Chapter 506 — Rebecca's Hunt

Su Jilin stumbled mid-stride—he, a silver elf raised in the forest since childhood, had nearly pitched forward. "Why?"

Rebecca's face was one of perfect matter-of-factness. "Think about it—so many strange people and animals living in the forest, it must be so lively in there. And I love lively places."

This time Su Jilin kept his footing, but a Steel Ranger warrior walking beside him stumbled instead...

Su Jilin glanced at the soldier who had nearly tripped over a dry branch, then stared at Rebecca in astonishment—he found he simply could not find any flaw in the girl's logic. "That is... well, and after you went to play in the forest?"

"I had not gone far when I found a few wolves. I fought them and lost—then some knights from the castle found me and brought me back," Rebecca said, and could not help drawing a sharp breath. "I got beaten badly that time... It was only later I realized my aunt had told me those stories not to tell me the forest was lively, but to tell me it was dangerous."

Su Jilin: "..."

Whether the girl meant she had been beaten badly by the wolves or beaten badly by her elders after returning to the castle was unclear, but according to rumor... it was most likely the latter.

A short while later the company reached a deeper part of the forest, and the idle talk between Rebecca and Su Jilin gradually ceased.

A dampness pervaded the air, mingled with the faint rankness of soil. The Steel Ranger warrior scouting ahead made a cautious gesture, and the entire company halted in concealment beside a dead giant tree.

Rebecca and Su Jilin crept forward a short distance, then poked their heads out from behind the undergrowth to observe the situation opposite.

Deep in the dense forest, in a place of perpetual gloom beneath the canopy of enormous trees, vast expanses of muddy pools and ground strewn with dead branches and rotting leaves formed a hidden kingdom of monsters. Several massive black beasts, lion-and-tiger-like in form, were resting in the clearing; now and then they lifted their eyelids to glance about, and in those bell-sized eyes shone the radiance of arcane magic.

No ordinary beast dared approach this place held by monsters. In that broad forest clearing, apart from the dangerous magically corrupted beasts, the only living things were a few patches of grayish-brown slime—small, utterly inoffensive monsters slowly writhing amid the mud and rotting leaves, devouring muck and decay, so lowly as to be nearly natural phenomena, and clearly not worth the beasts' effort to drive away.

Su Jilin counted the number of those beasts and let out a slight breath of relief: this magical focus had formed only recently, and the monsters gathered here were not especially troublesome.

The Steel Rangers silently raised their weapons—high-output thermal ray guns, arcane missile launchers, and compact man-portable howitzers. These lethal arms were leveled at the monsters in the distance, and the beasts, which were not known for their perceptive abilities, remained utterly oblivious to it all.

"Careful—kill only the brutes, and whatever you do, don't hit anything nearby," Rebecca said in a low voice. "Leave the howitzers out of this."

The soldier manning the howitzer regretfully stowed his weapon and swapped it for a standard thermal ray gun, while Su Jilin understood Rebecca's reasoning well enough: avoiding overly powerful weapons was clearly meant to prevent damage to this natural nexus of magical power. Rebecca might only know how to hurl great fireballs, but she was still a mage of sorts, and mages had a need for such nexuses.

It seemed that the viscountess's objective today, besides those few brutes, likely included this magical nexus as well—just what had she been researching lately?

Su Jilin decided to ask her once the mission was over. For now... those brutes had to be dealt with first.

At a brief, hushed order to fire, the Steel Rangers launched their attack.

The sound of thermal rays and arcane missiles tearing through the air abruptly shattered the stillness of the dense forest, followed closely by the furious roars of the demonized brutes and, hard on their heels, their dying howls.

The battle lasted a mere minute—less than a minute, even.

The brutes were indeed dangerous monsters—but that held true only for ordinary old-style soldiers and ill-prepared low-ranking knights. Against Steel Rangers armed to the teeth, wielding magitech weapons and employing ambush tactics, these powerful yet slow-moving monsters required no more than a volley or two of concentrated fire.

The fierce yet largely safe battle came to an end, the crack of gunfire gradually subsiding. The last dying brute struggled and collapsed to the ground, and a swiftly flying enchanted arrow pierced its skull, putting an end to all the killing. Su Jilin, gripping his short bow—he still preferred the weapon that had accompanied him for years—led the soldiers out of their natural cover and toward the forest clearing, with Rebecca following close behind.

A rustling sound arose all around. Su Jilin looked toward the source—the startled slimes were doing their utmost to flee the area, though at the rate they were oozing along, it would likely be a long while before they left the soldiers' sight.

"Whoa—you lot are something else," Rebecca said, surveying the results of the battle with considerable satisfaction. "All of them taken down!"

"My soldiers are well trained," Su Jilin said with a reserved smile. "Time to collect samples?"

"Ah, right," Rebecca nodded. The soldiers around them immediately moved toward the brutes, ready to harvest samples as instructed—but then Rebecca waved her hand. "Go round up those slimes."

"Go round up..." Su Jilin repeated a single phrase before freezing. "Huh?"

"Round up the slimes!" Rebecca blinked. "What are you all standing around for?"

Su Jilin was utterly baffled, but he at least managed to order the equally baffled Steel Rangers to carry out the command posthaste—to go catch those slimes still slowly oozing their way into the distance—while he himself, the order given, stared at Rebecca in bewilderment. "You brought us here... just to catch those slimes?"

Rebecca nodded vigorously. "That's right."

For the first time, Su Jilin felt his mind was not quite up to the task. "What use could you possibly have for those things?"

"With proper use, even a single slime has its own value," Rebecca said mysteriously, her gaze falling on the Steel Rangers in the distance—they had effortlessly caught the low-tier monsters crawling through the mud, though they looked rather bedraggled, covered head to toe in muck. "In your eyes, a slime is just a puddle of moving muck, but in mine... they might just be industrial raw material."

"Industrial raw material..." Su Jilin simply could not connect the utterly useless slimes with the wondrous magitech industry, yet looking into Rebecca's gleaming eyes, he somehow felt the force of an unyielding conviction, so much so that he voiced no further doubts. "Very well, I look forward to your results. But the slimes are caught... what about these brutes?"

Rebecca looked around at the fearsome monsters lying dead on the ground—fearsome indeed, though they had died unjust deaths—and thought for a moment. "Can they be eaten?"

"...I have never eaten one myself, but I hear brute ribs are quite tasty, and the bones make a nourishing broth."

"Then cut off a portion and bring it back," Rebecca clapped her hands. "I'm going to make soup for Zu Yan!"