"Ah, there they are."
"Grrrrrl."
Rei murmured from atop Set's back, and Set rumbled his throat as if to say, Exactly right.
Below Set stretched a forest. If asked exactly which forest it was, Rei would simply point to the town visible in the distance and answer, "A forest near Sablusta."
A few days had passed since his training session with Rocks. After delivering supplies and additional escorts to Sura and the others, the party had traveled for several days while conducting intensive combat training along the way. Once they had trained enough to feel that their bodies needed rest, Rei and his group had departed to return to Gilm.
Naturally, heading toward Gilm meant following the highway, which meant passing near Sablusta as well.
Having heard from Rocks that this area was dangerous to travel through, Rei had searched for bandits as a matter of both hobby and practical benefit—and to his surprise, he had found a group that appeared to be exactly that, far more easily than expected.
Of course, whether the group in the forest were truly bandits could not be determined from the sky.
It would be a different matter if he had caught them in the act of attacking merchants, but at the moment, they were simply gathered together in the forest.
Based on circumstantial evidence, they're definitely guilty. Though even if I deal with these supposed bandits right now, different ones will probably gather around Sablusta by the time Sura and the others arrive.
This area was an ideal hunting ground for bandits. Naturally, that came with a caveat—it applied only to those with the strength to handle adventurers, or those with sharp enough instincts to flee the moment they sensed danger.
Especially now, the expansion construction in Gilm had brought more traffic than usual along the roads.
Among the travelers were a certain number of merchants who either had confidence in their own skills or simply hadn't thought the matter through, and who traveled without hired escorts. Such targets were precisely the ideal prey for bandits.
With many bandits gathering after learning through their own information networks that this was a prime hunting ground, the number of bandits around Sablusta was currently higher than in a typical year.
The ones Rei and his party had found were most likely bandits who had only just arrived in the area.
As if to prove it, they were not paying attention to their surroundings, and their attempts at camouflage to avoid detection were extremely crude.
Normally, there would be no need to watch the sky... but Sablusta was a different story.
Because it sat near the frontier, a fair number of flying monsters inhabited the area.
While not to the same extent as Gilm or Abuelo, the possibility of an aerial attack was by no means zero.
Even without citing Set as an example, flying monsters moved at tremendous speeds compared to those that traveled on the ground.
...Yes. Even around Sablusta, the area served as feeding grounds for the flying monsters that prowled near Gilm.
Moreover, in Gilm—the Kingdom of Mireana's sole frontier city—they sometimes exchanged communications with other villages, towns, cities, and even the Royal Capital.
At such times, summoned or tamed monsters would carry messages through the sky, and occasionally dragon knights would arrive as messengers.
The very fact that these bandits were not watching the sky in such a place made it clear they had only recently arrived.
"Well, I'll go ahead and hunt them. Sorry, but I spotted a group that looks like bandits. It's not confirmed yet, but based on my read, it's almost a certainty. So I'm going to lower the Set Basket to the ground for now."
After announcing that to the Set Basket, Rei asked Set to set it down a short distance from the forest.
Ideally, he would have approached while carrying the Set Basket, since it had the effect of blending into the surrounding scenery. Unfortunately, doing so in the current situation would have meant lowering it directly into the forest.
That would risk damaging the Set Basket on the trees growing within.
To prevent that, he needed to set it down elsewhere first—somewhere safe—and then return to the spot they had just left.
Vihera had been saying something inside the Set Basket about wanting to join the fight, but Rei deflected her request for the time being and lowered the basket onto a grassland set back from the highway.
The sound of the Set Basket touching down startled the merchants and escorts in several carriages traveling along the road. They warily scanned their surroundings, wondering if it was an attack, but Rei and Set ignored them and headed back toward the forest.
If Set had landed directly in front of the suspected bandits, they could have played innocent, since they hadn't been caught in the act of banditry.
That being the case, Rei needed to let them operate as bandits long enough that playing innocent would be pointless, and only then deal with them.
For that reason, he had Set drop him off at a distance from the bandits. Since a single glance would be enough for anyone to identify him as Rei, he had Set circle around to the opposite side, cutting off their escape route.
Though they might not just quietly flee out the back. No, they'd probably scatter in all directions, doing whatever they can to minimize the chance of getting caught. ...Actually, it's more of a headache when they scatter like that than when they retreat in an orderly fashion.
To sell the disguise of a novice who had just become an adventurer, Rei reached into the Misty Ring and withdrew neither Death Scythe—his trademark—nor the Twilight Spear, which anyone could identify as a high-quality weapon at a glance. Instead, he took out an ordinary spear, the kind sold anywhere.
He had briefly considered using one of the throwing spears from before, the kind too unbalanced to function as a proper spear, but Sablusta, situated near the frontier, was home to adventurers with a respectable level of skill.
At the very least, adventurers who would leave the country-bumpkin adventurers from near the national borders completely out of their depth.
Given that, carrying a spear with a chipped tip would seem unnatural.
With that judgment made, he took an ordinary spear in hand and pressed deeper into the forest...
There they are.
Before long, he sensed multiple presences in the direction he was heading.
Without breaking stride, Rei continued forward. After about five minutes of unhurried walking, five men suddenly appeared before him.
"Whoa, hold it right there."
"Who are you?"
