"It was delicious."
"I'm glad you were satisfied."
As the meal came to an end, Rei offered his honest impression.
Seeing his genuine satisfaction—no flattery or politeness behind it—Daisy smiled happily.
It was a smile of such beauty that anyone watching would have had their breath stolen away.
...In Rei's case, however, he regularly spent time with Elena, Marina, and Vihera—women who, while each beautiful in different ways, could be called some of the most stunning in history without any exaggeration. Because of that, Daisy's smile barely registered.
"Yeah, I'd never been to this restaurant before, but it lives up to your boasting, Daisy."
Indeed, every dish that arrived had been crafted to showcase seasonal ingredients. The cook used techniques that drew out the maximum flavor of each ingredient without unnecessary fuss.
To Rei, it felt closest to Japanese cuisine in spirit—the way it maximized the natural flavors of the ingredients. The actual seasoning, of course, was quite different.
"Thank you. I've also asked them to prepare something for Set-chan—different from our meal, of course—so I'm sure he'll be pleased. ...Now then, now that we've finished eating, I'd like to get to the main topic, if you don't mind?"
Daisy's expression turned serious as she spoke. Rei nodded while sipping his post-meal tea.
"Yeah, I don't mind. So? Whose people are you, Daisy?"
It was possible that Daisy herself headed some faction, but based on their conversation so far, Rei had already guessed she was an agent dispatched from one.
Daisy smiled at his question.
"You catch on quick. I'm with the King's Faction."
"The King's Faction?"
He hadn't expected such a straightforward answer. Rei was startled—not only by the candor but by the revelation itself.
To Rei, the King's Faction wasn't something he had zero connection to, but his ties to them were far thinner than to Daskar's Neutral Faction or Elena's Noble's Faction. He was on reasonably friendly terms with Maruka Quento, a genius who wielded magic of every attribute, but that relationship couldn't compare to what he had with the other two factions.
More importantly, the King's Faction had been the ones behind the Red Cloth and Cobolt incidents over the winter.
For a member of that faction to approach him under the current circumstances, Rei's surprise was only natural.
(The King's Faction is the largest faction, so I've heard there are sub-factions within it. Is Daisy an agent from the reconciliation wing, or maybe the moderates? ...Then again, I can't imagine a hostile party suddenly acting friendly.)
For a fleeting moment, Rei wondered if a hostile agent might have poisoned his food. But his palate was sharp. Even with a poison designed to escape detection, he would at least notice something off about the taste.
...Unless, of course, the poison registered as simply an unusual hidden flavor.
"It seems I managed to surprise you. That alone makes revealing my secret worthwhile."
Daisy looked triumphant. Rei brought his tea to his lips in silent protest, as if to say that was only natural.
After moistening his throat, he spoke with a hint of irritation.
"So? What does the King's Faction want with me now, after everything they've pulled?"
"I have a few matters to discuss, but first: those hostile toward you are only a subset of the King's Faction. There are others who aren't."
"I know that. I have an acquaintance named Maruka, after all. But the fact remains that the King's Faction has been attacking Gilm from last year into this one. The Red Cloth, contracting with that bizarre eyeball monster, endlessly siccing Cobolts on us—"
As far as Rei was concerned, the King's Faction was currently the most hostile faction of all.
There had been members of the Noble's Faction who resented their friendly ties with the Neutral Faction and had schemed accordingly, but since Elena—the symbol of the Noble's Faction—arrived in Gilm, almost no one dared behave that way anymore. The emphasis on "almost" suggested just how many still harbored resentment toward the Neutral Faction.
Regardless, at present, the King's Faction rather than the Noble's Faction was the clear enemy.
"Besides, they used the Red Cloth as sacrifices to form that contract with the eyeball monster... Wait, I've been talking about all this, but since you came to speak to me directly, you obviously already know."
"I do. But as I said, that was only a part of the King's Faction."
"Even so, the King's Faction is still the King's Faction. And if you tell me it was only some of the members... I can't just accept that at face value."
When a few members of a group commit misdeeds, the entire group typically gets tarred with the same brush. The same held true for nations.
If the leader of a nation casually disregarded treaties, could anyone trust that country—or its people?
There would always be those willing to trust regardless, but Rei couldn't fully trust the people of such a nation. And if a nation's leader fabricated events that never occurred, pushed absurd logic that no listener would believe, publicly insisted those fabrications were truth, and the entire population believed them with paranoid fervor—could anyone build a friendly relationship with people from that country?
"When you put it that way, all I can do is apologize."
"The fact that you can apologize so frankly counts in your favor. But that alone doesn't erase everything, does it?"
"You're right. But... my superior is someone extraordinarily powerful within the King's Faction. That person has pledged not to attack you or the Neutral Faction."
"Someone powerful, huh."
The only powerful figures Rei associated with the King's Faction were Maruka's family—Duke Quento. And a duke was the highest rank a noble could hold. Which meant anyone above Duke Quento would be...
"The Royal Family."
"Correct."
Daisy beamed at Rei's answer.
Rei's expression shifted to mild surprise. He hadn't expected her to admit so readily that her superior was a member of the Royal Family.
Seeing his reaction, Daisy smiled with evident amusement. From her perspective, the age-appropriate smile he wore was clearly entertaining.
