Rei had been talking with Ajas for about ten minutes, but judging that lingering by his side any longer would arouse suspicion, he eventually spoke up while surveying the surrounding forest.
"Well, I need to go check on the others, so I'll be taking my leave around here."
"Hm? Ah, got it. We want to keep an eye on the surroundings as thoroughly as possible, too, so that would help. No matter what we're doing out here, having someone as famous as you hovering around is distracting."
"...Distracting, huh. I wouldn't have guessed that at all. Well, having a skilled adventurer guarding the Treant Forest helps us out, too. I'd appreciate it if you could stick around for a while longer—not just for today and tomorrow."
"Hahaha, that depends on how much I can earn. If I can fell trees while standing guard, that turns a profit, right? By all accounts, it's a pretty lucrative request... but if it's that lucrative, they wouldn't normally need to put out additional recruitment calls."
"True enough. There's no doubt that monsters have been on the rise lately. ...If anything, it was strange that the Treant Forest had so few of them up until now."
To be precise, the Treant Forest itself had once drawn monsters in, effectively wiping out the creatures in the surrounding area.
But now, new monsters were gradually creeping into the vacancies left behind by those that had vanished. That was the reason the monster population in the Treant Forest had begun to swell.
Well, there's no denying that the number of guards for the woodcutters has dropped, but it's not quite desperate yet. This whole assignment was really just an excuse to probe Ajas and put some pressure on him.
Looking at the man before him, Rei casually let his gaze drift down to Ajas's left hand.
A snake tattoo, coiling upward as if climbing his arm.
That distinctive marking was the strongest reason Ilse believed Ajas was her family's killer.
Of course, it wasn't as though Ilse had forgotten Ajas's face. But after several years, memories inevitably faded.
In that situation, the tattoo was the decisive piece of evidence.
"Hm? What is it? Ah, this tattoo? Pretty rare, isn't it?"
Catching Rei's stare, Ajas must have realized where he was looking. Rather than hiding the ink on his left hand, he held it out—almost as if showing it off.
Even if he doesn't know Ilse is after him... if he's been up to no good all this time, would he flaunt such a conspicuous tattoo so proudly? Or does he have absolute certainty that his crimes will never come to light?
Rei couldn't figure out the reason. Even so, seeing Ajas display the tattoo with such confident bravado was entirely unexpected.
"Yeah, it is rare. I've seen all kinds of adventurers, and plenty of them had tattoos, but nothing this flashy."
For a moment, the faces of those who could be called the elite of the Holy Light Religion flickered through Rei's mind, but he quickly dismissed them as irrelevant.
No, could it be... is Ajas connected to the Holy Light Religion?
He tried to picture Ajas spouting the Holy Light Religion's trademark catchphrase about the Goddess of Light, but he simply couldn't imagine it.
Besides, Daskar was well aware of the danger the Holy Light Religion posed. Rei couldn't imagine him deliberately allowing them into Gilm.
Well, I haven't heard much about the Holy Light Religion lately, anyway.
Thanks to past events, the cult had, at the very least, found it harder to operate within the Kingdom of Mireana. Banning a religion outright would only drive it underground, but the nobles had evidently concluded that was still preferable to letting the Holy Light Religion spread openly.
In any case, to Rei, the Holy Light Religion was nothing but a nuisance. He pushed the thought from his mind and brought his focus back to the snake tattoo on Ajas's left hand.
"You think so? I suppose so. I'm probably the only one with ink this impressive."
Ajas had maintained a calm demeanor, but perhaps pleased to have his prized tattoo complimented, a smile slipped across his face.
"Yeah, in all my travels, I've never seen anyone with a tattoo quite like yours. ...Out of curiosity, are there others out there with the same one? Any chance of that?"
"I don't know everyone with a tattoo, so I can't say for certain... but still, I've never come across one."
"Hmm... Figured as much."
If someone knew another person bearing the same tattoo, they would either boast about it or play dumb. Rei couldn't tell which Ajas was doing, but from where he stood, it didn't look like the man was lying.
Whether or not there's truly no one else with the same tattoo is still uncertain. But... even so, can I take this as raising the odds that Ajas is Ilse's enemy? If so, maybe I should apply a little more pressure.
Making that decision, Rei spoke again, keeping his tone perfectly casual.
"I forget exactly how many years ago it was, but there was a stir about a tattooed man killing a peddler... Have you heard about that?"
At Rei's words, Ajas's eyes flickered with alarm—for just a moment. Undeniably, just a single, fleeting moment.
That alone was enough for Rei. He was now all but certain the man standing before him was the one Ilse sought.
Naturally, incidents of merchants being murdered happened all the time around Gilm, across the Kingdom of Mireana, or anywhere else in the world of Elgin. Cases where the culprit bore a tattoo were probably not uncommon, either.
But if someone had something weighing on their conscience, they would inevitably assume such a story was about them. Rei reasoned that was likely why Ajas had flinched.
"What's wrong? You look startled. Could it be you know something about it?"
"—! ...No, it's nothing. The shape of the tattoo is probably different, anyway. I just thought it was a shame that someone with that kind of tattoo would resort to becoming a bandit."
