Every member of Wind Fang was now either dead, injured, or unconscious on the floor.
This was the result of both Rei's attacks and the rampage of Morning Star, a group that harbored a grudge against Wind Fang.
Since both Rei and Morning Star were composed entirely of skilled fighters, the members of Wind Fang had never stood a chance.
This was a given in Rei's case, but Morning Star's members were also highly skilled. Despite having fought against such large numbers, none of them had sustained any serious injuries.
There were a fair number who had suffered minor wounds that wouldn't affect their ability to fight, however.
"Morning Star, huh? You all seem quite skilled."
"Not at all. It's thanks to you, Rei-san, for taking out the man giving orders right at the start. Even if they tried to coordinate, it's useless without someone to give the orders."
"I won't deny that. Once fighters reach a certain level of skill, they can coordinate on their own judgment, but it seems these people didn't have that level of skill."
"...You're right. Honestly, this was a bit unexpected. When our organization was attacked, there should have been a fair number of skilled members among them."
The man voiced his doubts, but Rei pressed him with another question.
"By the way, the man I took down... was he the one you were talking about?"
"No, he wasn't."
Rei had asked expecting the answer to be no, and just as he predicted, the man shook his head.
"Thought so. If what you told me about them is true, I didn't think he'd die that easily."
"...No, given how that fight went, I really can't imagine that being the case..."
"You think so? Well, that aside... it's been quite some time since we took these guys out, but no enemies have shown up at all. What do you think is going on?"
"I don't know. If it were the Wind Fang I know, it wouldn't be strange for them to come at us the moment they were attacked..."
Saying so, the man looked at Rei.
If it were just them, it wouldn't be surprising if they were attacked immediately.
And yet, the fact that no one was attacking them was, by any normal reasoning, undoubtedly because of Rei's presence.
In fact, Morning Star's members were also quite surprised after witnessing Rei's abilities up close.
They had known he held the alias Crimson, but hearing rumors and seeing his actual strength firsthand were vastly different. No, it would be fair to say they were too different.
That was how far apart Morning Star's members were from Rei in terms of ability.
Having been dispatched here, the Morning Star members under the man's leadership were undoubtedly skilled as well.
But even for men like them, they couldn't possibly imagine winning against Rei in a head-on fight.
Rei possessed that level of monstrous ability.
"Anyway, if the enemy isn't coming out, we'll have to search for them ourselves. What will your side do?"
"Eh? Ah, um... yes. We'll search too, of course. It's hard to believe that these people are the only combat power they have."
"Yeah... well, that's true."
Rei agreed with the man's words.
Having actually fought them, they didn't seem that strong.
In terms of pure combat power, Black Phantom was still stronger.
Compared to Blue Spear, the difference in ability was incomparable.
If they had truly dealt major damage to an organization like Morning Star, they shouldn't be this weak.
(Could it be that the truly skilled ones were dispatched as an elite unit to assassinate me, and the rest are just low-skill members...? Is it possible this is a small, elite-only organization?)
Rei briefly entertained that thought, but decided that destroying Wind Fang took priority over speculating, and began searching through the building—only to find nothing.
"Eh?"
There was no one else inside the building.
Yes, there was truly no one there.
The interior of the building was relatively spacious, but even so, there was nowhere for all the members of Wind Fang to hide.
He hurriedly searched the other rooms one after another, but there was still no sign of anyone.
He encountered Morning Star members during his search of the building, but they too were searching with expressions of disbelief, just like Rei.
After about twenty minutes had passed—by the time they had searched every inch of the building—Rei came face to face with the Morning Star leader.
The man's face was filled with anxiety.
Naturally. He had finally thought he could retaliate against the enemy that had attacked his organization, only to find that the people there were clearly inferior in skill, and no one else was present.
If you thought about it normally, it was impossible.
But right now, that impossible situation was exactly what was happening.
"What do you think?"
"Even if you ask me, I honestly don't know. Why has it come to this?"
Seeing the man shake his head, Rei felt inclined to agree.
At this rate, the Magic Items Rei had been after would also be... Just as he thought that far, he suddenly realized something.
(Magic Items? No, beyond that... where are the valuables?)
Since this was Wind Fang's hideout, it would be strange if they didn't have some sort of valuables to serve as operating funds.
Even if they were an Underground Organization... no, precisely because they were an Underground Organization, they should have needed a considerable amount of operating funds.
But despite searching the building, Rei hadn't found a single thing of that nature.
"Among the places Morning Star searched, was there anywhere storing gold, silver, treasures, or Gold Coins, Silver Coins, Platinum Coins, or gems?"
"...Eh? Come to think of it, we haven't found any such place. That's strange."
"Yeah. It's definitely strange."
The man didn't say it might be strange—he declared it was strange.
In fact, from Rei's perspective, it was obvious that something was off.
Setting Rei aside, the fact that Morning Star's members, who should be more knowledgeable about such things, hadn't noticed it was probably because they were focused solely on the single goal of revenge.
"What do you think this means?"
"The first possibility that comes to mind is that they stored their operating funds somewhere other than the hideout..."
Even as he said that, Rei couldn't possibly believe that was the correct answer.
In the first place, if they were to hide operating funds somewhere outside the hideout, it went without saying what would happen if they were found by members of other organizations or even Slum District residents.
