As Rei and Set made their way to the diner that served as their rendezvous point, they found Vihera and Byune already waiting.
Since gathering information from people was fundamentally Vihera's job, Rei wasn't surprised by that. What did make him sigh, however, was the sight of four men lying unconscious on the floor near the table where Vihera and Byune sat.
What's more, the waitress and other patrons weren't shooting Vihera and Byune accusatory glares—quite the opposite. They were looking at them with gratitude. Given all that, it was only natural Rei couldn't quite make sense of the situation.
"Oh, Rei. You're late."
"Sorry, a lot happened. ...Ah, Set is out front, so could you bring some food out for it? And something simple for me too."
Rei pressed a silver coin into the waitress's hand as she approached to seat him, then made his way straight to Vihera's table. He couldn't help noticing the envious, jealousy-laced stares the surrounding customers were directing his way.
"So? What kind of commotion did you cause this time? I'm guessing those four on the floor are the ones responsible."
"Ah, these men? They were drunk and hassling the other customers. Then they started hassling me, so I put them quietly to sleep."
"...Quietly?"
Rei cast a skeptical glance at the four men collapsed on the floor. They had visibly well-trained builds—it was easy enough to guess they were adventurers or mercenaries of some sort. Yet all four of those trained men were lying on the floor, completely unconscious. Despite that, there was no blood trailing from their mouths or noses, and no visible injuries anywhere on their faces or bodies.
"Yes. Quietly. Do you have a problem with that?"
Vihera wore a smile on her lips, but her eyes were decidedly not smiling.
Judging that pressing the matter any further would undoubtedly land him in hot water, Rei quietly looked away from the four on the floor and took a seat across from Vihera.
The waitress arrived shortly after, setting down bread, soup, skewers, stew, and other dishes on the table.
"Thank you. I'm sorry, but we have something important to discuss—could you keep people away from our table?"
"Y-yes. Right away!"
The waitress looked at Vihera with a gaze mingled with respect and admiration, then firmly relocated the nearby customers to other seats. The displaced patrons didn't shoot Vihera any resentful looks—though they did cast jealousy-laced stares Rei's way—and quietly complied.
"You've become quite the popular figure, huh."
Rei muttered with a wry smile at the attention. Vihera simply offered a silent smile and a small shrug.
"...Anyway. We've had some leads on our end, maybe—how about you?"
"It's not certain, but we did turn up something resembling a lead. Still, could you go first and tell us what you've found, Rei?"
Vihera was using a spoon to scoop a green fruit into her mouth, and Rei nodded, idly wondering if what she was eating was some kind of avocado.
"I captured some bandits operating around Gilm and pressed them for information. They told me two suspicious people were heading upstream along a river that ran through the forest where we fought the Cyclops."
Rei went on to explain how he'd followed that lead upstream, only to find a place overflowing with monster corpses, reeking of decay and blood. There he'd recovered a censer Magic Item, and pressing further upriver, reached the cave where Set had been teleported. But what waited deep inside was a Magic Circle and a jar-shaped Magic Item, apparently rigged to collapse the cave. He'd barely escaped—only for a Golem to emerge from the rubble immediately after. After defeating it and returning to Gilm, he'd stumbled across what appeared to be a Magic Item crafted by a Bestia Empire alchemist...
"Oh, so we ended up arriving at the same conclusion after all."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
Rei asked back, caught off guard by Vihera cutting in mid-story. But all she offered in return was a knowing smile before raising her ale to her lips. Beside her, Byune was happily savoring a dish of cheese sandwiched between tomato-like vegetables.
"As you know, we spent our time asking questions both inside and outside Gilm. During that, we heard that recently there were a handful of Magic Items circulating in Gilm with higher performance than anything made locally. We even managed to speak with several people who owned them."
"...So the source of those Magic Items—or rather, the one who made them—was a Bestia Empire alchemist?"
"Correct. It seems they're selling Magic Items in Gilm. Not flashily, but quietly enough not to draw attention."
"But why would they do something like that? No matter how inconspicuous you try to be, if you keep selling Magic Items that outperform the local ones, you'll end up drawing attention anyway. Could that actually be the point?"
At Rei's suggestion that it might be a diversion, Vihera tilted her head.
"I wonder. Even with those Magic Items said to be made by a Bestia Empire alchemist, there's no way to know for certain whether it's really the same person behind this whole incident."
"So in the end, we won't know unless we go to the shop selling them and gather information firsthand."
"Nn?"
Byune, who had been silently eating until now, let out a short utterance—"Are we going already?"
Glancing down, Rei noticed that most of the food he'd ordered had already vanished into Byune's stomach. He'd been eating too, between talking with Vihera, but it was an undeniable fact that Byune had polished off nearly everything.
"...Well, never mind. Byune's a growing girl, after all."
Half-grudgingly, Rei rose from his seat.
"Then let's head to the shop selling the Magic Items—work off the meal while we're at it. Rei, do you know where it is?"
"I asked the stall owner beforehand. Apparently it's somewhere in a back alley, so it's a bit hard to find. But it has a Goblin skull on display, so we shouldn't mistake it for anything else."
"The information I gathered points to the same place. Well then, shall we?"
And so Rei, Vihera, Byune, and Set—three people and one griffon—left the diner and set off for the Magic Item shop.
"...We actually arrived without anything happening. Wasn't expecting that."
