"......My, that was quite fast. Or perhaps I should say you were slow, in this case?"
Seeing Rei appear, Marina offered a small smile.
However, to Rei, who knew Marina well, it was obvious that anger lurked beneath that smile.
To Marina, everyone in this place belonged to Jaya......in other words, they were the very people who had forcibly abducted women from other countries, controlled them with Slave Collars, and forced them to work as prostitutes against their will.
Had that been all, she would have still been angry, but she would not have harbored such deep fury.
But they had not merely forced them into prostitution—they had impregnated them with Giant children and had the Giants eat their way out of the pregnant women's bellies to birth them.
As a woman, that was something she absolutely could not tolerate.
Moreover, Marina's race, the Dark Elves, shared the same trait as Elves of having difficulty bearing children.
That made what Jaya had done in this incident all the more unforgivable to her.
"Ah... my bad. There were more Giants than expected, and an army was dispatched from Reblurina to wipe out everyone in this cave, so I was dealing with that too."
"......An army from Reblurina? But shouldn't Giants be valuable combat power for Reblurina as well? So why?"
"It seems they want to make Jaya an enemy to confront alongside the Kingdom of Mireana. Though that's strictly Ryutas's prediction—there's a possibility the real reason is entirely different."
Marina nodded at Rei's words.
She had likely understood immediately why they would do such a thing.
"I see. ......In that case, we should tell the envoy heading toward Reblurina about this. Otherwise, they might get their story through first."
"Would they? But the envoy dispatched from Gilm should already understand those circumstances, shouldn't they? Then they wouldn't do something that foolish..."
"Probably not. ......But I can't say for certain. Besides, when it comes to information, the more you have, the better. Of course, some of it would be useless."
"Then I guess we really should inform them about this incident. Well, it's not like there's anything else we need to do right now anyway."
The primary reason Rei and his party had been dispatched this time was retaliation against Jaya.
But in terms of retaliation, that goal had already been more than sufficiently achieved.
No—what was being done to Jaya was already too severe to be called retaliation.
What was happening now went far beyond something as simple as retaliation. They had suffered damage so extensive it was as if the organization itself were being annihilated.
Whether due to Rei's party's actions or some other reason was unclear, but considering the current situation—where Jaya was on the verge of being abandoned by their own nation—the damage dealt to them must have been considerable.
Given that, there was nothing that needed to be done right now, so passing information to the special envoy from Gilm was not a bad choice.
(The envoy from the King's Faction apparently isn't traveling with them, either.)
Rei reached that conclusion and looked once more at the people who had likely been working here.
Many had died in the Giants' rampage. ......To be precise, they had been eaten alive.
What could only be called the remnants of corpses—fragments of internal organs, flesh, and bone—had been gathered into a single pile.
The soldiers moving about the area gave that pile of human remains a wide berth.
"Well, setting aside what comes next for now—what will you do, Marina? Are you staying here?"
"I'm heading back. I have no more business here, right?"
Marina stated that matter-of-factly.
To Rei, it was exactly the reply he had expected.
But to the remaining Jaya members present, those were words they had never anticipated.
"Wait! If you leave now, Marina-san, we're in trouble!"
"That's right! Look at this situation! It's only because you're here that everyone is somehow holding on. And yet you're taking the key person away... Have you no compassion!?"
"For that matter, what authority do you have to take Mari—agh!"
One of the soldiers who had been declaring they would never let Marina be taken away had a hole punched clean through his torso and collapsed to the ground.
The weapon that had pierced through the soldier's torso and continued through the wall of a nearby building, its spearhead shattering on impact, was a spear.
As the shattered spearhead made clear, it was not the Twilight Spear that Rei always used, but a near-broken spear from his still-plentiful stock.
To Rei, the men clamoring before him were not worthy of the Twilight Spear.
They were opponents fit only for trash-quality spears.
Rei's sudden violence silenced every last one of them.
They understood all too well that if they made another fuss here, they would end up with holes in their own torsos.
Facing the men who had gone deathly quiet, Rei spoke.
"You all seem to be under a misconception. We're not exactly heroes of justice. ......Well, if we were heroes of justice, it wouldn't be unusual for us to massacre every last one of you belonging to Jaya, so in that regard, you might consider yourselves lucky."
Rei's gaze as he surveyed the men was ice-cold.
Sensing from his demeanor that saying anything more would lead to the same fate as the man from moments ago, the rest fell silent on pure instinct.
In truth, had anyone been fool enough to press further, Rei would not have held back at all.
But to these men, Marina was their savior.
That was why they so desperately wanted to prevent her from being taken away.
So they turned their gazes toward Marina.
Opening their mouths to say anything would surely get them killed by Rei.
Thus, without speaking, they tried to convey their intent through their eyes alone.
But Marina, receiving the gazes of everyone present, only stared back at them without so much as a change in expression.
Had the men been able to read what emotions their counterpart harbored, they would have fled on the spot.
But whether fortunately or unfortunately, they possessed no such sensitivity—and above all, Marina was exceptionally skilled at hiding her feelings.
As a result, the men directed pleading, hopeful gazes toward her.
In response, Marina offered a smile that could only be called a cold sneer.
"Tell me something, all of you. I'd like to ask... I'm a woman, aren't I?"
