Reliu still looked somewhat dissatisfied, but even so, it seemed he couldn't help being curious about those who had been traveling through the copse rather than along the main road.
He followed Rei into the copse... to the spot where the carriage had overturned.
However, Reliu would come to deeply regret that decision.
He felt—quite sincerely—that he should have just waited outside the copse.
And it wasn't just Reliu. Rei and Set, who had returned here with him, felt the exact same way.
...Ielo, who had come here with Elena, was already gone.
One look at Marina standing in a foul mood beside the carriage made it obvious why.
The reason for her displeasure was plain to see: nearly ten women huddled near the carriage.
They wore shackles on their hands and feet, unable to move freely. That alone made it obvious why they had been loaded into the carriage.
Then again, if that had been all, Marina would have still been in a bad mood—but she wouldn't have been seething with this level of fury.
The biggest reason for that was the Dark Elf woman. Like the others, she had been shackled hand and foot, but she also bore unmistakable signs of a beating across her face and limbs, and she had lost consciousness.
Seeing a fellow Dark Elf in such a state, the compassionate Marina could not possibly remain unaffected.
Naturally, Marina wouldn't leave a wounded kinswoman as she was. She was already using Water Spirit Magic to heal her injuries.
Watching Marina work, Rei reached into his Misty Ring and pulled out a relatively high-rank potion—one with potent healing properties.
He had received it as compensation from the Magic Item shop in Golts for delivering the special potion he'd brought back from Saumis the day before.
The agreed-upon reward was that he could take his pick from among the shop's Magic Items, provided they were reasonably valuable... but there hadn't been anything in Golts's Magic Item shop that Rei particularly wanted.
So he had settled for several high-rank potions instead, figuring it never hurt to have some on hand. That decision was already paying off.
Of course, Rei kept a decent supply of potions set aside for emergencies anyway, so even without the Saumis errand, he wouldn't have been in any real trouble.
"Marina, use this."
"...Thank you."
With an expression unlike her usual self—like she was fighting to suppress her fury—she accepted the potion and applied it to the Dark Elf.
"Still..."
Rei had been watching Marina, but he turned his gaze toward Reliu as the latter spoke up.
Whether Reliu noticed the look directed at him or not, he kept his eyes on the carriage and continued.
"Well, it's pretty clear now why this carriage was traveling through the copse instead of along the main road. You said it was either someone with circumstances to hide or something shady. Turns out it was the latter, in spectacular fashion."
"Yeah... you're right. No question about it—an illegal slave trader."
Rei wasn't simply echoing Reliu's reasoning, but he agreed all the same.
Slave traders were, as a matter of course, those who bought and sold slaves.
But there were several different types of slaves. Those sold for money. Those who sold themselves to pay off debts. And the ones Rei knew best: criminal slaves.
That wasn't to say Rei bought criminal slaves. Rather, he was familiar with them because—like now—he would capture surviving bandits after defeating... no, hunting them, and sell them off as slaves.
In any case, there were other categories of slaves as well, but abducting people by force and forcing them into slavery was undeniably illegal.
And the women crammed into the carriage that Marina and the others had opened were victims of exactly that kind of illegal trafficking.
Naturally, a slave trader caught engaging in such practices would face severe punishment.
That was why this particular trader had chosen to travel through the copse rather than the main road, where they'd be too easily spotted.
In the end, that decision got them targeted by bandits—making this outcome a problem entirely of their own making.
"Anyway, I'll leave things here to you. I'm going to get some information from the bandits."
Not wanting to linger beside the seething Marina, Rei headed toward the bandits, who were tied up with rope.
Seeing Rei approach, the bandits tried to put on a brave front... but with Set at his side, there was no way they could manage it.
These were the same bandits Rei had beaten down moments ago. It was only natural they regarded him with sheer terror.
"Right then, where to start... I suppose I should introduce myself first. Some of you might already know, given that I have Set here, but I'm Rei. I go by the alias Crimson... though for you lot, 'Bandit Eater' might ring a bell more clearly."
'!?'
The bandits who hadn't already guessed his identity from Set's presence went pale with shock.
Once Rei confirmed that their shock had curdled into despair, he asked the same question he always did.
"So, where's your hideout? And how many are still there?"
"...And if we don't tell you? You'll kill us?"
"That's right. I could do that."
The man who asked had clearly meant it as a negotiation.
If Rei killed them, he couldn't sell them as slaves. Was he really fine with that?
It was true—capturing bandits and selling them into slavery would fetch a respectable sum.
That was the logic behind the man's words... but neither he nor any of the surrounding bandits expected Rei to say "kill" so casually.
Bandits threw that word around all the time, of course.
But more often than not, it was just a bluff. Though admittedly, there were plenty who wouldn't hesitate to follow through.
The word "kill" from Rei's mouth, however, was no bluff. It was meant exactly as it sounded.
What's more, Rei showed not the slightest hesitation about the act itself. His attitude made it feel as though their lives would be reaped as casually as someone cutting back weeds.
"I—I get it! I'll tell you! I'll talk, just spare me!"
The man who had tried to negotiate blurted it out instantly.
