It was not particularly difficult to sum up Rei’s recent experience: he had been summoned by the rightful lord of Baar, guided to the Lord’s Mansion, and upon finally meeting the man, the noble had promptly keeled over and lost consciousness.
The guards stationed in the room were just as stunned. The development was so absurd that they were momentarily paralyzed, unsure of how to react.
Kormish, the man who had brought Rei there, was the first to move.
"Lord Soleil, are you quite all right?"
Despite the fact that his master had just fainted, his voice carried no hint of concern. If anything, he sounded profoundly exasperated.
His call seemed to snap the other guards back to reality, and they rushed to Soleil’s side in a panic. Rei watched the commotion in silence until one of the guards turned a bewildered, suspicious gaze toward him.
"Hey, you. Did you do something to Lord Soleil?"
From the guards' perspective, their master had collapsed the moment he set eyes on the stranger. It was only natural to assume Rei was the cause. However, since they had been watching Rei intently from the moment he entered, they knew they hadn't seen him actually do anything. Though he wore a robe, he had kept his hood down out of respect for the meeting. They could clearly see his boyish face and slender build. They struggled to imagine how a child who looked like a mere apprentice mage could have struck down their master under their very noses. Because of those doubts, the guard’s tone was more confused than aggressive.
Naturally, the accusation was a complete misunderstanding.
"No, I didn’t do anything," Rei replied. "I mean, he ended up like that the second I stepped into the room. What exactly do you think I could have done?"
Inwardly, the guard had to agree. Yet, if the boy hadn't done anything, Soleil’s behavior remained utterly inexplicable.
"That may be true, but..."
Just as the guard was about to press further, Kormish placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Easy. Lord Soleil has just fainted. He’ll come to soon enough. We can ask him what happened then. ...Though, just to be absolutely sure, you really didn't do anything, right?"
"I didn't," Rei said with a nod.
This left them with a lord who had fainted for no apparent reason, and a prickly tension began to fill the air. The guards remained on high alert; if Rei wasn't the cause, they worried their master had been targeted by some other hidden means. Rei, meanwhile, was trying to make sense of Soleil’s collapse.
(Wait...)
A sense of déjà vu washed over him. He suddenly remembered a certain mage during the incident with Boruntar who had collapsed in terror the moment he looked at Rei. Hadn't that reaction been almost identical to this? And according to the information from Sazanas, Dialogo, and Seis, Soleil was a man obsessed with magic.
(I see. He has the ability to sense magic power.)
If he was that deep into magical research, it was only natural for him to possess such a trait. Having reached that conclusion, Rei turned his gaze back to the sofa where Soleil had been laid.
One of the guards invoked a spell, manifesting a warm light in his hand that he pressed against Soleil’s forehead. Roughly thirty seconds after the light faded, Soleil’s eyes fluttered open.
Clearly disoriented, the noble looked around the room. "...Hm? What happened to me?"
"Lord Soleil, you fell into a panic state the moment you saw him and collapsed," the guard explained. He tactfully omitted the part where Soleil had hit his head on the floor.
As Rei watched, Soleil’s narrow, fox-like eyes finally settled on him.
"I see. So I fainted. Well, it is hardly surprising that one would fall into a panic after suddenly catching sight of someone with this much magic power."
Rei twitched at the low mutter.
(Catching sight of me? So that means...)
The image of Luno, a C-Rank adventurer he had met at the Guild, came to mind. Despite being high-ranked, Luno worked solo because of his Magic Eye, which allowed him to see mana directly. Given Soleil’s comment and the way he was now staring at Rei with a mix of wariness and intense fascination, it was easy to guess that the Baron possessed a similar power.
"You are Rei, correct?"
Rei hesitated for a second, debating how to respond. Since the man was a Baron and technically Dialogo’s superior, he opted for a more formal tone than his usual casual speech.
"That is correct. I am Rei, an adventurer from the City of Gilm."
He made sure to emphasize that he wasn't from Baar, but Soleil didn't seem to care. He remained fixated on Rei.
"I see, I see... With this much mana, I suppose it is possible. No, but the reports said the Dungeon Core hadn't matured yet..."
Soleil suddenly stood up from the sofa and began to circle Rei like a hungry scholar.
"Wait, Rei. That robe you're wearing... that is a remarkably high-level magic item, isn't it?"
Rei caught his breath. He had accepted that the man could see his mana, but he hadn't expected Soleil to see through the robe's concealment effects.
