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Once I left Lyell’s mansion, I didn’t go straight back to Stollar but instead headed to the forest north from the village. The reason was simple: I was planning to investigate the Needle Beetle. A devil existing where it normally should not. And above all…

“Its ecology is the problem…”

Needle Beetles lived by forming groups.

As no one had seen the moment of their summoning, it was unknown whether they were summoned in groups or not, but it was hard to imagine otherwise. This was also the reason why Maria insisted on investigating the forest.

I knew about their ecology too since I have studied the monster information at the magic academy.

“If you see one, assume there’s ten of them, was it? Or maybe not?”

I feel like that’s what Cortina used to say when I first moved to Raum. Finia wasn’t around back then, so her house was in a pretty messy state. Cortina was quite sloppy when it came to herself, so it was strangely appropriate.

Setting that aside, Needle Beetles’ nature was to move in groups. Since Lyell defeated one of them, the rest of the group should exist somewhere. There was no need for me to do this myself this time. Lyell would probably clean them up tomorrow anyway, so I could just leave it be, but I was concerned about some things in this case.

That is, Needle Beetles were beings summoned from the otherworld. In other words, they were Devil species. This meant that Kufar might be involved in this. And because of that, I needed to ascertain the truth of this problem.

“Well, I’m just doing it for self-satisfaction.”

Kufar’s matter was also being investigated by Maxwell, and the sacrifice incident of the north has been coming to a resolution with King Elliot himself taking command of the matter.

Their sphere of action was rapidly growing narrow and would come to a dead-end eventually. Still, my connection with him from the previous world was stuck like a thorn in my chest.

“If I had properly put an end to him back then, it wouldn’t have escalated into this mess. Wait, no, I don’t think I could kill his soul itself.”

I advanced in the forest while mumbling to myself, but then I heard a faint jarring sound from the direction of my movement. It was an unpleasant sound as if my eardrums were being hit in succession. The peculiar sound given off by the insect’s wings.

The fact that I could hear that sound despite so much distance until the source meant that it was coming from something quite big.

“Oh, there they are.”

I sensed the enemy getting closer and summoned my trusty gauntlets with Apport. The teleported gears appeared equipped on my arms, and I squeezed my hands to confirm their condition.

Their familiar weight even made me feel relieved despite the battle about to start. I had my self-defense katana on my waist too, but it had to wait its turn for now.

“Now, how many… are there…”

There were inorganic lights shining in red among the darkness ahead. I’m not sure how they worked, but their eyes shone in the darkness. That color was a clear proof of hostility. The numbers grew one by one, eventually exceeding twenty.

“There’s so many!?”

I thought there would be five or ten at most, but to think there were so many. Lyell would probably still be able to mercilessly trample them down, but this number was too much for me to subjugate head-on. That said, I needed to take care of them or my investigation would go nowhere.

“W-Well, it’s not impossible to take them down so… I guess I’ll do my best.”

While they were looking vigilantly at me, I waved my hands threateningly. I suppose it was the wild instinct that made them hesitate to attack me right away… Whatever it was, it was a blunder on their part to allow me some time.

Assassins were specialized in offensive battles rather than defensive.

“Kyashshshshaaa!”

I didn’t know whether bugs had vocal cords, but these Needle Beetles were threatening me with sounds akin to scraping metal.

But they were too late. When I finished my preparations and pulled out my katana, the first bug finally decided to attack me.

When I saw that, I could not help but leak a faint smile. I raised my sword simply to attract their attention to me. When I swung my hands at the very beginning, I had already stretched my threads all around.

These level of monsters were no enemies for me inside the forest with so many places to bind my threads to. The attacking Needle Beetle got vertically bisected and fell to the ground before it even reached me. It probably didn’t even realize what had occurred.

I had spread my threads all around and made a defensive point around me. And it got caught by one of those threads.

“As if you bugs who only know how to charge at things will be able to deal with me inside the forest.”

I doubt they understood what I said, but they all flapped their wings and charged at me simultaneously. But nearly half of them got bisected without reaching me.

As for the remaining half… I mean there were still 10 of them, but it was easy to deal with them. I activated the magic circle on the gauntlets, casting enchant on myself. In addition, I took control of my muscle fibers using Thread Manipulation, making my body move like a marionette.

Since this ability ignored the limiter of the brain, it strained my body quite a lot. That said, the precision and strength it offered were too addicting once you experienced it one time.

I kicked off the ground and leaped up, then used the stretched threads around as my scaffold to jump even higher. I dashed about so freely it even rivaled the bugs, and I sliced them with my katana every time I passed one.

Their carapaces were extremely hard, so I couldn’t exactly bisect them with every swing, but I still gradually decreased their numbers.

This katana that was sturdy and nothing more wasn’t sharp enough to cut through their carapaces, but the fact that they were flying now meant that they had spread wings from under those carapaces. That also meant under those wings, they were exposing their soft abdomens.

I attacked them from above and slammed them to the ground. At the same time, I used their bodies as stepping stones and moved on to the next one. Like that, I continued my ever-changing onslaught and dropped every enemy to the ground in less than a minute.

“Now… I guess you bugs can’t exactly answer my questions, so sorry but I’ll have you die.”

Even though all of them were on the ground, some of them had survived, unlike the bisected individuals. I went around and finished them off one by one, and the silence was finally brought back to the forest.