He understood that if his response had been even a fraction slower, Rei would have killed him on the spot.
The other bandits, having likely reached the same conclusion from Rei's demeanor, hastily shouted their compliance.
...A few of the slower ones genuinely didn't understand why everyone else was folding so easily.
But they had enough sense to realize that protest would be pointless—and when the senior bandits they looked up to were all glaring at them to comply, there was no refusing.
"Good. Then let's hear it."
With that, Rei extracted the hideout's location and details about the remaining members from the bandits.
"Alright, I'm heading to the hideout for a bit. Can you hold things down here?"
"You're going alone, Rei? I mean, I don't think it'll be a problem, but..."
Reliu's words carried clear trust in Rei's strength.
But at the same time, there was no denying he also worried about what might be waiting at a bandit hideout.
Rei understood Reliu's concern, so he simply told him it would be fine and left with Set.
Fortunately, the hideout location he'd gotten from the bandits wasn't far from here. Riding Set, they would arrive in no time.
"They said there's a mountain on the far side of the copse, and a cave right after you enter it... but where is it?"
"Gruu? ...Grururuu."
At Rei's words, Set peered down at the ground, but much of the terrain was hidden beneath autumn-colored leaves and evergreen foliage. They couldn't spot the cave the bandit had described.
Still, it was hard to imagine the bandit had lied in his state, and it was clear the trees were simply concealing the entrance from above.
(They've hidden it quite well. They said they only came to this area a few days ago, but for a coincidence, they sure found themselves a remarkably good hiding spot.)
Rei didn't think the bandits operating around here would be overly concerned about aerial surveillance.
Which meant either the trees had grown by chance to cover the cave entrance, or it was simply a cave that was naturally hard to spot from above.
"Can't be helped. If we can't find it from the air, we'll search on foot through the mountain."
"Gruu?"
Is that okay? Set rumbled, tilting his head.
He was worried that searching on foot would take time and delay their return to the overturned carriage.
But Rei gently stroked Set, who was staring up at him with round eyes, to put him at ease.
"If we can't find it, we can't help it. Besides, we need to treat those captive women's wounds and find out where they came from. And then there's the Dark Elf situation."
Why the person presumed to be a slave trader had beaten the Dark Elf so brutally was beyond Rei.
He'd considered whether it was to stop her from using Spirit Magic, but being beaten wouldn't actually prevent someone from casting Spirit Magic.
That left one likely explanation: the slave trader simply hated Dark Elves.
Whatever the reason, there was no question that it sat terribly with Marina, a fellow Dark Elf.
Both Elves and Dark Elves were few in number to begin with.
Because of that, their sense of kinship toward their own kind ran deep.
With Marina on his mind, Rei descended to the ground with Set and entered the mountain.
They searched for about ten minutes.
"Gruu!"
Set picked up a human scent and let out a short rumble.
They had finally found their destination.
Of course, catching a human scent didn't necessarily mean they'd found the right place.
There was always the possibility it was just a hunter who had come into the mountain.
But given the circumstances, the scent Set had picked up most likely belonged to the bandits.
Following behind Set, they soon arrived at the bandits' hideout—just as expected.
"...Hey, this is... tch. I figured as much, but I didn't expect it to be quite like this."
Most of the bandits had apparently gone out to attack the illegal slave trader Rei and the others had found. Only a handful remained—and they weren't particularly skilled.
Rei had told them he wouldn't kill them if they surrendered quietly, but the bandits chose to resist... and now their bodies lay outside the cave.
From Rei's perspective, he honestly didn't care whether they surrendered or fought back.
Since they chose the latter, he was able to test Multi Slash and Corrosion—skills Death Scythe had recently acquired—in live combat. That wasn't a bad outcome for him.
After dispatching the few bandits, he entered the cave hideout and began searching for their valuables... and among the loot, he found a potion he recognized.
The special potion that was supposed to have been delivered to the Magic Item shop in Golts.
The fact that it was here meant this was the very bandit group Rei had been hunting for yesterday.
He'd searched desperately and come up empty-handed, only to stumble across them today by sheer coincidence. Rei wasn't quite sure what to make of that.
(I guess it's like they say—you never find what you're looking for while you're looking, but then a few days after you give up, it just turns up out of nowhere.)
With that thought, he stowed the treasure and other goods inside, reasoning that at the very least, the special potion was worth taking.
Fortunately—though calling it "fortunate" felt wrong in context—there was no one being held captive inside the hideout.
Whether this bandit group simply didn't take prisoners, or they had left everyone behind when relocating their base of operations, Rei couldn't say.
Either way, one thing was certain: the hideout was empty of captives.
Of course, there was little of anything valuable enough to qualify as treasure, so not a single Magic Item of the sort that would have actually pleased Rei turned up.
Still, there was a fair amount of food, and while longswords and spears showed some signs of use, only a handful were worth considering.
There was also a large crate stuffed with cloth that appeared to have been stolen from merchants, along with various small items and a decent assortment of tableware they seemed to have intended for their own use. He found jewels, gold coins, and silver coins as well... and in the end, it proved to be a reasonably satisfying haul.