On the night following the mock battle, the Duke Kerebel Mansion served a meal that, while not quite a grand celebration of Rei's victory, was more lavish than usual.
Of course, "not quite grand" was only from the perspective of those residing in the Duke Kerebel Mansion. To an ordinary person, it would have been an unquestionably luxurious feast.
In any case, as they ate, Liberte spoke up.
"So, in the end, you were unable to determine that man's identity?"
"No. I asked around with the Knight Order and the Guards, but nothing turned up."
Rei shook his head as he said this.
That man who had appeared and vanished without even Set noticing him.
Regarding an opponent strong enough to inspire such certainty, Rei had ultimately failed to obtain any information at all.
Well, just because he's strong doesn't mean I can't beat him. The real problem is how he managed to appear and disappear without me noticing...
On that front, he had absolutely no leads.
Even if he fought that man, Rei had no intention of losing.
But that was only assuming he could fight under normal conditions. If the man pulled something like today—appearing out of nowhere to launch a surprise attack—even Rei wasn't sure he could respond in time.
Even Set, whose five senses were sharper than Rei's, had been unable to detect that man's presence.
In that sense, there was no denying he was an extremely troublesome opponent.
"...I see. In all likelihood, behind all of this is..."
Liberte trailed off, but what he intended to say next was understood by everyone at the table.
So Rei shifted to a different topic before he could finish.
"Anyway, after that was settled, I went around visiting various food stalls with Set. I was surprised by how many of them served genuinely delicious food."
"...I see."
The words that left Liberte's mouth were the same as before.
But what accompanied them was not a troubled expression—it was a pleased smile.
For Liberte, who governed Anesis, having his home praised was evidently a source of genuine joy.
And Rei wasn't simply paying lip service, either. The food at the stalls he had visited after the commotion had been appropriately delicious.
...Naturally, there were also some stalls with less-than-stellar food, so it wasn't as though every single one had offered the finest taste.
"I unfortunately have little experience eating the kind of fare served at such establishments... What specific sorts of dishes do they have?"
"I'd like to know as well. If there's delicious food to be had, I'd certainly like to try it."
Arcadia asked with evident interest.
Unlike Liberte, who primarily conducted his administrative duties within Anesis, Arcadia sometimes traveled to various villages and towns, occasionally even reaching small settlements that had yet to develop into proper villages.
Given that, she was naturally curious about what kind of food Rei had found worth praising.
"Let's see. For instance... there was bread baked with generous amounts of meat and beans stuffed inside. That was quite good."
The bread contained chunks of meat cut to a size that could barely be called minced, along with beans. When you bit into it, meat juices flooded your entire mouth.
Because the meat wasn't cut finely enough to qualify as minced, it retained a firm, satisfying chew, and the juices that bled from it elevated the flavor of the beans to another level entirely.
There were a fair number of what you might call savory stuffed breads of this type, and Rei was fond of eating them. But among all the ones he'd had, the bread he tasted today ranked near the very top.
As Rei described its deliciousness, everyone at the table instinctively swallowed, despite being in the middle of their own meal.
That was likely a testament to how vividly Rei had painted the picture.
For a while after that, the Duke Kerebel family and Rei discussed the food from the stalls.
The topic continued for about ten minutes. Once that conversation had run its course, Liberte spoke up again.
"Now then, let's leave the stall talk aside... and discuss the mock battle held today."
Setting the piece of bread he had taken a bite of back onto his plate, Liberte made the announcement. Not just Rei, but Elena and Arcadia as well turned their gazes toward him.
Arcadia in particular had been busy entertaining the wives of nobles currently gathering in Anesis, and hadn't stayed to watch the mock battle through to the end.
Even so, she had managed to gather information from various people afterward, and she knew that Rei had won every match with overwhelming strength.
The fact that he had defeated Alias Holders—of whom only a handful existed even in Anesis—had surprised her when she first heard it, despite already knowing Rei was the one who had fought.
...Or perhaps it was precisely because it had been Rei that she was surprised.
Arcadia knew that Rei possessed strength befitting an Alias Holder.
But that was knowledge she held in the abstract. She had never actually seen Rei fight.
The Rei she knew was the Rei who shared meals like this. To be told that that Rei had accomplished such feats on the battlefield—she was surprised despite already being aware of them.
Feeling slightly uncomfortable under Arcadia's admiring gaze, Rei turned his attention to Liberte.
"Were the nobles who proposed the mock battle satisfied with the result?"
Even as he asked, Rei suspected they hadn't been entirely satisfied.
This whole affair had originally come about because the nobles couldn't accept Rei's abilities at face value.
Under normal circumstances, there would have been no need for him to accept such a mock battle. He had only agreed because the reward was Wind Magic Stone.
Whether everyone felt that way, Rei couldn't say. But with someone like Gaiska among their number, he certainly didn't believe that every last noble had walked away from today's mock battle truly convinced.
Well, even if they were satisfied, that just means they'll try to approach me next. ...That'd be a different kind of troublesome.
For a noble, wanting to cultivate an acquaintance with an alias-holding adventurer like Rei—and ideally bringing him into their own retinue—was only natural.
That said, Rei had absolutely no intention of serving any noble.
If anything, being regarded with suspicion was far easier to deal with, since it kept such people from approaching him in the first place.
"Let me think. I believe those who were satisfied were in the majority. If more of them had actually witnessed your strength with their own eyes during the war against the Bestia Empire, they wouldn't have needed to resort to something like this."
