Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 14: Beneath the Fissure, Part One
When Ren returned to the guild, the other adventurers continued staring at him. A boy who was usually calm had suddenly rushed outside after a hooded woman and returned looking bewildered. Their curiosity was understandable.
Ren sat down and resumed his meal with a wry smile, still wondering who she had been.
“Morning, hero-dono.”
The rough-spoken adventurer Ren often encountered took the chair opposite him.
“Are you heading to the Eastern Forest again?”
“Yes.”
“Then why not come with us today? Someone at the guild asked me to keep an eye on the younger adventurers gathering materials nearby. It is not a formal escort request, but I am supposed to help if anything happens.”
Ren appreciated the invitation, yet his assignment required him to record monster habitats, numbers, and unusual movements. Traveling as part of another group would make the survey difficult.
“I am sorry. I need to follow a specific route for Lord Lessard’s work.”
“Fair enough. We will hunt together another time.”
“I would like that.”
The man laughed heartily and stood when his wolfman partner entered the guild.
“Do not get hurt, hero-dono.”
“You as well.”
They exchanged brief wishes for safety and went their separate ways.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
By noon, Ren had pushed the strange encounter from his thoughts and become absorbed in the survey.
The work proceeded normally. The Wooden Magic Sword still refused to advance beyond its displayed maximum, but with no clue to the hidden condition, Ren could only continue hunting and wait for a change.
“That should be enough for today.”
He had already killed three Earthworms, completed the planned route, and gathered sufficient information for his report. Returning now would bring him to Clausel before evening.
Ren gathered the carcasses with vines and began to leave.
A scream tore through the forest.
An instant later, a shrill, metallic roar followed it. Birds burst from the surrounding trees all at once.
“Why is that sound coming from so close to town?”
Ren recognized the cry. He released the Earthworms and sprinted toward it, cutting through obstructing branches with the Iron Magic Sword.
The smell of blood reached him after more than ten minutes of running.
Ahead, the ground opened into a broad fissure. Tangled roots and collapsed slopes covered its walls, making escape difficult for anyone trapped below.
Several male and female adventurers lay wounded at the bottom. They were alive, but none appeared capable of climbing out unaided.
Ren prepared to use the Wooden Magic Sword’s vines to rescue them.
“Oraaaaaah!”
“Damn it—it’s hard!”
Familiar voices rang from deeper in the fissure.
The rough-spoken adventurer and his wolfman partner were fighting a black-iron monster. Metal struck metal with deafening force as the creature flew between the walls and the exposed tree roots.
“A Steel-Eating Gargoyle… Why is one here?”
The monster’s entire body served as a weapon. Its wings gave it exceptional agility, while the metal it consumed strengthened its already formidable frame. It was a D-rank Unique Monster and counted among the most dangerous creatures of that rank.
Guild information placed its normal habitat farther from Clausel, not in the Eastern Forest.
The two adventurers were covered in wounds. The rough-spoken man could still move, but one of the wolfman’s arms hung nearly useless.
The gargoyle darted behind the wolfman.
“Watch out!”
His partner threw himself between them and raised his shield. The gargoyle’s black arm punched straight through it, tore into the man’s shoulder, and hurled him across the ground.
The monster immediately turned back toward the exposed wolfman and raised its arm again.
Ren intervened.
The impact gouged the earth beneath his feet, but Physical Ability Boost (Minor) allowed him to hold his ground and knock the gargoyle away.
The wolfman’s eyes widened.
“Hero-dono!”
“This is not the time to be surprised. Move!”
Ren had entered the battle without preparation because the two men were in immediate danger. The Steel-Eating Gargoyle landed against the fissure wall, claws gripping the rock as it watched him.
“Why is it here?” Ren asked.
“We do not know. It may have moved from its old territory.”
The wolfman and his partner had been overseeing younger adventurers gathering underground resources in the fissure. Ren understood the likely cause. If the exposed strata contained minerals the gargoyle consumed, it might have relocated to feed.
“Can you carry your partner and the wounded people out?”
“Yes. If you hold it here, I can make several trips.”
“Then go.”
The Steel-Eating Gargoyle was intelligent enough to recognize what they intended. The instant the wolfman moved, it launched itself after him.
Ren intercepted again and brought the Iron Magic Sword down against its extended arm.
The blade bit into the black metal but failed to sever it. Only a gouge and several cracks appeared, leaking a small amount of reddish-brown fluid.
“So it truly is that hard.”
The gargoyle sprang away, flapped its wings, and glided back with its arm sweeping like a massive blade. Ren avoided the first attacks, but one strike brushed his thigh, tore through his clothing, and opened the skin beneath.
(Don’t forget that this is a Unique Monster.)
Its durability exceeded the Thief Wolfen’s. In speed, intelligence, and overall lethality, however, the Thief Wolfen had been the more dangerous opponent.
And Ren was no longer the child who had fought that battle. He had trained in the village, survived Yelquq, raised his magic swords, and refined his body and technique.
“The question is not whether I can defeat you,” he said. “Only how long it will take.”
He had planned to challenge the Steel-Eating Gargoyle eventually, but only after consulting Lessard. Circumstances had removed that choice.
Roots erupted from the Wooden Magic Sword and wrapped around the arm that had wounded him. The gargoyle struggled violently, but the restraint gave Ren the opening he needed.
He drove the Iron Magic Sword into one of its eyes.
Reddish-brown fluid burst outward. The creature tore free, clung to the opposite wall, and screamed with a sound like gunfire.
Ren pursued. He summoned more roots around it, but the gargoyle had already learned from the first restraint and changed its movement, slipping clear before they could close.
The damp air at the bottom of the fissure grew heavy with blood and tension.
The wolfman carried his partner to safety, returned, and began lifting the other wounded adventurers one by one.
“Hero-dono! Are you all right?”
“Yes. Continue the rescue.”
Ren held the advantage. The Steel-Eating Gargoyle had lost an eye and now faced him with extreme caution. His greater experience and the levelled magic swords made him incomparably stronger than he had been during his first battle with a D-rank Unique Monster.
(I can handle it.)
He did not allow that confidence to become carelessness. The strain of real combat sharpened his senses and drew out strength no ordinary training session could reproduce.