CH 471

After separating from the adventurers from the Silva family, Rei and the others continued to make their way through the desert oasis floor.

Because of the nearby oases, the temperature on the 15th floor felt warmer, but in terms of comfort, it was still much better than the previous desert floors.

……Of course, that was only considering that there wasn’t anything else to worry about.

「As expected of adventurers from the Silva family, it seems they have their own skills.」

Rei murmured as he looked at the corpses of quite a few monsters spread before him.

There were probably close to 10 dead Kobolds.

The reason it was ‘probably’ was because they had been dismantled for materials, making it impossible to properly count how many there had originally been.

Rei judged that the Kobolds must have seen the adventurers as prey, like they saw Rei’s group, and the result had been the exact same.

「They seemed to have struggled with the Sword Bees, but maybe it was due to the sheer number of enemies at the time.」

「Possibly.」

Rei nodded in agreement to what Elena said.

Even ordinary humans would die without being able to do anything if overwhelmed by countless ants. The difference in numbers was that big.

Kobolds weren’t that different from Sword Bees rank wise, so the result was spread before their eyes.

……Unfortunately, there were some monsters that had showed up because of that.

「Gurururu~!」

Set felt something approaching and gave a warning cry. Rei and Elena also recollected themselves as they readied their Death Scythe and sword whip.

「With dead monsters lying around like this, of course there will be others looking for them.」

「But, they’re just Kobolds, right?」

Elena asked questioningly at Rei’s words.

The few exceptions aside, low ranking monster meat usually wasn’t that tasty. ……No, rather, it was usually quite unpleasant.

And, although Kobolds were higher ranked that Goblins, they were still a low ranking monster, so Rei really wasn’t sure why any monsters on the 15th floor would want to fight adventurers for it.

Regardless, with Set on alert, there were definitely monsters approaching, so Rei wanted to leave before they arrived……

(Too late.)

With a sigh, Rei turned to look at the monsters that appeared from the trees around them.

The monsters were bipedal lizards that looked familiar to Rei.

After all, they were monsters that Rei had fought in a previous dungeon, so there was no way Rei could forget.

Lizardmen. That was the name of the monster that appeared in front of Rei.

「Do they just live in dungeons? I thought they only lived in wetlands and other humid places……I don’t remember hearing about them being on desert floors from Pleiades.」

「Even Pleiades wouldn’t know every monster that lives on the desert floors.」

「Gurururu~」

Set gave a cry at the Lizardmen who had gathered due to the smell of blood.

As Rei held his Death Scythe next to Set, he noticed that the Lizardmen here were different from the Lizardmen he had seen before.

The biggest difference was the colour of their scales. The Lizardmen Rei had fought in the dungeon with the Alter of Inheritance had blue and green scales. However, the Lizardmen in front of him had sand coloured brown scales.

「I see, they’re not so much normal Lizardmen but rather Lizardmen that have adapted to the desert. So I guess we can think of them as a different kind of monster. Desert Lizardmen, we could call them.」

「Mm. There are also only three of them, so there aren’t too many. What do you think?」

「Well……oh!」

The Lizardmen seemed to see Rei talking as an opportunity. Among the three that appeared, one that was further back pulled bow back and shot an arrow.

However, despite that unexpected action, Rei still slashed the arrow down with the Death Scythe.

「GURURURURU~!」

Compared to Rei’s surprise, Set gave an angry cry as he crouched down, ready to pounce.

「Calm down. ……Elena, there are three of them. You know what to do?」

Stroking Set to calm him down, Rei called out to Elena beside him.

「One each?」

「Yeah. ……Alright, let’s go!」

With those words, Rei released his hand from Set and, with that as a cue, Set leapt forward towards the front most Lizardman.

Did they take them from adventurers or did they have the skill level require to make it themselves? Equipped with a long sword, leather shield, and leather armour, the Desert Lizardman looked at Set with a reptilian gaze that was hard to read as it readied its shield to intercept.

A Griffon was already out of its depth to fight, but it still recklessly tried to fight Set head on.

The leather shield was easily shattered by Set’s attack and the Lizardman holding it was blown away, smashing into a tree behind it, breaking its spine and dying.

「Sha-!?」

Seeing its companion die in a single blow, the Lizardman fighting Elena looked away for a moment.

However, this was a fatal move in a fight against Elena.

「You’ll be punished for looking somewhere else while fighting me! Regret your carelessness in the afterlife!」

With those words, Elena swung her sword whip. Supplied with magic power, it changed into whip form and quickly entangled the Desert Lizardman’s spear, pulling on sword whip, the spear shaft was split into several pieces before falling to the sand.

「Shaa!」

Probably furious with Elena’s attack, the Desert Lizardman gave a menacing cry as it through what it had left of its spear at Elena in an attempt to blind her as it dashed forward.

