While Rei fought the Black Garb members, Set was likewise engaged in battle with Daub.
That said, despite his massive frame—his balloon-like physique—Daub moved with extraordinary agility, toying with Set.
Of course, in terms of raw attack power, Set was undeniably overwhelming.
Combined with the natural physical prowess of a gryphon and the Bracelet of Herculean Strength it wore, a single clean hit from Set would have been enough to render Daub unable to fight.
That was precisely why Daub largely refrained from attacking, devoting the greater share of his movements to evasion.
Moreover, the terrain was in Daub's favor.
The clearing did have a certain amount of open space, but "a certain amount" was all it was.
For a three-meter-long gryphon, being told to fight at full power in a space this small was an unreasonable demand.
For all these reasons combined, Daub had managed to fight Set to a stalemate by focusing on evasion. However...
"Hyahya foha. That was dangerous, dangerous. Honestly, that last one was quite close."
Dodging Set's front leg strike with a rubber-ball-like movement, he said this in a provoking tone.
Hearing those words, Set growled irritably and glared at Daub.
...Daub, receiving that gaze from Set, felt a chill run down his spine even as the smile remained plastered on his face.
It was as though snow had been shoved down his back.
Feeling his spine literally freeze, Daub nevertheless did not let it show on his face.
"Grrrrrrl."
In a wider area, it could have fought with ease.
Set knew this as it fought, which was why it let out an irritated growl...
"Gruh!"
"Ngh!?"
The moment Set cried out and looked at him, a surprised voice escaped Daub's mouth.
Because the instant Set looked his way, he felt a light shock, even though it wasn't particularly strong.
The power itself was not all that great.
It was enough to inflict a light—truly light—wound on the skin, but being damaged with no apparent cause still startled him.
What on earth had happened, and how?
Wondering about this, Daub bounced around even faster than before.
But...
"Gruh! Grrruh! Gruh!"
The Magic Eye of Shock activated three times in succession.
The characteristic of this skill was that its raw power was not high—it only had enough force to lightly scratch a tree trunk—but in exchange, its activation was fast.
True to the name Magic Eye, the skill's trait allowed Set to deal damage to its opponent simply by looking at them while activating it.
However, that low power was decisive in this case.
Daub was initially startled by the successive shocks, but once he realized their power was low, he threw a rapid succession of daggers at Set.
"Gruh!"
Set swiftly deflected the dagger thrown straight at its head with its front leg.
Normally, attempting to deflect a dagger's blade with a front leg would risk having the leg slashed open.
But Set was a gryphon.
The claws extending from its front legs were sharper and sturdier than any ordinary dagger.
Ringing with a sharp metallic note, the dagger thrown at Set spun through the air and flew off somewhere...
"Grrrrl!"
The instant it deflected the dagger, Set noticed a second blade hidden behind the first and deflected it with its beak, almost reflexively.
Set's beak was also extremely sturdy, just like its claws.
So sturdy that if Set seriously thrust its beak into a tree trunk, the beak would sink in up to the base without effort.
Against such a strike, the second dagger was easily knocked away as well.
"Hmm. You're quite skilled. Honestly, I thought I could inflict at least some damage."
Though Daub said things that sounded frustrated, his expression showed no particular sign of it.
The fact that he was wearing makeup may have been a factor, but it was impossible to read Daub's true expression.
"Grrrrrrl!"
Taking a deep breath... the next moment, countless bubbles spewed from Set's beak.
The bubbles were not particularly large, but there were many of them.
Perhaps because Daub hadn't expected bubbles to come out of Set's mouth, he stopped moving for a moment... and into that opening, the countless bubbles surged.
"What!? What is this!?"
The Bubble Breath released from Set burst upon touching the target, transforming into a sticky liquid.
Daub likely never imagined Set possessed such an attack.
It was a skill difficult to use at the right moment, which was why Set did not employ it often.
But in the current situation, it was undoubtedly the optimal skill choice for catching the opponent off guard.
Contrary to his balloon-like physique, Daub's specialty was nimble movement.
Surprising opponents with movements that belied his appearance—that was the foundation of Daub's combat style.
In fact, had Set not seen Daub moving nimbly during the street performance, it might have been caught off guard and had that opening exploited.
Regardless, given that Daub relied on such nimble movements, the Bubble Breath—which used stickiness to rob the opponent of some freedom of movement—was undeniably quite effective.
Under normal circumstances—when not facing an opponent as powerful as Set—this degree of movement impairment wouldn't have been a concern. But when the opponent was Set, it was a different story.
Even now, Daub was fighting in a situation that bordered on the absolute limit.
In such circumstances, if Daub's movement—his greatest asset—became sluggish, it could only lead to the worst possible outcome.
It was hard to tell because of the makeup, and Daub made sure not to let it show on his face, but in his heart, he was panicking considerably.
This is dangerous. I originally came intending to somehow bring them back... but at this rate, I may suffer a fatal injury as well.
Even as his movements were slowed by the sticky liquid, Daub briefly turned his gaze toward the battle between the Black Garb members and Rei.
There, in a sense as expected... most of the Black Garb members had already been incapacitated by Rei.
Some were unable to fight due to broken limbs, while others had been cut apart and reduced to corpses.
At this rate, the Black Garb members over there would be wiped out before long.
