As Cyril and the hunters conferred, faces serious, Ashcroft asked, “What do you mean, ‘warning’?”
“That’s the first sound it makes when you enter its turf. That reedy whistle. Where could it be? Where is it?”
“What are you talking about...?” Ashcroft was scratching his beard in frustration when he saw it: an adventurer carrying one of the wounded on his back screamed and suddenly went flying.
“Wh-What was that?!”
“A magical beeeast!”
From the bushes emerged an enormous reptile, its torso alone easily twelve feet in length.
The hunters who saw it screamed. “It’s a lizard! A tree-eating lizaaard!”
Its huge mass barreled toward them at an incredible speed, closing the distance in an instant.
“I’ve got it!” A mace-wielding warrior in full armor yelled bravely, standing in front of the beast. He raised his shield and took the full force of the lizard’s rush head-on. The impact sent the man flying into a tree, where he crumpled into a heap at its base. He didn’t get up. His heavy armor may have saved his life, but no one dared check.
The tree-eating lizard charged into the area where the adventurers were reorganizing and bit down on the arm of the man closest to it with a sickening crunch of bone. It swung its tail, injuring yet more men.
The group once again fell into chaos.
“Surround it! Surround it and kill it! There’s more than enough of us to deal with a magical beast! Stay calm!” Wyatt drew his sword and berated the scattering adventurers. At that moment, another tree-eating lizard leapt out from the trees and knocked over a chanting sorcerer, trampling over the man’s face.
That’s when Wyatt saw the black ropes around the lizard’s neck and legs.
“Those are...” Their sudden encounter with these monsters was no coincidence. The kobolds had captured the lizards beforehand and then released them at the humans after luring them here. The lizards, which were instinctively territorial, headed straight for the adventurers when released, throwing them right back into the chaos they had just been fighting to escape.
...Capturing such huge beasts and keeping them here wasn’t something that could have been done on short notice. Wyatt realized that even his own attack on the kobolds had been part of the kobolds’ plans.
“That can’t be! How could they be so clever, so precise?!” Now that he truly understood the Kobold Army’s ruse, Wyatt clenched his fist and shouted. His pulse raced, blood hot from the shame of playing right into their hands.
“S-Sir Wyatt! What do we do?!” The panic in his subordinate’s voice irritated the commander, but they had to deal with the magical beasts before them, and couldn’t let the soldiers they’d finally gathered together scatter once again.
“Ashcroft! I’ll take them down one at a time! You just make sure those adventurers stay here!”
It’s all right. It’s all right. I can cut down two lizards easily, as long as I have this armor. It’s going to take a lot out of me, but I’m ready for that. This is fine. It’s within expectations. Telling himself this, Wyatt took up his weapon, Sword Eater.
Right as he was about to step forward, a scream reached his ears.
“Waaaaah!” It was a kobold’s voice.
“They’re going to attack now?!” Wyatt turned around, activating his Red Plate. He saw one of the little monsters running around out of the corner of his eye.
“Eeeeee!” The dark-brown-furred beastman ran straight toward Wyatt, crying out in what seemed like terror.
“...Just one of them?”
The frenzied beast wasn’t even holding a weapon. Something was clearly off about this. That much was obvious, but Wyatt had no idea what it might mean.
“Eeeyaaaaah!” The kobold Wyatt had thought was charging him instead clung to a nearby tree and scooted up it, moving like an insect.
“What is it...?” The guildmaster stared blankly up at the kobold, detached from the tumult and chaos around him for a moment, until bringing his gaze back down to find out what the kobold had been fleeing from.
Gwooooooun. Something was howling, crashing through the trees, causing branches and leaves to shake.
“That’s...” Wyatt had been on several missions to put down these creatures when they wandered out of the forest, so he instantly recognized it. A magical beast that anyone with a passing familiarity with the Greatwood would know for its physical characteristics and its infamous ferocity.
It was a huge beast with thick brown fur and six legs as thick as logs. It had sharp fangs and claws like blades. It was a bugbear, in a mad rage due to the spear sticking out of its back.
＊
[Attack Team to Command Center: Magical beast release successful.]
[Command Center to Attack Team, Kobold Squads 3, 4, 5: Understood. Begin attack.]
Watching the sublime confusion of the adventurers from the cover of the trees, Darke had her spirit messenger report back to base.
“...It’s finally time!” Rain Grass said with a grin.
“Yep, everybody’s rarin’ to go, aren’t they?” Darke responded, a smirk of her own on her face. “Blue Gale! As a reward for taking one of them down, I’m giving you an important task now!”
“Thank youuu very much, ma’am!” The blue kobold accepted his role proudly, blood from his kill still on his fur. He gave the item in his hand a vigorous wave and then plunged it into the ground.
It was a simple banner; an emblem drawn in charcoal on an animal hide. The charming image of a kobold’s hind paw. A kobold’s front paws grew into fingers as they aged, but their rear paws remained the same and kept their distinctive shape. Similar flags went up in the locations where the other squads were hiding.
They’d all butted heads debating this symbol. “I don’t think we need to spend time or effort on this,” Sashalia had commented, but Gaius had laughed and told her, “No, it’s very important.”
It was just as Gaius had said. Everyone had been waiting impatiently for the moment to raise these flags, and for what came next, too.
“Well, everyone, it’s time for our counterattack.” Darke unsheathed her sword swiftly. She pointed it at their enemy and took a short breath, shouting out what the kobolds had been waiting for: “By our fangs!”
“By our fangs!” came the response from the valiant warriors.