"Captain Gauss, do you really not need our help?"
"It's just a wandering vine-beast. No need to make a big production out of it. Your squad should focus on your own contracts."
Gauss waved off Squad Leader Torga's question like it was nothing.
According to the contract intel, the vine-beast had a challenge rating around Level 6–7. He'd deliberately picked it as a target—something he hadn't killed before.
Vine-beasts commonly roamed wetlands and rainforests, resembling a huge mass of towering, animated vegetation.
But despite being "plants," their diet included every kind of organic matter.
They would tirelessly consume any plants or animals they encountered. Their movement was slower than most monsters, so they weren't considered a major threat to humans.
They usually lived out in the wild and didn't intentionally attack human villages.
And while they weren't fast, their plant-like form let them blend perfectly into forests and swamps, so even in human territory, they could survive just fine.
This one had been exposed only because it wandered near a village and was spotted by a sharp-eyed hunter.
Since no one could be sure it wouldn't drift closer, the village reported it.
"'Just'…?" Torga muttered, wiping sweat from a forehead that wasn't even sweating.
The monster Gauss dismissed so casually was the kind of enemy her dwarf squad could probably never defeat, even at full strength.
The way he talked about hunting it was like saying he'd gone for a stroll, got hungry, and decided to eat lunch at a tavern he didn't usually visit.
If she hadn't gotten used to Gauss's personality over the past few days, she might've thought he was quietly showing off.
"Let's go."
Gauss waved, and Alia and the others climbed onto the dragon's back.
With a beat of its wings, the red dragon rose, and the clearing was empty again.
"Doesn't Hephaestus look… bigger?"
Alia looked down at the red drake beneath them and murmured.
"Probably just your imagination," Serandur said. "Dragons don't really show visible growth outside the rapid phase right after hatching. After that, you're talking years—sometimes a decade—before you can tell."
In other words: Hephaestus had been with them less than a year. Long for a human, nothing for a long-lived species.
"Maybe…" Alia shook her head. "I'm not sure. We see him every day—small changes would be hard to notice."
Gauss listened and took a closer look as well.
After careful observation, he felt it too: Hephaestus really had grown.
For one thing, his torso was thicker—one or two "rings" more robust than when they first met.
His load-bearing strength had improved; carrying riders looked easier now.
His wingspan seemed to have gone from about 17 meters to a little over 18.
If Gauss's sense was right, that was extremely fast growth for a red drake.
On his oversized head, the little bumps had become a pair of rounded horns.
The scales weren't as bright as before either—shifting toward a deeper, red-brown hue.
No wonder his appetite had spiked lately.
Gauss hadn't noticed before, but once he truly looked, the change was obvious.
The team wasn't the only thing growing fast—his mounts were, too.
…
The Rider talent greatly increased Hephaestus's flight endurance.
By that afternoon, Gauss had already reached the contract area.
He glanced at the village below.
The village was bordered by forest and desert on all sides.
Unfortunately, he'd never encountered a vine-beast before.
So using Locate Creature to lock onto it naturally failed.
But when he switched the spell's target to goblins or slimes, he immediately found a few.
He ignored those little dots—he wasn't here for goblins.
He was here for warlord points.
"Land first."
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Hephaestus seemed to understand, lowering smoothly onto an open patch of ground.
Then the team spread out their reconnaissance tools.
Raven Echo's underlings flew in all directions. Shadow's two shadow-clones sank into the ground. Gauss released his clay spiders.
It was spring—life was bursting everywhere.
And it looked like the area had seen days of heavy rain recently, washing away tracks that might've remained.
While their scouts searched, Gauss's team set up a small camp and rested.
"Captain," Serandur asked, watching Gauss, "how does it taste?"
In Gauss's hand was a plain bowl of oatmeal porridge.
But they hadn't cooked it.
He'd produced it using the Create Food and Water spell.
That spell consumed mana to generate clean food and water.
"It's fine. Not much flavor, but it fills you up."
Gauss set the bowl down.
Compared to normal oatmeal, the spell-made version was blander—but the nutrition was better.
The water was just clean drinking water, nothing special.
Of course, the spell wasn't meant to be delicious. Its value was that it could provide a traveling party with large quantities of basic survival supplies.
Some magic falls into the category of: you don't always need it—but a team should have it, because when you do need it and don't have it, fate punishes you.
"Good," Serandur said with relief.
Time passed.
Night fell.
Gauss and the others slept in a folding house.
Meanwhile, the scouts—shadows, crows, and clay creatures—kept working in the dark, returning to recharge from time to time.
At dawn the next day, Gauss cooked breakfast for everyone.
After they ate, there was movement in the distance.
Several crows beat their wings and flew back fast.
A lead?
Raven Echo chattered with the smaller crows. After a moment, he lifted his head with a smug, humanlike pride.
"Enemy found! Enemy found!"
"Pack up. We're moving."
With a trail at last, Gauss didn't waste time. The camp was stripped down in minutes.
Following the crows' guidance, they hurried toward the anomaly.
As they moved through the gloomy forest, Gauss noticed Alia looked unusually eager, so he asked.
"Vine-beasts are nasty. They look like plants, but they damage nature worse than most monsters—at least, that's what the books say."
Alia blinked.
"And I've been researching new guard-plant strains lately. Maybe this vine-beast will give me ideas."
The deeper they went, the more humid the air became.
Miasma hung in the forest. Visibility dropped under ten meters.
That was part of why monsters still thrived in human territory: harsh, wild environments kept many adventurers out, and over time, monsters bred freely.
Gauss casually shot down a bat the size of a washbasin.
They went farther.
