"…Hey, what do you think?"
Having cleared the procedures at the Main Gate and entered Gilm, Rei and his companions were heading toward the Wheat Inn as usual at twilight.
They'd been traveling by carriage when, partway there, they were suddenly surrounded by a group of men.
The weapons in their hands—longswords and spears—made it obvious this had nothing to do with wanting to dote on Set, who was traveling alongside the carriage.
Furthermore, every one of them wore a mask, presumably to keep their faces hidden.
(But seriously, they're attacking us in broad daylight in the city?)
What bewildered Rei was that this wasn't some sparsely populated back alley off the highway. This was the main road—by no means a place where anyone would normally attack people.
Yet here they were, the masked men closing in around the carriage.
"Even if you ask me what I think… honestly, all I can say is, 'Are they out of their minds?'"
Vihera muttered, half exasperated, as she peered out the carriage window.
Gilm was large enough to be called a proper city, complete with slums where something like this wouldn't be unusual even in daylight. But Rei and the others were on the main road.
Through the window, Rei could see onlookers gathered beyond the ring of masked attackers, watching the scene unfold. The Guard Force would surely arrive before long.
Whether the attackers understood that or not was beyond Rei's comprehension.
"Hey! Come out! We'll kill ya!"
"You don't want this fine carriage wrecked, do you? Get out here, now!"
Energetic shouts rang out from outside the carriage. Each man yelled while brandishing his weapon.
"…I agree with Vihera. Attacking us with Set right here? That's unthinkable under normal circumstances."
Elena murmured as she too stared out the window.
And she was right. By any reasonable standard, this was abnormal.
Set was right beside the carriage. The people of Gilm might treat it as a beloved pet, but it was still a High-Rank Monster—more than strong enough to make short work of the men surrounding them.
Whether those men grasped that fact or not was another matter. No—with Set standing right before their eyes, there was no way they hadn't noticed.
So why, with an S-Rank-equivalent monster present, could they be this aggressive? Rei couldn't fathom it. If Set got even slightly serious, the men would be dead in seconds.
(Do they just not care about their lives? …But they don't look reckless or resolved enough for that, either.)
Even to Rei's eye, the men weren't skilled fighters by any measure. As adventurers, they'd rank E at best, maybe D on a generous day. They had no business throwing their weight around in Gilm.
"How strange," Marina murmured, apparently sharing the same question.
Given her position as Guild Master, she knew adventurers better than Rei did. She undoubtedly understood how abnormal this situation was even more keenly than he did.
"Hey! I said come out! If you don't hurry up, we'll kill this horse too!"
The man shouted while brandishing his spear, but a smirk crept onto Elena's lips.
The horse pulling their carriage had been through rigorous training since it was a foal. It could easily turn the tables on the likes of these shouting men.
"Lady Elena, what should we do?" The door to the driver's seat cracked open, and Ara's voice came through.
With Ara's skill, she could dispatch the men surrounding them without breaking a sweat. The only reason she hadn't was because their objective remained unclear.
Surrounding a carriage normally meant targeting someone—or something—inside. But that logic applied under normal circumstances. This was happening on Gilm's main road, with dozens of witnesses watching. No one would choose this place for an ambush.
That was precisely why Ara asked Elena rather than acting on her own—she couldn't predict what would happen if she intervened rashly.
"…I see. If we simply wait, the Guard Force should arrive shortly. If we act recklessly here, the bystanders could get caught in the crossfire."
"Then we observe the situation for now?"
"Please. That said, if they attack first, you're authorized to strike back. …Rei, will Set be all right?"
"Shouldn't be a problem."
Rei kept his eyes on the scene outside as he answered Elena's question.
Set was holding its position beside the carriage, shielding it. Even if the men attacked, a single sweep of its front leg would send them flying. But perhaps sensing something off about the situation, it hadn't moved yet.
The men were probably only bold enough to shout because Set stayed put. Yet they showed no signs of actually attacking—likely because they didn't want to cause a major disturbance. Or perhaps the commotion itself was the goal.
"What's really their objective?"
"Who knows?"
Marina tilted her head at Rei's muttered question—and at that moment, the situation shifted.
"Stop! Don't bully Set!"
A child burst from the crowd of onlookers. A little one, maybe five years old at most.
The child hadn't even registered the carriage. All they'd seen was their friend Set being harassed by masked adults, and they weren't about to stand by and let it happen.
It took genuine courage to run out like that. But it was just as undeniably reckless.
