While Rei and the others were exchanging information inside the Blessing of the Earth Inn in Asura, an air of tension was beginning to build near the Main Gate.
"Set-chan, here. This is a sandwich from a bakery famous for being delicious even here in Asura. How about it?"
When Mirene held out the sandwich she'd been carrying, Set happily pinched it in its beak and ate it. A savory aroma drifted from the sandwich as it did.
"Gururu!"
The sandwich was made with dried river fish, and the toasted aroma of that dried fish filled the air, rich enough to stir anyone's appetite.
Several women watched Mirene feed Set, unable to fully hide their displeasure.
During the journey to Gilm, these women had made adoring Set their emotional pillar.
As far as they were concerned, Set was theirs.
But as if to say that was nothing more than their own delusion, Mirene had begun doting on Set right in front of them.
"Hey... can I ask you something?"
"What is it?"
Amidst all this, one of the women finally spoke to Mirene, her tone suggesting she'd had enough.
Under normal circumstances, she would have had no desire to speak amicably to the person who had taken their Set. She had no desire to at all... but even from the women's perspective, Mirene carried herself like a skilled adventurer.
Given that, they wanted to avoid any carelessly hostile remarks here as much as possible. Not that they wanted to get along with Mirene — absolutely not.
"What exactly is your relationship with Set-chan?"
Relationship. If one swapped Set's name for a man's, it would sound exactly like someone interrogating a cheating partner.
Perhaps sensing a hint of hostility in the woman's words, Mirene turned her gaze toward her.
The reason she showed no sign of agitation was undoubtedly because she'd had Yohanna as a rival over Set.
While the women were tense, Mirene opened her mouth without a trace of tension.
"My relationship? Let's see... if I had to put it in one word... love!"
She stroked Set as she declared this, without a single trace of hesitation.
If Rei had been present, he would have fiercely objected to Mirene's claim. Whether she would have listened, though, was another matter entirely.
The women were equally dissatisfied with Mirene's words.
"Hey, what do you mean by that! Set-chan is ours!"
The moment she said that, the woman who had shouted — and most of those around her — felt their spines go cold. As if, despite it being midsummer, someone had packed winter snow against their backs.
"A thing...? Did you just call Set-chan a thing? You girls, that's not something that ends as a joke, you know?"
Just because they had participated in the combat training Rei and the others conducted didn't mean they would instantly become stronger. Mirene was a C-Rank Adventurer, in an entirely different league from the women present. When someone of her caliber directed even a fraction of killing intent at them, it was only natural that the women would freeze in place.
"Ugh..."
The woman who had been speaking to Mirene let out a groan, but even being able to groan put her better off than most. The others — nearly all of them — couldn't even manage that.
If Mirene had continued radiating killing intent for another ten-odd seconds, some of them would have lost control of their bladders before even losing the will to fight.
What saved them from that worst possible humiliation was a staff brought down hard on Mirene's head.
"Hey, what are you doing picking on amateurs?"
A dull thud echoed through the surroundings.
"Oww!"
In an instant, Mirene crouched on the ground, clutching her head.
For a woman like Mirene — someone befitting of being called a beauty — it was perhaps not the most dignified thing to do... But crouching alone wasn't enough to mask the pain. As Mirene rolled around on the ground, the women watching her found themselves thinking exactly that, as if they had already forgotten the killing intent they'd suffered just seconds before.
After rolling around for several tens of seconds, Mirene finally stood up, the pain in her head apparently having subsided, and glared at the person who had swung the staff down on her.
"Hey, Surnin, what do you think you're doing!"
"What am I doing? That's my line. Directing killing intent at civilians... how deplorable."
Showing genuine dismay from the bottom of his heart, Surnin raised his staff once more.
The moment she saw that, Mirene stepped back almost reflexively. The previous blow must have been truly devastating.
"B-but... they called Set-chan theirs! A thing! Set-chan has a will of its own, and they tried to do whatever they pleased with it for their own convenience! You can't tell me not to get angry about that."
"Even so, for a high-rank adventurer like you, Mirene, to direct killing intent at civilians... is not something I can approve of."
At the word "civilians," he glanced at several of the women present — those who had received some degree of combat training — but ultimately judged them as no different from ordinary people. He stated this without bothering to correct himself.
The perception that mages were poor at armed close combat was widespread, and in truth, it wasn't necessarily wrong. If told to fight Mirene with weapons, Surnin would not be able to win no matter what he tried.
But that was strictly when facing Mirene, a C-Rank Adventurer. Against the women before him — who, despite some combat training, were ultimately still nothing more than civilians — he had absolute confidence he could win without fail.
That was precisely why he carried himself the way he did. But from Surnin's attitude, several of the women read his thoughts and took offense, finding it unpleasant.
This wasn't because Surnin had been careless in his demeanor, but rather because the women's intuition was simply that sharp.
Their experiences working as prostitutes were, for the women, arguably their worst memories. But if asked whether those worst memories had left them with nothing, the answer would be no. The ability to read what someone was thinking from their demeanor — such an ability had been naturally acquired.
While working as prostitutes, they had been in a quasi-brainwashed state, but the fact that the skills they had acquired could still serve them was one of the few benefits they had gained.
In any case, several of the women, sensing that they had been looked down upon by Surnin — by this middle-aged male mage — directed hostile glares not only at Mirene but at Surnin as well.