"Ah... that can't be helped. To begin with, there aren't many nobles eccentric enough to eagerly volunteer for war, are there?"
In truth, third and fourth sons of noble families did frequently take to the battlefield, hoping to distinguish themselves and earn a place in some Knight Order. And if things went well, there was even a chance of being taken in as an adopted son by another noble house.
Even among nobles, those who clearly understood their own standing were not uncommon on the battlefield.
...Though that was limited to those who felt a genuine sense of urgency about their current position. Someone like Gaiska would never do such a thing.
Then again, Gaiska hailed from the bloodline of Marquis Seisole's House. With a marquis house behind him, finding a position that at the very least kept him fed through the family's influence alone would presumably be easy enough.
"Eccentrics, huh... I hear you were keeping company with one of them today."
Liberte's remark came in response to the word.
Who he meant was painfully obvious to Rei.
"Bluitt, you mean? I dragged him into trouble, but I think we'll get along."
Rei fundamentally disliked nobles as a whole, but even so, there were quite a few like Bluitt whose company he genuinely enjoyed.
Then again, even among commoners, there was never any shortage of people he found disagreeable.
Ultimately, whether noble or not, there would always be people you simply couldn't stand.
...Though it was also an undeniable fact that, perhaps owing to the environments they were raised in, a greater proportion of nobles tended to have personalities incompatible with his own.
"That man is something of an oddity among nobles... but that's precisely why he gets along with you, I expect."
"I think so too. I've met any number of nobles by now, but he gave off a vibe surprisingly close to Lord Daskar's."
"Daskar, hmm... Truthfully, I do feel it's a waste to lose a man that capable. No—it's precisely because it's Daskar that he's been able to hold the Neutral Faction together as well as he has."
Reading the expression on Liberte's face as he murmured this, Rei could tell he genuinely, from the bottom of his heart, lamented the loss of Daskar.
And it was true—as Liberte said, it was precisely because of Daskar that the Neutral Faction held together at all. That was an indisputable fact.
Rei had interacted with Daskar enough over time to understand this well.
But even so, he couldn't imagine Daskar ever doing what Liberte hoped—disbanding the Neutral Faction or submitting to the Noble's Faction.
"I think Lord Daskar has his own convictions. He might cooperate with the Noble's Faction as he does now, but serving under them? That, I'd say, is essentially out of the question."
"...I suppose so. I've met Daskar several times myself, and he struck me as a man of firm conviction. That's precisely why I find it all the more regrettable."
"You should leave it at that. No matter how much you lament it, I doubt Lord Daskar would ever serve under you."
At his wife's words, Liberte looked disappointed but said nothing further.
Liberte referred to Lord Daskar by bare name, but Arcadia attaches 'Lord' to his... Well, I suppose that's not particularly strange, is it?
Thinking this, Rei lifted the soup to his mouth...
"Huh?"
A look of mild surprise flickered across his face at the flavor that spread across his palate.
At Rei's reaction, everyone at the table—including Elena—turned to look at him. But Rei simply tasted the soup again, slowly and deliberately.
One sip, two sips, three sips... Watching Rei savor the soup, which conveyed the rich umami of fish across his tongue, Elena and the others wore puzzled expressions.
It would have been unthinkable under normal circumstances, but if there had been poison or some such thing in the soup and Rei had detected something wrong upon drinking it, he certainly wouldn't have continued tasting it so deliberately.
Yet when Elena, Liberte, and Arcadia tried the soup themselves, none of them noticed anything particularly unusual.
The flavor was slightly different from usual, but it was undeniably delicious.
"Rei, what is it? I don't think there's anything especially remarkable about this soup. I mean, it's delicious, certainly, but..."
Rei, who had been savoring the soup, opened his mouth as though snapping back to himself at Elena's words.
"I was just thinking—this soup is incredibly good."
Under ordinary circumstances, such a simple statement wouldn't have warranted his reaction.
Because the soup Rei was drinking carried a flavor he recognized.
Of course, while it was familiar, it wasn't exactly the same as the taste in his memory.
It was subtly... no, fairly different from the flavor Rei knew, but the direction it was aimed in was undoubtedly the same.
It was a seasoning made from the extract of salted fish.
To Rei, it was a hot pot dish he always ate in winter—the fish sauce called shottsuru, made from Hatahata, used in what was known as Shottsuru Nabe.
Looking worldwide—strictly speaking, on Earth—fish sauce was a fairly prominent seasoning.
In Japan, the shottsuru Rei knew was well known, alongside fish sauces like Thailand's nam pla, Vietnam's nuoc mam, and Laos's nam pa.
Naturally, since those fish sauces were produced in different regions, their methods, ingredients, and aging periods all varied considerably.
In fact, the soup Rei was drinking now had a flavor closer to nam pla than shottsuru. But unfortunately, Rei had never eaten dishes made with nam pla during his time in Japan.
To Rei, fish sauce was synonymous with shottsuru.
Because of that, despite a faint sense of incongruity, Rei enjoyed the flavor of the soup.
At the same time, he could hazard a guess: this soup had probably been prepared by Georgima as part of his ramen broth development.
It was a prediction he could make precisely because Rei had once eaten shottsuru-based ramen at a Ramen Shop.
In any case, even if it was fish sauce, it was undeniably a type of soy sauce. In a manner of speaking, one could even call this a form of Shoyu Ramen.
Entertaining such thoughts, Rei savored the flavor of the soup, letting the unpleasant events of the day slip from his mind.