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Nearly half an hour had pa.s.sed since we noted the eeriness of the sky.

It was still dark…actually, it seemed like it could be darker now than before.

And then…through ‘Monster Mutual Understanding, the slimes began to start shouting all at once.

‘Yuji! Yuji!’

‘A strong monster is suddenly coming closer!’

‘But there was nothing there a moment ago!’

A monster had suddenly appeared out of nowhere?

Was such a thing even possible?

…Perhaps the monster had been hiding in the ground and suddenly burst out.

I considered such possibilities while using Shared Senses to search the area for any magical energy.

And then I detected something large. It was less than 1km away.

‘Do you think the monster will find you?’

‘It shouldn’t find us…but it might find you and the others, Yuji!’

I heard the slime say this and I quickly turned to Tina and Lisa.

“A huge monster just appeared about 1km away from here!”

When I said this…Tina thought for a second and then said without any hesitation,

“We will retreat! There is a safe route nearby!”

“Got it! Take us there!”

“Understood.”

And with that, we began to run.

A number of slimes were hiding in the forest as scouts, but I intended on bringing them back later.

“This monster you found. Is it an Earth Dragon?”

“We haven’t actually seen it…I’ll check.”

So saying, I put an extra layer of concealment magic on one of the slimes and had it poke out its head.

What I saw…was a monster that looked very different from the Earth Dragon I saw at the guild.

Though, it was in the shape of a dragon… But it was about twice as large. It was at least 10 meters tall.

According to what I heard when accepting the quest, Earth Dragons were only supposed to be about 5 meters tall.

“This…this isn’t an Earth Dragon! It’s much bigger and looks strong! …Should we keep searching for the Earth Dragon?”

“If we find a monster that is even more dangerous than an Earth Dragon, we can just deliver the location and features and the quest will be treated as complete! In fact, you will often get an extra reward for discovering a more dangerous monster.”

Apparently, it was fine even if it wasn’t the right monster.

The main objective of the investigation was to find the danger within the forest. And so that objective would be complete if you found a different dangerous monster.

As we talked, a deep valley appeared before us.

“We’re going in there!”

Tina said as she pointed at it.

It seemed easy enough to walk in, but there were steep cliffs on both sides.

“This valley is called the Delight Valley and is famous for being safe. The terrain makes it uncomfortable for large monsters. So strong monsters avoid it.”

“I am sure it will be fine. From what I remember, nothing above a C-Rank monster has entered it for one hundred years.”

So this valley in front of us was known for being very safe.

But I was worried about entering a place where we could be trapped in…but since these two veterans insisted that it would be safe, it must be true.

Still, I should ask the scouts.

‘Proud Wolf. Go 2 kilometers ahead and check the area.’

‘Understood!’

Perhaps the Proud Wolf wanted to leave the forest as soon as possible. He carried a few slimes on his back and rushed off towards the valley.

We followed after him.

Now, about ten minutes had pa.s.sed.

The slimes had detected the presence of the dragon once again.

Apparently, it was now near the entrance of the valley.

Now we could no longer turn back. If there just happened to be a strong monster inside the valley now, we would be forced to battle with one of the monsters.

“By the way, how long does this continue?”

“About 30 kilometers. It will take longer this way, but we will be able to escape the forest by just walking through this valley.”

That was far.

Well, as long as it was a safe route, it would be worth it.

We would just have to pray that today would not be the first day in one hundred years that a strong monster decided to enter the valley.