The Researcher had been about to say something in response to Rei's words, but there was no time to deal with him.
For Rei and his party, Giants were opponents they could handle without particular difficulty, but ordinary soldiers—those with roughly the level of skill the soldiers here possessed—stood no chance against one.
That much was obvious just from looking at the surroundings where Rei's party currently stood.
Everywhere lay the corpses of soldiers—no, fragments of flesh that could only be called remains, scattered all around.
And the number of Giants the soldiers had managed to take down before Rei's party arrived was zero.
Of course, the soldiers never expected the Giants they had kept under complete control to suddenly go on a rampage, and that shock undoubtedly played a significant role.
Regardless, they needed to reach where the Giants were as quickly as possible, and Rei's honest feeling was that they could not afford to concern themselves with anyone here right now.
"Wait a minute. Is it true that the Black Crystal was destroyed!?"
Despite having the tip of the Twilight Spear thrust at him, the male Researcher shouted those words.
The Black Crystal that he and his colleagues had researched together. And the Giants produced by that Black Crystal.
Having been involved with it himself, the words coming from Rei's mouth—that the Black Crystal had been destroyed—were not something he could simply let pass.
But... that was solely the man's problem, and Rei had no need to concern himself with those circumstances.
"Shut up. Keep quiet for a bit."
He told him curtly, took a step forward, and swung the Twilight Spear horizontally.
The reason he swung rather than thrust was because he thought the Researcher might possess some important information.
Survivors were already scarce to begin with, and he needed to keep the Researcher alive if at all possible.
In particular, looking around, the man before him appeared to be the only Researcher present.
That was precisely why Rei struck the male Researcher with a horizontal sweep using the shaft rather than the spearhead, sending him flying.
The blow must have been a considerable shock to the man. His body slammed against the wall of a nearby building, and he lost consciousness then and there, crumbling to the ground.
"Marina, make sure that man doesn't escape."
"Oh? I'm the one staying behind?"
"That's how it is. Normally I'd want your Spirit Magic support, but..."
The Spirit Magic support that Marina provided was arguably the finest form of support imaginable under the word "support."
Losing that support was regrettable, but in practice, either Marina or Elena needed to stay behind here.
And since this retaliation against Jaya was an operation conducted in coordination with the Noble's Faction, bringing Elena along was the natural choice.
Moreover, there was no doubt she was reliable as pure Combat Power as well.
While not as specialized in support as Marina, she could attack from mid-range using Mirage and was also proficient in Wind Magic.
(Well, I can use magic too, and in terms of support, there's the Death Scythe's skills and throwing the Twilight Spear. If anything, I have more options for ranged attacks. If they're rampaging, it might be faster to just wipe them out with a flashy spell. Vihera won't be happy about it, though.)
Rei understood full well that using magic would make it easy to defeat—no, kill—Giants in bulk.
However, doing so carried the risk that the cave could collapse.
The Underground Facility in Mejougo had been constructed from the start to serve as an underground facility, so using magic to some extent posed no problem.
But the place they were in now was a natural cave.
Though areas like where Rei currently stood had undergone some modification, if he used magic powerful enough to kill a thousand Giants at once, there was no guarantee the cave wouldn't collapse from the impact.
(Should I just collapse the cave and bury them all alive?)
If asked whether such a thought hadn't crossed Rei's mind, the answer would be no.
But to carry out something like that, he would naturally need to get everyone other than himself outside the cave first.
He would have to evacuate all his allies from this treacherous footing.
The Jaya personnel as well—soldiers aside, the Researchers needed to be brought out in order to extract various pieces of information from them.
He would be moving through that treacherous cave with people who would only slow him down.
If things went poorly, the Giants might escape from the cave before Rei could even put his plan into action.
Considering that, collapsing the cave along with everything inside was clearly an approach that would entail nothing but excessive effort.
(Research documents and such might need to be dug up later, too.)
Since the Black Crystal was already gone, Rei had no idea how much value the research documents here might hold.
But this incident still had many unclear points, and having research materials would definitely be beneficial.
Of course, there was also the possibility that those research documents might prove useful for something else down the line.
It was unknown through what channels the Black Crystal had arrived here, but there was also the fact that the existence known as the Black Crystal might not have been entirely eradicated.
(Well, using one person's life, you can birth one Giant. Building up their numbers would absolutely become a spectacle, so it'd be conspicuous.)
If the goal was to mass-produce Giants while earning money, Mejougo was the optimal method.
Of course, that optimal method relied on the lives of women forcibly abducted from other nations as the price for producing them, so from a conventional perspective, it could only be described as villainy.
(No, I don't have the luxury to think about that right now. Elena, Vihera, Byune, you're ready, right?)
Rei asked after giving his head a light shake, and the three nodded without any issue.
"Marina, take charge of things here. If anyone tries to flee, you can kill the soldier types. As for the Researcher types like the one unconscious over there, lopping off a limb or so is sufficient."
Those words were spoken deliberately loud enough for the surrounding soldiers to hear.
They resonated among the soldiers with unparalleled force.
Naturally so. The Giants that they couldn't even lay a finger on—the people before them had fought a battle that could only be called a rout against those very creatures.
Going against such opponents would unquestionably mean death.
Above all, to exit this space, they had to go through the door and outside.