Its opponent was only a female human after all. It must have thought it could win in a contest of strength, but it had greatly underestimated Elena.

「Phew.」

Looking at the Desert Lizardman running towards her with clenched fist, Elena gave a sneer.

Pulling back her sword whip, the whip that was supposed to be behind the Desert Lizardman started to fly back to Elena’s side. …….Sword tip pointing towards her.

Between Elena and the tip of her sword whip was the Desert Lizardman that was about to strike. Seeing Elena’s seeming lack of response, it thought that she had been frozen with fear due to its approach. Raising its fist high into the air, its consciousness sank into eternal darkness.

The tip of Elena’s sword whip flew into the back of its head, shattering its skull before it even knew.

「Idiot.」

Flicking her sword whip, back in sword form, Elena got rid of any blood, flesh, and pieces of brain on it before turning to look at the last Desert Lizardman.

To the side, Rei dashed forward while swinging the Death Scythe and slashing any arrows shot at him by the Desert Lizardman, reaching the Death Scythe’s kill range.

Although the Desert Lizardman showed hardly any expression, it knew it was going to die. It used a bow as its weapon, which needed the support of a frontline. However, its two vanguards which it was relying on had already been easily killed and it was now within the reach of a huge scythe.

「SHA-SHAAAAAA-!」

If things continued like this, it wouldn’t be able to save itself. Realising that, the Desert Lizardman acted quickly.

With a cry, it threw its bow to the ground and raised both its hands.

It was unmistakably a sign of surrender.

If it were a monster that only moved on instinct, it might not have known the meaning of its action. However, Desert Lizardman had a certain level of intelligence and knew what that action meant.

The blade of the Death Scythe, which had been about to cut its body in half, suddenly came to a stop.

It stopped just several centimetres away from the Desert Lizardman with raised hands.

「Sha……」

Now that Rei’s attack had stopped, the Desert Lizardman was able to see the cleaving attack that had been coming towards it.

If it hadn’t raised both its hand in surrender, it would definitely have been cut in half.

Just thinking about it made the Desert Lizardman’s prided sand coloured scales turn white from fear.

「Just in case, do you know what that action means?」

「ShaAAaAAa?」

The Desert Lizardman gave a raspy cry.

Even if it knew what the surrender action looked like, it didn’t understand human language. Even the act of raising both its hands was something it had learnt from seeing a fight between humans.

「……I didn’t think it would know how to surrender despite being unable to understand human words. In the first place, monsters on this desert floor are supposed to be ferocious. What do you think?」

Rei asked Elena, who was walking over, while keeping the Death Scythe close to the Desert Lizardman’s body, ready to slice it in half as soon as it tried to do anything malicious.

However, there was no way that Elena would know what the Desert Lizardman was trying to say either and she just spoke in a puzzled manner.

「I’ve heard about this happening before, but it’s the first time I’ve run into a monster that has acted like this.」

「So, what do we do?」

Set had already killed one Desert Lizardman, so Rei had obtained the minimum harvest. However, that was only one magic stone, the other belonged to Elena as she had killed the Desert Lizardman without help from both Set and Rei.

Honestly speaking, REi wanted to kill the Desert Lizardman that was currently signaling surrender to him.

However, the fact that the Desert Lizardman had surrendered also bothered him.

(They are intelligent enough to understand our actions and use them. If that’s the case, I can’t deny the possibility that other adventurers might be attacked by it if I let it go. Even though adventurers work at their own risk, it would still leave a bad taste in my mouth if anything ended up happening.)

As Rei was thinking to himself, he suddenly noticed the ground vibrating and leapt backwards.

The Desert Lizardman must have thought that Rei’s sudden movement was the perfect opportunity to escape. However, just as it was about to run away, it sank into the sand below its feet. As the sand below it softened, the next instant, something burst up from the ground with mouth wide open, throwing the Desert Lizardman into its mouth before crushing it with sharp fangs.

「Sha-SHAAAaaaaAAaa-!」

As the Desert Lizardman was swallowed by the Sandworm, the owner of the mouth, it gave a scream that echoed out……before it was cut off abruptly.

「Flying Slash-!」

Swinging the Death Scythe, Rei shot out a flying slash.

The slash flew straight and cut deeply into the Sandworms body.

However, this Sandworm was considerably larger than the Sandworms Rei had previously fought and his attack wasn’t fatal.

「HAAAaaaA-!」

Elena swung her sword whip, following up from Rei. The tip sneaked into the Sandworm’s body, sending skin and flesh flying.

But, due to the Sandworm’s size, it was only superficial wound and the sword tip was unable to reach the bone.

Stil, it managed to cause severe pain and the Sandworm opened wide its mouth, filled with fangs and the blood of the Desert Lizardman it had just chewed up, as it attempted to attack Elena.