Those bandits were a group that had begun operating around Sablusta about a year prior, calling themselves the Immaculate White.
It was a name befitting a champion of justice, but in stark contrast to such a name, the deeds of the Immaculate White were atrociously cruel.
When they raided merchant convoys, they would capture people rather than killing them outright. Naturally, this was not out of any humanitarian consideration — the main reason was simply that having someone screaming and crying was perfect for venting their own frustrations.
Those who were captured were subjected to ordeals that made them regret ever being born.
They would be forced to drink boiling water, used as targets for thrown daggers, have their nails torn off, their eyes gouged out, their teeth forcibly extracted... and so on.
If those acts had been a form of torture to extract information, then those being tortured could at least have found relief by spilling what they knew.
But the members of the Immaculate White committed such acts purely for their own amusement.
The one stroke of fortune amid the misery was that the bandits belonging to the Immaculate White were strictly sadistic — they delighted in inflicting pain on others — and had no inclination to torment women in a sexual manner.
Of course, whether that truly made them fortunate was something everyone would answer with a resounding no.
Even if they were not violated sexually, they were violated physically.
And that, too, for no other reason than a desire to hear screams and weeping.
Today as well, to pass the time, the members of the Immaculate White had pierced the sole surviving woman's hands with daggers and pinned them to a tree trunk. Then they had all pelted her with stones, daggers, branches — whatever happened to be lying around — reveling in her screams.
But perhaps because those screams were so pleasing to their ears, they had gotten too carried away, and the woman had died. Just as they were saying they had no choice but to go find other prey soon, a cry echoed through the surroundings.
"Grrrrrrrrl!"
That was the beginning of the nightmare for the members of the Immaculate White.
At first, they thought it was simply some monster flying overhead that had let out a cry.
If that were all, they honestly would not have needed to worry much about it.
In fact, the location the Immaculate White was currently using as a base was thoroughly concealed using the surrounding trees, and they had strong confidence that it would not be found.
The fact that the Immaculate White, known as a vicious bandit group, had never been discovered by adventurers or guards was largely due to their extremely skillful concealment techniques.
But while they could deceive human eyes, they could not deceive Set's — a gryphon's eyes.
The moment that cry echoed through the surroundings, the one who would bring true nightmare appeared.
"You lot aren't even worth selling as slaves. Fortunately, this appears to be your base, so I have no need to extract information from you. Therefore... die."
The figure who had suddenly appeared and killed one of the bandits no sooner said that than he produced a spear from nowhere and hurled it with sheer arm strength alone.
Released as though slicing through the very air itself, the spear flew at a speed that made it hard to believe it was a spear — a speed that could be mistaken for an arrow loosed from a bow — piercing several bandits at once and only stopping when it impaled the trunk of a nearby tree.
"N-Now! He threw his spear, so he's only got that scythe left! Everyone charge at once! Let's show him the power of the Immaculate White!"
One of the bandits shouted, still shaken.
Had he not been so shaken, he would have realized who the attacker was simply from the fact that the weapon was a scythe.
Adventurers were numerous, but those who used a scythe as a weapon were a very small minority.
Moreover, considering that the figure wielded both a scythe and a spear, there was no way they would not know who such a person was.
And to charge into battle without even knowing who the opponent was was, in this case, nothing short of a fatal mistake.
If those present had been able to discern Rei's identity, they would not have needlessly picked a fight and would have fled at the first opportunity.
It would not have been surprising if they had disappeared into the forest in a flash, not even worrying about their companions, just trying to save themselves.
But precisely because it was an assault that amounted to a surprise attack, the members of the Immaculate White could not instantly recognize Rei as Rei — as the person who bore the alias Crimson and was feared among bandits as the Bandit Eater.
They were always the ones to launch surprise attacks; it had never occurred to them that they might be on the receiving end.
Moreover, their confidence in the clever disguise concealing this base had bred the very complacency that now undid them.
To Rei, such bandits were not even enemies. They were nothing more than targets.
Swinging the Death Scythe at those targets, Rei reaped their lives with ease.
With a single swing of Rei's Death Scythe, several bandits at once had their hands, feet, torsos, and heads severed, utterly helpless.
Among them were those who, precisely because they were scum and knew they would face execution if caught, possessed keen danger-detection abilities and fled accordingly.
This bandit group was, at its core, a gathering of scum, and very few among them had anything resembling camaraderie.
Those individuals were the first to flee, but...
"Grrrrrrrrl!"
Set, dropping from the sky, swung its forelegs and effortlessly crushed bandits' skulls and torsos.
Crushed, they slammed into nearby trees, the impact shattering their bones.
"U-Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Seeing Set — or more precisely, seeing the death of their companion so effortlessly killed by Set — a bandit screamed.
Combined with Set's cry moments ago, several of the bandits finally turned their gazes toward it.
"G... A gryphoooooooooon!"
The words that escaped were devastating.
Already caught off guard, then hit with a surprise attack by a vicious existence like Rei, with companions being killed one after another.
Add to that the appearance of a gryphon, and the bandits — who had only ever preyed on those weaker than themselves to satisfy their sadistic urges — had neither the ability nor the fortitude to recover from such a situation.
And above all, what was truly decisive was...
"Wait a second. A gryphon? And the adventurer who attacked us had a scythe... wait, that's Crimson, the Bandit Eater!"
