In that room, there was only a dim light.
Lively voices drifted in from outside.
The nights in Gilm were quite noisy, partly because it was summer and partly because the men working on the expansion construction were making a racket.
By the time the date changed, things would quiet down to some extent since people had work the next day, but the current hour was still what one would call the height of evening, and there was no sign of things settling down.
Laughter, cheers, shouts, and screams could be heard from who knows where.
With insects flitting around the room and the air showing no sign of cooling despite the night, the men inside naturally grew increasingly irritated.
"Hey, how's the headcount coming along? With how many people are flooding into Gilm right now, it shouldn't be hard to gather women, right?" one of the several men in the dimly lit room asked.
"We've got a certain number gathered. But the place to keep them locked up is a problem. It's fine for now, but sooner or later someone might find them. The smell, too."
The man who'd been asked muttered with a sigh, but a third man in the room chimed in.
"Idiot. The smell of women is the whole point, right? Women's body odor, you know?"
"I can't understand your fetish at all. Think about it—if it were winter, that'd be one thing, but it's summer right now, isn't it? We're keeping multiple women locked up in a single cell in this heat. We're making them use a pot for their business, and they haven't wiped themselves down, so the smell of sweat is also—fine. I get it, so stop looking at me with those sparkling eyes."
The second man, noticing that the third man's eyes were indeed sparkling as he stared at him with a gaze full of expectation, cut the conversation short before saying anything more.
For a man with an ordinary disposition, he simply couldn't keep up with someone who enthusiastically welcomed the smell of women.
Let alone agree when the other man happily went on and on about smells.
The first man, who had been silently listening to the exchange, spoke up as if to cut the pointless topic short.
"Anyway, we still don't have enough women, right?"
"Yeah. We should've been able to gather them much more easily. I never expected the security to be this tight."
The other two nodded in agreement with the irritated man's muttered words.
With the expansion construction underway, huge numbers of people were flocking to Gilm. Naturally, with that many people, there were plenty of unfamiliar faces.
That was precisely why these three had come to Gilm to gather people—but Gilm's public order was astonishingly good.
In a village where most residents knew each other, that would be one thing, but in a town or city of sufficient scale, there were always guards who would overlook crimes for money.
But there were no such people among Gilm's guards.
No, humans are creatures of desire. It's not that there aren't any such people at all. If so, then we simply haven't been able to find them.
Because Gilm was a frontier town, even those taking bribes must have been more discreet about it.
Thinking this, the man clicked his tongue in annoyance.
Ultimately unable to secure women from the places where they gathered in large numbers, they had resorted to establishing contact with a criminal organization based in the Slum District and having that group supply women instead.
Naturally, the criminal organization wasn't about to lend women out without anything in return. They received a fitting sum from the men in exchange.
That naturally meant expenses piled up, making it difficult for the men to gather the numbers in Gilm they had originally planned.
In fact, the funds they'd been given from above as operating capital had already been reduced to about half—and that was despite not yet having gathered all the women they'd been tasked with collecting.
"Still, it would've been nice if at least the women we gather could be just anyone," one of them grumbled.
"Yeah... well, I can't say I don't understand that feeling. No ugly ones, and they have to be at least above average—what kind of standard is that? Well, better-looking women are nicer when it comes to body odor and things like that, though."
Doing their best to tune out those last words, the men continued their conversation.
"Well, it can't be helped. We need the women to properly bear children over there. And as many of them as possible, at that."
"So rather than having them bear children as a result of taking clients, they're made to take clients in order to bear children... That doesn't feel very good."
"When it comes to the smell, I'm actually pretty fond of it, you know."
"Shut up, pervert."
A slightly calmer atmosphere settled over the three men after that last remark.
Amidst all that, one of them eventually spoke up.
"Come to think of it, didn't you say yesterday that you were assigned to city patrol today?"
"That was my intention, too. I figured there might be some women on the main streets I could do something about. But I was recruited by the Guild, so what can I do?"
"You could've just refused."
"Don't say something stupid. I've got a reputation for being reasonably serious at the Guild, you know? There's no way I could turn down a request proposed by the Guild when I'm the one they came to."
"Pfft. Ajas, serious? What kind of joke is that?"
At Ajas's words, the two other men in the room let out laughter that suggested they'd just heard the funniest joke in the world.
In fact, if Ajas was serious, there wouldn't be an unserious person left in the world.
Entertaining even such thoughts, the two men laughed.
"Lebejev, Haston. I'm honestly not happy about being laughed at by you two. Especially you, Haston—you're a pervert who gets off on women's body odor."
"Don't call me a pervert. It's a refined taste that others can't understand. That much is certain, at least."
"A refined taste, huh. It's all in how you phrase things. Anyway, let me get back on topic. I was assigned to guard the Treant Forest today, and..."
Something suspicious crept into Ajas's words.
The other two sensed it as well. They waited for him to continue.
"Rei showed up to escort the Treant Forest."
"Huh? Rei? That Crimson? You're kidding, right?"
Lebejev's voice came out sounding dumbfounded. But Ajas's words carried enough shock to warrant exactly that kind of reaction.
To begin with, Rei had been assigned a great many tasks related to Gilm's current expansion. Why would a man like that go out of his way to carve out time from his busy schedule to visit the Treant Forest?
Lebejev and Haston couldn't fathom the reason.
"Well... the lumber from the Treant Forest is treated as an important material for this expansion, but even so, as long as there are woodcutters, I can't imagine Crimson going there himself."
