Having sneaked into the royal castle in Rossi and made off with carriages—and then succeeding in stealing horses from the cavalry unit sent in pursuit—Rei and his group pressed on.
Under normal circumstances, the quickest course of action would have been to hitch the horses to the carriages right then and there, load up those who were slowest on foot, and be done with it. But considering the time it would take to hitch the horses, select coachmen, and above all decide who would ride, Rei and his group simply moved on from the area as they were.
Unless something extraordinary happened, humans generally wanted to take the easy way out, and many were the type to never pass up an opportunity to do so.
Given that, trying to choose who would ride the carriages right then and there was guaranteed to cause an uproar.
The exchange between Rei and the woman who had first complained to him about being tired had apparently spread fairly widely. Even so, if they tried to select riders in their current situation, plenty of others would surely step forward demanding a spot.
Of course, from what Rei could see, a significant number of them were genuinely exhausted from walking for hours on end, so it was understandable that they would want to ride.
Adventurers or merchants might have experienced walking for hours, half a day, or in some cases straight through the night.
But the vast majority of those here had never even left the places where they lived.
Naturally, they were unaccustomed to walking any real distance.
"Rei, we're almost at our limit. If we're going to keep walking tomorrow, we should let them rest soon."
Rei nodded at Vihera's words as she walked beside him.
"You're right. I would've liked to get a little farther from Rossi, but..."
He called out to Ryutas, who was walking nearby.
"Ryutas, what do you think about pursuers from Jaya? Will they come after us?"
"Hard to say. With this many people having escaped from Mejougo, there's no way they've lost track of us. And it wouldn't be surprising if reports about the Mejougo incident came in from survivors of that battle. But whether Jaya actually has that kind of leeway right now..."
Ryutas paused and shook his head.
"Today... no, given the time, it's already yesterday, isn't it? The damage Jaya took from yesterday's chaos is seriously no joke. Every prostitute in Mejougo regained her senses and most of them are escaping with us right now. The giants' nest was attacked. And more than anything..."
He trailed off again, keenly aware that the gazes of not just Rei and Vihera but of everyone nearby who had been listening in were now focused on him. Then he continued.
"The fact that every last giant in that cave was killed has to be a fatal blow to Jaya. Their greatest combat power was wiped out just like that."
Setting intelligence aside, in terms of pure physical ability—at least by an ordinary person's standards—giants were incomparably powerful beings.
The complete annihilation of all thousand-plus of them must have felt like the combat power Jaya had painstakingly built up over time had suddenly vanished overnight.
(As an analogy, is it like savings you built up little by little every month as a working adult, only to have them snatched away right before retirement?)
Of course, the reality was different.
At the very least, money earned through honest work hadn't been obtained by forcibly abducting women, forcing them into prostitution, and then having them devoured as vessels for birthing giants. No honest labor had produced such atrocities.
But in Rei's mind, the sensation was undoubtedly something akin to that.
"Given the scale of that damage, do you think it'd be dangerous for Jaya to come after us?" Vihera asked.
Ryutas nodded. "I can't say for certain, but probably. The problem, though, is that Jaya is a criminal organization. The damage they took from this incident is enormous. But at the same time, you and your group basically smeared mud all over their face, right?"
"Meaning?"
"For criminal organizations—so-called dark organizations or underworld groups—reputation carries far more weight than ordinary people realize. After all, unlike legitimate organizations, violence is the very backbone of their operation."
"So if their face got smeared with mud... if they were shown up, that means they can't afford not to retaliate as an organization?"
"Exactly. Though whether Jaya still has enough combat strength left is another question entirely. Especially since the forces guarding the giants' nest were pretty much wiped out—killed or wounded, right? The ones stationed there were undoubtedly Jaya's elite. Of course, individual executives may still retain personal fighting forces."
Hearing about personally retained fighting forces, Rei's expression soured with annoyance.
Vihera, on the other hand, betrayed a faint glimmer of anticipation at the prospect of possibly facing a worthwhile opponent.
"Understood. If possible, I'd rather not deal with those types until we're out of Reblurina. ...Alright, let's rest soon. We depart tomorrow morning—sound good?"
Hearing that, the women nearing their physical limits each let out a sigh of relief.
They moved to a spot slightly off the road, organized the women into groups of ten, and distributed food and water.
This naturally caused a stir as well, but fortunately—perhaps because they were utterly exhausted—it settled far more easily than Rei had anticipated.
Even when Rei announced that they would operate in these groups of ten from here on, no particular complaints arose. Partly because making a fuss was too much effort, but also because they understood that acting efficiently would give them more breathing room.
Of course, since they were about to sleep, the portions were modest—just one piece of bread and one cup of water per person.
...However, while the bread was one thing, those who took even a single sip of the water caused an enormous commotion.
Not many knew that the water came from the Dagger of Flowing Water, or that mana could alter its taste.
Naturally, some hesitated to drink water that had poured out of a dagger, but after one sip, no further complaints followed.
It was truly a supreme water worthy of being called Celestial Nectar.
It was undoubtedly just water. Undoubtedly. Yet the way it permeated the body could only be described as pure pleasure and euphoria.
Water that even nobles and royalty had never tasted.
From that single drink, bodies worn down by hours of walking felt healed in the blink of an eye.
