Upon receiving word that the research facility had been attacked, Daridora immediately departed Augusto's mansion and headed for the site.
Augusto requested that Rei accompany them. Since Set remained behind at the mansion to keep it secure, Rei complied and set out for the research facility alongside Daridora.
Daridora was at odds with Augusto over the Tira Tree issue, and he had no desire to bring Rei — Augusto's ally — into the facility. However, his guards insisted that someone of Rei's combat power was indispensable, and so Rei's accompaniment was approved.
Rei rode with Daridora in his carriage toward the research facility, but...
"This is awful."
The murmur came from one of the guards as they stood before the building.
The facility sat on the outskirts of town, on the opposite side from Augusto's mansion. Even from a distance, the damage was plain to see — the structure clearly bore the scars of an attack.
Since it was a research facility dedicated to studying Tira Trees, there were few buildings nearby and foot traffic was sparse. That isolation had likely worked in the attackers' favor.
With so few people around, a large attacking force could move into position without being noticed.
The fact that the facility hadn't been burned to the ground was a small mercy.
...It was already nearing evening, and the surrounding landscape was bathed in the red glow of the setting sun. Depending on how one looked at it, the light could almost be mistaken for flames consuming the building.
"Guguh!"
A strange sound escaped Daridora's throat as he stared at the facility — perhaps an attempt to force down the irritation churning inside him.
Though not as large as Augusto's mansion, the building was big enough to house several typical Gauche homes. Scorch marks, as if someone had tried to set it ablaze, marred the walls in several places — possibly to sow confusion.
Even so, the fire had never grown severe enough to consume the facility, suggesting the attackers had never intended to burn it completely.
There were slash marks as well, sections of the building shattered by some form of impact, and blood — copious enough to suggest fatal wounds — staining the ground and walls.
The scene resembled the ruins of a research facility more than an active one, and it was more than enough to stoke Daridora's fury to a boiling point.
"This many... why so many... who on earth..."
Whether he recognized someone among the facility's staff, or perhaps someone even closer to him, one of the guards murmured in a daze.
His expression — one of sheer disbelief — was shared by the other guards, even if they didn't voice it.
(A fairly strong smell of blood lingers. And there's a scorched odor too, likely from those burn marks. ...The one saving grace is that the attackers didn't go all out trying to burn the place down. Though I doubt that was out of consideration for the facility itself.)
Rei's guess was that if they had set fire to the building before storming inside, the research documents would have gone up in flames as well.
That was his assessment, though it still left a question: why hadn't they torched the place before leaving?
"...I'm going in."
"It's dangerous!"
When Daridora moved toward the entrance, one of the guards immediately objected.
"From what we can see out here, it looks safe. But we can't rule out the possibility that attackers are still inside."
"Then what do you suggest?"
Irritation laced Daridora's reply. The guard who had raised the objection understood this, but as a bodyguard, he absolutely could not allow Daridora to enter the facility.
"We'll go in first. Please wait here with the other guards."
"Rejected. We don't have that many guards to begin with. Splitting up means thinning either the breach team or the perimeter detail. I won't needlessly expose my guards to danger."
"But... well, Lord Rei is here."
One of the guards cast a pleading look toward Rei, but Rei simply shook his head.
"Ideally, I'd like to go inside the facility myself. With attackers this efficient, there's probably no one left inside. But on the off chance someone is still hiding in there, I'd want to capture them. We need information."
"I would prefer it if you didn't enter the facility, Rei-san."
Perhaps slightly calmed by Rei's words, Daridora promptly rejected his suggestion.
"So you want me to wait here?"
"Yes. I would prefer that, if possible."
"...I said there's probably no one left inside, but that's not a certainty. Under those circumstances, are you sure you don't want to bring along the best fighter here?"
If someone told them they were outclassed, the guards would normally have bristled. They were skilled adventurers — that was precisely why Daridora employed them at such high rates.
But when the one saying it was Rei, there was nothing they could say in response.
He was an Alias Holder with a Gryphon for a Tamed Monster. Whatever his appearance might suggest, they fully understood that in raw combat power, they didn't hold a candle to him.
The only one who might have stood a chance was Narcus, who was currently absent receiving treatment for his injuries.
...And even Narcus would only have prolonged the inevitable — or so the thought quietly passed through their minds.
"Daridora-san. If the worst happens, we can't guarantee we'll be able to protect you with this group. If you truly want to be safe, you should bring Rei along."
A guard who looked to be in his twenties spoke up.
He had confidence in his own abilities, but considering Rei's strength, it was smarter to have him close.
Pride in one's skill was secondary — what mattered now was the safety of Daridora, their principal.
"Mmm... but..."
He understood that he was being told to stay near Rei for his own protection. But this facility had been conducting research on Tira Trees.
Bringing Rei — who stood with Augusto, an Opposition Faction to the Tira Tree project — inside felt far too dangerous on multiple levels.
The guards understood this too, but right now, Daridora's personal safety took priority above all else.
Their clashing perspectives created a stalemate, but in the end, it was Daridora who yielded.
He recalled the attack on the research facility — and the incident earlier that day, when arrows had flown from out of nowhere during his own assassination attempt.
