Published: July 4, 2025
The two of them took a wide detour eastward from the battlefield of the behemoth versus the wyvern, aiming north.
After walking for a while, Abel spoke to Ryo.
"Hey, Ryo, if I'm not mistaken, I see an incredibly high range of mountains up ahead."
"What a coincidence. I can also see an incredibly high range of mountains."
Although there was still quite a distance to cover, they could see a snow-capped mountain range towering above the clouds.
In terms of Earth measurements, it must be mountains around six thousand or seven thousand meters high.
"That must be the mountain range that caps it off... right?"
"That seems likely."
Ryo didn't expect it to be this high either.
"Before we cross the mountains... it would be better to prepare some dried meat while we're at the base. It might be okay for part of the way, but after halfway, hunting a living creature for that day's meal seems difficult."
"Ah... if they're snow-covered, that might happen."
"Seriously... if we had a wind attribute mage, we could easily fly over those mountains with magic!"
Abel imagined Lin, the party's wind attribute mage, trying to fly over that mountain range but failing completely.
"No, that's impossible."
Abel denied Ryo's delusion.
They continued north, moving deeper into the forest.
"By the way, Abel. Have you ever defeated a wyvern?"
"Hm? I've participated in subjugations a few times. Why do you ask?"
"Well, the wyverns that showed up at the behemoth's place came from the Northern Mountain Range, right?"
Upon hearing that, Abel slowly turned his head towards Ryo, making a creaking sound as he did.
"No way, you mean there are wyverns ahead...?"
"Yes, there's almost certainly some."
In contrast to Abel's shocked expression, Ryo's face could even be described as bright.
In reality, Ryo had a desire to see a wyvern up closer.
He had watched the battle with the behemoth from quite a distance.
"Were wyverns something we could handle with just the two of us? In fact, during wyvern subjugation, at least twenty c-rank adventurers are deployed. Even then, there are casualties on the adventurer's side."
Having seen adventurers get injured and sometimes die during wyvern subjugations, Abel wanted to avoid such encounters if possible.
"How do you subjugate them? Since they're in the air, your combat techniques probably can't reach them, right?"
"When dealing with a creature like a wyvern, we swordsmen act as bait and finish them off once they come down. But at the wyvern level, arrows don't work either, so the main attackers become the mages."
"Oh, long live mages!"
Ryo exclaimed, raising his hands in celebration.
"Still, it's not like one or two mages can handle it, right? While they're alive, wyverns seem to guard themselves with wind magic, so even fire attribute attack spells barely deal damage."
Abel explained to Ryo while recalling his memories and quick points of the subjugation.
"Fire attribute mages aren't that impressive, huh?"
As a water attribute mage, Ryo openly displayed his rivalry, surprisingly criticizing fire attribute mages.
He had never met a fire attribute mage since coming to Fai.
Of course, he had never met any other mage in his life.
"Even so, in terms of attack power, fire attribute magic is the strongest. After all, wyverns use wind attribute magic, so wind attribute magic doesn't deal damage."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. Even when casting air slash and the like, they seem to miss."
Ryo's mind conjured images of the bait ball and kraken he had encountered underwater.
(Magical control was lost; perhaps it's something like that. It seems that for magic of the same type, control is taken away...)
"So, fire attribute mages continuously bombard the wyvern with fireballs and fire lances. That way, they will drain the wyvern's endurance."
"Somehow, that leaves a really unrefined impression..."
"Well, it can't be helped. There isn't a guaranteed method to take down a wyvern. You hit it with fire magic to lower its endurance, and when the wind defense weakens, if you're lucky with the right magic, you can bring it down. However, it's very common for casualties to occur due to an enraged wyvern's charge after being attacked by that fire magic."