What Rei saw as he kicked in the lower half of the door and strode into the room was a single man batting the splintered remnants away with a shield.
Alongside him stood several other men, each armed with a longsword, short sword, Battle Axe, or club.
The man who had loosed an arrow when Rei first cut through the door was also present, but he had already lost his will to fight during their earlier exchange.
And behind the armed men, as if trying to hide, stood another figure.
A man of medium build with reasonably refined features—as befitting a noble.
But no matter how well-formed those features were, the murky gleam of desire in his eyes made it impossible to feel any respect or admiration for him.
"Now then. Looks like the lot still here is everyone......This is unexpected."
"Wh-What is! You damn thief!"
Relduct—the noble who caught Rei's murmur—shouted, giving in to his irritation and fury.
From Relduct's perspective, it was as if Rei's assault had come out of nowhere.
On top of that, the barrier around the town had been destroyed, and many of the private soldiers he had hired had fled in the face of Rei and......the adventurer with the alias of Crimson.
Once they had encountered the intruder and turned tail, they would likely never return to Relduct's side again.
Of course, even if they did come back, Relduct had no intention of rehiring them.
If anything, he would likely subject them to some form of punishment for fleeing before an intruder.
Regardless, there was no mistaking that he harbored an intense fury and hatred toward Rei for bringing about such a situation. However......
"Huh? What are you talking about? You're the ones who started this in the first place, aren't you? Or did you figure that attacking was only natural, but never once considered being attacked yourself? Surely you weren't entertaining something that stupid, right?"
At Rei's words—delivered with genuine earnestness—Relduct's face twitched with rage and flushed red.
Precisely because Rei's tone was so deadpan, it likely fueled his anger all the more.
Seeing Relduct's state, Rei slung the Death Scythe over his shoulder and sighed in exasperation.
"It seems you really didn't think you'd face retaliation. ......The Count Relduct's Family, a minor house even within the Noble's Faction, picked a fight with Margrave Larcus, a central figure of the Neutral Faction? I have no idea what gave you the impression you'd get away with that unscathed."
"Shut up! What do I care about some weakling faction! If anything, it's presumptuous for a minor faction to be entrusted with an important stronghold like Gilm!"
His irritation toward Daskar and his panic at being attacked mingled together, and the outburst spilled from Relduct's mouth.
Shouting like this in such a situation meant he had probably harbored those sentiments for some time.
But until now, he had never been able to voice them.
Looking at Relduct, Rei spoke with open exasperation.
"The Noble's Faction and the Neutral Faction are currently deepening their relationship. Did you honestly think that someone like you—who isn't particularly important or anything within the Noble's Faction—could interfere with that and walk away clean? Even if I didn't lift a finger, I imagine the upper echelons of the Noble's Faction would have taken action."
"Don't be absurd!"
Relduct shouted, refusing to believe Rei's words.
"Well, if that's what you want to think, fine by me. ......But Gilm is only governable because of Lord Daskar. If someone from the Noble's Faction......if you, for instance, were entrusted with Gilm, it probably wouldn't last even a month."
Relduct imposed such heavy taxes even on his own territory.
If he were entrusted with Gilm—a frontier that brought in massive amounts of wealth as the sole frontier of the Kingdom of Mireana—Rei could easily imagine what he would do.
He would raise taxes and try to squeeze every last drop from the adventurers and merchants.
If he pulled something like that, the merchants aside, it went without saying how the adventurers would respond.
If they simply grew sick of Gilm and left, that would be the better outcome.
But the majority of those gathered in Gilm were highly skilled adventurers.
There were several Alias Holders besides Rei, and A-Rank adventurers as well.
If someone tried to forcibly suppress such people from above, would they quietly obey? Would they simply leave Gilm?
Even Rei thought the answer was no.
What would such people do......? The quickest approach would undoubtedly be force.
If things went poorly, Gilm could descend into a state of internal conflict with Relduct and the adventurers pitted against each other—and a full-scale civil war wouldn't be out of the question.
And in the event of a civil war, the chance of Relduct winning was virtually nonexistent.
But that was something Rei understood precisely because he knew the reality of Gilm. To Relduct, who knew of Gilm only through hearsay, Rei's words were absolutely unforgivable.
"Don't......screw with me! You're saying that I couldn't govern a town of that level!"
"Yeah. To begin with, you're laboring under a misconception. The moment you think of Gilm as an ordinary town, there's no hope for you."
"—!? ......Do it! Kill this man, kill him!"
Unable to endure Rei's words any longer, Relduct shouted, his face turning even redder than before.
However......those nearby who heard his command had already largely lost their will to fight.
Before Rei, Bearer of the Crimson Moniker, no matter how confident they were in their own abilities, none of them thought they stood a chance.
If there had been someone present who knew nothing about Rei, things might have been different.
But unfortunately, the men in this room were all individuals with a certain level of skill, and naturally, they were the type who invested effort into gathering information.
Even if they were somewhat lacking in intelligence, there was no one here who didn't know about the adventurer with the alias of Crimson.
The only opening they had seen was a surprise attack the moment Rei stepped into the room......but that, too, had been thwarted when he effortlessly slashed the arrow out of the air.
"Now then. Your employer is giving you an order, but......what'll it be? If you want to go, I don't mind at all."
Rei directed his gaze at them with a faint smile, but the guards averted their eyes and refused to meet his stare.
Even so, they didn't move away from Relduct either, apparently uncertain about what to do.
They knew they couldn't win if they fought, but simply abandoning Relduct to his fate would also leave a bad taste in their mouths......or so it seemed.
