"Would you consider hiring me?"
At Rei's words, the villagers fixed him with gazes of half-belief, half-doubt—no, more like two parts belief to eight parts doubt.
To the people of this village, even if Rei held a Guild Card identifying him as a B-Rank Adventurer, they had absolutely no idea just how impressive that actually was.
Had there been a Guild Branch Office with a Guild Staff Member present, they would have judged a B-Rank Adventurer who was also an Alias Holder as more than sufficient in terms of Combat Power—no, rather, excessive. Unfortunately, this village had no Guild Branch Office.
That was precisely why they couldn't make an immediate judgment when someone like Rei asked if they would hire him.
Seeing the villagers' hesitation, Rei considered how to convince them of his ability—and before long, hit upon the simplest approach.
"Well, for starters. Let me introduce you to my partner."
"...Partner?"
The one who responded was the man who had first spoken to him.
Rei nodded to the man, then looked in the direction he had come from, drew in a deep breath, and shouted.
"Seeeeeet!"
The man, caught by the sudden shout at close range, reflexively clapped his hands over his ears.
The villagers standing further away did the same.
About ten seconds passed after Rei's shout. The man lowered his hands from his ears and was about to yell at Rei—
"Grrrrrl!"
—in that instant, hearing that cry ring out from the sky, he froze.
The sound carried a strange, almost magnetic force that demanded attention.
It wasn't only the man who had been about to yell; every villager reacted the same way.
They all turned their gazes toward the source of the sound... and eventually, even with their untrained eyes, they noticed something flying toward them through the sky.
Once they noticed it, understanding what it was required no great Leap of imagination.
But precisely because they understood, this time they couldn't move at all.
Even for an adventurer, encountering an A-Rank Monster was something that might happen once in a lifetime—if at all.
Naturally, for someone living in a village like this, encountering a Gryphon, a High-Rank Monster, was beyond anything they could have ever imagined.
...Let alone the fact that Set was actually an S-Rank equivalent monster capable of wielding a variety of skills—that was completely outside the realm of imagination.
Set, receiving the dumbfounded stares of the villagers, descended toward the ground while flapping his wings.
He landed on the earth, and the villagers—snapped back to their senses by the impact and the gust from his wings—were about to scream at the sight of Set thrusting his sharp-beaked face toward Rei—
"Grru."
"There, there. Good boy, thanks for coming."
Set pressed his beak toward Rei, purring happily, and Rei—looking just as pleased—stroked Set's face as it drew near. Seeing this sight, the villagers fell into a state of sheer incomprehension.
In truth, those watching had stopped moving entirely, confronted by a spectacle so far beyond expectation that their minds simply failed to process it.
Turning his gaze from Set to the villagers, Rei next drew the Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear from his Misty Ring.
The Twin Spear Style—recently, alongside Set's existence and the Death Scythe, it had been becoming Rei's signature.
(Well, even if I told them about the Twin Spear Style here, it seems they don't know who I am, so it probably wouldn't mean anything... but still, the Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear have incredible visual impact.)
A massive scythe and a crimson spear possessed enough presence to command overwhelming attention, even from someone who had never been involved in anything resembling conflict.
Armed with such weapons, it should have been easy to judge that Rei was far more than his appearance suggested.
Indeed, with Set at his side and a great scythe in one hand and a spear in the other, the villagers directed gazes of sheer disbelief and astonishment at Rei.
Facing them, Rei met their eyes with a confident gaze and spoke.
"Now then. With this, I trust you understand that I'm a skilled adventurer?"
"Y-yeah. Rei, was it? Setting you aside... the fact that you have a Gryphon with you alone leaves me no choice but to conclude your Combat Power is more than sufficient."
He had gone to the trouble of performing with the Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear, yet the man's reaction was directed solely at the Gryphon.
Rei felt mildly dissatisfied with the man's attitude, but he judged that for someone living in a place like this, it was only natural to be unfamiliar with his reputation.
In the first place, Rei had come to this village simply because he wanted fishing gear—nets and the like—and as many small fish as possible, small at least compared to something like tuna.
He had only coincidentally learned that the village was being raided by Pirates. So for now, he decided that if they at least acknowledged Set's power, that would be enough to proceed with the pirate subjugation.
"Anyway, that's the situation. I have a partner named Set. With him, you've got no complaints about us taking down the Pirates, right?"
"Well, that's... true enough, I suppose?"
The man tilted his head, then apparently decided there was no issue. He hesitated briefly before turning toward the other villagers... and among them, toward an old woman.
She was leaning on a cane, in her sixties—perhaps seventies.
Even so, her eyes held a sharp light of intelligence, and she was watching Rei with a steady gaze.
"Will you truly help us? Help this village?"
"Hmm... let's see. I came here to buy fishing gear and fish. If the village is being raided by Pirates, I won't be able to shop in peace, will I? Besides..."
When Rei paused there, the old woman fixed him with a sharp gaze as if to judge the truth of his words and urged him to continue.
"Besides? What is it?"
"There doesn't seem to be an Adventurer's Guild or a Branch Office here, so you might not know this, but when an adventurer defeats Bandits and the like, all the possessions those Bandits had become the property of the adventurer who defeated them. Of course, if there's someone who was robbed, they get priority to buy their things back."
"In other words, your aim is the Pirates' treasure?"