Rei took another sip of tea and thought it over.
(The Royal Family. The Royal Family, huh. Well, given what's happening in Gilm right now, it wouldn't be strange for them to get involved.)
The Green People and the Lizardmen of the Gran Dragonia Empire had been teleported here. Even the Birth Tower, originally adjacent to the Imperial Capital's castle, had materialized. This was serious enough that even Daskar, who led the Neutral Faction—one of the Three Great Factions—would struggle to handle it on his own authority.
King's Faction nobles lived in Gilm's Noble District, and Rei could easily imagine their agents gathering intelligence through various channels. Daisy was probably acting on information obtained from those sources, but...
(Still, isn't she moving a bit fast?)
Rei didn't know the exact distance from Gilm to the Royal Capital. He'd never been there, after all. But he knew it wasn't a trip one could make quickly. Given that distance, Daisy's appearance before him seemed too soon.
(Which means she didn't come from the Royal Capital. She was already in Gilm—probably at a King's Faction noble's estate in the Noble District.)
With a communication tool like the Paired Orbs, Gilm and the Royal Capital could stay in contact. If someone in Gilm could act on orders from the Royal Capital—essentially an embedded agent—then Daisy approaching Rei made perfect sense.
"What is it? You're staring quite intently, but unfortunately, younger men are outside my dating pool."
She said it with a playful laugh, and Rei couldn't help but chuckle in response.
Whether she did it consciously or it came naturally, Daisy had a way of putting people at ease and lowering their guard.
"So, setting aside the King's Faction business, what exactly do you want from me?"
"To put it simply, I'd like you to act as an intermediary with the Lizardmen. You understand what I mean?"
"The Gran Dragonia Empire."
Daisy nodded at Rei's words. She was saying that since an entire nation was involved, the King—or a member of the Royal Family—should be the one to step forward, not a mere noble.
Rei had figured it would come to that eventually, so her reasoning didn't strike him as particularly odd.
"Yes. Especially since you've built friendly relations with two princes of the Gran Dragonia Empire. ...Well, the fact that you have one of them subjugated is actually not ideal."
Daisy murmured with a slightly troubled look. Rei struggled to find the right response.
In Zozo's case, it wasn't as though Rei had set out to make him submit. When they first encountered each other, Zozo attacked. Rei defeated him, and for some reason, Zozo became devoted to him. That was the unvarnished truth.
("I'm not a bad Lizardman. tremble tremble"... something like that, right?)
Rei recalled the moment, though in reality, events had unfolded quite differently from that certain nationally beloved RPG. ...Then again, in the sense that Zozo picked himself up and looked at Rei with eyes that said he wanted to join, maybe it hadn't been so different after all.
"Even if you say it's not ideal, I never told Zozo to submit. I don't know why, but he took that attitude on his own. Gaga is more like... a normal friend I've let my guard down around. A friend Lizardman? Well, something like that."
"Tamers really are..."
Her earlier cheerfulness gone, Daisy now wore a slightly bitter expression. Seeing it, Rei couldn't help but wonder if she'd had some kind of trouble with a Tamer in the past.
That said, because of the situation with Set, Rei was ostensibly classified as a Tamer, though the reality was quite different. In that sense, Zozo was undeniably a special case. ...Even so, considering the entire chain of events that led Zozo to follow him, it wouldn't be wrong to call him a Tamer either.
(Ah, so in that sense I've become a Tamer in name and deed, haven't I? Is that something I should celebrate or lament? Well, as far as gaining a new ability goes, maybe I can be pleased about it.)
Still somewhat unsure how to react, Rei spoke.
"For now, let's set the Tamer business aside."
"Hmmmm?"
Daisy shot him a look of clear dissatisfaction, but Rei ignored it and pressed on.
"Setting it aside. What you're hoping I'll do is introduce you to Zozo and Gaga, right?"
"...I suppose that's what it comes down to."
Daisy looked ready to retort, but perhaps remembering the situation at hand, she eventually conceded the point. It wasn't that her mood had improved, but Rei was at least relieved they could move the conversation forward.
"I don't mind making introductions, but that's about all I can do. I can't order Zozo or Gaga to serve the King's Faction—the Royal Family of the Kingdom of Mireana."
In Zozo's case, given his attitude of absolute obedience, he might actually follow a direct order from Rei. But Rei had no intention of giving him unreasonable commands, and as for Gaga, that went without saying.
"Yes, that's fine. We have no intention of doing anything to the Lizardmen, let alone the Imperial Family. We simply need to establish initial contact. ...By the way, there was another member of the Imperial Family, wasn't there?"
"You're well-informed. No—maybe that's not quite the right phrase."
Zaza, Zozo's brother. The whole Lizardman affair was supposed to be kept under strict secrecy. That said, if someone wanted to gather information from the woodcutters and adventurers who'd been in the Treant Forest at the time, it wouldn't be impossible. Even so, prying information out of people who'd been told to keep quiet was difficult when they were sober. Buy them a few drinks and get them drunk, though, and that was another story.
"So? What about that one?"
"I wouldn't recommend it. But it's not my call. If you want to do something about Zaza, negotiate directly with Lord Daskar."
In the end, Rei washed his hands of the Zaza matter entirely and left it to Daskar.