If the attackers who struck the facility were still lurking inside... and if those lying in wait were the same ones who had loosed those arrows...
With that thought, staying close to Rei — a fiercely skilled adventurer — offered a level of safety nothing else could match.
"Very well. Rei-san, I'll leave it to you."
"...Look, it's not like I'm your bodyguard or anything. But if we're going in to capture whoever might still be inside, it'll probably end up that way anyway."
If he was going inside regardless, Rei figured he could at least handle keeping Daridora alive. He left a few guards behind to search the perimeter, then entered the research facility with Daridora and the rest.
The first thing that hit them inside was the thick stench of iron.
Blood that hadn't yet fully dried stained the floors, walls, and virtually every surface. Bodies lay scattered across the ground.
Some wore white coats; others appeared to be in civilian clothes. From the entrance alone, the count easily exceeded ten.
"How... how could they kill this many people so effortlessly?"
One of the female guards murmured, a shudder in her voice.
She was, of course, an adventurer recruited by Daridora. She had confidence in her skills, and over the course of past assignments, she had killed her share of bandits and the like.
But the people she had killed were enemies who had opposed her.
She could hardly fathom that someone existed who could slaughter innocent people with such casual ease.
"...Let's move. The attackers are probably gone, but there might be survivors among the researchers."
One of the guards murmured this, and Daridora, seemingly snapped back to himself by the voice, pressed deeper into the facility.
With their principal advancing, the guards naturally couldn't afford to stand still.
Rei walked slightly apart from the group.
It wasn't that he distrusted Daridora and the others — though he didn't fully trust them either — but rather, he wanted to be positioned to react instantly if anything happened.
(Judging from the bodies, every single one was killed with a single strike. ...Not just the researchers, but even those who appear to have been guards. That means without a doubt, highly skilled attackers hit this place.)
Among the fallen, Rei spotted some equipped with leather armor, longswords, and daggers — confirming that the facility had employed at least a basic security detail.
The fact that even those individuals had been dispatched so effortlessly demanded vigilance.
...Though as they proceeded down the corridor, nothing happened.
"It's here. Beyond this door is the most important section of the entire facility."
Daridora paused, then turned his gaze toward Rei.
He clearly had no desire to let Rei — Augusto's ally — through that door.
Even so, he opened it without a word. Perhaps he understood that protesting now would be pointless.
When the door swung open, an even thicker wave of iron-scented air washed over them.
"This—!"
One of the guards kicked off the floor instinctively, shielding Daridora behind him as he readied his longsword. But no one came rushing out of the room.
He exhaled in relief, and everyone — Daridora and Rei included — stepped inside.
"Kutoga!?"
The instant he crossed the threshold, Daridora cried out and broke into a sprint.
He and his guards rushed toward the figure crumpled on the floor.
Rei alone didn't understand why Daridora had panicked, but he could at least grasp that the man called Kutoga was someone of great importance.
"Who is he?"
Rei asked one of the nearby guards. The man hesitated for a moment, apparently unsure whether he should answer. But he apparently decided that since Daridora had allied with Augusto and had already led them this far into the facility, there was no point in hiding it. He spoke while watching Daridora rush to Kutoga's side.
"He's the head of this facility. He was entrusted with the Tira Tree research."
At those words, Rei took another look around the room.
Doing so, he was able to grasp its full scale.
The room was roughly forty tatami mats in area. Sand covered the center, where several Tira Trees had been planted directly into the ground.
Additional Tira Trees sat in enormous pots scattered around the space — corroborating the guard's claim that Tira Tree research had been conducted here.
"I see. ...Then the dead men around this Kutoga are researchers too."
The guard nodded at Rei's murmur.
"Yeah. Word is Daridora-san poured a fortune into this facility. So yeah, this attack is a serious blow."
"And the research will be set back considerably, huh."
The story Rei had heard from Augusto — that when Tira Trees grew densely concentrated, they would begin attacking humans.
The very facility investigating that danger had been attacked, and every researcher slaughtered.
Under those circumstances, the future of Tira Tree research wasn't difficult to predict.
(Whoever did this, I don't know — but you could also read this as someone acting in a way that benefits Augusto. Could they have chosen this convoluted method specifically to cast suspicion on him?)
When an incident occurred, the first to be suspected were those who profited from it.
Augusto, despite his rivalry with Daridora, lagged far behind in terms of influence within Gauche.
Closing that gap would require drastic measures. Viewed through that lens, an attack on the facility researching Tira Trees — the very root of their conflict — would clearly hand Augusto a major advantage.
...But the attacker's greatest miscalculation was failing to anticipate that Augusto and Daridora might join forces, even temporarily.
Of course, that alliance was only made possible by Rei's involvement — meaning it must have been completely unexpected for whoever orchestrated this incident.
"Still... who on earth could have done something like this..."
One of the guards murmured as he approached a body lying a short distance from Kutoga.
Rei had been watching the man's movements when, suddenly, he noticed the corpse the guard was walking toward shift — barely, but unmistakably.
(It moved? It's alive? ...No, that's not it!)
What he based that judgment on, even he couldn't say.
Perhaps it was the instinctive thought that if the person were injured and conscious, they would have cried out for help.
"Get away!"
Almost purely on reflex, Rei shouted and kicked off the floor.