"I see. Well, they say the case is still being looked into even now, so maybe catching the culprit won't be that difficult. Once they do, it'll obviously be hard for them to keep working as an adventurer."
Ajas was operating under the assumption that the culprit was a bandit. Rei was suggesting the culprit was an adventurer. In that sense, their exchange was completely at odds—but Ajas either failed to notice or chose not to point it out.
"Ah, sorry for taking up your time. I need to check on the others, so I really will be heading out now."
With that, Rei took his leave.
Ajas stood there, staring fixedly at Rei's retreating back—the unmistakable silhouette of the Dragon Robe.
"Now then, let's see how he plays this. It'd be easy if he just quietly slips up, but that's probably asking too much."
Once he had put ample distance between himself and Ajas, Rei murmured to himself as he gazed out at the forest.
To anyone watching, his actions had been an obvious attempt to apply pressure. Yet the man responsible was now second-guessing himself, wondering if it had been enough.
Ajas had clearly been rattled, but he hadn't made any fatal misstep. If he had so much as bolted on reflex, Rei could have branded him as Ilse's enemy with absolute certainty.
Even so, Rei had seen the alarm in Ajas's eyes with his own eyes. Naturally, a man who had lived as an adventurer couldn't be entirely free of a guilty conscience. But even accounting for that... that reaction had been far too suspicious.
"Ah, Rei-san! Where have you been!? Over here, over here!"
As Rei walked through the woods, a voice called out to him. Turning toward the sound, he found Rugluno instructing the other adventurers about the Treant Forest.
When the job had first started, plenty of them had looked down on Rugluno. But now, at least among those gathered around him, that attitude seemed to have vanished.
Silenced them with sheer competence, I take it.
A fair amount of time had passed since the Gilm expansion project began. Rugluno had spent all of it guarding woodcutters in the Treant Forest, so he had no doubt accumulated a wealth of practical knowledge.
Not that the Treant Forest itself hadn't changed considerably in that short span. At first, no monsters had appeared at all, making guard duty almost purely a formality—the adventurers had mostly just felled trees alongside the woodcutters.
But as creatures gradually crept back in, the adventurers had been forced to adapt. It was precisely because Rugluno understood those shifting dynamics that the others now regarded him with respect—or at the very least, no longer dismissed him.
"Looks like things are going smoothly on your end. That's what matters most."
"Ahaha. Everyone here is a capable adventurer. Explain things to them logically, and they'll understand perfectly."
At Rugluno's words, a few of the adventurers listening in awkwardly averted their eyes—no doubt the ones who had initially dismissed him simply because he'd been modest.
But Rugluno had earned their acknowledgment through proven ability.
"Glad to hear it. Sounds like guarding the woodcutters is in good hands, then."
"Yes. It would be nice if the others shared that sentiment... I just wish more of them would come help out over here."
Rugluno muttered with visible disappointment, his gaze drifting toward the sound of axes striking wood.
If it were the woodcutters felling trees, the rhythm of the strikes would be far steadier. Indeed, the sounds echoing from several other spots in the forest carried a consistent, measured cadence.
But the uneven, clumsy crashing coming from one direction was all too easy for Rei to identify. It had to be the ones who had rushed into the Treant Forest first, eager to fell trees and pocket a little extra coin.
It's easy to write it off as them being unused to the work... but they must really want the money. The problem is, from the sound of it, they're pouring all their focus into chopping wood and ignoring everything else.
Their primary job was guarding the woodcutters; logging was supposed to be a secondary bonus. The fact that they were fixating on the side work struck Rei as dangerously reckless.
Then again, if it were only the adventurers themselves who suffered the consequences, Rei would have simply written it off as their own problem. But if their negligence led to the woodcutters being attacked by monsters, that failure would come crashing down on every adventurer who had accepted this request.
Rei, in particular, had gone out of his way to ask the Guild to set up this whole arrangement just so he could investigate Ajas. If things went sideways, the Guild's scrutiny of him would only intensify.
Of course, there had been times before when woodcutters were injured because adventurers failed to fend off monsters in time. It wouldn't all fall squarely on Rei's shoulders. But given his position—and more importantly, his desire to see the Gilm expansion finished as quickly as possible—any casualties among the woodcutters here would be a serious headache.
Then again, from how they were acting earlier, I doubt they'd listen even if I warned them. ...Well, they'll regret it soon enough.
In this case, regret didn't mean Rei would personally intervene. It simply meant that once the request was over, the woodcutters would report the whole affair to the Guild.
As long as no one got hurt, the Guild wouldn't formally punish adventurers for abandoning their posts to chase a quick profit. But the next time a lucrative request came around, those adventurers would find themselves passed over.
And that was only natural. Faced with adventurers of comparable skill, of course the Guild would prioritize the ones who actually did their jobs.
"Rei-san. In any case, let's focus on the guarding ourselves. Others are standing watch, but I don't think we have enough people for that alone."
"...You think so? Well, we've got our own tasks to handle here. I suppose we can let them do as they please over there."
Adventurers operated on self-responsibility. Whatever profits they reaped were theirs to keep—but by the same token, any catastrophic failures were theirs to own as well.
And so, Rei and the others each set about their own duties.