"That's part of it, that's all. To be precise, beyond whatever treasure the Pirates have, I also want their ship. And the Pirates themselves would fetch a fair sum if sold as slaves... Well, to sell them as slaves, I'd need to go to a town or city of a certain size, though."
For now, Rei judged that selling slaves in this village was out of the question.
A village this small would have no reason to have a slave merchant.
(Which means, even if I capture the Pirates alive... I'd need to take them to a city where slave merchants operate. And to transport them, I'd naturally need to use a ship... Honestly, that would be quite a hassle. Or rather, wouldn't it be faster for me to go to the city directly and bring them back with the Set Basket or something?)
Things would certainly proceed more smoothly that way than dragging the Pirates along.
A slave merchant would certainly have Slave Collars on hand, and once those collars were on, the Pirates wouldn't be able to try anything foolish.
"I see... Then you are saying you are not someone who would bring harm to this village. Is that right?"
"Yeah. Better yet, I'll subjugate the Pirates for free, buy fishing gear if you're willing to sell it, and buy as much seafood as you have available. I think it's safe to say I'll bring considerable profit to this village."
"I believe you."
"Village Chief!?"
The moment the Village Chief said she believed him, the man who had first spoken to Rei—and all the surrounding villagers as well—let out voices of sheer astonishment.
This was a small village where fewer than fifty people lived, but precisely because of that, the abilities of the Village Chief who managed it were reflected directly in daily life.
To put it bluntly, it was essentially a one-woman rule.
In a village like this, the Village Chief had fulfilled her role for close to decades.
Even in such a small village, over the span of decades, all manner of troubles arose.
She had experienced disturbances just like this one, where Pirates demanded food and supplies, more than a few times.
The reason this village had somehow weathered such crises was the Village Chief's guidance.
Because of that, the old woman serving as Village Chief was respected and beloved by everyone in the village.
But even for a Village Chief of her stature, suddenly making a declaration like this was apparently entirely unexpected.
"Can you not trust my word? This person is by no means someone with ill intent."
"Even if you say that..."
Called someone without ill intent, Rei endured the villagers' stares and stroked Set as if to hide his embarrassment.
Naturally, Rei didn't consider himself someone with malicious intent.
Even so, being described so directly, it was impossible not to feel at least a little flustered.
"A-Anyway. We're agreed that you'll leave the Pirates to me, right?"
Sensing a hint of anxiety in Rei's manner, the villagers must have felt something shift. The tension that had hung in the air dissolved, replaced by a gentler, more relaxed atmosphere.
"Umu. I leave it to you. For information about the Pirates, you should ask Pastura over there."
The one the Village Chief indicated along with Pastura was the young man who had first spoken to Rei—though still considerably older than Rei himself.
"If the Village Chief has decided, then I have no objections. So, what do you want to know?"
"Let's see. Straight to the point—I want to know where the Pirates' hideout is."
"That would be... over there."
Saying so, Pastura pointed toward an island faintly visible beyond the sea, discernible even from where they stood.
"An island?"
"Yeah. Until a while back it was an uninhabited island, but some time ago the Pirates showed up and made it their hideout."
"And then they started demanding food from this village, the closest one. When you think about it that way, they're not the worst kind, are they?"
"Huh? What are you talking about? Not the worst kind, in this situation?"
Whether offended by Rei's words, Pastura expressed his displeasure with his sunburned face and body and glared at Rei.
But to Rei, who had survived through countless battles, such a glare had no effect whatsoever.
"Think about it. If those Pirates were the truly worst kind with no regard for consequences, they wouldn't have just demanded food—they would've raided this village and stripped it bare of everything."
"That's..."
Pastura had been about to argue back, but when put that way, he had nothing to say.
In fact, if they had done something like that, this village would most likely have already been destroyed.
"Even so, there's no way we can just forgive the Pirates."
"Naturally. I'm not telling you to forgive them. I just said you were lucky they're not that kind of Pirates. ...So, how many ships do the Pirates have? Tell me their sizes too."
"Size, huh. There's just one fairly large ship. But they have several smaller boats that can be loaded onto it. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to come to this village at all."
"Just one. In that case, the number of Pirates might be fewer than I thought."
Of course, even operating a single ship required a considerable crew.
The number of Pirates being only around ten... was unlikely.
(Besides, the fact that only one ship came to this village doesn't necessarily mean there aren't others.)
The small size of this village would be obvious even from offshore.
Given that, Rei couldn't imagine they would go out of their way to bring a large force.
Thinking it over, Rei considered what he should do next.
If possible, he wanted to handle this matter on his own.
However, when it came to the number of enemies—and above all, managing the captured Pirates—Rei alone might not have enough hands.
(Ah, but once they're captured, I could have the villagers help with the management.)
Since the Pirates had threatened them, the villagers wouldn't be careless about keeping watch over them.
(Yeah, Elena and the others are enjoying themselves at the sea. I shouldn't do anything to interrupt that.)
Rei turned his gaze toward the Village Chief and spoke.
"If I capture the Pirates, could you manage them for a short while?"
"Hmm... manage, you say. Do you know specifically how many days that would take? I'd like to help, given that they're people who would bring harm to this village. But we have our own work to attend to as well."
"...Understood. Then I'll pay for the trouble."
"If you do that, we can take the work seriously."
And so, Rei found himself subjugating Pirates—even on vacation.