Having explained the situation to Daskar for the time being, Rei concluded that anything beyond this was Daskar's job, not his own, and left the Lord's Manor.
...Daskar seemed eager to somehow find a way to visit the underground space where the Wisp was, and had been deeply absorbed in thinking up a method to do so.
He's probably so seriously busy with work that he's using that as a distraction. ...Well, if he decides there's truly no problem, there's a chance he'll actually go through with it. But if he does, Lord Daskar's subordinates will be furious.
Muttering this to himself with a sense of conviction, Rei arrived at the alchemists' building.
He had come earlier than usual, and the number of logs he brought was fewer than usual.
Several alchemists looked dissatisfied with this, but for Rei, arriving here at this hour was unexpected even to him, so being criticized for it was troublesome.
Even so, a few alchemists approached Rei as usual, asking if he had any rare monster materials.
Rei dealt with them with visible annoyance, and for a brief moment, he wondered if he should mention the crocodile-mouthed lizards he had defeated at the lake. But since that lake had been teleported from another world, he decided it was better not to say anything for now.
However... seeing Rei hesitate for just an instant, they must have thought there was a chance.
The alchemists' pursuit grew even more intense.
"Rei, judging from your reaction, you do have something, don't you? What kind of materials?"
"Hold on a minute. You're not planning to keep it to yourself, are you? Tell me too!"
At that, the other alchemists began gathering around Rei as well.
Rei wanted to point out that they should be focusing on processing wood, but he could easily predict that saying anything to the alchemists right now would be pointless.
And so, Rei thought for a moment... and then spoke.
"Well. I might be willing to share this information with those who do a good job processing the wood."
It was a casually muttered remark, but it had more than enough effect to motivate the alchemists.
Upon hearing those words, the alchemists rushed back to their workstations to quickly finish their tasks.
Huh? Did I screw up? As long as I don't say it's a monster from a lake in another world and just treat it as an unknown monster... it'll probably be fine, right? Yeah, it'll surely be fine. It might cause some trouble for the Guild, but... oh, but if the alchemists thoroughly examine that lizard, maybe they'll come up with some new way to use the materials?
He half-acknowledged that he was forcing the justification on himself, but given the alchemists' intense curiosity, he felt it was by no means impossible.
That said, the possibility of these alchemists going off the rails could not be entirely denied.
Regardless, relieved that the alchemists who had crowded around him were gone, Rei exited the building.
Waiting to greet Rei outside was, naturally, Set.
"Gruu? Grurururu!"
Rei stroked the head of Set, who approached him purring happily, and the two of them left together.
Along the way, they bought skewers from several stalls and walked around town.
While browsing stalls in a back alley, angry shouts suddenly reached Rei's ears.
A fight?
It was a voice that could only be interpreted as a brawl.
But at the same time, Rei wondered—why here, and why at this hour?
If it were night, he could understand if there were drunks brawling.
However, it was still daytime.
...Of course, there were people who drank during the day, and even without drinking, getting into a fight was something anyone could do.
But even so, considering the current situation, the doubts were undeniably stronger.
"Gruu?"
What should we do? Set looked at Rei and purred.
Seeing Set's reaction, Rei considered what to do.
It was true that something felt off.
Above all, even if strangers were fighting, there was no need for Rei to go out of his way to get involved.
In Gilm, fights were never particularly rare to begin with.
Especially now, with many people gathered seeking work for the Expansion Construction, quite a few of them prided themselves on their physical strength.
That was why Rei judged there was no need to get involved... and turned his gaze to Set to leave the area.
"Eek! Wait, please! I said stop it! Come on... someone, help me..."
When a woman's crying voice reached his ears, Rei stopped in his tracks.
If this had been a drunken brawl between men, Rei would not have paused.
But this time was different.
What he heard was not just men's voices, but a woman's voice as well.
If he ignored this and left, it would leave a bad aftertaste.
Making that judgment, Rei decided that breaking up a fight wouldn't be particularly troublesome... and headed toward the direction where the shouts were still coming from.
Set, walking beside Rei, cast a glance at him with a purr, as if asking if it was really okay.
Set likely understood as well that getting caught up in this fight would only waste time.
Rei understood Set's concern too, but hearing the woman's—rather desperate—scream, he had no desire to just leave it be.
Seeing a woman injured later because Rei hadn't gone to help would not sit well with him.
Of course, given the current situation where he couldn't even see the woman's face, ignoring it was probably the smartest approach.
Regardless, to avoid that bad aftertaste, Rei advanced toward the source of the voice... and eventually arrived at a dead end.
There, he found three people.
Two men, both appearing to be in their twenties to thirties, were exchanging blows in a fistfight, and a woman of similar age was trying to stop the fight, calling out to the men. But the men were in the middle of their brawl and seemed completely unable to hear her.
What's the relationship between these three?
Rei had assumed it was a fight between strangers, but from the look of the woman trying to stop the two men, all three seemed to be acquaintances.
However, that question quickly faded from Rei's mind.
Whether the three were acquaintances or not, all that ultimately mattered was stopping the fight.
"Set, wait here. I'll go break up that fight."
"Gruu?"
Set gave Rei a look as if asking whether he was sure about going alone, but Rei patted Set's head.