"GURURURURUU!"
Before the women could voice their dissatisfaction, Set's cry rang through the surroundings.
It was neither the valiant cry let out when encountering an enemy nor a spoiled, affectionate whimper — but rather a chiding call.
Set-loving Mirene and the women, upon hearing that cry, naturally found themselves unable to take any further action.
Surnin hadn't come here to start a fight in the first place. Having come to stop one, with Set's intervention halting everyone's movements, he had no intention of doing anything more.
"Guruu?"
Are you done fighting? Set looked at Mirene and the women with round eyes.
It hadn't said anything directly, and yet Set's message reached the hearts of everyone present well enough.
Mirene considered the women disagreeable, the women considered Mirene disagreeable, and several found Surnin disagreeable as well — but they all judged that there was no need to go so far as to make Set sad by acting on those feelings.
"It's fine. Look, Set-chan. It's not like we and these girls are on bad terms or anything. Right?"
"That's right. We won't do anything to make Set-chan sad, so don't worry."
Mirene and the women put their arms around each other's shoulders and spoke to Set with smiles on their faces. But Mirene was pinching the woman's arm with the hand draped over her shoulder, and the woman was stepping on Mirene's foot in return.
Despite all that, neither let the pain show on her face, both maintaining their smiles. Watching from a slight distance, Surnin was unsure whether to be exasperated, amused, or angry.
But in the end, he held absolute conviction that they would not fight any further in front of Set.
Surnin didn't know the detailed circumstances regarding the women traveling with Rei. No matter that they were escort adventurers, this matter was something that should be kept secret.
Even so, while he might not have known about the women, he knew Mirene — his own party member — as well as anyone possibly could.
The fact that Mirene would absolutely never do anything to make Set sad was, to Surnin, as obvious as the fact that a stone released from one's hand would fall to the ground.
(A small degree of covert hostility... is a bit of a gray area, but I suppose I can overlook that much.)
Thinking this as if half to convince himself, Surnin called out to Mirene once more.
"Mirene, playing with Set is fine, but we depart tomorrow too. Are your preparations in order? Ekril was looking for you."
"Ugh... th-that's..."
One look at Mirene, at a loss for words, made it obvious without needing to think whether her preparations were done.
She had been certain — based on the distance from Rei's group she'd heard about previously, and above all, her woman's intuition born from love for Set — that they would rendezvous in Asura, and that was why she had been waiting here.
There was no way something like departure preparations could have been completed.
"Playing with Set comes after that's finished. ...Come on, let's go."
Surnin grabbed Mirene's hand and forcefully pulled her along.
Under normal circumstances, Surnin wouldn't have been able to drag Mirene with his physical strength — or more accurately, if Mirene had intended to resist, Surnin wouldn't have been able to pull her at all. But right now, Mirene was being dragged along without any fuss.
That was because she could easily imagine what kind of fate would await her if she tried to resist Surnin here.
The party leader of Scorching Wind was, naturally, Mirene. But while that held true in the heat of the moment, in terms of influence during peaceful everyday life, the elder Surnin's presence was ultimately greater.
In particular, Surnin had the kind of personality that had earned him the title of Mirene's External Conscience, and he was a far more sensible person than she was.
"Ahh... Seeeeet-chaaaan!"
Mirene's sorrow-filled voice echoed through the surroundings, but no one intended to help her.
The women had found Mirene a nuisance when it came to adoring Set, and Set itself, seeing Surnin drag her off like this, judged that Mirene must have something she needed to take care of.
"S-Set-chan... is there any dish you'd like to eat? If you're hungry, we can buy something inside the town."
The gaze of the woman who said this took in the figures of women entering Asura through the Main Gate.
Those remaining behind were solely women who wanted to adore Set — who wanted to play with Set. The other women had entered Asura as they were.
The power of the Zorgeh Merchant Guild was, at the very least within Reblurina, considerable — proof enough of that. Though the women had already come to know the Zorgeh Merchant Guild's true strength as thoroughly as anyone could during their journey thus far.
Carriages sufficient for nearly a thousand people, the horses to pull them, food, water, clothes, escorts. Beyond those, various other supplies had been prepared by the Zorgeh Merchant Guild — to doubt their power would have been unreasonable.
"Hmm, but... does anyone still have some money to spare?"
"Well..."
No matter how much the Zorgeh Merchant Guild was providing assistance, they obviously weren't going to hand out pocket money. Given that, if they wanted money, they had no choice but to earn it themselves.
For those with a background in embroidery, there was the option of sewing something while traveling in the carriages and selling it. Those with knowledge of hunting had headed to a nearby grove in small groups to hunt — though the women had no idea how they had procured bows and arrows and the like. Or, those who had no resistance to the profession of prostitution had sold their bodies to earn money.
In any case, since they had to earn money by some means, there was no way they could just sit around doing nothing.
"For now, maybe I'll try working at a diner. I'm decent enough at cooking."
"...Hey, then why don't you just make Set-chan's food?"
"I don't mind, but... what about ingredients? We can't just use the supplies without permission, right? Besides, cooking with preserved foods is a bit difficult."
As a precaution, preserved foods such as dried meat, water, and hardtack were stocked to some extent in each carriage. But those were strictly for emergencies, and they couldn't be used freely.
In the end, the women headed into Asura in search of work that would last a few hours.