail bones, obviously because a wide variety of monster areas roll and rot.

What stopped Ray's gaze in that was the magic formation near the center in which several bodies were rolling.

The magic formation itself emits a dull light, and in its center there is an object that looks like a pedestal, and on that pedestal is a perfume furnace.

"Incense furnace...? I see. This will eliminate the odor... Is there any? You were suppressing it."

Deep in the woods, this place has quite a few monsters and beasts.

Naturally many monsters would gather if they let something like the smell of blood and rot drift around them in such a way.

It seemed to Ray that whoever created this sight here hated it and installed that incense furnace.

"Still, there was a monster when Seto came..."

When I think about when I came down here on the ceto, the answer to that question also comes right up.

"You're saying that the effect of that incense furnace is only some odor elimination, and it's not like the junction"

The gaze is directed at the incense furnace on the pedestal installed in the centre of the magic formation.

It is not particularly unnatural that its effects are related to the odor, beyond being a tool called a perfume furnace.

"Even so, the question is what kills so many monsters..."

Ray groaned as he looked around, but the head of the cyclops, which was rotting in the corpse rolling to the ground, and the head of the cobolt, which had yet to rot, enter his sight.

"Cyclops, Cobolt... hey, no way this..."

I understood Ray that the alchemist was doing something here in the presence of the magic formation and the incense furnace, but seeing the head of a familiar monster there called Cyclops and Cobolt somehow understands what happened here.

"Right. Because it's a magic item, there's no way a monster can use it so easily. I mean, I tried to see if I could use the magic items here, and the two I saw succeeded, and these are the ones who failed...?

The number of bodies rolling on the ground is not specifically known.

Still, it was somewhat understandable that it was not about a few dozen pieces because of such things as massive pieces of flesh and bone that were about to rot.

"And it's not just Cobolts and Cyclops. There are many other kinds of monsters.... Have you succeeded or failed in letting that monster have a magic item? I guess I'll have to ask the alchemist directly for more information."

Whimpering, trying to walk away, deciding there was no use here anymore... but Ray's leg stops.

That's a few seconds. Think of something, and eventually Ray steps out.... not to get away from here, but to the magic formation.

"Maybe this incense furnace isn't that important than it has here, but I'd rather have a few less bills over there. Besides, without this furnace, we can't experiment here naturally. He's working with an alchemist. If he's smart, he's gonna figure it out."

If you can still get in the way of what you're doing over there, there's no harm in doing it, and you step inside the magic team...

"Ouch!

For a moment, you feel the pain as if you were electrostatically shocked, but that pain disappears quickly as well.

"... what? It felt strangely weak to protect the incense furnace."

While tilting his neck, Ray touches the incense furnace that rests on the pedestal, and at the next moment the incense furnace is stored inside the mystering and disappears.

At the same time, I realize what I'm not saying but definitely what I've been doing around me is different.

"It would be the effect of the incense furnace. Should I harass you at all? You'll need to report it to Master Dusker for once.... It's annoying to be undead."

The smell of peripheral rot is gradually diminishing, but Ray uses the magic of flames to incinerate the body without the appearance of any noticing if his nose is paralyzed by rot.

Fortunately, this place is well hidden with tree branches up there, but it's so much wider that I didn't have to worry about extending it.

Not all bodies could be incinerated, but when 80% of the bodies are incinerated, the scene is followed.

I could have called Seto here, but I thought Seto would hate it and headed a little further away.

"Seto!"

To that call, Seto came down under Ray, honking his throat.

In the dark, the movement of a man who was experimenting with something suddenly stops.

The person watching it a little further away opens his mouth as he reaches for the sheath of his hips.

"What's going on?

The asking voice is neutral and from the side it only looks like a skinny man.

But the body is covered in leather armor, but on a good note, the body draws a curved line.

It may be mistaken for a man from a distance, but it is to the extent that some people will be able to determine that she is a woman from a close view.

"Now… someone has moved the incense furnace from the magic formation"

"Heh. So you mean someone came over there, right? Guess who? Passing adventurer?

To the words of some teasing woman, the man raises his voice of denial as he mixes blue liquid with some powder he had.

"Maybe not. It's pretty far back in the woods, so anyone who goes out of their way through a place like that..."

I'm not here. The woman smiles small at the words of the man who tried to say so.

"Well, maybe I'll take a look at a normal city or something. But unfortunately, this is Gilm. It is the only periphery of the kingdom of Mireana, and so is the number of good adventurers. There must be as many people in that forest who can break through easily. Whatever the Devil's Forest."

"Demon Forest, is it? Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, you're interested, right? But Mr. Adria stopped it, didn't she?

A woman called Adria sighs at a man who groans dissatisfied.

"Of course not. That's a good place to go. My arm won't keep me inside for a day. It feels just like a pile of demons in the Bestian Empire, doesn't it?

"Really?

Adria sighs like a shudder at the man who stops working and turns his gaze not to mention that he has been told something unexpected.

"Um... The Forest of Demons is famous, isn't it? I was in the Bestian Empire. I know that too."

"Isn't that because Mr. Adria is an adventurer?

"Because I'm an alchemist and I'm good at it, I don't think the world knows."

In his mouth he says things that make a fool of him, but the color is stronger on Adria's face that makes him somewhere interesting.

Naturally. If the person in front of you really knew the world, he would never have done such an imitation.

It was true that I was enjoying myself now because I didn't know the world.

"Well, I had a hard time collecting monsters, but it's good to see a sight like that. If a monster can't withstand the erosion of a magic item, it explodes from the inside out.... Nevertheless, why did you give the magic item the ability to erode the owner? We need to catalyze some pretty valuable material, right?

"Yeah. Honestly, there's not a lot of material left to bring up when you pop out of Bestia either. But it's impossible for a regular monster to use a magic item without doing so. That's what I need to teach my body in a literal sense."

"Hmm.... I wish I could see an interesting sight. So, back to the story, you don't know who the guy who did something to that incense furnace is after all?

The man shakes his neck to the side in words like he expected something from Adria.

"I don't know that far. Because that incense furnace is an improvised magic item. Honestly, I never thought that other monsters would come together."

"No, if there's a collection of monster bodies, it's not natural for other monsters to come for it. More than that, I guess the fact that the incense furnace was managed meant that that pile of monster corpses was man-made?

"It would be. I'm not talking about what happened. I'm pretty sure it's going to be hard to do experiments over there, but if you're just going to do experiments, there's going to be other places."

"We're dating. What am I supposed to say, but you've been through a lot."

"Really? But I can't take the revenge of His Highness Kabbazid. Beyond that, I'll even let you go for how outrageous I am. The reward of killing my benefactor… I will make sure you receive it"

With his magic on the powder of wind thunder ore, the man... the former Alchemist of the Bestian Empire, Zuboz, grumbled with resentment for Ray.