If there were something like a bank, that would be different, but unfortunately, no such thing existed.
Even if it did, whether an Underground Organization could use it was a questionable matter.
For those reasons, valuables basically had to be managed by the organization themselves.
And since they needed to manage them, there was no way they could leave them somewhere outside the hideout.
"In other words, there's a hidden room in this building? A basement, then."
"Probably."
Rei nodded in agreement with the man's words.
This building was a single story.
And having investigated the building, both Rei and Morning Star knew there was no hidden room within the building itself.
That being the case, the only possibility left for a hidden room was a basement.
He lightly stomped on the floor, but there was naturally no hidden room there.
All things considered, this hideout was fairly large.
In such a place, Rei had no idea how to go about finding a hidden room.
"What do we do?"
"Letting this go isn't an option. But it'll definitely take time to find it..."
"Should I just burn it down?"
A stir ran through the group.
The words that came out of Rei's mouth must have been that unexpected.
Morning Star's members directed expressions of surprise at Rei.
"Burn it down? This building?"
"Yeah. There's definitely a hidden basement somewhere in this building. If we burn the entire building to the ground, we'll be able to figure out where the hidden room is, right? Of course, since the building is burning, a considerable amount of heat will reach the basement. Depending on the circumstances, that could kill whoever's down there."
There was a cooking method where you dug a hole in the ground, placed meat wrapped in large leaves inside, and built a campfire on top.
Seeing such a cooking method exist, it went without saying how much heat would reach underground when the ground above was burned.
If a regular campfire could transmit enough heat to cook food, then with the magical flames Rei used, how much heat would that produce? It went without saying.
Furthermore, Rei could also use magic to burn only a specific area without spreading the fire.
If that were the case, there was no need to worry about the fire spreading to other buildings in the Slum District.
For Rei, it was a choice he was quite confident in, but...
"Please stop!"
The Morning Star man shouted at what could only be called a reflexive speed.
That was unexpected to Rei.
"Why?"
"That's..."
The man seemed to struggle to say something in response to Rei's words.
Judging by his demeanor, there was definitely some kind of reason.
(The possible explanation I can think of is that whoever attacked Morning Star took something valuable from them, or something along those lines? Or maybe they took someone with them...)
Rei speculated as much, but given the current situation, he didn't think pressing any further would get the man to reveal his circumstances.
So he thought for a moment, and then spoke.
"Understood. Then I'll hold off on burning the building down."
At Rei's words, not just the man but all of Morning Star showed visible relief.
But of course, Rei hadn't accommodated Morning Star's request for no reason.
"I came to destroy this organization—Wind Fang—because they opposed me."
In truth, he also had the purpose of investigating the source of his unease and obtaining some kind of Magic Items or treasure, but he kept that to himself.
"If you're going to stop me from doing what I set out to do, I'll leave the cleanup here to you."
"Eh?"
Gasps of surprise came simultaneously not only from the man who had been speaking with Rei but also from the other Morning Star members.
They never expected Rei to entrust the annihilation of Wind Fang to them.
For Rei, Wind Fang was just one of the organizations that had targeted his life.
Since the method of burning it all with magic was off the table, he would rather move on to the next location.
Given that, it was only natural for him to want to leave this organization to Morning Star if he was going to leave it to them at all.
"However, if I used magic, that alone would settle things. Since I'm going out of my way to leave this to you, I'll be taking appropriate compensation."
"...Compensation? What would that be?"
The man looked back at Rei's eyes with a slightly guarded expression.
Rei, who held the alias Crimson and had come to be called Bandit Eater by some in recent years.
Even if Rei demanded he hand over his comrades, the man wouldn't be surprised. But at the same time, it was also true that he had the conviction that he could never accept such a demand.
The man directed a gaze filled with such resolve at him, but Rei showed no particular concern for that gaze as he spoke.
"I'll be taking all the treasure hidden in this building, including Magic Items. If that's acceptable, I'll leave it to you. How about it?"
"...Eh? Is that really all you want?"
For the man, it must have been a completely unexpected demand.
He asked as if he had been completely caught off guard.
If Rei had told him to hand over some of his comrades, he would have tried to negotiate to make him give up on the idea, and in some cases, he had even steeled his resolve to fight Rei despite having no chance of winning—but that had ended up being a letdown.
"Yeah, that's fine. I don't know if you know this, but collecting Magic Items is a hobby of mine. And not just any Magic Items, but ones that can be used in actual combat."
The man had heard about that.
The fact that Rei collected Magic Items was actually quite a well-known story.
In the first place, Rei himself made no attempt to hide it at all, so it was only natural for that information to spread.
When it came to information about an Alias Holder like Rei, there were many who tried to gather it.
Morning Star's members had also gathered as much information as possible about key figures to watch out for in Gilm, since they were heading there, and among that information was the fact that Rei collected Magic Items.
"Are you sure that's really all?"
"Yeah. However, I can't have you taking too long. I'm planning to destroy one or two more organizations from here on—preferably a few more—and I'm going to destroy as many as possible. After I destroy those organizations, I'll stop by here on my way back, and if it's not cleaned up by then, I'll burn the building down. Is that clear?"
At Rei's words delivering that ultimatum, the man nodded with a serious expression.