The overall atmosphere wasn't so good.

Quite some time had passed since the expedition had come to a stop, yet Dylan was maintaining his silence. An expression of unhappiness was writ large on Samuel's face. Both of them were simply glaring at the blameless ground. Since two Archers acknowledged by the others as experienced and excellent were displaying roughly the same expressions, it was quite likely that something had gone terribly wrong.

When the waiting time extended even further, Ian had no choice but to step up, although he didn't want to do so originally.

“Is there a problem?”

“….We found the traces of footprints that are definitely not human, but we can't figure out who they belong to yet.”

Dylan replied in a straightforward manner. Samuel too slowly shook his head. Now that the worst situation had come true, Ian was also displaying a crumpled expression.

“Hmm… If both of you are not sure, would you mind telling me if there is something of note? I can't give you any guarantees, but because I've been virtually living inside the royal library for a long time, I ended up memorizing the unique characteristics of most monster species.”

Samuel found Ian's suggestion reasonable, so he shifted his gaze back to the ground.
“First of all…. The length and the width of each footprint are quite large. The smallest is around 1.2 times bigger than an average human male’s, and the biggest is around 1.5 times.”

“A good chance it's a species with big physique, then. Anything else?”

“The depths of each print are also substantial. It's not like the surface here is soft as it was back by the entrance of the forest, either… Ah, and we can also see several strands of earth-colored fur as well.”

“Earth-colored, you say?”

Ian's brows quivered unsteadily.

“Are they light in color? Or are they dark?”

“Light.”

Samuel swiped the ground with his index finger and nodded his head as if he was sure of it.

“And then….”

“By any chance, are their six toes, no, I mean, six claw marks as well?”

Ian's question sounded rather urgent. The person who told them to stay calm couldn't keep his anxiety down at all.

“Pardon? Ahh, yes, that's correct. I was about to tell you that just now.”

“Also, are there small but deep grooves somewhere in the prints? Like, a sharp object pierced the ground then pulled out, something like that?”

Samuel dazedly stared back at the Magician. His face seemed to say...