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Lucella guided the four adventurers down the mountain.

This was the first time he had come this far down the mountain since Kafal saved him, but he had already grasped the terrain to a degree after overlooking it from a high place.

The place where the river flowed was easy to follow, so you just needed to walk along it.

Normal people tended to lose their way in detours around the cliffs and such, but these victims were still adventurers.

As long as they could tell the path, they wouldn’t find it difficult to follow it.

“Isn’t there a no-entry rule on this mountain?”
“Now it only extends to the area near the dragon’s nest. The rest is allowed now. Only since recently, though.”
“…Is that so? Well, I guess it’s fine as long as you know you’re stepping into a dragon’s habitat.”

Lucella asked them about the circumstances while cutting branches with his knife to secure the shortest path for the adventurers behind.

Mount Kuguse used to be off-limits according to his memories, but the ban seemed to have been lifted at one point.

And the adventurers entering it were brought to a standstill and fell into distress as one would expect.

“Just who are you? You did say you were the dragon’s foster child, but…”

The young, slender man dressed like a troubadour asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

“I meant what I said. She saved me when I was at death’s door on the mountain.”
“Why would a dragon do something like that…”

Lucella suddenly stopped. That was a question he had shelved too.

“…Beats me. Maybe it was a whim, maybe it wasn’t.”

It was the end of last summer when Kafal saved him from death. They had been together for almost a year now.

Lucella already had complete trust in Kafal.

But that understanding only extended to the fact that Kafal was his “guardian”, but it was hard to claim that he had understood all her heart. Humans and dragons had different ways of thinking, and they couldn’t even communicate, after all.

He found even the reason why she picked him up hard to fully understand.

“But that…”
“Quiet.”

The bard tried to ask something else, but Lucella quickly silenced him.

Even if Kafal was out now, the mountain was still full of her presence.

For that reason, it was hard to sense the other presences on Mount Kuguse.

But there were things he could tell.

The rustling of the grass, the noise of the trees.

The sounds of insects and birds were different from the usual.

“…What’s wrong?”

Eventually, the sound reached the adventurers’ ears too.

The sound of the bushes being trampled, the ground being stepped and twigs being broken as it approached and grew louder.

“GROOOARRRR!!”

Its powerful roar spread through the mountain.

An ashen-colored giant bear pushed the fresh verdure aside and showed itself. Its body exceeded three meters when standing on its hind legs. Its eyes blazed and its fangs and claws were sharp like the blade of a guillotine.

Its face and abdomen had rough cuts and the fur was dyed by its blood, but it showed no signs of weakening.

The adventurers pulled their weapons but still shrunk away.

“I-Its the berserker bear from before!”
“We were attacked by it! We lost our way because of it, and then our magic stones and items ran out too…!”

According to what Lucella heard later, the certain victory pattern of Blue Flag was the following: the thief Bram would get things ready, the bard Lufus and the wizard Emeralda would give support to the fighter Gadon, who would deal a killing blow. Blue Flag had risen to the fourth rank using this as their strong point.

Their strategy was brute-forcing, so to speak.

But they had no way of winning against the opponents whose ‘brute force’ was even stronger.

Unlike the adventurers who stepped back, Lucella instead stepped forward. And then he looked up at the huge, bloodied beast, directly staring into its eyes.

“…Go back to your nest. I already have enough meat for tomorrow, so I don’t need to kill you.”
“Graaaah, gaaaaah!”
“Tsk… it’s turned ferocious due to injuries. I guess there’s no way it’ll come down until it dies.”

A wounded animal was the most desperate.

Lucella also knew that this bear in particular grew more aggressive the more injured it got and exhibited its latent energy at the expense of its life force.

Once it has become like this, it would continue indiscriminately attacking everything in its excited state.

Lucella only knew one way of stopping it.

The berserker bear raised its muscular forefeet and opened its mouth, and attacked Lucella, intending to sink all the weapons at its disposal into his tiny body.

It was unbelievably fast for a monster of that size.

“Watch-”

However, Lucella slipped past its attack, jumped on its shoulder, and attacked. He simply kicked its head with all his strength, twisting and tearing it off. It couldn’t even raise a scream.

“……out?”

