Chapter 93.2

93 Part 2

That’s why she tried it against the bear, but the results were far beyond her expectations.

“I need to get used to this…”

She had charged her staff with enough non-elemental magical power for a single spell, but it seemed to be a bit too much for a brown bear to handle.

Karen believed that she needed to be more careful if something like this were to happen again.

“Well, then…”

Karen picked up her two Killer Rabbits, and looked at the dead brown bear. At that moment…

“Congratulations!”

“Hyaaah?”

A girl suddenly appeared behind Karen.

Karen was surprised by her carefree-sounding voice, but soon realized something.

— I never noticed any signs of this person’s presence…

Karen’s was able to feel the bear’s presence, but never noticed this girl was getting closer to her.

She probably had some kind of skill that helped her hide her presence.

“Ah, sorry! I didn’t mean to surprise you. I’m Doraneko!”

“Huh… Ah! The one from Team Aerial!”

“That’s right. As a matter of fact, this bear was a creature that yields special points! Ding-ding-ding! If you take this one to the starting point, you will get a lot of points!”

“Ah, I see… But why this bear? This isn’t a monster…”

“This bear seems to have defeated a monster and remembered the smell of their blood.”

A chill ran down Karen’s spine after hearing Doraneko’s explanation.

For some reason, there was something unfathomable in her tone of voice.

“Anyway, that’s all from me! Ah, make sure you take this bear to the starting point, otherwise you won’t get the points for it!”

After saying her goodbyes, Doraneko hopped and skipped away, disappearing into the forest.

“…”

— What on earth was that?

Karen’s eyes were darting about.

That Doraneko was like a storm.

For the time being, it seemed that Karen would make a lot of points out of that bear.

Of course, that was as long as she was able to carry it all the way back to the starting point.

She could carry the bear. But by doing so, her hands would be completely occupied.

Karen tilted her head to the side, wondering what to do…

“… Ok. Fine, I guess.”

Then she stopped thinking.

As long as Esta-Rhea was able to move, they should be able to carry luggage for her.

Having reached that conclusion, Karen grabbed the bear by one of its legs, and started dragging it around with her.

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Two bow-wielding adventurers were hiding in the woods.

As they became one with the forest, they were extremely sensitive to the presence of monsters.

Being one with the forest made it easier for them to discover monsters, as they didn’t belong in the forest.

Their approach was to quickly discover monsters and kill them before entering close quarters.

These two bow users, who had an amazing ability to search for enemies, were holding their breaths and trembling.

The reason for that was that they had seen a certain monster.

A plant wearing a white Noh mask that squirmed its flame-colored feet.

Overgrown plants came out of the Noh mask’s eyes and mouth as the creature crawled in a zig-zag pattern, searching for prey.

It looked as if a human had been infested by a plant. The fact that it seemed to be laughing when seen from certain angles made it even more terrifying.

The mysterious creature suddenly appeared in front of them.

It had sneaked through the enemy-detection abilities that they were so proud of.

It had been the first time in their adventurer careers not realizing that a monster was there until it was at such close quarters.

That was enough for them to understand how strong this creature was.

The monster was probably already aware of their presence.

Having noticed them, it decided to ignore them altogether!

What would they do if it decided to fight them?

Perhaps they would be dead in less than a second.

That monster was so intimidating that it made them think so.

That’s why they were holding their breaths and trembling in fear.

“Do you have any idea what on earth that is?”

“… I do.”

One of them had already seen a mysterious life form before.

There was a strange-looking masked man at the starting point before the contest started.

That masked man, whose presence is weak and whose fighting style was killing from the shadows, was the only adventurer who had been secretly rumored to have actually tamed a monster.

“It seems that man lets the monsters he tames parasitize his own body.”

“Pa… Parasitize!?”

“It appears they’re acting separately this time. Or maybe he’s controlling both bodies at the same time…”

The ability to take tamed monsters into his own body…

And the ability to send those tamed monsters off and control them from a distance…

It wasn’t odd at all to think that one could obtain such abilities inside a dungeon.

They were adventurers.

They explored dungeons searching for the unknown.

Their boiling adventurer’s blood was loudly asking them to delve deeper into the mysteries of that masked man’s powers.

And one of those mysteries was standing right in front of them.

If they could reveal that masked man’s abilities, their own dungeon explorations would make a great progress.

As they were thinking about that, a lone young woman appeared.

It was a calm-looking girl who didn’t seem too good at exercising.

Since she was there, she had to be an adventurer. But she didn’t seem to be a particularly strong one.

“That girl… Wasn’t she with that masked man?”

“You don’t think that girl is that masked man’s… sacrifice?”

“A sacrifice… to what kind of entity…?”