"Now, who could we be? But whoever we are... I don't think that's any of your business anymore."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Rei asked the question while putting on an act that concealed any hint of fear.
He knew his own acting wasn't particularly good, so there had been a flicker of anxiety that he might be seen through. Fortunately, the five who emerged showed no sign of noticing.
Holding short swords and longswords, they leveled sadistic smiles at him.
No spears among them—that's probably because they're operating on the assumption of fighting in a forest. Well, a natural precaution for bandits.
Observing this, Rei remained alert to his surroundings. Sensing that no one other than the five before him showed any sign of movement, he found himself puzzled.
Did just the five of them come? Or did they simply think five would be enough? ...Either way, a bit underwhelming.
Seeing Rei carrying a spear, one of the men with a short sword let out a mocking laugh.
"A spear in the forest? What are you thinking? Hell, judging by that thing, you're a fresh-faced rookie who just registered as an adventurer, aren't you?"
His tone bordered on an outright assertion. Yet at the same time, the hope that this was actually the case was plain on his face.
Given that they made their living as bandits, it was only natural—but these were not the kind of men who could mask their expressions.
Well, even among bandits, the ones leading large groups tend to be fairly capable individuals.
With that thought, Rei pointed the tip of his spear at the man, trying to bait out a definitive confession.
"You guys, lurking in a forest like this... you're bandits! The Guild said their numbers have been going up around here lately."
What came out of Rei's mouth was a complete fabrication.
Since he hadn't stopped by Sablusta before coming here, that went without saying.
But he did know that bandit activity had increased around Sablusta and Abuelo in connection with the expansion construction in Gilm, so it wasn't entirely made up.
How will they answer? Will they play dumb, or will they write me off as a freshly registered novice and...
Rei waited for their response. Perhaps interpreting his gaze as the look of someone terrified, the men grinned and opened their mouths.
"Correct. We're bandits. But too bad for you. Even knowing that, you're—gufh!"
The bandit who had been trying to frighten Rei never finished his sentence.
A spear had impaled his torso.
Naturally, that spear had come from Rei.
Thrown with care to avoid catching on the surrounding trees, it punched through one bandit's torso, pierced the flank of the man behind him, and embedded its tip completely into the trunk of a tree further back.
In that instant, the bandits had no idea what had just happened.
All they registered was the shrill crack of the spear tip driving into wood, and the sound of two of their comrades crumpling to the ground.
The three who remained turned to look at Rei with jerky, unnatural movements, like broken dolls.
What had happened? Who had done it?
They had no idea.
No—to be precise, they could see who had done it with their own eyes. But the refusal to accept it, the sheer inability to comprehend, overwhelmed everything else.
The person standing before them was not helpless prey. He was an opponent whose strength they could never hope to match.
The shrill sound of the spear piercing the trunk alerted the other bandits that something had gone wrong. Each of them readied themselves, preparing to respond to whatever came next.
Sensing their movements, Rei reached into the Misty Ring and withdrew a different weapon to replace the thrown spear.
...Death Scythe—the weapon that served as the symbol of Crimson.
Ordinarily, a weapon like Death Scythe would be utterly unsuitable in a forest thick with trees.
If he were primarily thrusting, as with a spear, it might be one thing. But Death Scythe was a great scythe, designed above all to be swung.
Despite that, he drew it here for one reason: to show them, in the most unmistakable form possible, exactly who he was.
A person who carried a giant scythe taller than himself and possessed an Item Box.
Such individuals were exceedingly rare.
No—beyond rare. In all likelihood, in the entire Kingdom of Mireana... across the whole of Elgin, there was no one but Rei.
A person who actively hunted bandits and seized their ill-gotten wealth, feared by bandits everywhere as the Bandit Eater... Crimson Rei.
Whether they realized that the figure before them was that very Crimson Rei, or whether Rei moved before they could process it—
In the next instant, the blade of Death Scythe, surging with channeled magical power, cleaved through the bandits' torsos vertically, trees and all.
Unable to utter a single word, five corpses slumped to the ground, flooding the area with the thick, metallic stench of blood.
With summer in full swing, the heat seemed to push that rusty scent even further through the air.
Leaving the smell behind him, Rei gripped Death Scythe and strode straight into the depths of the forest.
His speed was such that he seemed to leave the very air itself in his wake—something the bandits deeper in could never have anticipated.
"Wh—!"
One of the bandits spotted Rei and tried to speak, but without bothering to listen, Rei swung Death Scythe.
"Gah!"
The man managed a single grunt before his torso was split clean in two and he died.
However, since the situation had already been on the verge of erupting into combat, the remaining bandits immediately shifted into fighting readiness.
Closing the distance between himself and his enemies, Rei shifted Death Scythe to his left hand, drew the Twilight Spear in his right, and hurled it.
The Twilight Spear tore through the air with enough force to slice the wind itself, punching through the torsos of several bandits and snuffing out their lives in an instant.
Having claimed its toll, the spear vanished—and in the next moment, reappeared in Rei's hand.
What followed was the true display of the abilities of Rei, feared as the Bandit Eater, who devoured the very bandits that preyed upon human lives.
There was no way a group of bandits—let alone bandits who had only just arrived in the area—could stand against an alias-holding adventurer. A few minutes later, every bandit present lay dead, with a single survivor left breathing for the sake of gathering information.