Published: September 4, 2025
This is Satou. They say overconfidence is the enemy, but I think if you’re aware when you’re being careless, you’re probably okay. What’s truly frightening these days, I believe, is complacency.
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There was a reason I went ahead alone the next morning.
Partly, I wanted to observe the air currents and the reactions of the wyverns. Also, from partway through this mountain range, the territory changes, so I wanted to confirm that first. I suspect it’s the territory of the Forest of Boruenan, but for the safety of my companions, I thought it best to verify that properly.
Actually, I went out once last night, but the air currents differ at night and the monsters don’t move, so it was pointless, and I turned back. To avoid looking like I just went straight home, I thinned out some strong monsters around the campsite before returning. Among the monsters I dealt with were two horned serpents, so next time I’ll make kabayaki (grilled eel-style) of them.
Now then, the highest peak of this mountain range reaches an altitude comparable to Mount Everest in the original world. There are linked mountains around 8,000 meters high. Even in the valley I’m planning to go through, the altitude won’t drop below 4,000 meters, making it a natural stronghold.
The largest concentration of wyverns is on the southwestern peaks at around 6,000 meters. Several dozen gather there.
There are no wyverns where I chose the mountain crossing route, but it’s curious that they seem to be scattered in a fan shape around the mountain summit near the crossing point. That wyvern that attacked me yesterday — perhaps there’s something at the summit they fear. The explored range on my map cuts off mid-mountain, so if anything’s there, it would be beyond that point.
Well, that’s fine for the wyvern situation, but there are hidden villages scattered even in these mountains. Each is a small settlement of about 10 to 20 people. The races vary—human tribe, fairy tribe, bear tribe—but since they’re geographically quite distant from each other, it seems they neither interact nor fight.
Since they’re all like hidden villages, I had no intention of making contact. But during my travel, I saw a girl being chased by a pack of wolves, so I couldn’t just abandon her. I scattered the wolves with a “remote stun bullet (remote stun).” Although my form was seen, I was in silver mask—hero mode—so it should be fine.
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I chose a flight path that avoids near misses with the hidden villages and flew about 100 meters above the ground along the mountains. Perhaps because of this, wyverns and flying insect-type monsters occasionally attacked. Since I was also clearing the way for tomorrow’s airship, I cut them down with the Logic Power Sword (magic sword) whenever I found them.
Only one monster, a red-black spherical creature called a land-sea chestnut (rikuni), which shoots spear-like needles from a distance, was dealt with by “guided arrow (remote arrow).” Approaching that hedgehog-like monster for close combat would probably cause trypanophobia.
But wow, there are a lot of monsters.
There seem to be fewer around the hidden villages, but with this many monsters, they could be wiped out just by a whim. I’ll try to restrain from using noisy or flashy powerful magic.
I was getting somewhat tired of wyverns suddenly flying out from the mountain shadows, so I readied the Logic Power Sword, but it seemed it didn’t even notice me.
Thinking maybe, I checked the map and found out what it was chasing.
I see — no wonder it’s running.
The wyvern broke past the mountain summit, and that thing appeared.
A dragon.
A black grown dragon (black dragon).
The pitch-black dragon leisurely flew, looked down at me floating in the sky with disdain, then continued flying and swallowed the wyvern in one bite with its jaws.
From the horn on its head to the tip of its tail, it was about 100 meters long. However, it was more slender than the “solid Western dragon” image I had imagined.