Its twisted head tumbled to the ground. Its standing body also slanted and fell down with a thud.

“Oh well… I guess it’s useful, actually. The other monsters will be attracted by its smell and won’t show up along the way.”

Luccella muttered while looking down on its corpse, then turned around, only to see the four adventurers frozen with bewildered expressions.

“Huh? What’s wrong?”
“I-It just took you one hit…”
“I mean, this guy’s not that strong among the mountain monsters.”

There were many Variant monsters that mutated abnormally through the dragon’s power on Mount Kuguse. However, there were also normal monsters too.

The bear that Lucella just took down was one such ordinary monster, so it was a small fry by the mountain’s standards.

“I-I mean, sure, but it’s still a berserker bear, you know?! It’s designated as danger level 5, so you need a party of fifth-rank adventurers to subjugate it…!”
“The four of us could only run away, but you…”
“I see, so this was a berserker bear, huh?”
“Huh?”
“Just talking to myself…”

Seeing the exaggerated emotions of the adventurers, Lucella felt like he did something unwarranted.

He felt like he had heard about berserker bears before. That they were frightening monsters. He never expected this weak bear to be it.

“Why did you decide to come to Mount Kuguse when you can’t defeat simple monsters that aren’t even Variants.”

Lucella dodged the topic with a question.

“I-I mean, we never intended to fight from the start. Look!”
“Huh?!”

The bard took out the mantle shining in faint rainbow gradient and put it on. The next moment, his figure disappeared like smoke. When he removed it, he once again became visible.

“…Amazing. Isn’t that quite a rare item?”
“Our quest was to sneak in wearing these and gather medical herbs.”
“Yeah. This guy said we’d all loan the items and it would be safe, and the reward was crazy too…”
“I mean, everything went well, didn’t it?! Then you just had to fart before the monster’s eyes of all things!”
“I-I mean, I can’t control the physiological things!”
“Quiet.”

The dwarf fighter and bard started arguing, but the white witch reprimanded them.

The dwarf fighter was wearing the torn remnants of the rainbow-colored cloak around his neck. They apparently lost it after successfully sneaking into the mountain depth while remaining hidden, so they fell into a dilemma.

“Do you have a storage item on you?”
“We do…”
“Then, take this.”

The white witch took out a big shoulder bag. It was an item that was connected to a subspace and could hold more things than its appearance suggested.

With the rank of their item, it could at most hold three times its outward appearance.

Lucella tore off the berserker bear’s arms and passed it to the white witch.

“It’s a gift. Take it if you want. This guy has pretty delicious hands.”
“T-Thanks.”
“Make sure to put it away properly. If its smell leaks, there are monsters that would follow it.”

She accepted the bear’s arms while feeling a little put-off, and stored it in the bag.

When they reached the 40% mark from the base, Lucella decided to part ways with the adventurers. Because this was simply the limit of how far he could go until the sun would set.

There were Variants that only became active at night, and they were often strong. Kafal always remained in the nest at night, and didn’t allow Lucella to separate from the nest either.

It was too dangerous for him to walk through Mount Kuguse at night.

He didn’t know how these adventurers would fare… but he couldn’t take that much responsibility over them.

“If you just follow the river downstream you should reach the city. It’s not exactly safe past this point, but I think it’s relatively safer, so the rest is dependent on your luck.”
“You really saved us. Thank you. I’m glad we didn’t become adventurers who died because of a fart.”

The dwarf fighter exchanged a handshake with Lucella with his hard, rock-like hand.

“I wish we could repay you in some way…”
“Repay me, huh… I can still use my knife, I don’t need mountain equipment any longer, maybe food or… Oh!”

Something that Lucella would want from people who he met after so long. That was not food, but information from beyond the mountain.

“Do you… maybe have heard of a person ‘awaiting the return’ of someone who went missing on this mountain during this one year?”

Lucella asked silently. He felt his heart beating coldly.

The four adventurers pondered for a bit and answered.

“…Haven’t heard of anyone like that.”
“This one year, huh… I don’t know.”

They couldn’t remember anything despite searching their memories, remaining quizzical.

Lucella was a little relieved from that.

The possibility of someone suffering in his wait had gone down a little. He wanted to believe so.

“Thanks. Well then, take care.”