Chapter 28: It Seems the Location Was Bad

Ren tilted his head.

“…Where does everyone do bloodletting, anyway…?”

Looking at his hands, he saw they were covered in dried blood, sticky and unpleasant. He couldn’t even tell whether it was horn rabbit blood or three-eyed eagle blood. He grimaced without meaning to.

He reached for the water flask hanging at his waist—but then changed his mind and began gathering mana instead.

“Water…”

He imagined water pooling in his palm.

Slowly, water began to well up from his hand as if rising from beneath his skin. He rubbed his hands together, washing them, then repeated the process several times until they were clean.

“Magic is so convenient!”

While he had trouble with three-eyed eagles attacking every time he bled something, he had still managed to take down more of them than usual, so he decided to think of it as a good thing overall.

“Oh, quite a haul you’ve got there.”

At the guild’s buying counter, an older male staff member looked at the horn rabbits and three-eyed eagles lined up on the counter.

Normally Ren brought in about two creatures, maybe three at most. But because the three-eyed eagles kept coming, there were three of them alone, plus one horn rabbit—four in total. It was indeed more than usual.

“…Every time I did bloodletting, more and more of them started attacking me…”

“Oh, was that on the plains near the forest? Yeah, if you do it there, they’ll gather.”

“Huh? Really?”

“Yep. If you want details, go to the archive room or take a paid lecture.”

The staff member gave no further explanation and quickly continued the processing.

Ren learned that the problem was likely the location where he had been bleeding the monsters. While waiting for the appraisal and processing of the horn rabbit, he headed to the archive room.

“‘Notes on Butchering and Bloodletting’… this is it!”

Pulling several tablets from the monster-related shelf, he found the relevant entry.

“When performing butchering or bloodletting, be careful—monster blood attracts other monsters. Have someone other than the person doing the processing keep watch. In open plains especially, bird-type monsters may attack from above.”

“So it really is the smell of blood…”

“But ‘someone other than the person doing the processing’…?”

Ren recalled the group of older boys in the guild hall, gathered together and chatting.

“…Do you need a group for this…?”

He was momentarily stunned, but didn’t give up and continued reading, hoping there might be another method.

“In rivers, blood and mana attract magic fish. Using monster meat as bait is effective.
Even when washing after butchering with river water, magic fish will gather, so be careful.”

“Blood and mana… then water magic must also have mana…”

He remembered how magic fish had gathered when he dropped a mass of water onto the river surface. They had also swarmed when he plunged the small box into the water. Perhaps they were being drawn to mana.

“…Wait. So you’re supposed to clean processed meat in river water…? But wouldn’t magic fish just come swarming?”

He now understood only one thing clearly—whether on the plains or by the river, both bloodletting and butchering came with danger.

Ren let out a long sigh.