"What's with this brat… Hey, you're in the way!"
One of the masked men lashed out with a kick at the onrushing child.
It wasn't a particularly powerful strike—more of a rough shove with his leg, really. But the strength of a grown man wasn't something a five-year-old could brush off, especially from men who clearly had experience with violence.
"Uwah!"
The child bounced off the man's leg, sent tumbling across the ground. Screams erupted from the crowd. No one had expected them to actually do something like this on the main road—some might have even thought it was a street performance of some kind.
Pleased with himself, the man who'd kicked the child opened his mouth.
"Hah! Sticking your nose where it doesn't—eh?"
He'd been about to shout down the onlookers. But what he saw in the next instant was Set— which should have been beside the carriage—directly in front of him, front leg raised mid-swing.
Before the man could process what had happened, a tremendous impact slammed him into the ground, and his consciousness went dark.
The saving grace was that Set hadn't intended to kill him—not out of mercy, but simply because it didn't want to cause a bigger scene. A solid hit from Set would normally reduce a person's head or upper body to chunks of flesh. But the man, though unconscious from the impact, was still twitching slightly. He was alive.
"What!? D-Damn, you bastard!"
Seeing his companion drop, another man raised his longsword and charged at Set—
"That's far enough."
Reading the shift, Rei vaulted from the carriage. Deeming a weapon unnecessary, he drove his fist into the charging man's stomach.
Despite his appearance, Rei's physical strength was superhuman. His fist sank into the man's gut—right through his Leather Armor—dropping him unconscious to the ground without so much as a groan.
The remaining men, realizing their companion had been dropped so effortlessly, stopped short of rushing in. They hung back, warily gauging Rei's next move.
That was a mistake.
If Rei were their only opponent, caution might have served them. But Elena and the others were right there.
The carriage door wasn't wide enough for everyone to pour out at once, but within seconds of Rei's exit, Elena, Marina, and Vihera had all appeared.
And then—
"Guhah!"
Ara struck from the driver's seat.
She'd been holding back, but with Rei already in motion, she judged it was time to act. The men, fixated on Rei and Set, were caught completely off guard by the attack from behind.
Even so, Ara had chosen to fight bare-handed instead of reaching for her Power Axe—a decision that made perfect sense given the setting.
Adventurers were no strangers to blood, but this was Gilm's main road, packed with ordinary citizens who were nothing of the sort. What would happen if someone bisected a torso vertically or horizontally, or crushed an upper body and scattered the remains across the street? It didn't bear thinking about.
"Gah!"
"Gyah!"
"Bugyah!"
Elena and the others understood this too. They held back, knocking the men unconscious rather than killing them.
The onlookers seemed to find the spectacle thoroughly satisfying. Cheers broke out from the crowd—and no wonder. These were men who would kick a child. No one watching was going to root for them.
What's more, some of the onlookers were adventurers themselves, and they joined in, wading into the masked men with their longswords still sheathed, using them as bludgeons rather than blades.
With Rei's group surging forward and the surrounding adventurers pitching in, the fight ended almost before it began. In the blink of an eye, the masked men were scattered across the ground, out cold.
"…So, Rei. Any idea who these people are?"
"If you're asking me… Marina, can't you take a guess?"
Rei turned the question back to Marina.
Her weapons were Spirit Magic and the bow, but as a former A-Rank adventurer, she was more than capable with her bare hands. She certainly hadn't struggled against the likes of these men.
"I can't imagine any adventurer in Gilm picking a fight with you, Rei. With Set here, it's obvious that whoever's in this carriage is either you or someone close to you."
"Gurur."
"Ahahaha, it's okay. Look, you're fine now."
The child who'd been kicked earlier let out a delighted squeal as Set nuzzled against them.
Apart from a few minor scrapes from the tumble, the child was unharmed—and overjoyed to be nuzzling with Set.
Among the onlookers, there were naturally those who could only be described as Set enthusiasts. They watched the child with undisguised envy, but none of them tried to interrupt.
That child had earned the right to play with Set. When the moment came, they'd been the only one brave enough to act. The rest had found excuses and held back.
By that logic, this was only a fitting reward. Though if you asked whether they were jealous—yes, intensely so.
More than a few of them silently thanked their luck that Mirene and Yohanna, the two names that always came up first among Set enthusiasts, weren't here today.
If those two had been present, there would have been blood.
Watching the guards rush toward the scene, they believed that from the bottom of their hearts.