331 – Encounter with the Unknown

For the time being, I safely land and let down the petit nightmare and treant.
Aro stays on my head.
If she likes being up there, then I don’t mind…

『I’m hungry.』

My partner complains, a slightly frenzied look in her eyes.
Having flown almost an entire day, I’m also feeling terrible hunger and exhaustion.
If I can’t find proper food on this island, then to be honest, I’m not confident in my ability to return alive.

I look around, but this entire area seems to be grasslands.
The occasional weird-looking flower with long, thin rainbow-coloured petals sprouts up, embellishing the fantastical nature of the scenery.

An isolated tree can be seen far away, surrounded by the rainbow-coloured flowers.
It appears to have a single, bright-red fruit.
Is it an apple? Its colour is weirdly vibrant, but it might be worth checking out and letting my partner eat.

There aren’t any monsters that I can see.
Huge trees and cliffs are visible in the distance, and in the other direction, I can see the ocean being sucked into the huge hole.
Th-this place might be a little hard to settle down in…

For the time being, the objectives are the securing of a safe food source and a place to sleep.
After that is raising my level.
Raising Aro and the other’s levels wouldn’t be bad either.

Moreover, ever since I defeated the hero, I’ve had the mysterious [Human Realm] skill.
The moment the hero lost it, his level cap went down, and it might have some effect on how I evolve.
If so, then in my next evolution, there’s a chance that ouroboros’s negatives might be made up for and I could turn into a decent dragon… This could be a chance.
There was once something like a demi-human among my evolution options.
So maybe something similar could come up again.

Now then, my target level is…

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[Irushia]
Species: Ouroboros
Condition: Normal

Lv: 92/125
HP: 2425/2425
MP: 2432/2432
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…It’s high, stupidly high.
Even after the war against the red ants in Harenae desert, the fight with the hero, the hunting of abysses for the Lithovars, and the all-out war against he [Starved Hunters], I’m only three-quarters of the way there.
The higher my level, the harder it becomes to raise it, so I can expect it’ll take even more time from here on.
I’ve essentially only been fighting C ranks, two ranks below me.
There aren’t many B-rank monsters around, after all.

Could I maybe be the strongest in the world already? With how my other evolution branches were described, were there multiple A-rank monsters around, the world would fall into ruin in the blink of an eye.
It’s a good thing it’s me, but if another ouroboros were to go all out, a country could easily be destroyed.
When I saw the edge of the ocean earlier, I wondered if maybe this world isn’t all that big.

…But I still don’t have the [Final Evolution] skill.
I have to wonder if that God’s Voice bastard is seriously trying to get me to destroy this world.

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Name: Aro
Species: Revaana Lowlich
Condition: Cursed
Lv: 59/65
HP: 362/362
MP: 381/381
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Aro’s also become quite strong… She’ll be evolving soon.
She’s C+ rank at the moment, so next would be B or B+… Even though her HP and MP are high, I’m a little worried that her movement speed is comparatively a little slow… As I think that, the treant meets my eyes as though it has something it wants to say.

Treant-san, it’s fine if you go at your own pace, there’s no need to hurry so much… Ah, but, in the fights against the [Starved Hunters] earlier, it looked like you were fighting alongside Aro… So is your next evolution actually rather close?

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Species: Lesser Treant
Condition: Cursed
Lv: 14/25
HP: 86/86
MP: 74/74
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Unable to keep looking, I avert my eyes.

Umm… You’re D-rank now, right? I guess rather than just now, you’ve been that way from the beginning… Ahh, that’s right..
That’s how it is… I see, that’s how it is… When you came, Aro was only a skeleton, so a gap appeared between you at some point.
I-if a good enemy shows, up, do your best to raise your level with everyone, okay?

Now then, the petit nightmare…

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Species: Petit Nightmare
Condition: Normal
Lv: 37/45

HP: 163/163
MP: 155/155
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……

The petit nightmare glances in my direction, then looks at the treant and spits a clump of thread towards it.
The clump lands in front of it.

“GuoOOh!”

Oi, treant-san is your senior! Next time you act like that, I won’t forgive you!

I get so worked up that I roar without meaning to.

Seemingly dejected, the petit nightmare takes a roundabout path to my partner’s side.
She rubs her cheek against it to cheer it up, then glares at me sternly.

Partner, you… Just a while ago you were acting as though it was annoying, and yet you’ve let yourself be won over at some point… Defeated, I try and rub my cheek against the treant, but it steps away from me… Ah, right.
Sorry.

…W-well, I need to pull myself together and search for monsters in order to work out how dangerous this area is.
I quietly look away from Aro and the others.

As I peer around, I hear the sound of my partner sniffing.
She lowers her head to the ground and bites a nearby cluster of rainbow-coloured flowers, earth and all.
Lumps of earth fall from between her teeth as she chews with a crunching sound, then she spits out more bits of earth.

『These are delicious.』

She tells me, satisfied.
Thinking there’s no way that could be the case, I try tearing one up with my teeth.
I don’t expect to understand with just one, but a fluffy sweetness fills my mouth and a sweet smell floats from my mouth to my nose.
It’s such a pleasant sensation that I almost nod off.

They’re good.
Let’s see, what flowers are they?

【[Reigrua]: Value A-】
【A beautiful flower with rainbow petals.】
【Though it doesn’t wither at the end of a set life span, it is said to take a hundred years to bloom.】
【In addition, it is extremely delicate and difficult to raise.】
【When eaten it confers a pleasant sweetness and induces sleep, but there’s probably no one foolish enough to use the precious [Reigrua] in such a way.】

…A-a hundred years? I glance to the side and see my partner innocently tearing into them.
H-how could you…! For that matter, she’s not falling asleep.
I suppose our dragon body is huge, after all.

So many flowers of A- value are crammed together… If I was a human, I’d want to take some back and become rich.

But raising them is hard? Has someone been looking after these flowers for a hundred years? Or have they somehow survived a hundred years naturally? I wonder if there are some insects or monsters nearby that watch over them.

Suddenly, my partner drops the flower she’s tearing apart and looks up.
She glares at something with a grim expression.
Thinking there must be something to worry about, I follow her gaze to see someone running this way from the apple tree-like plant.

The reason I describe it as someone is because it has a human figure.
A muscular, naked man is running this way.
But what’s weird is that he has no presence at all.

It’s a mystery why he’s naked, and why he’s not afraid of me, but as he gets closer, I notice something terrifying.
He has no head.
Not only that, but an enlarged human face covers its upper body.
Alarm bells instantly ring in my head.
As the thing approaches, it raises its speed, and is soon barrelling towards us at an alarming rate.
Judging from its speed, it’s not a small fry monster.

Its face is that of a bearded dandy man.
But its expression remains fixed in place.