Who shouted that decisive line, neither Rei nor the bandits could tell.
What was clear was that the figure who had appeared before them was, for bandits, an absolutely fatal existence.
Not an opponent they could defeat in battle, but an existence that brought absolute death, much like the Death Scythe Rei wielded.
"Ugh... Uwaaaaaaaaaaagh!"
Upon realizing who Rei was, the bandits of the Immaculate White fled, racing to be the first to escape.
Without anyone even attempting to challenge Rei in combat — fleeing with the sole thought that if only they could get away.
"If you're going to run, then don't become bandits in the first place!"
Along with that roar, the Twilight Spear he hurled pierced several of the fleeing bandits through their backs simultaneously.
Among those pierced through the back, by some twist of fate, a few remained skewered on the Twilight Spear where they stood.
Seeing the tip of the Twilight Spear embedded in a tree trunk, having run through several bandits along the way, Rei was momentarily reminded of a shrike's larder.
Naturally, the bandits subjected to such a fate were already dead, and when the Twilight Spear returned to Rei's hand by its ability, they crumpled from the tree trunk to the ground.
"Hey, don't run! You call yourselves the Immaculate White or whatever ridiculous name. Show me some proper strength!"
Deeming the Twilight Spear too good for the likes of them, Rei thrust it into a nearby tree trunk and pulled out spears from his Misty Ring.
They were spears he had used before obtaining the Twilight Spear — spears with chipped tips and handles on the verge of breaking, items that should normally have been discarded as waste.
Spear in hand, Rei hurled it with a twist of his body.
Without a running start and not a full-power throw, both the speed and power were considerably inferior to the Twilight Spear he had thrown earlier.
But against opponents who were merely hopeless bandits like those currently in Rei's line of sight — not against reasonably strong foes — it possessed more than enough power.
The spears, slicing through the air as they were hurled one after another, impaled the bandits in numbers equal to the spears thrown.
The bandits who had their heads crushed could be called fortunate, having died without feeling any pain.
Among them were those whose sides were pierced, whose thighs were shattered, whose arms were smashed.
Such individuals were knocked down by the impact and sent tumbling across the ground.
Naturally, dirt clung to their wounds, creating hygienic conditions entirely unsuitable for treatment. But Rei had no intention of treating the bandits. Having resolved to kill them all, the sight of their condition did not particularly move him.
Rather, with a cold glance as if to say they should become prey for monsters or animals as they were, he pursued those who had been lucky enough to flee the area.
(Well, I can hardly call them lucky.)
Even if they managed to escape from here, that did not mean they had truly succeeded in fleeing.
No matter how accustomed they were as bandits to traveling through forests, there was no way they could escape from Rei... and from Set, Rei's partner.
"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Indeed, screams echoed through the forest.
The branches of the forest trees blocking the summer sunlight, the dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy — screams utterly incongruous with such a setting.
Turning toward the direction of those screams, Rei retrieved the Twilight Spear and, storing it along with the Death Scythe in his Misty Ring, began to walk.
Within less than a few minutes of walking, Rei's sense of smell, sharper than that of an ordinary person, caught the scent of rusted iron.
Whose blood that scent belonged to was obvious without even thinking about it.
In fact, Rei's eyes soon fell upon a bandit rolling on the ground, both legs lost, writhing in pain.
Looking more closely, a short distance away lay what appeared to be the bandit's two legs, toppled on the ground.
It was not a clean severance like a cut from Rei's Death Scythe, but a blow that had forcefully shattered through brute strength.
Who had done that was, for Rei, something that required no thought whatsoever.
"Ugh, uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Don't come, don't come, don't cooooome!"
"Hiiiiiiiiiii! I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive meee!"
"Mama, Mama! Where are you? I'm right here, help me, please don't come, I'm begging you!"
Such screams were rising from all over the forest.
"...You made Set angry."
The gryphon was also feared as the Grim Reaper of the Skies.
But as one could tell from seeing its lion-like lower body, it was not only capable of flight — running on the ground was by no means a weakness either.
Moreover, this was a forest. For monsters and wild beasts, it was precisely what one would call home turf.
What would happen if someone provoked Set in such a place...? The screams currently echoing through the forest demonstrated exactly that.
What had provoked Set's anger was obvious.
Leaving the remaining bandits to Set, Rei walked back to the place where he had landed earlier.
What lay there was the corpse of a woman, completely naked, both hands pierced by daggers and pinned to a tree trunk.
At a glance, it was obvious that the woman was no longer alive.
In the first place, if she were alive, there was no way she would be quietly compliant with multiple daggers embedded in her body, and above all... with a dagger buried to the hilt in her forehead, it was impossible to think she could still be alive.
The fact that the figure could be recognized as a woman was because she was completely naked.
Otherwise, it would have been impossible to identify the body — whose face was covered in wounds from the forehead down — as a woman.
"...I should have made them suffer more before killing them."
Recalling the bandits he had pierced with his spear moments ago, Rei muttered in bitter frustration.
Doing so, he took out a cloth from his Misty Ring, pulled the daggers from her palms and placed them on the cloth, then wrapped her body before storing it in the Misty Ring.
Living creatures could not be stored, but corpses could.
Murmuring in his heart that he had at least avenged the woman, he proceeded into the cave that served as the Immaculate White's base.