It was Rei who muttered it. Before them now stood the Magic Item shop Seymour had told him about. The Goblin skull decorating it was in remarkably poor taste, but at least there was no mistaking the place.
"What, did you think something would happen?"
"Less 'think something would happen'... more like I just assumed something would. It's nothing to brag about, but for some reason I tend to get dragged into trouble."
"...Now that you mention it, that's true. Come to think of it, there were quite a lot of times I got caught up in trouble when I was with you."
"Nn!"
At Vihera's murmur, Byune recalled the string of incidents they'd encountered together back in Exil and voiced her agreement. Both understood from lived experience, not mere hearsay, that Rei attracted trouble like a magnet.
Of course, from Rei's perspective, he wanted to point out that Vihera's looks and her choice of clothing—which drew men's attention like a moth to flame—invited plenty of trouble on its own, and that Byune's small stature led people to underestimate her and spark incidents as well.
"Guruuu."
As if to comfort him, Set purred and rubbed its face against him. Rei absently patted its head, thinking that Set's presence was also a magnet for trouble in its own right.
"I don't think I'm the only cause, though. Anyway..."
Sensing that continuing down this path would only put him at a disadvantage, Rei forcibly steered the conversation back on track.
"Standing around out here won't accomplish anything. Let's head in. Set, wait outside like usual."
Set purred in acknowledgment. After seeing Vihera and Byune nod as well, Rei opened the door before him.
The instant he did, a sweet fragrance drifted out from inside the shop. Not the natural sweetness of fruit, but something distinctly artificial.
"...What's that smell?"
"Who knows? Looking at it from here, it just seems like an ordinary Magic Item shop."
"Some kind of security measure?"
Setting aside the mass-produced goods, the shop carried valuable items like the one Seymour had used, so taking precautions didn't seem unreasonable to Rei. Vihera tilted her head.
"I doubt it. I can't imagine this being any kind of effective security."
The moment Vihera murmured that, a man emerged from the back of the shop. He looked to be in his fifties, but his build was unmistakably that of a trained warrior. The brief flicker of surprise on his face at seeing Rei was likely because they both lived in Gilm and he recognized him.
(A former adventurer, maybe?)
Having just met Seymour, a fellow Magic Item enthusiast, the question came naturally to Rei's mind.
"What kind of Magic Item are you looking for?"
His calm tone, paired with the muscular arms visible beneath his clothing, conjured the image of a quiet mountain. The fact that he showed virtually no reaction to Vihera's appearance only reinforced that impression.
Rei shook off the stray thoughts and got straight to the point.
"Actually, I heard from Seymour that he was able to buy a Magic Item made by a Bestia Empire alchemist here at quite a low price, so I came to take a look. I may not seem the type, but collecting Magic Items is a hobby of mine."
"Oh."
The mention of collecting Magic Items as a hobby brought a pleased smile to the man's face—the smile of someone who'd found a kindred spirit. Given how expensive Magic Items were, there couldn't be many people who came in to buy them.
"I see, collecting Magic Items as a hobby. ...What Seymour bought was definitely from this shop."
"Oh, I figured as much. ...Still, a Magic Item made by a Bestia Empire alchemist—that's quite a find. How'd you get your hands on it?"
"Normally they're hard to come by. But fortunately, a merchant brought in a batch a while back. You know there was trouble in the Bestia Empire last year, right? Apparently these came flowing out from that."
"I see."
So these were Magic Items that had leaked out from the very incident he'd been involved in. Rei felt a faint sense of anticlimax at the thought—but immediately reconsidered. There was no way to know if that story was even true. Just because the seller had claimed it didn't mean it wasn't a fabricated cover story.
"So, the person who brought these Magic Items to sell—?"
"This is a matter of business for us, so if you're looking to buy Magic Items, I'd appreciate it if you did so through the shop."
The shop owner furrowed his brow, apparently concluding from Rei's mention of collecting Magic Items and his questions about the seller that Rei was trying to bypass the shop and buy directly from the source.
Rei started to deny it immediately—but if asked why he wanted to know, he wouldn't be able to come up with a convincing answer.
"Since these are Magic Items made by a Bestia Empire alchemist, I wanted to know specifically whose work they were. I'm from the Bestia Empire, so I was a little curious."
Stepping in where Rei had been at a loss for words, Vihera took over.
Perhaps growing suspicious of the group, the shop owner's demeanor changed completely from his earlier congenial manner. He fixed them with the stare one might give a pair of swindlers.
"If you collect Magic Items, I'm sure you already know this, but alchemists are those capable of creating Magic Items. If what you're after is information about the alchemist, then I'm sorry—for business reasons, I can't share that."
"Is there any way you could reconsider?"
Under normal circumstances, if a beauty like Vihera—wearing the kind of revealing garments a Dancer or a Prostitutes might—said something like that, most men would cave. But the shop owner appeared entirely unaffected by her charms and shook his head.
"When I say no, I mean no. This is a business. We can't just go handing out information to anyone who asks. ...Sorry, but please leave. It's only because Seymour vouched for you that I've said this much."
With that, the shop owner turned his back to them, making it clear he had no intention of listening further. After that, no matter what Rei and the others said, he didn't offer a single word in response.
For a few minutes they tried to pry something loose from him, but eventually it became clear that nothing they said would work. They left the shop.
"...Hmph."
After watching Rei's group depart, the shop owner muttered softly and turned his gaze to a nearby Magic Item—the very one made by a Bestia Empire alchemist that Rei and the others had been asking about.