(I heard he was a capable mage, but he’s far more dangerous than I anticipated.)
Rei narrowed his eyes slightly, his guard up. Sensing the boy's tension, Soleil smiled.
"Are you surprised I saw through it?"
"A little. I was told you were a skilled mage."
"Well, it's true. I pride myself on my magical prowess. In fact, if you took magic away from me, I’d be nothing more than a useless dilettante noble."
Rei chose to stay silent, as agreeing with that would have been awkward. Soleil didn't mind the silence and kept talking, still wearing that same grin.
"I got so caught up in my research that I completely neglected my duties as lord. It caused a massive scandal involving trade routes, financial records, and all sorts of other paperwork. My superiors were so fed up they actually stripped me of my active lordship. ...Personally, I prefer it this way. It gives me more time to focus on magic."
(...Right. A total research nut. And since he actually has the talent to back it up, he didn't mind throwing away his responsibilities.)
"So, about the Dungeon Core," Soleil said, his narrow eyes gleaming with the feverish intensity of a researcher. "Is it true that one actually appeared in this city?"
Rei nodded. He knew Dialogo, Seis, and Sazanas had already reported the situation. Trying to hide it now would bring nothing but trouble.
"Yes. I believe the Magic Fever that plagued the city was caused by that Dungeon Core."
"Damn it, I knew it! I couldn't believe the reports at first, but..."
Seeing Rei’s staggering magic power for himself made the story undeniable. If someone this powerful was involved, it had to be real.
"But why on earth were you so short-sighted? Why destroy it? Dungeons are full of mysteries. We know so little about them! You have an Item Box, don't you? You could have simply stored the Dungeon Core inside it for further study!"
"The core was embedded in the floor of an underground storage facility in the east of the city. To remove it, we would have had to excavate the entire area. There was a high risk that the disturbance would have stimulated the core further. Considering the potential consequences, I wasn't willing to take that chance."
"But that’s just speculation, isn't it?"
Rei shook his head. "Speculation or not, the core had already started producing slimes that exhaled purple mist. For all I know, its aggressive behavior was triggered simply because we found it. I wasn't going to risk the city for a sample."
"I see... I suppose given the scale of your mana, that is a valid concern. ...By the way, I visited that East Storage Facility before coming here, and I couldn't find so much as a fragment of the Dungeon Core. Do you know what happened to the remains?"
Rei felt a flicker of tension. His Death Scythe had completely absorbed the core the moment it broke, much like it did with monster magic stones. Naturally, he couldn't tell him that. He pretended to think it over for a few moments before answering.
"To clear out the mist, the Guild Master used a massive tornado to rip the roof off the building. The fragments were likely blown away or sucked into the vortex. If it's the latter, they were probably reduced to ash by the fire magic I used to incinerate the mist."
"I would have settled for even a tiny splinter," Soleil groaned, sinking back into the sofa and covering his eyes with his hand.
Rei waited in silence for five minutes. When the noble showed no signs of moving, Rei finally spoke up.
"If you have no further business with me, may I return to my inn? I’m quite tired after everything that happened yesterday."
Soleil gave no response, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.
"Yeah, sure, whatever," Kormish said lazily. "We'll call for you if we need anything else."
Rei reached for the door, but just as his hand touched the handle, he heard the frantic thud of footsteps echoing down the hallway. He instinctively stepped back.
The guards, including Kormish, watched him with confusion—until the door was slammed open with a thunderous crash.
"Baron Soleil! I told you time and again that going to Baar was a mistake! What were you thinking, acting so recklessly!"
A figure burst into the room and immediately began shouting at the brooding noble on the sofa.
The newcomer wore leather armor crafted from monster hide, designed for maximum mobility, and carried a massive battle axe on her back. Rei caught his breath. For a second, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but the weapon on her back was unmistakable. It was a Power Axe he knew very well. Faces could be similar, but the odds of a look-alike carrying the specific magic item he used to own were practically zero.
Rei spoke up, his voice cutting through her lecture.
"Ara?"
"And furthermore! You are supposed to be a mage of high standing, which means you should behave with—eh?"
The woman froze, her scolding cut short. She slowly turned around and her eyes went wide with shock as she processed Rei's presence.
"L-Lord Rei!? Why are you here?"
The woman staring at him in utter disbelief was unmistakably Ara Scarley, the warrior Rei had worked with during a previous nomination request.