The day before his scheduled departure from Gilm with Elena and Ara, Rei—having nothing in particular to prepare—was once again out on a voluntary patrol.
His target, of course, was the people wearing red cloth. But he also harbored the ulterior motive of seeing if anything else interesting might turn up.
Beside him was Set.
Set had been acting independently from Rei for the past several days, but he must have grown lonely. Today, he had decided to tag along.
"Grrru?"
Catching sight of the dried vegetable stall Rei was eyeing, Set tilted his head as if to ask, Are you going to buy some?
"Ah… yeah. I've heard that dried vegetables are packed with umami. Or maybe I read that somewhere?"
Rei muttered to himself, briefly wondering where he'd picked up that tidbit of knowledge.
Whether it understood that umami meant delicious or not, Set tugged at Rei's Dragon Robe with his beak, clearly indicating he wanted to make a purchase.
Letting himself be pulled along, Rei stroked Set's head to calm him down.
"Alright, alright. I'm coming with you, so settle down. The stall isn't going anywhere."
Rei knew full well that Set loved meat, but he never expected such an enthusiastic reaction to vegetables.
Naturally, eating nothing but meat would lead to a poor nutritional balance, so in that regard, Rei was genuinely glad to see Set showing interest.
"Oh my! Welcome, Rei-chan and Set-chan. Looking to buy something?"
The small stall was tended by an old woman who served as its proprietor.
That much was fine, but while Rei could accept Set getting a diminutive, he certainly hadn't expected one himself. He gave her a slightly startled look.
The old woman, however, paid no mind. Wrapped in warm clothing, she sat smiling before a heating Magic Item.
"Yeah, I'll take anything tasty if you've got it. What do you recommend?"
"Every vegetable I carry here is delicious. Though I can't quite say they're full of vitality," she added with a cackling laugh.
In truth, the dried vegetables were just as wrinkled as the old woman's face, so "full of vitality" was hardly an apt description.
But that was precisely why their flavors had been concentrated by the sunlight, enhancing their umami and making them quite versatile for cooking.
That said, Rei's meals mostly consisted of food prepared for him at the cafeteria he kept stored in his Misty Ring. He rarely cooked for himself, and his culinary skills were marginal at best.
Back in Japan, there had been retort-packaged products—though Rei wasn't entirely sure that was the correct term—like mapo tofu base that only required tofu, or twice-cooked pork base that only required cabbage.
"For now, just give me a silver coin's worth of whatever assortment works for cooking."
With that, Rei handed the old woman a silver coin.
Had this been a restaurant, he would have gladly spent far more silver—or even gold coins, depending on the occasion—on a meal. But what he was buying now was raw ingredients, and dried vegetables at that—something Rei had hardly ever used. It was only natural to be cautious.
(If I give them to Marina, I'm sure she'll whip up all sorts of dishes with them, so they won't go to waste.)
Imagining Marina's home cooking, Rei accepted the assortment of dried vegetables from the old woman… and suddenly froze.
He wasn't the only one. Set, who had been at his side eagerly anticipating what kind of dishes those vegetables would become, went rigid too.
The old woman watched their abrupt halt with a puzzled expression.
But the next moment, Rei and Set simultaneously turned to look behind them—more precisely, toward a building on the other side of the crowd gathered at their backs.
"Sorry, something urgent just came up!"
"Gruu!"
With only those words, Rei stowed the dried vegetables into his Misty Ring and broke into a sprint. Set chased after him without a moment's hesitation, leaving the old woman dumbfounded as the pair vanished from right before her eyes.
But she was a resident of Gilm. A commotion of this scale was a common enough occurrence, she decided, and promptly returned to minding her stall.
"W-wait, how did they notice from this distance!? You've got to be kidding me!"
Weaving through the gaps between buildings, a single woman ran for her life.
She was one of Calles's subordinates—the very woman who had talked about wanting to stuff Set.
She was supposed to have been waiting in the room provided for her, but the boredom had become unbearable. Telling her companions she was just stepping out for a moment, she had slipped away to wander the town.
Along the way, she had spotted Set and begun tailing the pair.
Had she left it at that, Rei and Set would never have noticed her. But the moment she thought, Maybe if I attack, I can take them down surprisingly easily? Rei and Set had turned around and pinpointed her exact location.
The instant their eyes found her, she had bolted on pure instinct.
She knew with every fiber of her being that if she stayed where she was, she would be caught without question.
It was the right call to make—but it was also a fatal mistake.
Her flight was exactly what had confirmed to Rei and Set that the hostility directed at them had come from her, and they had given chase.
Though whether staying put would have been any safer was, at best, an open question.
If asked whether she could have kept hidden with Rei and Set bearing down on her, the woman couldn't have said yes with any confidence.
A few dozen minutes ago, she probably could have nodded without hesitation. But having seen Rei and Set with her own eyes, she had absolutely no confidence she could do so now.
Cursing her own actions, she focused everything on putting as much distance between herself and her pursuers as possible, as fast as possible.
She was confident in her speed. She was confident in her agility. No matter how extraordinary Rei and Set's physical abilities might be, she was certain she had them beat in those two areas alone.
