Rei brushed off the guards' jealous stares for the time being and handed the Black Garb members over to them.
Given that he often worked alongside Elena, Marina, Vihera, and the rest, Rei had naturally grown adept at brushing off envious gazes from those around him.
"Alright, I'll leave these guys to you. ...By the way, have you gotten anything out of the ones you captured so far?"
"No luck. The man who stabbed you in the back is still unconscious, for starters, and the one who poisoned the fruit water is staying silent."
"...Setting aside the unconscious one, I'd think the poison man might be willing to talk."
From what Rei could tell, the poison man didn't seem particularly strong-willed.
If pressed a little harder, he seemed like the type who would surely crack.
Then again, he was still an assassin.
One who used odorless, tasteless poison at that — a troublesome opponent.
It wouldn't be strange for him to have at least some nerve.
...Though from Rei's perspective, the only thing worth saying was that he was an extremely troublesome opponent.
"Still, it figures they're assassins. We'll try a bit harder on our end, but if it really comes down to it, we'll have to leave it to the specialists."
"Specialists, huh."
What exactly that meant in concrete terms was something Rei was somewhat curious about. Curious, though... if he asked here, he felt like he might end up hearing things he'd be better off not knowing, so he decided it would be wiser not to press the matter any further.
"I'll leave that to you."
"That'd help us out. ...So, what are you going to do now, Rei? Heading to Marina's place after all?"
"I'm debating it."
"...Debating? That's a first."
As far as the guard knew, Rei had always been the type to make split-second decisions.
That tendency had gotten him into no shortage of tight spots, but even in those situations, Rei had always managed through sheer ability.
In reality, he hadn't always made instant decisions, but from the guard's perspective, that was the strong impression he held.
Thinking how rude at the guard's astonished gaze, Rei nonetheless spoke up.
"Yeah. Given that assassins like these came after me, I was thinking it might be better to go to the Slum District and question the organizations there."
"No, that's... just go to Marina's."
Forgetting that he had just directed jealous stares at Rei moments ago when Rei mentioned going to see Marina, the guard immediately said so.
In this current situation — on a day that was already busy enough with assassination incidents — having a major disturbance break out in the Slum District would be unbearable. That was the guard's honest feeling.
Normally, the guards didn't interfere with dealings in the Slum District, but if it escalated into something major like an underworld organization being wiped out, that was a different story entirely.
That was precisely why the guard didn't want Rei going to the Slum District, and instead told him to go to Marina's.
...Of course, it wasn't as if he didn't also feel jealous that Rei could openly go see Marina.
"Yeah? Then I guess I'll do that. ...Honestly, going to see Marina makes me happy too, so that's not a problem at all."
At Rei saying that so brazenly, several of the guards once again directed jealous, envious stares at him.
Though for Rei's part, while it was true he was happy to see Marina, what he was really thinking about was whether she could use Spirit Magic to do something about the lingering unease in Gilm.
If the current situation could be resolved with Spirit Magic, it would be a tremendous help to Rei.
...Though when it came to whether that was actually possible, even he thought it would be quite difficult.
If this unease was caused by Spirit Magic, then Marina's Spirit Magic could probably do something about it.
But if the unease wasn't caused by Spirit Magic, then no matter how exceptionally skilled Marina was, there was no way she could do anything about it.
"Alright then... I should get going. I'll leave these guys to you. As for the corpses... what do you want to do?"
"Bringing them here in the current situation would be a problem. If we need to extract information, we have the ones we captured alive to question. As for the corpses... right. Bring them back another time."
"...It's not like they smell or anything, but I'd rather not hold onto them for too long."
Even so, there wasn't that much revulsion in Rei's tone.
That was probably because his Misty Ring already contained a considerable number of monster corpses, if not human ones.
Of course, that didn't mean he liked having them — naturally, he didn't.
"Even if you say that. We simply can't properly examine the corpses in this situation. ...We're busy."
Originally, due to the Expansion Construction, troubles large and small had been occurring constantly.
With the need to dispatch personnel to handle those, the guards were extremely busy.
And in the midst of that situation came assassins attacking Rei one after another.
They had to ensure the captured ones didn't escape, weren't killed by infiltrating assassins destroying evidence, and didn't commit suicide.
Considering the manpower needed to deal with all that, there was no way they had the spare capacity to examine or process the corpses.
When explained like that, Rei — being the very cause of the attacks that had led to so many assassins being captured — had no choice but to accept their request.
...If Rei had been the type to feel strong revulsion toward human corpses, it would have been a different story.
"Got it. I'll hold onto them for now. But come pick them up as soon as you can."
With that, Rei lightly waved to the guards and left the scene with Set.
"Alright then... I guess we'll head to the clinic for now. I want to get some advice from Marina about this whole situation."
"Gruu!"
At Rei's words, Set purred in agreement.
For Set, the unease currently present in Gilm was a highly troublesome thing.
There was no particular damage, but the very presence of that unease was extremely annoying.