Reading the situation, Rei eventually spoke, the Death Scythe still slung over his shoulder.
"The one who gave me this job ordered me not to kill Relduct. I'll at least guarantee keeping him alive."
That was the decisive statement.
Clatter. The sound echoed through the room.
All eyes turned toward it. The man with the short sword had released his weapon, and it now lay on the floor.
What that action meant was obvious to everyone.
And, naturally, Relduct realized the implication and shouted, his face turning bright red.
"Don't screw with me! You're hired by me! No matter what enemy you face, fight! Fight, and at least inflict some wounds before you die! My life is more important than the lives of you worthless lot, who aren't worth a single Copper Coin!"
Irritation, anger, panic, and fear.
Those emotions churned together, and words that could only be called abuse spilled from Relduct's mouth.
It was abuse—and at the same time, it was likely his true feelings.
Those around him understood that......and soon, clatter, clatter, similar sounds rang out one after another throughout the room.
Following the first man, the others each dropped their weapons to the floor.
If they simply wanted to show through their attitude that they wouldn't resist, they could have just sheathed their longswords. But this time, they needed to make it blatantly clear that they had no intention of opposing Rei.
Perhaps noticing what those around him were doing, Relduct's face turned bright red as he opened his mouth to speak......and the next moment, his eyes rolled back and he collapsed on the spot.
"Eh?"
Who was it that let out that sound?
No one could have predicted that he would lose consciousness in a situation where he was supposed to be enraged.
Rei was no exception.
"Umm......well, then. You guys are surrendering, right? I mean, if you intend to fulfill your obligation to Relduct, I don't mind obliging you......"
Rei said this, but having somewhat lost his motivation in the current atmosphere, the question came out half-hearted.
They had been ready to fight! None of them could have ever imagined that he would get so worked up that he would simply pass out right then and there.
"No, I have no intention of......right?"
"Yeah, same here."
At the words of the man who had wielded the longsword, everyone nodded in agreement.
There was absolutely no way they wanted to risk their lives fighting someone as powerful as Rei for the sake of a man who had so clearly treated them as disposable pawns.
"Is that so. Then go. If you stay here, things will probably get complicated for you in various ways."
Everyone nodded at those words, scooped up the weapons they had dropped on the floor, and hurried out of the room.
Well, if these guys were hired by Relduct and doing as they pleased, they might face a rough time if the Rebel Army finds them......but that's not my concern.
From what Rei could see, though, those who had been here until just now didn't seem to have particularly tyrannical personalities.
Of course, he didn't entirely think it was fine that they had so readily abandoned Relduct just because he had treated them as disposable pawns......but even so, they didn't seem like the kind of people the Rebel Army had described.
"Now, then."
Muttering, Rei walked toward Relduct, who had just done the disgraceful thing of working himself into such a frenzy that he lost consciousness.
Was he pretending to have fainted? Rei wondered for a moment, but even from his perspective, it simply looked like the man had genuinely passed out.
"Wake up. Come on."
He called out and gave Relduct a light kick in the side.
"Guh!"
He hadn't put much force into it, but it was evidently enough pain for Relduct, who groaned and opened his eyes.
He looked around......and upon seeing Rei's figure, remembered everything that had happened before he lost consciousness.
"Wh-Where did the others go!?"
"Let's see. I wonder. For whatever reason, there's no one here but you anymore. Given that, I don't think the ending that awaits you will change, but......"
"Gugaaah!"
A strike delivered in a scooping motion with the pommel of the Death Scythe easily sent Relduct flying.
He crashed into a painting decorating the wall, demolished it, and crumpled to the floor.
"Wh-What......what are you doing to me!?"
Normally, a single strike from Rei—especially one delivered with the Death Scythe—would have easily robbed Relduct of consciousness.
The reason it didn't was because Rei had held back.
Whether Relduct realized this or not, he shouted, infuriated that Rei had shown him no mercy.
If this had been someone living in Count Relduct's Territory, being screamed at by the man would have made them cower in fear.
But the one standing before Relduct was Rei.
Relduct knew that. He knew it, but......all he could do now was shout, barely managing to keep the terror from showing on his face.
Facing him, Rei aimed the Death Scythe at him—this time not the pommel, but the blade.
A massive blade that likely reached a full meter in length.
Moreover, the Death Scythe was a scythe—a weapon so unusual compared to an ordinary longsword that it could practically be called an exotic armament.
Precisely because of its alien shape, Relduct was terrified to have its blade leveled at him.
"What? Considering what you did to Gilm, you should have a pretty good idea of what's about to happen to you, right?"
"What did I do!"
"......Are you telling me you don't know what the private soldiers you dispatched were doing?"
"Of course not! I know nothing! More importantly, are you serious!? If you do something like this, you'll definitely regret it! I belong to the Noble's Faction!"
At those words, Rei let out an exasperated sigh.
"That's right. You might belong to the Noble's Faction."
"Then......"
"But so what?"
"......What?"
Rei, who had muttered in exasperation, the next instant swung the Death Scythe in a sharp flash.
And with that single strike, Relduct's right arm was severed at the shoulder, spinning through the air.
"Even if you belong to the Noble's Faction, it's not like that's going to be of any use in saving you right now."
Perhaps because the cross-section was so clean.
As Rei spoke those words, blood finally began spurting from Relduct's right shoulder.
"Gya......gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
His right arm had been cut off.
Relduct's scream, having finally understood that fact, echoed throughout the room.