That she could still think so even after seeing them firsthand… was perhaps a testament to how thoroughly she understood the brutal environment she had survived up to this point.
…Which was exactly why, when she noticed the footsteps behind her growing steadily closer, her mind went completely blank.
She had never imagined that in this situation, anyone could catch up to her.
Even if she was clearly outmatched in combat, fighting head-on was for fools. A clever person like herself exploited her opponent's weaknesses.
That was the mindset she had operated under. But in this situation—with someone undeniably stronger bearing down from behind—there was no weakness to exploit.
In the first place, she couldn't imagine that the person and creature who had spotted her had anything resembling a weakness at all.
The footsteps drew closer.
Running at full speed and still unable to pull away—it was pure terror.
If she looked back, she would at least know exactly how close they were. But turning around mid-sprint would slow her down, even if only slightly. And more than that, she was certain that seeing Rei and Set chasing her with her own eyes, given her current state of mind, would shatter what remained of her composure completely.
So she did the only thing she could: kept her eyes forward and ran.
But the footsteps behind her never fell back.
"Well then, shouldn't we wrap up this game of tag around here?"
The voice sounded right beside her ear. The woman's pace faltered.
And once she slowed, she couldn't build her speed back up. Her stride shortened, her steps grew sluggish, and finally she stopped altogether.
Seeing the woman ahead of him come to a halt, Rei stopped as well, and Set followed suit.
Looking at her speed, it was obvious she'd had real confidence in her legs. And choosing to flee the instant she realized she'd been spotted was an understandable decision.
But even so, her pace was nothing Rei hadn't seen before. He'd faced quicker opponents many times. And with Set beside him, the outcome had been a foregone conclusion the moment she chose to run.
Still, her speed had been genuinely impressive. The fact that she'd given up on escaping on her own saved Rei some trouble, so he couldn't complain.
Leaving Set to guard the rear, Rei circled around to block the woman's front.
The alley wasn't narrow by any means—Set had been running through it comfortably—but with Rei and Set sealing both ends, escape was no longer an option.
"So. You wouldn't mind answering a few questions, would you? I assume you know what this is about."
"…W-what ever do you mean? Someone suddenly came chasing after me, so I ran. I haven't done anything wrong."
Knowing full well how weak that sounded, the woman decided to play dumb anyway.
But as the deflecting words left her mouth, she found herself thinking that maybe her situation wasn't so terrible after all.
It was true that she had harbored hostility toward Set—the desire to have him stuffed.
But that was all it had been: a thought. She hadn't actually done anything.
Given that, there was no way Rei would actually lay a hand on her—
Slash.
As if to cleave through that very rationalization, a deep gash was carved into the ground at her feet.
At first, the woman had no idea what had just happened. Why had a slash mark suddenly appeared at her feet—such a viciously clean cut that the word "sharp" barely did it justice?
But the moment her eyes found Rei, she understood.
One look at the Death Scythe in his hands made it painfully clear.
"I don't want to hear that kind of joke. It's obvious you harbor hostility toward me and Set. So don't expect me to go easy on you."
"I-I haven't actually done anything, you know? If you harm me despite that, what do you think that would mean for you? You can't possibly not know?"
"Maybe. But then again, maybe not. If I hand you over to the Guards, they can investigate your intentions from that angle. And if it comes to it, there's always the option of turning you over to the Knight Order."
It was a bluff, and a transparent one at that.
It was true that Rei was an enormously important figure to Gilm and to Daskar. But as long as she had only directed hostility at them without taking any actual action, arresting and interrogating her was a legal stretch.
Had she been thinking clearly, the woman would have reasoned that far.
But in that moment—with the power of Rei and Set on such vivid display right in front of her—her mind couldn't reach that conclusion.
What narrowed her thinking more than anything were the Death Scythe, which had somehow materialized in Rei's hands without her noticing, and the gash it had carved into the ground.
It was an interrogation that brazenly flaunted power, but the woman was in no position to object. She was convinced that one wrong word would turn that blade on her.
"Ah… I… I…"
She had to say something. But if she spoke and betrayed Calles, the odds of her losing her life were overwhelming.
So what should she do? As the woman hesitated, caught between two impossible choices, a voice suddenly rang out through the alley.
"The disturbance is here! A man is beating a woman, trying to force her to do what he says! Guards, please come quickly!"
The shout echoed through the surroundings. Rei furrowed his brow at the blatantly staged accusation and, without even glancing behind him, swung the Death Scythe.
A sharp metallic ring split the air.
On the ground lay a dagger, its blade bisected clean in two.
"!?"
Judging that the strike had been a comrade's cover to help her escape, the woman bolted on reflex. But Rei had already anticipated the move. He slammed the shaft of the Death Scythe into her body, and the next moment she crashed against a nearby wall and lost consciousness.
"Tch!"
Rei clicked his tongue and swung the Death Scythe once more, slicing another flying dagger clean in half and sending the pieces clattering to the ground.
…Yes. The dagger had not been aimed at Rei. It had been aimed at the unconscious woman.