Judging this, Daub made his decision instantly.
"Foh foh foh. It's regrettable, but perhaps I should take my leave around here."
Saying this, he produced a glass bottle containing what appeared to be a potion from his breast and smashed it against the ground.
Instantly, a massive amount of green smoke billowed out across the surrounding area.
"Gruh? ...Gruh!"
Set hesitated for a moment at the green smoke—a substance that rightfully inspired caution—but in the next instant, multiple arrows of ice created by the Ice Arrow skill pierced through the green smoke.
But no scream from Daub was heard.
This was despite the ice arrows unquestionably piercing through the spot where Daub should have been.
"Gruh!?"
At the lack of impact, a questioning cry escaped Set's beak as well.
But judging that with no impact felt, Daub was probably still alive, Set took a deep breath...
"What happened here!?"
Hearing that voice suddenly, the Fire Breath that would have otherwise been unleashed—incinerating Daub along with the green smoke—dissipated without being released.
A short distance away from Set, Rei had just finished defeating all of the Black Garb members... including the man wielding the Trident Dagger.
As fortune would have it, among the Black Garb members there were those whose torsos had been split in two, those whose heads had been severed, and in some cases those who had been cleaved from the head down to the groin, split left and right where they lay on the ground.
...Compared to those, the ones killed by the Twilight Spear—pierced through the heart and the like—could be considered clean corpses.
Of course, whether a corpse was clean or gruesome made little difference to those who were already dead.
"You're late."
Looking at the guards who had arrived—five of them—Rei swung the Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear, flicking off the blood that clung to them.
"You... isn't this a bit much?"
"Is it? They attacked first. Besides, if I don't do something about the unease I've felt since entering Gilm, things will get bad in various ways. ...Though the unease still hasn't gone away."
The man who had been wielding the Trident Dagger was clearly their leader.
That was why Rei had kept him alive for questioning.
"For now, regarding this unease... this man might know something detailed. He was the one leading the Black Garb members, and he was quite skilled. So be very careful when interrogating him."
"...Understood."
Though slightly displeased, the guard nodded at Rei's words.
"Still, how did you know a disturbance was happening here?"
Since it was a dead end, people rarely came by.
So much so that even if a minor commotion occurred, it seemed unlikely anyone would notice.
And yet five guards had come here, which genuinely surprised Rei.
"There'd been information circulating that you were being targeted by assassins, Rei. When we heard you'd been spotted around this area, we started patrolling the vicinity just in case. ...Then we suddenly spotted green smoke, so we hurried over."
"Ah, I see. That Daub bastard, huh."
Rei had been watching Set's fight with Daub even while battling the Black Garb members.
Cornered by Set, Daub had smashed something against the ground, and green smoke had suddenly appeared.
Fortunately, the area where the green smoke appeared was confined, and it never reached where Rei was standing.
"What was that green smoke anyway?"
"Daub, or whatever his name is... a man with a balloon-like—no, barrel-like physique. Do you know that I was first attacked at the place where the street performer was?"
"Huh? Yeah, I know. What about it all of a sudden?"
At Rei's abrupt change of topic, the guard asked with suspicion.
Still, since Rei had indeed been attacked by assassins at the street performer's location, the guard reasoned there was no need to change the subject without cause, and urged Rei to continue with his eyes.
"The street performer Set and I were watching at the time was that barrel-built man. ...You understand what I'm getting at, don't you?"
"Wait. Are you saying that street performer was also an assassin?"
"Yeah. That attack was originally triggered by that street performer—Daub—dropping a dagger. Think about it. That was probably cover for his allies."
To Rei, the action hadn't seemed deliberate at all.
It had seemed like a genuine failure during a juggling performance.
That was the only way it could have appeared.
That was exactly why Rei had been completely fooled.
"So that street performer was Daub... Got it. We'll investigate as much as we can on our end."
The guard said this, but Rei could tell that the speaker himself likely expected no information to surface.
In reality, information about someone working as an assassin wouldn't be that easy to obtain.
An assassin was without question someone connected to an Underground Organization.
Even so, judging that there might be some scrap of information in one chance out of a million, Rei nodded at the guard's words.
"Please do."
With that matter settled, the next problem was what to do with the Black Garb members.
"For now, I'll transport the corpses. ...Not that I want to touch them."
"Then don't kill them like this."
At Rei's muttered words, one of the guards said in exasperation.
With corpses whose torsos had been split top to bottom or left to right, entrails, blood, and bodily fluids naturally spilled from the cross-sections.
Moreover, since it was the season just before summer, the temperature was appropriately high.
As a result, the stench of viscera hung powerfully in the surrounding air.
Storing corpses in the Misty Ring naturally required touching them, so it was only natural that Rei felt reluctant.
As the guard said, if he had killed them differently—in a way that didn't scatter entrails everywhere—he wouldn't have had to do this.
The guards, working in Gilm as they did, were accustomed to handling corpses.
That was why, even faced with such a large number of bodies, they only slightly furrowed their brows.
Of course, had there been a fresh recruit among the guards, that person might have been vomiting somewhere nearby.
Ah, come to think of it, the dog... it's not here, huh.
Suddenly realizing this, Rei searched for the dog, but unfortunately it had apparently already fled, and there was no sign of it anywhere nearby.