"We are here." Goliath said as she and her companions appeared inside the clearing where Leo was a few moments ago.

"Yes, but we are late, the beast is already gone." Leila said as she looked at the clearing who was now empty of any living presence.

"Bel wasn’t lying, though." The beast seems to be a tough one. Ali said as he scanned the devastated clearing and the various corpses around, his gaze lingering on the humongous corpse of the wolf king, the bare skeleton of the snake king, and the gigantic crater where the ashes of the umbra panther were scattered. 

From the size of those corpses and the remnants of aura around them, Ali could understand how powerful those beasts were. For a beast to come on top in a fight against them, its power would in no way be inferior to theirs.

Along with the marks left on the clearing during the fight, it was clear how powerful the beast was. Just a look at the gigantic crater on the ground. It was clearly not created by a simple skill. Just imagining the power contained in the attack that created it could make Ali shudder. 

Still, he had to fight the beast, for the gol…no it is for the people. 

" It was predictable. Can you track it down?" Blake asked as he looked toward Bel. Of all of them, Bel was the one with the most chance to track it down as he was the scout of their team and was the only one to directly come in contact with it.

"Blake, you know how I feel about this whole thing, we should go back and come back once we put a stronger team together." Bel said as he was still unwilling to face Leo with their current strength. Thus, the moment they reached the clearing and found that Leo had already left he was extremely relieved. 

'Do you think I will willingly track the beast now that things are going my way?' Bel thought as he looked at Blake.

"Bel, you shouldn’t underestimate our strength that much. Also, I already told you that we can’t let such a threat have more time to develop. The situation could get really bad if we give it the time to claim the forest." Blake said, trying to convince Bel.

"Yes, also no matter how strong it is, I believe it can recover from all those fights so quickly. We can’t let go of an opportunity to fight him while it is still weakened. Think about the risks the towns close to the forest would be in if we let it be." Even Rin tried to convince Bel as she knew he was the one with the most chance to find the beast.

'As if I would believe greedy bastards like you care about others. You are just unwilling to share the loot with more people.' Bel scoffed.

Still, as he wasn’t ready to turn his back to them yet he tried to somehow justify himself. "It isn’t that I am unwilling to help but it will be very difficult to track it. The beast can fly after all." Bel said, a helpless expression on his face.

As they heard Bel’s words, the five adventurers looked at the sky but they couldn’t see anything.

'What can you do now?' He muttered as he saw the frustrated expression on his companion's face.

However, Leila’s words made it so that he was unable to rejoice. "I recently learned a life-detection spell. The spell will allow me to find the life signal of the beast and track it down. I just need Bel’s help to be sure it is the correct one." She said as she looked at Bel’s crumbling face with a smirk.

It was clear that she knew what Bel was trying to do and was taking pleasure in foiling his plan.

"Good, what are you waiting to start then?" Blake said as he happily looked between Bel and Leila.

'Bitch.' Bel cursed his fist tightening as he glared at Leila who already started casting her spell.

**

A few moments ago, before Bel and his team reached the clearing.

"Girls, calm down and put your grudge aside for a minute. We are going to have some company." Leo said as he felt a group with a relatively strong aura heading their way.

"Not again? Don’t they ever have enough of this?" Celia complained.

"Apparently, they do not." Leo sighed.

"How many?" Celia asked.

"I picked five auras that seemed to be coming toward us. From the intensity, each of them seems to be rank C." Leo said.

With his recent power-up, his senses too were greatly strengthened, along with a passive effect from elemental perception skill made it so that Leo could detect anything that entered a 50 meters range around him even when the skill was not active.

However, he still needed to activate the skill if he wanted to have clearer information. Without that, all he could feel was the aura of those inside his perception range.

"That is quite a strong lineup uh. So are we fighting?" Celia said with a frown, she wondered what such a strong team was doing in a low-level area like this. 

"Yes, but we don’t need to fight them head-on from the start, right?" Leo said. Now that he has become stronger there was no reason for him to stay in a passive position like before. It was his turn to lead the dance. 

"Oh, what are you thinking about?" Celia asked curiously.

"What would you say about a little trip in the sky?" Leo proposed.

As Celia heard Leo’s proposal, her eyes shined brightly and her lips stretched in a beautiful smile as she gleefully said "Obviously I am in. Hehe."

"Come on then. They are almost here." Leo, who was satisfied by Celia’s reaction, said. Without another word, Celia climbed on him and sat on his back.

"Your back is quite comfy." She said as she sat down.

'The feeling of your butt is nice too.' Leo thought as he enjoyed the feeling of Celia’s perky butt. 

Cough, cough……. A small cough interrupted Leo’s silly train of thought. "What about me?" Sheila asked shyly.

"Well, you can stay here if you want?"  Celia said with a smirk.

"Come here already. We don’t have all the time in the world." Leo said as he looked at Sheila. 

As she heard him, Sheila quickly rushed toward him, and with the help of a grumbling Celia she was able to climb on Leo’s back.

As soon as he confirmed that his passengers were well sat, Leo cast ethereal presence and shadow cloak and immediately took off.

***

Present time.

With two beauties on his back, Leo flew above the clearing, silently observing the adventurers who were still unaware of his presence above them.

It was his third time meeting humans in this world. The first time it was within the orc’s settlement where he was too focused on his survival to care about anything else, though he remembers a girl who noticed his actions back then. 

The second time he saved the life of two siblings, Levina and Trent if he remembers right. 

This time the group in front of him wasn’t hapless like during his other two encounters with humans. Instead, they looked very strong and capable.

It was a team made of six adventurers, two women, and four men. From the weapons they held, three seem to be close combat fighters, they were a brawny and ferocious guy with a shield, a beautiful and serious-looking purple-haired swordswoman, and a dagger-wielding midget. The other three were ranged fighters, a cold masked archer, a beautiful mage with a weird aura around her, and another mage who seemed to be the leader. 

He wasn’t sure how things worked in this world but from his point of view, this team was well built and very balanced. If it was the Leo of before he would have found such a team more troublesome to deal with than the beast kings. However, Leo couldn’t care less about this. He was just curious about how humans of this world battled.

-Look like a confrontation is unavoidable. He thought as he heard the talk between the adventurers. Even though he already ‘left’ they were still bent on tracking him down and killing him. Their intentions toward him were clearly not nice.

Anyway, he wasn’t planning to let them go either. He was sure that he could get enough experience to reach the top of rank D if he killed them.

"Well, I guess I would have to do it one day or another. So it won’t change anything if I do it today." Leo thought as he still felt a little bad about having to kill humans. However, he couldn’t afford to be sentimental about such things. Anyway, this is how things work in this world so there was no need to overthink. 

"Leo, are we going to act?" Celia, who was enjoying the ride on Leo’s back, asked as she felt the shift in his mood. 

"Yup, even if we tried to avoid them, those guys won’t give up. Also, they are weaker than us so there is no need to avoid them." Leo said.

"Good, let's drop the girl somewhere then."Celia proposed.

"Alright." Leo said and flew closer to a tree where he dropped a displeased Sheila.

"Stay here, it will be quick." 

"Time for the show." Leo said as he dived toward the clueless adventurers, ready to start a slaughter.