In other words, with someone from Rei's party standing before that door, they were made to understand with absolute certainty that getting past them would be virtually impossible.
The only opening was that Marina held a bow, but... several of the soldiers had witnessed with their own eyes Marina using Spirit Magic during the battle with the Giants.
Given that, there was no way they believed they could handle her with their level of ability.
For that matter, among those present, some were seeing magic for the first time here.
Telling such people to charge at someone who used Spirit Magic would never be obeyed.
...No, there was even a possibility they didn't recognize that magic as Spirit Magic at all.
In any case, the soldiers who understood Rei's words abandoned any thought of escaping and fleeing from here.
Because Rei had implicitly informed them that attempting such a thing would cost them their lives.
Glancing at the soldiers and judging that they had understood the meaning of his words, Rei exchanged a brief word or two with Marina before stepping out through the door.
Having seen Rei's party off, Marina understood that the people before her were members of Jaya—an existence that had literally fed on the women they had forcibly abducted—which meant there was no chance of friendliness.
"I'll permit actions to help your comrades. But don't try anything suspicious. As Rei said, I can't guarantee your lives."
Marina addressed the soldiers with a single sweeping glance.
Being possessed of such refined features, the cold stare Marina directed at them carried overwhelming presence—enough to make it clear that the statement about not being able to guarantee their lives was no mere threat, but an unmistakable fact.
"Now then, all that's left is what Rei's party decides to do about the Giants, but... well, there's no need to worry."
A beautiful woman stood before the door, clad in a Party Dress that was utterly out of place in this setting.
It was a sight that seemed incongruous no matter how one looked at it, but knowing that the woman before them possessed monstrous strength, the soldiers quietly set about treating their injured comrades.
Rei's party, having exited through the door, ran through the cave.
Since they had already traversed this path once, they were not particularly wary of traps or ambushes, but as expected of a cave, the footing was far from good.
Even so, rather than walking as they had on the way in, they were running, making their speed of movement extremely fast.
...They spotted unconscious or dead lookouts along the way, but did nothing in particular upon seeing them.
Thanks to that, the time it took to reach the first fork since entering the cave was surprisingly short.
"Ryutas... isn't here. Outside the cave, maybe? Or perhaps he already withdrew from here... either way, since he's not here, there's no need to worry about him now."
"Indeed. At any rate, we must determine as quickly as possible whether this rampage is limited to the Giants that were there, or whether it involves all of the Giants."
Rei nodded at Elena's words and turned his gaze toward the passage different from the one they had arrived through.
Since it was a Y-shaped fork, there was no need to hesitate over which path was the right one.
When he looked at Elena, Vihera, and Byune respectively, they clearly still had ample stamina.
...Rei was slightly surprised that even the small-bodied Byune still had energy to spare, though he quickly corrected himself, thinking it was natural for a thief specialized for combat.
"Then let's go. Since it's a path Giants use, you can assume there are basically no traps. We'll head there at the same speed as when we came back here. Is that fine with you?"
At Rei's words asking whether they had no issues stamina-wise, Elena, Vihera, and Byune each returned a nod.
Confirming that, Rei began advancing down the unseen path—the path leading to where a large number of Giants surely awaited.
His running speed was, as promised, unchanged from before.
Even so, since this was his first time coming this way, he kept an eye on his footing just in case.
But that caution soon grew less meticulous.
The reason being that the Giants must have traversed this route countless times.
The ground was quite leveled, and though there were a few spots that could trip him up, he could essentially run across the floor without any problems.
(With nearly a thousand Giants walking through here, it's not surprising it turned out like this. And considering there were about twenty Giants on the other side, just because they passed through here once doesn't mean they never use it again.)
Thinking along those lines, while believing it would probably be fine, he did not forget to stay vigilant so he could respond immediately if anything happened.
The cave scenery flowed past one after another in his field of vision.
Since Rei was wearing his Dragon Robe, it wasn't visible, but the air was cool enough to make it hard to believe it was currently summer.
...Of course, that was because this was a cave, not because Giants were present.
"Hey, Rei. If the Giants are rampaging, what are you going to do?"
Vihera, running behind Rei, asked the question.
Even without looking back, Rei could imagine that Vihera was wearing an eager smile.
"Yeah. We'll have to take them down, no question. A few is one thing, but releasing nearly a thousand Giants into the forest would be far too dangerous."
Rei didn't know exactly where the forest and cave they were in were located.
Well, he of course knew it was in Reblurina and near Mejougo, but he had no idea precisely how far away it was.
However, he could surmise that the forest surrounding the cave wasn't particularly deep.
After all, Reblurina needed a horde of Giants as Combat Power, so if it turned out they were too far away to be of use when the time came, that would be no laughing matter.
In other words, this forest was likely near Mejougo—and near the capital Rossi.
In such a location, a rampaging horde of uncontrollable Giants would cause catastrophic damage. It wasn't difficult to imagine.
Especially having just seen with his own eyes the Giants scattering soldiers' flesh about, that made it all the more so.
"I see. If that's your intention, I have nothing particular to say. As for the rest..."
The instant Vihera said that, from the direction Rei's party was heading, a dull sound came echoing toward them... a sound like metal striking flesh, yet enormously massive in scale.