Despite being completely exhausted, they felt as though they could keep walking.
(Did I jump the gun a bit?)
They had walked for hours on the very day they had been freed from the Slave Collars.
Rei had given the utterly exhausted women and Resistance members water from the Dagger of Flowing Water, thinking it might restore even a bit of their spirit. But the effect had been far more dramatic than he anticipated.
Still, in terms of boosting morale, it had produced the best possible result.
"Everyone else, get some sleep! We depart tomorrow morning!"
Saying that was one thing, but there weren't tents for everyone, nor was there cloth to use as blankets.
They would be sleeping on the grassland in the clothes on their backs.
Fortunately, it was summer.
Even at night, the temperature wouldn't drop below twenty degrees, so they could manage.
Had it been a bit later—as autumn approached—sleeping in clothing like what the prostitutes wore would have been out of the question.
In that sense, Rei and his group had been lucky to arrive in Reblurina during this season.
"Sura, it's probably fine, but could you have the Resistance members take turns keeping watch? We'll provide one person at a time from our side too."
"Got it. We haven't gotten that far from Rossi yet, so we should keep a proper watch. I'll leave it to Sharia. ...Give it a few more days and we won't need to worry about forces from Rossi anymore."
Sura had been told by Rei that there likely wouldn't be any more pursuing soldiers, but since nothing was certain, she couldn't be completely at ease.
"Please do. Soldiers aside, it'd be a real hassle if Goblins or Bandits showed up."
What Rei found especially troublesome were bandits.
Unlike most monsters, they couldn't detect Set's presence—which meant there was nothing stopping them from approaching on their own.
To bandits, this group was like a duck walking up with a green onion already in its beak. No—it was like the duck, the onion, the fire, the pot, and every other ingredient arriving all at once.
There was an enormous number of beautiful women.
Even capturing a few of them would be equivalent to pure profit.
"You're right. Soldiers aside, bandits will only become more of a problem the farther we go."
"...Come to think of it, Jaya was actually doing us a service."
Thanks to the organization known as Jaya, Reblurina was relatively easy to travel through, in the sense that bandit attacks were rare.
Of course, in place of bandits, there was the possibility of the regular army attacking, or Jaya itself—an organization on a vastly different scale from any bandit group—coming after them.
"True. Anyway, that's the plan for the watch. Honestly, I'd like to hire adventurer escorts sooner rather than later, but..."
Rei could guess what was making Sura hesitate.
Adventurers, by nature, tended toward rough and crude personalities.
Of course, there were some who could genuinely be called gentlemanly, but looking at adventurers as a whole, the crude ones undoubtedly formed the majority.
There were even adventurers who moonlighted as bandits.
Among the adventurers who gathered around Gilm, such types were fewer. Fewer—but not nonexistent. Whether that said something favorable about adventurers or not was debatable.
In any case, with the majority of this group being women—and beautiful or cute ones at that—hiring crude adventurers as escorts was guaranteed to cause trouble.
To prevent that, they would either need to hire the small number of female adventurers, somehow track down and hire gentlemanly ones, or simply crush any crude adventurer who tried anything and make it clear that pulling a stupid stunt would be a bad idea.
The quickest and most effective method was, of course, to demonstrate power.
That is, if it were feasible.
(Sura and her people... ah, there's Sharia.)
The beastman named Sharia, whom Rei had encountered in Mejougo, was now a member of the Resistance.
And not just a member—she was a Unit Commander leading the Beastman Unit.
She herself apparently possessed considerable ability, and was now counted among the Resistance's top fighting forces.
From what Rei could see, someone of Sharia's caliber had enough skill to defeat the average adventurer. Or at least, that was his assessment.
Of course, an adventurer's strength varied greatly depending on the individual and their rank.
Among Rei's own companions, the only one Sharia could probably beat was Byune.
Though even that fight would come with the condition of being a fair, head-on confrontation.
In a fight through a city or forest, Sharia's nature as a beastman would give her an edge, but when it came to combat-specialized thieves like Byune, Rei's assessment was that Byune would come out on top.
"Well, we can't stay with you forever. I think we'll head on to Gilm ahead of you before long. Of course, that doesn't mean we'll split off and never come back. I plan to return every few days."
"In that sense, it really was a good thing we managed to get those carriages and horses to pull them."
"Right."
No matter how much food was stored in Rei's Misty Ring, once taken out, it was impossible to preserve for long given the summer heat.
Fresh ingredients would last about three days. But since he couldn't come back too frequently, there would be times when preserved foods like dried meat and hard-baked bread would serve as their main meals.
(Ideal would be coming back about once a week. There's Gilm's expansion construction to think about, too. ...The real question is how far along the envoy dispatched from Gilm has gotten.)
Since he needed to hand off Ryutas, Rei had to keep traveling with this group until they rendezvoused with the envoy.
"Well then, there's no point in talking forever. Let's get some sleep."
"Oh, is that so? Then I'll excuse myself here."
Saying that, Sura waved lightly and started to walk away... and Rei, without appearing to pay it any mind, pulled the Magic Tent out of his Misty Ring.
The next moment, the tent expanded instantly, its silhouette sharp against the moonlight.
Those at a distance didn't seem to understand what had just happened, but those near Rei were a different story.
No—more than that. Sura, who was supposed to have already walked away, came running back toward Rei.