"Yeah. Normally, he should have plenty of more important work to do."
Haston muttered in agreement with Lebejev's words.
That wasn't a particularly unusual opinion. Anyone who knew what kind of abilities Rei possessed would likely agree.
Assigning Rei to escort the Treant Forest was clearly not worth the cost.
"That's right. Also, probably—and I mean really probably—Rei's purpose was me."
"Hey."
Unlike his lighthearted demeanor from a few seconds ago, a low voice slipped from Lebejev's mouth. His gaze, too, had shifted from the familiar one of moments before to something sharp and wary.
"You didn't go and do something stupid that got your tail caught, did you?"
"No, that shouldn't be the case. Since coming to Gilm, I haven't made any particularly notable moves."
That much, Ajas could say with confidence. He had, in fact, worked as diligently as possible as an adventurer since arriving in Gilm. He could state with certainty that he hadn't drawn any attention through his own actions.
Even so, the words Rei had spoken gnawed at Ajas's sense of caution.
Killed a peddler? Which peddler? To begin with, there shouldn't have been any witnesses left. Don't tell me there was a survivor...
Looking down at his left hand—or more precisely, at the snake tattoo engraved on it—Ajas felt a bad premonition creeping in.
The tattoo on his left hand was extremely conspicuous. If there had been a survivor, this snake tattoo could easily become the very thing that identified him.
What was most troublesome was that he had no idea which peddler Rei was talking about.
Ajas had killed how many—no, how many dozens of people by now. Among them, naturally, were several peddlers, and he had absolutely no idea which case Rei was referring to.
"So, what are you going to do? If Crimson—no, if Rei's got his eye on you, you can't afford any careless moves right now, can you?"
"Yeah. I'd better lay low for a while. I'll need you two to pick up the slack in my place, though..."
"I'm calling in a favor."
"Yeah, a favor. For me, just introduce me to a woman with strong body odor and we'll call it even."
At Haston's words, the atmosphere in the room softened somewhat.
"All right, consider it a favor. Setting aside the body odor business, I'll get a woman for you later, Haston."
Naturally, "getting a woman" didn't mean introducing one—it meant forcibly abducting one.
What they were discussing was nothing short of criminal, but upon hearing those words, Haston broke into a beaming smile that blew away the heavy atmosphere that had been hanging over the room.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Consider it payback for the trouble I'm causing."
"Man... nothing beats having a best friend."
"A woman for Haston, huh. Then I can expect plenty in return too, right?"
"Yeah. Count on it. Anyway, back on topic. How to deal with Rei. To be honest, I was thinking it might be best for me to keep Rei occupied like this and leave the women to you two. What do you think?"
"I see. Word is that Rei has a sharp nose. Apparently a lot of villains have been ruined just by getting involved with him."
"Looking at it that way, while Ajas keeps Rei's attention, we can breathe a little easier. Though someone's been sniffing around Ajas lately, so we can't afford to move too flashy either."
Haston muttered irritably.
Officially, Ajas, Lebejev, and Haston had no connection to one another. Each had come to Gilm as a solo adventurer.
That was precisely why Lebejev and Haston had noticed. Recently, someone had been investigating Ajas.
If the other party was highly skilled, then naturally the one being investigated—in this case, Ajas—would have a hard time noticing. But from a third-party vantage point, spotting someone tailing Ajas wasn't all that difficult.
Of course, this wasn't something just any amateur off the street could pull off. But Lebejev and Haston had come to Gilm for the express purpose of abducting large numbers of women, and they possessed skill that could honestly be called first-rate by general standards.
Because of that, whenever they happened to encounter Ajas by chance—in the city streets, at the Guild, in a tavern, inside a shop—they noticed the presence of someone watching him.
And since Lebejev and Haston had become aware of it, that information naturally made its way to Ajas as well.
"I'm thinking it's probably one of Rei's people, but from what I know, Rei shouldn't have that kind of organization at his disposal."
There existed a connection between Rei, Marina, Daskar, and Egg, but Ajas likely wasn't aware of that much.
Then again, given that they knew full well they were engaged in underhanded business, they figured it wouldn't be strange no matter who came poking around.
"If you think about it normally, the most suspicious ones would be the crew in the Slum District, right?"
"But we're their trading partners. Why would they do something to make us suspicious? It'd only be a loss for them."
Haston countered Lebejev's assessment, but Ajas shook his head.
"It's possible they're growing suspicious of us, too. To begin with, nobody normally gathers this many women. The question of why we need that many is probably of great interest to them as well."
"Probably hoping to get a taste of the profits for themselves, if the opportunity arises."
"That's infuriating."
Lebejev and Haston both agreed with the word that had slipped from Ajas's mouth. They were already trading with these people and making good money—and yet the organization still wanted to muscle in?
"Should we just crush them and approach a different outfit? With how many people are flooding into Gilm right now, it wouldn't be hard to gather women on our own."
Lebejev offered the suggestion, but Ajas shook his head in dismissal.
"Let's not. We don't have solid proof it's them. If we did something like that and it turned out they had nothing to do with it, things would get complicated. If we're going to move against them, we solidify our evidence first."
The other two nodded.
And so, driven perhaps by the awareness of their own underhanded dealings, Ajas and his companions slipped into a mild state of paranoia.
For Ilse—whose identity remained completely unknown to them—it was a stroke of fortune. Rei notwithstanding.