The Jaya soldiers who had stormed the Underground Fifth Floor numbered nearly fifty in total, but every last one of them had been defeated by Rei and his party.
From the soldiers' perspective, Rei and his party had been right there the instant they opened the hidden door. They had known the underground facility they called the giants' nest was under attack, but even so, they never expected enemies to be waiting directly on the other side. They had been completely caught off guard.
That said, the unexpected encounter was equally surprising for Rei and his party, but the fact that they could spring into action immediately spoke to their level of training.
"Well, that was a rather unexpected turn of events, but it saved us the trouble of searching for a hidden passage. Can't complain."
Rei muttered to himself as he surveyed the hidden passage.
He had predicted that a passage for shipping giants would exist. But even he hadn't expected it to be quite this large. Then again, considering that giants had to move through it, a passage of this size was hardly strange.
"...Mm."
Byune, who had been eager to search for the hidden passage, had fought wildly against the enemy soldiers and was now showing signs of fatigue. Her usual energy was absent. Even so, the somewhat satisfied look on her face was probably not Rei's imagination.
She hadn't been able to demonstrate her skills as a thief, but being able to fully showcase her other strength—her combat prowess—clearly meant a lot to her. Though in terms of pure combat ability, the others were overwhelmingly stronger.
The reason Byune had been able to shine this time was partly due to her own strength, but more than that, the conditions had been ideal. The Jaya soldiers never expected to encounter enemies in a place like this. And while the passage was wide enough for two giants to walk abreast, it was clearly too narrow for nearly fifty people to fight in.
On top of that, Byune had her powerful weapon, Hakumo, and her small frame was a distinct advantage in such tight quarters.
(More than anything, having their commander taken out right at the start must have been a brutal blow.)
Rei mused as he watched Byune.
Vihera, standing nearby, called out to him.
"So, Rei. What do we do now? Follow this passage?"
"Yeah. It's not exactly what we planned, but a path opened up for us, so we might as well take it. Let's go pay them a visit."
No one raised any objections. Everyone quickly prepared to move.
Not that they were particularly exhausted from a fight of that caliber. Byune's stamina had recovered considerably too, thanks to swapping out with Vihera midway and resting in the rear.
If anything, she needed to replenish her supply of Long Needles—but that was no issue. She simply pulled them from the bodies of the dead and unconscious and picked up the ones scattered on the ground.
"That would be for the best. Even now, there are many who are unconscious or unable to move from the pain of their injuries, but that doesn't guarantee none of them will get any foolish ideas."
At Elena's words, several of those lying on the floor reacted. They were likely the ones who hadn't lost consciousness but had been left where they were with broken bones. Of course, it was precisely because they knew they had absolutely no chance of winning that they hadn't made any move.
Rei had also concluded that any intelligence he could extract from rank-and-file soldiers wouldn't be worth much, and that they should move quickly.
"Stay put and keep quiet. Do that, and I won't harm you any further."
Considering what Jaya had done, part of him questioned whether letting them off this easily was the right call. But fortunately, having just exhausted his urge for violence, he felt no need to go out of his way to finish them off himself.
(Though there's no doubt they'll catch hell later for letting us pass through quietly.)
For those men, the best possible outcome would be for Jaya to collapse entirely. Of course, that would mean they might avoid punishment for this incident, but it would also mean losing their livelihood. Rei couldn't say for certain which was truly better.
At any rate, once the men fell silent and obeyed his command, Rei and his party entered the hidden passage.
"It goes without saying, but this really doesn't look like a hidden passage."
Rei muttered as they proceeded through the passage.
Normally, Byune would take point to watch for traps, but since this was a hidden passage, he wasn't concerned about that. After all, the ones who normally traveled through here were giants. If there had been any traps, the giants couldn't have avoided them. With only one or two, there might be a chance of accidentally avoiding a trap, but having every single one of dozens—or perhaps over a hundred—giants do so was virtually impossible.
"Since it's a passage for giants, it needs to be at least this wide. Though some might still think it's narrow even so," Vihera replied.
They continued through the passage, chatting as they went, until—
"Oh, carriages. ...Well, that makes sense."
A considerable number of carriages came into view ahead, and Rei nodded in understanding.
Since this hidden passage served as a shipping route for giants, it had to extend at least outside of Mejougo. If so, it was hard to imagine that the roughly fifty soldiers Rei and his party had just defeated had walked the entire way on foot.
More importantly, Rei's assault had been extremely sudden for Jaya. Given the need to send reinforcements as quickly as possible, having carriages ready was only natural.
And if carriages were prepared, that meant coachmen were present too.
"Wh—!"
One of the coachmen must have noticed Rei's voice. He looked up from his conversation with a companion, saw Rei and his party standing there, and let out a cry of shock.
For the coachmen, the overwhelming thought was: Who are these people? They had sent nearly fifty soldiers as reinforcements, and not much time had passed before Rei's party appeared. It was a natural reaction.
