The Death Mage that doesn't want a fourth time

26 Overcoming the difficulties, standing before a new land

This mountain range... Apparently, its official name was the Boundary Mountain Range. It wasn't the boundary between the Amid Empire and Orbaume Kingdom, but supposedly the boundary between the world of humans and the world of monsters. For this reason, the mountain range was mostly unexplored land and there were Devil's Nests all over it. Passing through it with these numbers would cause monsters to assume they were prey and attack.

However, since Vandalieu and the Ghouls were avoiding the Devil's Nests and building their own road through, the monsters that attacked them were the weakest ones living on the edges of the Devil's Nests.

「I defeated a wolf that looked like a hedgehog!」(Vigaro)

「I have never seen that monster before, have I? I wonder if it is tasty?」(Tarea)

「Looks delicious, looks delicious!」(Basdia)

In addition to that, they were monsters so unintelligent that they didn't understand how dangerous it was to attack a pack of hundreds of Ghouls, so they were killed immediately and offered their meat to use as food and fur to use to make more cold-weather clothing.

Their stores of Orc meat had decreased considerably recently, so this was very welcome.

However, there were still times when large monsters attacked.

「It's a flock of Wyverns!」

Today, a flock of Wyverns was attacking them from the sky. These creatures whose front limbs were also their wings were the lowest form of Dragon-type monsters and were less intelligent than other Dragons. Scholars in this world were disputing over whether they should be classified as demi-Dragons.

They didn't breathe fire or use magic, but they were Rank 5 monsters that were exceptionally adept at maneuvering through the air with sharp fangs and claws that were just as dangerous as they looked.

If their flight could be prevented, they would be about as strong as a Rank 4 monster, but this was a mountain range at an (estimated) altitude of over two thousand meters. No matter how one looked at it, the Wyverns had the terrain advantage.

Despite them being unintelligent compared to other Dragons, they were plenty intelligent compared to animals. They gathered together and attacked in large numbers and aimed for the back of the line of carriages and other places where the defense seemed thinnest, so they were quite problematic.

There were five Wyverns in the flock today. It was quite a troublesome number to deal with.

「GAAAH!」

As a command came out in the Ghouls' battle language, the warriors simultaneously fired their arrows while the women released various spells.

But since the Ghouls had been living in a forest and their prey had been creatures that would approach to try and eat them, their proficiency with long-ranged attacks was relatively low.

There were quite a number of Ghouls with the【Archery】skill, including Basdia, but their levels with this skill wasn't very high.

「GUEEEEEEH!」

「GYAOOOOOHN!」

The one they could rely on at times like this was Bone Bird, who had become a Rank 4 Specter Bird.

Since Bone Bird had reached Rank 4 and was strengthened by the【Strengthen Followers】skill, even the Wyverns couldn't let their guard down against it. As if instinctively sensing this, two of the five Wyverns flew towards Bone Bird. They had decided to commit two Wyverns of the flock to quickly take it down, rather than simply keep it busy with one Wyvern.