"What is all this noise?"

"Chief, it's a stampede!"

I was surprised to hear this since I didn't expect a monster stampede all of a sudden.

Even if this was a forest that was filled with monsters, it wasn't a common occurrence for them to swarm like this. After all, most of the monsters lived their lives protecting the territories that they possessed without really leaving those territories.

Unless there was something that forced them to leave their territories, they really wouldn't stampede like this.

So for them to suddenly come out like this…

"Is something happening?"

"We don't know, but we're sending someone to check."

The only thing that I could think of was something similar to what happened last time where that Flesh Colossus had come to attack our village.

But with the deterrence that I had shown, there really weren't that many monsters that dared to challenge our village.

So it didn't make sense that something like this would suddenly happen.

"It's a Catastrophe Class Monster."

"Huh?" I was surprised to hear this and I was even more surprised by who it was that said it.

It was Iris who had suddenly appeared by my side.

Normally, Iris wouldn't involve herself in these matters since she had seen the power that I demonstrated. She would normally leave all of these things to me since she had seen that I was capable of taking care of it on my own.

But this time, it seemed like she was ready to fight.

It was clear that this wasn't a simple monster that was causing this kind of response.

However, it wasn't as if I didn't know what a Catastrophe Class Monster was.

This was a categorization that was used by the monsters of this world since they didn't have the same categorization as humans did. For monsters, a Catastrophe Class Monster represented a natural disaster.

It was the kind of disaster that would be able to wipe out an entire area on its own.

If it was converted to human terms, it would be on the scale of monster categorization that the Adventurer's Guild came up with. After all, they were the ones that dealt with monsters the most since it was a part of their job.

This Catastrophe Class Monster would be regarded as a S Rank Monster.

A S Rank Monster was terrifying enough that it would be able to destroy an entire city on its own.

"Why is it coming out now all of a sudden?"

"If I had to guess, it was most likely driven out of the inner forest. The inner forest is filled with monsters like those, but there is only so much space for them to live in and it's only natural that they would be driven out by competition from time to time." Iris explained as if this was a natural thing.

Though for me, it wasn't as if this was natural since I didn't know that much about how this place worked.

At the same time, it didn't seem like it was a natural thing for the residents of this village since they were all residents of the outer forest. They had never been to the inner forest before, so they had no idea if this was how things worked.

Before I could ask anything else, Iris suddenly flew up into the sky and said, "I'm going to take a look. If possible, we should work together to take this down."

I was once again surprised to hear this.

After all, the way that she said this seemed like she recognized my strength that she wanted to work together with me.

I had already felt that the way that Iris treated me recently was different, but I hadn't been able to tell what it was.

It seemed that I had finally earned her recognition and respect.

The power that I had been gaining was enough to make her see me as an equal.

Since Iris was going to scout it out for us, I said to the kobold chief, "Just let her take care of it and gather everyone that can fight. It's not as if we're just dealing with the Catastrophe Class Monster alone, we'll have to protect the village from the monster stampede as well."

The kobold chief gave a nod in response before heading off to gather everyone.

When Iris came back, there was an excited look on her face.

She immediately came over to me and said, "It's a Thunder Boar!"

She said this as if I should have known what she was talking about, but I really had no idea what was so special about this Thunder Boar.

I did know what this Thunder Boar was since I had encountered it in the game before, but I certainly didn't know what was so special about this Thunder Boar that Iris was acting this way.

Seeing that I didn't seem to react, Iris said, "Didn't you hear me, it's a Thunder Boar!"

I gave a nod with a faint smile before saying, "I heard you the first time. Now, tell me what is so special about this."

"You really don't know?" Iris asked in a surprised voice.

I just gave a sigh seeing this before giving a nod.

Iris kept looking at me with the same surprised look for a bit before saying, "The Thunder Boar is the weakest of the Catastrophe Class Monsters in the inner forest, so it's only normal that it was driven out. It was also the prey that I had been looking forward to hunting with you."

"How do you know so much about the inner forest?"

"Well, I came from there. I was sent away by my parents to grow stronger, but I was lucky enough to meet you when I came out."

I had never really asked Iris about her past since it wasn't my place to ask this, but now that I heard it…

"So it really was a coincidence that we met each other…"

Hearing it now really was eye opening.

"Alright, let's go and talk to the others about this. We'll figure out a way to deal with both the Thunder Boar and the monster stampede."

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