A Greater Threat

“… Huh?”

Eric looked at Kanie’s health bar. Though he was bathing in superheated fire, Kanie was hardly taking any damage!

“N-no way…”

When he looked closer, he could see Kanie smiling from within the flames; his arms were crossed in a defensive position, and his fists were clenched.

The flames died down.

Kanie’s smile disappeared when he realized he was half-naked. Taking the salamander’s flame breath head-on had caused most of his hero’s outfit to melt away, leaving only his nether regions concealed.

He screamed like a girl and covered himself.

“D-don’t look at me!!!” he said. “—Not that you’d want to, anyway!”

“Way to ruin your epic moment,” Eric said, facepalming. “And dude, how many times do I have to tell you? You’re hot now. With a body like that, you could walk around in a skimpy pair of mini trunks and people would thank you for it.”

Kanie looked down and ran a hand over his chiseled abs.

“… Oh, hahaha, right!” he laughed. “I keep forgetting I look like this now!”

A jet of blood rocketed from Aurora’s nose. She fell backwards.

“H-hey! Aurora!” Kale shouted, looking over at her. “You alright!?”

She drooled.

“K-Kanie’s abs,” she muttered, half-conscious.

Kanie regained composure, redirecting his attention back toward the monsters surrounding him.

“… Alright, let’s kick some more salamander ass!” he said, still half-naked. “Come!!!”

He called his sword with a hand gesture. The sword responded, yanking itself out of the ground and returning to him. He snatched it out of the air in a clean motion.

The salamander that had tried to roast him alive lunged at him, baring its teeth.

A fierce battle cry came out of Kanie as he met it halfway. He swung his sword diagonally, splitting the creature’s skull. Ashes spilled from the inside of its head. Its yellow eyes lost their sheen, becoming dull and lifeless.

“That’s three down,” Kanie said.

He continued to dance about the battlefield, slicing and dicing salamanders as he went. The efficiency of his movements suggested that he had far more battle experience than he actually did.

Before long, he had succeeded in cleaning up all twelve salamanders. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Whew,” he said. “That’s the last of them.”

“Boy, are we sure glad the two of you were here with us today,” Aurora said to him and Eric. “If we had taken this quest alone, there’s no way we would’ve ever survived that.”

“Come to think of it,” said Kanie. “You said that Fire Salamanders are only waist-high! Why the hell were these ones so large?”

“Who can say?” she replied with a shrug. “In all my time adventuring, I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“… So, what happens now?” Eric cut in.

“Now, we harvest the monsters’ cores,” Skye said. She pointed toward the corpses littering the burning forest. “Once we have them, we can bring them back to the guild and collect the quest reward.”

Eric dropped the shields he had summoned earlier, allowing Aurora and her party members to start searching for the cores within the salamanders’ bodies. When they were busy digging around, Kanie looked at Eric.

“… Um, am I missing something here?” he asked. “Nyle told us to take on this quest, but so far, it’s felt like nothing but a huge waste of time.”

“If I remember correctly, he said something about how we’d meet someone here,” Eric said. “—What was their name, again?”

Right then, a sharp, bloodcurdling howl sounded the premise. It was so loud that everyone present was forced to cover their ears.

The howl had a primal, destructive quality to it—the kind that would prompt someone to freeze or hide away in fear.

Aurora and her party stopped what they were doing and looked in the direction that the noise had come from.

“… What the hell was that?” Enzo asked. There was an obvious nervousness present in his voice.

“I don’t know, but if it comes to find us, I volunteer them to fight it,” Kale said, pointing to the heroes.

“Very funny,” Kanie said. “But I’m nearly out of stamina after that whole salamander fiasco. I’m not sure how long I’m going to last against another wave of enemies.”

He was still almost stark naked. The light from the burning trees reflected off of his body, outlining his defined pectoral muscles and washboard abs.

The ground started to shake as thumping sounds became audible.

Thud, thud.

“Something’s coming!” Aurora shouted. “Guys, we need to pick up the pace and get those cores out so we can leave here immediately!”

“Already done,” Skye said. She was holding a large, crystalline jewel that looked like an oversized ruby.

“This makes core number twelve.”

“Good,” Aurora said. “Then let’s get out of here—now!”

“A little late for that,” Eric said. He gestured toward a grove of trees located deeper into the forest.

A towering, doglike animal of about thirty feet tall emerged from within the grove. It had a powerful, muscular build and thick, charcoal-colored fur with molten highlights painted here and there. On its forehead was an orange-red, diamond-shaped marking.

Its eyes burned like embers, and around its girthy neck rested some sort of collar.

Kanie gulped.

“That thing could eat one of those jumbo Fire Salamanders for breakfast!” he said.

“You got that right, and I don’t just mean its size,” Eric added. “According to my scout magic, it’s got a strength rating of S. … Kanie, that thing’s stronger than you are.”

“S-stronger than one of Jandariu’s legendary heroes!?” Aurora remarked. “How is that even possible?”

The animal howled toward the heavens. From its shoulders sprouted two fiery ribbons that waved about. Cracks formed beneath its feet, pooling with lava.

It was about to attack the adventurers when an unknown voice called out to it.

“Ah~, Mylo~. I finally found you!!!”