Rei had been moving through Gauche to gather information about Daridora, but he soon realized he didn't even know where the man was located.
(For that matter, I don't even know where the Elema Trading Company is. And naturally, I don't know where Daridora's house is either. Well, if it's his house...)
Daridora's house — the home of a man who wielded considerable power even in Gauche.
Naturally, its scale would be larger than Augusto's mansion.
Rei was about to head toward the residential district where Gauche's wealthy lived when fortune smiled upon him.
"Hurry! We're supposed to gather at Daridora's shop and shore up the defenses!"
"But who would do such a thing? Nobody in Gauche would dare target Daridora, right?"
Two adventurers — different from the pair Rei had encountered at Augusto's location — ran past him, exchanging words as they went.
The Elema Trading Company wielded enormous influence in Gauche.
Naturally, it employed a large number of people, and when something happened, those employees would be among the first to be called upon.
(I guess this is thanks to my good conduct.)
Thinking about how anyone who actually knew Rei would immediately shake their head at that notion, he hurried after the two adventurers heading toward the center of Gauche.
"But Narcus was with Daridora, right? And he still got injured?"
"Seems like it. ...Maybe Narcus isn't actually that strong?"
"Hey, don't drop the honorifics. What if someone overhears? Narcus is strict, you know."
"But still..."
Their conversation reached Rei's ears as he trailed behind at a distance.
(Is Narcus surprisingly unpopular? Judging from their talk, he's probably either the most skilled of Daridora's guards or their leader.)
Rei continued following the two adventurers while puzzling over this internally, and before long they arrived in front of a large shop.
(I see — so this is the Elema Trading Company's shop.)
Rei had explored a fair amount of Gauche, but mostly food-related establishments.
He had some interest in weapon shops, but given that he was known as Augusto's associate, he doubted he'd receive proper service if he walked in carelessly.
...Though the same held true for food vendors, the fact that he was staying at Augusto's mansion meant Cathy's connections worked in his favor, and no one refused to sell him food.
A large crowd was still gathered near the Elema Trading Company, clustered in groups and talking among themselves.
Amid the throng, Rei spotted a familiar woman — Cathy's friend, the shop owner who had sold food to him without hesitation — and approached her.
"Hey, what happened?"
"!? ...Oh, it's you. Don't scare me like that."
The shop owner gasped at the sudden address but let out a sigh of relief the moment she recognized Rei.
However, she must have quickly realized the danger of Rei — someone widely believed to be Augusto's associate — being seen here. She pulled him into a nearby diner.
Under normal circumstances she would have dragged him to her own shop instead, but her establishment was located quite far from here.
She had come to this area to shop at a nearby store.
On her way there, she had stumbled upon the scene of Daridora's attack.
"Ah, some light snacks. And water."
Since they had entered the diner, Rei ordered food for the shop owner as well, in lieu of an information fee.
She looked slightly embarrassed, but the diner's employee heard the order and immediately headed for the kitchen.
Fortunately, Rei was wearing his Dragon Robe with the hood up, so no one seemed to have recognized him as someone who opposed Daridora.
"Are you sure about this?"
"It's blazing hot out there. Your throat must be dry, and you're probably peckish, right? Consider it payment for the information. Augusto... no, actually, it was Zarust who asked me to gather intelligence."
"Ah, I see. ...But even so, I don't know all the details, you know?"
"Hm? You were watching from the start, weren't you?"
Rei wondered why she wouldn't know the details if she had been watching from the beginning. Cathy's friend gave a small wave of her hand.
"Well, someone accustomed to rough business might have understood it all, but I've never had anything to do with that sort of thing."
"...Ah, I see. Yeah, got it."
Just as she said that, the diner's employee brought over their food.
Simple fare — meat skewers and water — was set on the table.
Rei paid with copper coins, and once the employee had walked away, he spoke again.
"Then could you tell me what you do know, for starters?"
"Well, if that's all you need."
Nodding at Rei's words, she immediately began mulling over where to start.
She had always enjoyed talking with people, and gossip was her favorite form of entertainment.
That was precisely why she was clearly relishing this moment, deliberating over where to begin.
After taking a sip of water, she launched into her story as though it had loosened her tongue.
"First, Daridora was about to head out somewhere and was getting into a carriage. Then suddenly, three men attacked Daridora and his guards."
"...Three?"
"Yes."
Considering that only one person had attacked Augusto, this was three times that number.
(If so... was the attack on Augusto a decoy, or maybe an afterthought? Was Daridora the real target all along?)
Thinking of it that way, Rei could at least see the logic.
After all, the one with overwhelming influence in Gauche was Daridora.
"But those three were strange too. ...They didn't flinch at all when attacked. They didn't even react when arrows pierced their bodies."
"Not this again."
Enemies immune to pain — Rei had fought such opponents several times before.
It was an effective method for strengthening weak forces without much time or effort, but only when treating them as disposable troops.
In the world of Elgin, human life was light and cheap.
Even so, if asked whether they could throw away personnel as disposable pawns, most people would say no.