Baffled by the sudden question but unable to deny that Marina was indeed a woman, the men nodded without hesitation.
Looking at her dressed in a revealing Party Dress that exposed the valley of her chest, there was likely no one who would mistake her for anything but a woman.
That was why they nodded—and it was a fatal mistake.
"Then let me ask: why would I, as a woman, be kind to people from an organization that dragged women here by force, controlled them with Slave Collars to make them work as prostitutes, and when they got pregnant, had Giants eat the pregnant women alive?"
In that instant, Marina released the killing intent she had been suppressing all along.
The men here had accumulated a fair amount of combat experience.
At the very least, they were clearly stronger than Reblurina's soldiers.
......Though they were inferior to the elites who had defended the Underground Facility—the Giants' nest—in Mejougo.
"N......n-no......"
"Ahh... aaah..."
Faced with the sudden killing intent, the soldiers could do nothing but chatter their teeth.
Until now, she had listened to their requests, and having been attacked by the Giants, they had completely assumed she was an ally.
But at this very moment, the person standing before them was... without question, no ally of theirs.
Who would believe someone radiating a gaze so freezing it halted their body merely from being seen could be on their side?
Much less toward people who had committed acts that profaned womanhood itself.
Of course, Jaya included women among its ranks, so being a woman did not necessarily mean one would find Jaya's deeds absolutely unforgivable.
But for Marina, it was something she could never, under any circumstances, forgive.
"W-what should we... what should we do to make you forgive us?"
One of the men subjected to that glacial stare managed, with tremendous effort, to force out those words.
"Forgive? You think I would forgive people like you? ......But, yes. If you truly regret it, people from the Kingdom of Mireana will be arriving shortly. If you honestly tell them what you've done and produce evidence to back it up... I might be willing to acknowledge that much."
To Rei, that sounded for all the world like she was telling them to turn themselves in.
But unlike an ordinary surrender, they would not be turning themselves in to the local guards—they would be surrendering to personnel from the Kingdom of Mireana.
(The Kingdom of Mireana isn't exactly a pristine nation, either. No—any major power naturally has its dark side behind closed doors. But... when it comes to the Giants, that should be impossible now.)
In the first place, producing Giants required the Black Crystal.
But that Black Crystal had already been destroyed by Rei's hand and no longer existed.
Given that one had existed, he couldn't declare with absolute certainty that there were no others, but it was undeniably not something one would find just anywhere.
Therefore, even if they recovered research reports and the like, using them to create new Giants... would be virtually impossible.
That was precisely why Marina had told them to submit their research materials to the people of the Kingdom of Mireana.
......Naturally, this also reflected her confidence that Daskar—the central figure of the Neutral Faction to which those heading here belonged—would not resort to inhumane treatment.
Having known Daskar since childhood, she trusted he would not cross that line.
To protect Gilm and the Neutral Faction, Daskar would certainly resort to underhanded methods when necessary.
Even so, there had to be a clear line he would not cross.
"Understood. We'll do as you say!"
The first to speak up at Marina's words was a single soldier.
That soldier had been buried under building rubble, and Marina had asked Earth Spirits to rescue him.
That was why he held deep gratitude toward Marina—and more importantly, as a soldier, losing the research materials would not particularly inconvenience him, which weighed heavily in his decision.
......It probably also helped that Mejougo, populated exclusively by female prostitutes, was a place he had never visited, given his orientation toward men.
"W-wait, are you serious!? If you do that, Jaya will..."
Another soldier beside the first to agree hesitated, fearing retaliation from Jaya.
The others were not much different.
They held back precisely because they understood just how much power the organization called Jaya wielded within Reblurina.
"Calm down! Jaya's trump card—the Giants—is in this state! You understand that means it's already hopeless for Jaya!"
"Exactly."
Rei nodded at the words of the soldier who had first agreed with Marina's proposal.
He had originally intended to watch the exchange in silence, but seeing how things stood, he judged that one push here would surely tip the discussion in their favor.
At Rei's voice cutting in unexpectedly, the man who had been about to retort upon hearing Jaya was finished... no, the rest of the crowd as well, fell silent.
Having just witnessed one of their own comrades effortlessly killed by Rei's hand, they absolutely could not do anything to provoke him now.
Seeing the surroundings go quiet, Rei spoke again.
"It was just moments ago. Just moments ago, soldiers from Reblurina arrived at the forest where this cave is located. Their orders were to kill everyone in this forest. You understand what that means, right?"
"......The nation... abandoned Jaya?"
"Correct."
Rei gave a curt answer to one soldier who muttered fearfully, looking as though he did not want to believe it.
"The nation's upper echelons judged it impossible to completely conceal Jaya's existence and made the decision to cut them loose."
So saying, Rei relayed the prediction he had heard from Ryutas.
Naturally, he did not tell them everything—he selected only the details convenient for his purposes.
In the current situation, with no detailed information available, even such selective disclosure from Rei was enough to bring the soldiers to heel.
Indignant at the nation's betrayal, the soldiers began following Marina's proposal and collecting the research materials.
The materials ended up in Rei's custody because the surviving Researcher opposed the soldiers' actions.
Fearing what would happen to the research materials if left in the soldiers' hands, he insisted on entrusting them to Rei, who possessed a Misty Ring.