To draw a comparison, it was like the sound of a mosquito buzzing endlessly by your ear while trying to sleep on a summer night — that kind of unease.
There was almost no clear harm, but it would suddenly become intensely bothersome, and once noticed, it would continue to nag at you for a while afterward.
Wanting to resolve that unease as quickly as possible was only natural for Set as well.
The real concern, though, was whether assassins might come while he was at the clinic. Thinking about it normally, if they attacked while he was there, they'd be making an enemy of Marina along with him and Set, so he couldn't imagine they'd try something like that. But whether "normal" applied in this case was the question.
Thinking about it logically, setting aside whether anyone would even think of assassinating Rei, whether anyone would actually attempt to carry it out was another matter entirely.
Well, the world was vast, so perhaps someone would, but even so, it seemed unlikely they'd launch an attack as readily as they had this time.
Well, it was certain that this unease had the effect of masking killing intent, so maybe they were betting on that? ...It seemed like nothing short of suicide to him, though.
Rei was reasonably confident in his own abilities.
During the first attack, when Daub was performing as a street performer, it was true that the unease had made it harder to act against it.
But now that he knew such a thing existed, there were any number of ways to deal with it.
In fact, he had handled the situation adequately when the Black Garb and Daub had attacked.
"Gururu."
"Hm? What is it? ...Ah, better skip that today."
As they walked down the road, Set suddenly let out a cry.
Following Set's gaze to see why, Rei spotted several adventurers ahead.
They were people who had played with Set many times before and had fed him all sorts of dishes.
Given that they were such acquaintances, it wasn't strange for Set to want to at least greet them.
But considering the current situation, where he was being targeted by assassins, the less likely they were to get others caught up in it, the better.
At Rei's words, Set purred regretfully but accepted it.
Rei didn't entirely feel bad for Set, but he had made the judgment that this was better than getting them caught up in an assassin attack.
The adventurers also noticed Rei and Set, but reading from Set's demeanor that he was busy at the moment, they ultimately didn't call out to him.
As they continued walking, the clinic gradually drew closer.
However, there was another problem.
The number of people around them had visibly increased.
Normally, that wouldn't have been something to worry about.
But right now was different.
With Rei being targeted by assassins, there was no telling where an attack might come from.
From his experience of being attacked in a crowd the first time, Rei couldn't help but stay on alert.
Though, without Daub's support, it was unclear just how many people could slip past both Rei's and Set's senses to launch an attack.
"Why are there so many people today? ...It's usually not this crowded, right?"
"Gruu?"
"Is that so?" Set tilted his head slightly at Rei's words.
From Rei's perspective, it felt like there were more people than usual, but from Set's perspective, there didn't seem to be any particular change.
It was unclear which of them was correct, but there was no doubt that they needed to stay vigilant in crowded areas. And yet...
"We made it here without anything happening after all."
Looking at the clinic before him, Rei murmured.
He had thought it likely that someone would attack in the crowd, but... in reality, they had arrived at the clinic without being attacked by anyone at all.
Honestly, Rei was completely caught off guard by that.
Given that he had been under constant attack since arriving in Gilm today, he had been certain they would take advantage of this crowd.
"Gurururuu."
Since we weren't attacked, isn't that fine? Understanding that was what Set wanted to say, Rei gently patted his head.
"Yeah, you're right. Sorry, but I'm going inside to see Marina for a bit, so wait here, Set. ...Listen? Assassins might attack, so stay fully alert out here."
"Gruu!"
Leave it to me. Purring as if to say so, Set's head was patted once more, and Rei headed toward the clinic.
Seeing Rei off, Set lay down in a spot that wouldn't be in the way.
...Though, for a three-meter-long Set, spots that wouldn't be in the way were extremely limited.
Even so, given the current situation of being targeted by assassins, he couldn't afford to be as relaxed as usual.
"Gururu... Gruu."
If someone targeting Rei appeared, he would take them down.
Carrying that resolve... while making it look no different from usual, Set lay down on the ground.
Opening the clinic's door, Rei found slightly fewer injured patients inside compared to his previous visit.
Of course, this wasn't the only clinic in town, so perhaps other clinics still had plenty of injured patients.
"Oh, Rei. What brings you here? You're not... injured, are you."
Marina, spotting Rei's figure, stated with certainty.
For Marina, the very idea of Rei being injured was simply unimaginable.
"Yeah. Actually, I've gotten into a bit of a troublesome situation."
"Troublesome, huh. For you to say that, it must be something serious... but could you wait a moment? I'm in the middle of a treatment right now. It's not a serious injury, so it'll be done soon."
"Got it. I'll wait here then."
"Yes, thank you."
Exchanging those brief words, Rei waited in a spot slightly removed from the others inside the clinic.
A few of the injured patients didn't seem to know who Rei was, casting questioning glances his way.
Even so, it was apparent to anyone that he was close with Marina, so even those who didn't know him didn't try to bother him.
If Marina were to become displeased, even healing through Spirit Magic could come with strange pains.
Not wanting to experience something like that was the shared sentiment of everyone being treated there.