Of course, there were those who considered weapons and armor more valuable than human lives, and such people would feel no qualms whatsoever about using soldiers as expendable assets.
"But Daridora's guards were also skilled fighters he'd hired with money. Especially his guard Narcus — he was so cool."
She referred to Daridora without any honorific, yet for some reason attached one to Narcus — a telltale sign of what kind of feelings the woman harbored toward him.
"He really was cool, truly. The moment the attack happened, he immediately started barking orders to everyone..."
"Ah, yeah. I got that part. But tell me about the others too."
Even so, Rei now had a general sense of what kind of person Narcus was.
The man who had looked the strongest when Rei previously met with Daridora.
The face of someone who was likely a B-Rank Adventurer flashed through his mind.
"Anyway, under Narcus's orders, the men who attacked were taken down."
"...Taken down?"
Rei had assumed Daridora had been wounded by those three, so a hint of surprise flickered across his face.
But the woman nodded again in confirmation.
"Yes, they took them down. ...But the problem is what happened after. Since there had been an attack, Daridora tried to retreat inside the shop, but..."
It was a suspenseful way of putting it, but that too was a technique to hold her listener's attention.
It was a skill she had naturally acquired from her love of gossip.
Rei understood this, and since it was necessary for her to enjoy the telling, he prompted her to continue.
"But?"
"At that moment, a volley of arrows came from out of nowhere. If Narcus hadn't shielded Daridora in that split second, Daridora would probably be dead."
"...Do you have any idea roughly how many arrows there were?"
"Impossible. I'm just an ordinary person, not an adventurer or anything. All I can tell you is there were a lot."
Hearing that, Rei couldn't press the matter further.
After all, the woman before him was, as she herself had said, merely an ordinary person unaccustomed to violence.
If anything, the fact that she hadn't fled when the attack broke out but had stayed to watch the whole thing unfold was a stroke of luck for Rei.
Under normal circumstances, when something like an attack on Daridora occurred, most civilians would scatter to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
Some lingered out of morbid curiosity, but such people, if unlucky, would die right there on the spot.
Though the woman's safety was also likely due to how brief the attack had been.
Events had unfolded faster than it would have taken her to snap out of her daze and run.
"So, I heard Daridora was injured. Was he saved thanks to this Narcus?"
"Yes. An arrow that would have struck his head hit his right shoulder instead — if that's not a close call with death, I don't know what is."
The woman murmured thoughtfully, but there was a faint note of regret in her words.
Being Cathy's friend, she clearly had her own opinions about Daridora.
Understanding that, Rei pressed on.
"So what happened to the ones who fired the arrows?"
"What happened? They just vanished without a trace."
"...There were a lot of arrows, right?"
"Yes. From a layman's perspective, it certainly seemed like a lot."
"Then did nobody see the face of even one of the archers?"
At those words, the woman smiled as though she had been waiting for exactly this question.
"That's exactly it. That's what's so strange — not just me, but everyone else who was nearby, nobody saw anyone carrying a bow. ...Narcus apparently questioned the people in the area too, but it seems he couldn't get any information at all."
"That's bizarre."
A bow was, fundamentally, a large object.
Smaller ones existed, but arrows fired from such bows lacked power.
They were in no way capable of dealing with skilled guards, let alone a B-Rank Adventurer.
(A crossbow, or something along those lines... no, but I've barely ever seen crossbows since coming here. And I wouldn't know how to make one either.)
He considered this from his knowledge of Japan, but in reality, Rei had never seen anything resembling a crossbow since arriving in Elgin.
(Which would mean... a Magic Item?)
It was true that a bow required a certain minimum size, but if it were a Magic Item, that changed everything.
For example, though it wasn't a bow, the Eye of Nebula had been created by modifying a Magic Item that originally possessed the ability to generate arrows from magical power.
There were surely other bow- or arrow-related Magic Items that Rei simply didn't know about.
After all, he understood full well that he didn't know every Magic Item in existence in Elgin.
(Besides, the fact that not a single person saw the face of anyone firing a bow is strange in itself. Is that also the work of a Magic Item or something?)
But Gauche was not that developed a city.
It was certainly one of the top five cities in Solrein, but it was still ultimately a vassal state of the Kingdom of Mireana — and one with lower national strength than its neighbors, at that.
From what Rei had observed, Lyubrand's governance kept the residents of Gauche from living in hardship, but that didn't mean the city was wealthy enough to amass large quantities of Magic Items.
When it came to individuals capable of acquiring many Magic Items, Daridora — who had once possessed a Sand Ship — was the first to come to mind.
But this time, Daridora himself was the one being targeted.
Rei had initially suspected the attack might have been staged as an alibi, but hearing that Daridora would have taken an arrow through the head if not for Narcus, he had no choice but to abandon that theory.
As that realization settled in, Rei's face creased with a hint of displeasure.
Things were already complicated enough. Getting dragged into even more trouble on top of everything was something he wanted to avoid at all costs.
...Though, knowing his own personality, he had little doubt that if trouble reared its head, he would charge right in of his own accord.