And suddenly, the atmosphere changed.
The forest—normally full of cold, restless noises—fell into dead silence.
No birds. No insects. No animals moving.
Only thick, frozen quiet.
Gauss signaled the others.
They understood instantly.
Something this unnatural almost certainly meant their target was close.
Even confident in his strength, Gauss let the clay spiders advance first.
Other than their soft footfalls, there was no sound.
Gauss scanned the area.
It looked like normal forest—dense ancient trees, thick leaf litter underfoot.
He searched for something that didn't belong.
But after several hundred meters, nothing appeared.
Vine-beasts really were excellent at hiding. Not many monsters could vanish from Gauss's eyes anymore.
But vine-beasts were different: they could merge into nature so seamlessly you'd swear they were part of it.
That was why their hunting success was terrifyingly high.
Prey walked right up to them.
"Is it watching us?" Gauss raised an eyebrow.
If it refused to reveal itself, he'd have to start checking trees one by one.
Then—sound.
The soil split open.
A clay spider didn't have time to flee before a thick vine wrapped it tight.
With a loud pop, it burst under crushing pressure.
"There! Vine-beast!"
Gauss's team scattered.
A four-legged beast of vines peeled itself away from the area around an ancient tree.
It tried to devour the clay spider—then spat it out.
The clay spider looked and behaved like a real spider, but it was just magically driven clay.
Not edible.
Realizing it had been tricked, the creature slammed the ground, gathering information.
Then it locked onto Gauss's group.
Gauss's mind raced.
No fireball.
Vine-beasts might be "plants," but they had absurd resistances—frost, flame, and more.
Yes: as plants, they didn't fear fire. Their fire resistance was extremely high.
They were also completely immune to lightning.
Worse: lightning magic could actually restore some of their vitality.
Boom!
It slammed the ground.
The soil shattered. A whole area seemed to sink.
Nearby vegetation visibly withered as it siphoned life force, dying in seconds.
What brute strength.
A blue glow flashed beneath Gauss.
He vanished.
Then reappeared behind the vine-beast—though "behind" was only a temporary idea, since it didn't have a true front or back like an animal.
The instant he appeared, the vine-beast seemed to sense him.
But a blink-step was too fast.
It couldn't react.
Gauss summoned Moterra's Sword and cut through what looked like its head—though it had no face.
Dark green sap sprayed like a severed artery.
"Doesn't look dead."
No kill notice popped up.
Gauss slashed again—several quick strikes.
He wasn't trying to finish it instantly.
Alia seemed to want to study it.
Her life force flowed into the soil, pushing back against the vine-beast's draining influence.
"Moonlight Glow!"
Silver moonlight streamed from her staff, burning into the vine-beast's surface. Pale green smoke curled up from it.
Shadow and Albena charged in.
Vines were hacked away.
The creature grew more violent. Severed vines regenerated rapidly.
Each whip-strike could rip open soil.
Trees far bigger than it were fragile—snapping and splintering under its furious lashes.
That was the terror of warlord-class monsters.
At this tier, any monster—no matter its type—was catastrophically destructive.
In seconds, it could erase a village. Without a master-rank defender, even a town could be flattened in minutes.
Gauss studied its aura. Cutting its "body" wasn't going to kill it.
It wasn't an animal.
He remembered a Level 4 spell—Blight—that would probably one-shot it.
But he didn't have it.
So they'd have to do this the hard way.
"Slash!"
Albena caught an opening and swung her giant axe, cleaving the vine-beast cleanly in half.
A soundless screech shivered through the air.
The monster collapsed, blackening and withering rapidly—motionless within seconds.
"Did it die?" Albena frowned, unconvinced.
"No," Gauss and Alia said at the same time.
"Back up."
Once everyone withdrew a safe distance, Gauss raised his hand.
"Control Water."
Blue-gold water formed into a spear in his grip.
He activated Second-Stage Ghoul Form—ghostly energy wrapping the weapon.
Blue light flashed, and he teleported to dozens of meters above.
"Brute Force!"
"Wardrobe Spell."
His clothes vanished as the swap triggered—and at the same instant he activated Body Enlargement.
His size surged, swelling from under two meters to roughly three.
Ghost-armor covered him head to toe.
From below, Albena blinked—surprised and delighted.
He was even bigger than she was now.
That huge, sculpted musculature inside black armor looked like pure strength turned into art.
In midair, Gauss gripped the spear—now small in proportion to his enlarged frame—and detonated all his gathered power.
BOOM!
Like thunder falling from the sky.
The spear tore through the air fast enough to create violent shock cracks.
CRASH!
It buried itself deep into the ground, the force punching down dozens of meters before erupting.
The earth trembled twice, like a miniature quake.
"—!"
A wail of pure spirit rippled through the air.
The vine-beast had been "playing dead," hiding deep underground to relocate later.
It never had the chance.
It was skewered and destroyed in the earth.
"Vine-Beast Slain ×1."
"Warlord Points Gained: 20."
Only then did Gauss smile.
The vine-beast thought its fake death fooled them.
But Gauss had been using the team's attacks to lull it into complacency.
He dismissed the enlarged form, the ghoul state, and with a quick wardrobe swap returned to his normal attire—smooth, practiced, seamless.
He used Any Door to rejoin his companions and shared the result.
"Target's dead."
He noticed Albena staring, unblinking.
"What?" he asked, glancing down to confirm he wasn't naked.
"Captain Gauss," Albena said, eyes shining, "can you do that again?"
"…Do what again?"
"That giant form—your enlargement! Captain, do you have giant blood too?"
Gauss scratched his head.
She'd definitely misunderstood something.