"Don't worry. Stopping a fight between three amateurs like that is easy."
If these were adventurers with a certain level of skill... say, the kind entrusted with guarding the Birth Tower—then Rei couldn't stop them so easily.
...Though if he were willing to just knock out everyone involved without question, it wouldn't be impossible.
From Rei's attitude, Set quietly backed down.
What Rei said was fact, and Set likely agreed that stopping a fight of that level was no problem for Rei.
Still, if those three are acquaintances... what on earth made them get into a fight? Fighting with that much killing intent isn't something you do without a serious reason.
The people fighting looked like amateurs to Rei.
Despite that, they were fighting with killing intent—in other words, fighting to kill—which carried a sense of incongruity and disconnect.
In other words, Rei could tell that they were genuinely that angry at each other.
It wasn't as if being an amateur in combat meant you couldn't kill someone.
If someone truly intended to kill, stabbing a person with a kitchen knife or something would kill them easily enough.
Of course, that was only the case between amateurs; if the opponent were an adventurer, the story would be different.
"Hey, break it up. You planning to kill each other in a place like this?"
Rei called out to the two men who were brawling.
The men, suddenly addressed—no, even the woman who had been trying to stop the fight—froze at the sudden voice of a third party and turned their gazes toward him. But upon seeing that it was Rei, a teenager who was by no means tall, the two men immediately went back to fighting, and the woman wore a disappointed expression.
Set was located a short distance away from Rei, but all three were so absorbed in the fight—and so desperate to stop it—that they apparently failed to notice Set's presence.
"Haa."
Seeing the three of them like that, Rei let out an exasperated sigh and stepped forward.
If they wouldn't listen to words, he would just break up the fight by force, or so he decided.
"Out of the way, you brat! Back off!"
One of the men noticed Rei approaching and shouted, but Rei advanced without paying any mind to the shout. Eventually, one of the men could no longer tolerate Rei's presence and swung his fist, intending to deal with the interfering Rei before his fight partner.
However, a fist from someone who was nothing more than a combat amateur had no chance of catching Rei. It was effortlessly dodged, and his legs were swept out from under him.
"Gah!"
Rei placed his foot on the fallen man's back, pinning him in place... then turned his gaze to the remaining man and spoke.
"So? Are you going to have a go too? If so, I don't mind being your opponent."
"No, I have no such intention. I can see perfectly well that you're strong. Besides, I wasn't fighting because I wanted to. If anything, I'm glad you stopped us."
"...Is that so? From where I was standing, it looked like you were both fighting to kill each other."
"N-no. It wasn't like that... right?"
"Right. Honestly..."
When the man looked at the woman, the woman who received his gaze agreed with his words and approached Rei.
"I'm glad you stopped the fight. Um, this is all I can offer as a reward, but... will you accept it?"
Saying that, she produced a dagger from her bosom... and swung it at Rei.
"!?"
Rei tried to dodge the movement semi-reflexively, but couldn't move.
Understanding what had happened almost instinctively, Rei stomped through the back of the man on the ground with all his might, and with a sickening crunch, he leapt backward from the spot.
In the fraction of a second while airborne, he instantly surveyed his surroundings.
The man whose spine had been shattered was convulsing with his arms still pinned behind his back, and from the dagger the woman had swung at Rei, several drops of the liquid coating the blade were flying through the air.
The liquid coating the dagger.
What it was needed no consideration to be clear.
Having killed one person—or more accurately, merely crushed his spine so he wasn't dead yet—the other woman's dagger strike had been evaded.
That left the other one?
At the same moment Rei landed on the ground, he directed his gaze to where the other man had been just moments ago.
There, the man was throwing Long Needles—the very same kind of weapon Byune used, though Rei couldn't tell where he had produced them from.
And the Long Needles were released.
Using the momentum from his landing, Rei kicked off the ground again, dodging the attack while activating the Magic Item at his waist.
The Magic Item activated instantly by Rei's magic power—the Eye of Nebula generated arrowheads in Rei's hand as its effect.
At the same time, another Long Needle was thrown at that timing, but if he knew it was coming, dodging the attack was not difficult.
Long Needles were weapons that were hard to dodge, but at the same time, because they were point attacks, evading them was not difficult with just a slight movement of the body.
Dodging in that manner, Rei flicked an arrowhead with his thumb to attack the man.
Because it was an attack method using only his fingers, the opening was small.
But an opening was still an opening.
The woman charged at Rei with the dagger coated in what appeared to be poison.
What slightly surprised Rei was how agile the woman's movements were.
When he first saw her, he had thought her movements were those of someone untrained in combat, but from her current movements, she appeared to be someone who had undergone considerable training.
The same was true for the man throwing the Long Needles, and though he hadn't had the leeway to confirm it, the man whose spine Rei had crushed was likely the same.
In other words, the three who had been present had trained their bodies while intentionally concealing their movements.
Someone with a more specialized perspective might have noticed that they were hiding something, but unfortunately, Rei did not possess that level of outstanding observation.
He had been completely deceived.
"Now then... but now that I know who you really are, I won't go down so easily."
Taking distance from the two, Rei withdrew Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear from his Misty Ring and declared as much.