It would have been unreasonable for the coachmen to mistake Rei's group for some of those soldiers. After all, every last one of the reinforcements had been male—not a single woman among them. There were some who chose to speak in a feminine manner, but their gender was unmistakably male. Given that, the coachmen could state with certainty that none of them had been anyone who could be called a peerless beauty like Elena and the others.
In other words, the people standing before the coachmen were unquestionably not Jaya personnel. And if they knew Jaya had scrambled to send soldiers like they had, it wasn't difficult to figure out what kind of existence Rei's party was.
The problem was that even understanding this, there was nothing the coachmen could do.
If they had positioned the carriages facing the direction they'd come from, they might have been able to flee. But the carriages sat where they had arrived, unmoved. With a little more time, they might have repositioned them—but the coachmen had been griping to each other about the abrupt assignment and had put it off.
Not that it would have mattered. If it had been just the horses, maybe. But horse-drawn carriages? Rei's party would have caught up with ease.
"Now then, it'd save us some trouble if you just stayed quiet. What'll it be? Going to resist?"
Faced with that question, all the coachmen could do was quietly surrender.
Even though they belonged to Jaya, coachmen were still just coachmen. Compared to ordinary coachmen, they were somewhat accustomed to rough business, but even so, none of them believed they could take on professionals. Especially when Rei's party being here meant that the nearly fifty soldiers they had just transported had all been wiped out.
There was a slim possibility that Rei's party had hidden somewhere, let the soldiers pass, and then shown up here—but there was no way to verify that.
"We surrender."
Once the first coachman spoke, the others nodded in agreement one after another.
"Good, that's a relief. We don't have any demands for you, so don't worry. Oh, but we'll be taking the carriages."
Rei's gaze shifted to the carriage at the very back. The coachmen stared at him, clearly wondering what he was talking about. It was only natural—there were ten carriages here, and Rei's party had five people. There was no way they could make use of all of them.
But even with objections, the coachmen weren't about to trade their lives for property, so they said nothing.
Rei gathered the coachmen in one place, then released the horses from all but one carriage and gave each a light slap on the hindquarters. As if understanding exactly what Rei wanted, every horse galloped off down the passage in the direction the soldiers had come from.
With the horses from nine carriages gone, only the carriage bodies remained. Rei touched each one and stored it into his Misty Ring.
The coachmen stared in astonishment at the spectacle unfolding before their eyes, but Rei, who had seen the same reaction every time he used the Misty Ring, felt nothing as he stashed carriage after carriage.
In the end, only one carriage and the two horses pulling it remained.
(The carriage bodies can serve as weapons if dropped from the sky, or I could sell them if need be. There are probably other uses too. No downside to grabbing them here.)
With that in mind, Rei headed for the remaining carriage. Elena and the others felt mild exasperation at his behavior, but since it was so quintessentially Rei, they boarded without comment.
"...Wait, what about the coachmen? Well, it can't be helped."
Marina muttered with a hint of exasperation and climbed onto the driver's seat.
"Brrrr."
At Marina's presence, one of the two horses neighed happily. As a Dark Elf, Marina naturally had a disposition that endeared her to animals. Combined with her experience as an adventurer before becoming Guild Master, handling a carriage was second nature to her.
In fact, she conveyed her intent to the horses with just a light pull on the reins, and the two animals began moving in the direction they had originally come from.
Just minutes earlier, turning a carriage around would have been a cumbersome task with ten of them packed into the space. But the other horses had been freed and had already fled, and the carriage bodies were safely stored in Rei's Misty Ring. In other words, turning the single remaining carriage around was simple.
The coachmen clearly wanted to say something, but Marina, focused on driving, ignored them completely.
(They probably want to complain that they'll be blamed from above for losing the carriages they were entrusted with.)
Marina's guess was half right and half wrong. What the coachmen truly couldn't accept was that Marina, wearing what looked like a Party Dress fit for a noble's gala, was serving as their coachman. Marina herself wore a Party Dress as her everyday attire and thought nothing of it.
At any rate, the carriage under Marina's control pulled away, leaving the coachmen behind.
The coachmen had no choice but to watch it go in silence.
When the carriage was no longer in sight, one of them finally spoke up.
"So, what do we do now?"
"Beats me. Don't we have to walk back?"
"...That whole way?"
One coachman groaned with an exasperated expression, and the others nodded in agreement. It wasn't an impossible distance to walk, but it was long enough to be a serious hassle.
"I'm grateful they let us live, but I wish they'd left us at least one carriage."
Another muttered, and once again the others nodded.
Resigned to the unpleasant walk, one of them suddenly had an idea.
"How about we go up through the giants' nest and grab a carriage from Mejougo?"
Everyone's eyes lit up at the suggestion, and they set off toward the giants' nest. It would be only a short while longer before they arrived to find the soldiers they had transported lying in literal heaps of corpses—and cried out in shock.