"Rei? You're quite early today."
Seeing Rei arrive in the courtyard, Elena voiced her surprise. She probably hadn't expected him to return at this hour.
...Even so, she also looked pleased. Since Rei had come back early, it meant she would have more time to spend with him.
"Yeah. Actually—"
"Yay! I'm playing too!"
Before Rei could even finish, Nielson burst out from inside the Dragon Robe and immediately charged toward Set and Ielo, who were racing around the courtyard.
"...Lord Rei? Is Nielson here again today?" Ara asked as she prepared a cup of tea for Rei, clear surprise in her voice. She likely hadn't expected Nielson to visit again so soon after yesterday.
"It seems so. Well, this is Marina's house, so as long as she permits it, I don't think there's a problem. ...Besides, with Marina around, Nielson won't try anything strange."
"For some reason, Nielson certainly can't hold her head up around Marina."
"That's because Marina is the Shrine Maiden of the World Tree, isn't it? ...Though I don't know exactly what kind of relationship exists between the World Tree and fairies. In any case, I don't think it's a bad thing that Nielson is here right now."
Elena offered that observation in response to Rei and Ara's exchange, and she had a point. Given the current circumstances, there was no denying that having Nielson in this house was far from a bad arrangement.
Setting aside the other fairies in the Treant Forest, Nielson already knew the town of Gilm. Because of that, if she felt like it, she could easily leave the forest and come all the way here on her own.
...Of course, doing so would carry its own set of dangers. Considering the risk of Nielson's existence being discovered by others, Rei felt it was much easier to manage having her somewhere within his line of sight.
"For now, we can leave Nielson to Marina. ...More importantly, did you hear about the Zolgela Count House incident?"
"...I did."
At Rei's words, Elena nodded with a slightly melancholic air.
Rei could easily guess that Elena and Ara hadn't gone to the Zolgela Count House mansion themselves. It was far more likely that someone who had come to meet Elena had brought the information with them.
In the first place, an incident like the one at the Zolgela Count House was extremely rare in the Noble District. Of course, when relations between nobles turned hostile, or during internal succession disputes, violence did occur. But Gilm was a city governed by Daskar. Causing that kind of uproar in his domain would undoubtedly bring enormous trouble to one's own faction. That was surely why this incident had become such a major talking point even within the Noble District.
An act that showed no regard for nobles as nobles. For a noble, one could say that was the worst kind of opponent imaginable—someone who came to kill them without the slightest sign of caring about the authority their title carried.
If raising a hand against someone without treating a noble as a noble was the standard, then Rei himself fell into that category. Even so, he had never caused an incident like this.
...Of course, during the war with the Bestia Empire, he had slaughtered enemies without the slightest regard for whether they were nobles or anything else. As a result, his alias, Crimson, had spread throughout the Bestia Empire as an object of awe, terror, and hatred. That said, thanks to his major contributions during the Fighting Tournament and the subsequent civil war, there were even some who had come to revere him. Many of those individuals were members of the Mobile Unit who had decided they wanted to be near Rei—and, above all, didn't want to make an enemy of him—which was why they had come to Gilm. Yohanna and her comrades were among them.
"In any case, if you already know about it, this will be quick. As long as Antelme's goal is Set, it wouldn't be strange for him to attack here at any moment, so stay alert."
"...In that case, wouldn't the one who needs to stay alert be you rather than me?"
Rei faltered at Elena's words. Seeing him at a loss, she pressed forward with a serious expression.
"Something happened, didn't it?"
"Ah... yeah."
Looking at Elena's expression, Rei didn't think he could possibly hide the truth, so he honestly told her about the incident with the brainwashed child who had attacked him.
At his explanation, both Elena and Ara visibly bristled with displeasure.
If the victim had been an adventurer, a guard, or in some cases even a knight, the situation would have been somewhat different. But the one Antelme had brainwashed was a child. Moreover, given that she had clearly already suffered harmful effects from the brainwashing, it was simply impossible for Elena and Ara not to feel deeply offended.
"The problem is that as long as we don't know what method he uses to brainwash them, there's always a chance we could be attacked again by someone under the same influence. We can handle most opponents, but when it's someone catching us off guard like this time, our response could be delayed."
"If we at least knew the method, we'd have some way to prepare for it... but you don't know that either?"
"Unfortunately, no. In the first place, the only time I met Antelme was yesterday—and even then, only for a few minutes. You can't figure someone out in that short a time."
"To earn that much hatred after so little contact... You really did run into a troublesome one, Rei."
"Tell me about it."
Rei agreed wholeheartedly with Elena's assessment. In the first place, the encounter between him and Antelme had been purely coincidental. If he had entered the Noble District even a few minutes earlier or later, he never would have crossed paths with Antelme at all—and most likely, the incident at the Zolgela Count House would never have happened either. In more ways than one, all he could say was that the timing had been terrible.
(Though I don't know if I was the reason or not, he massacred everyone in the Zolgela Count House mansion over just that. If that's the case, then even if I hadn't made contact with him, there's a high probability the same thing would have happened eventually.)
If so, then an incident like the one at the Zolgela Count House would have occurred sooner or later regardless.
"Antelme was originally a noble, right? And yet he kills even fellow nobles without a second thought. That was a little... no, quite surprising, actually."
As long as he carried the pride and honor of a noble—dust though Rei considered it—one would at least expect him to be amicable toward those of the same class, if not toward adventurers and commoners. Or so Rei had thought, but...
"There are all sorts of nobles. From what I've heard, this man Antelme must have extraordinarily high self-esteem. ...Normally, such people stumble somewhere along the way, but the fact that Antelme had enough talent to become an A-Rank adventurer was a misfortune for everyone."
Those killed in this incident were, of course, unfortunate. But Antelme himself, having made it this far without ever experiencing a real setback, was equally unfortunate in his own way.
"In any case, if we're dealing with that kind of man, it'd be better for me to defeat him quickly. ...If he came at me head-on, it'd make things easier. But it doesn't seem like he'll do that, which is the tricky part."
Rei let out a heavy sigh, genuinely disappointed, as he sipped the tea Ara had brewed for him.
Given the current situation, not knowing how Antelme would move was indeed extremely troublesome.
"Can't we get information from the Guild?"
"I wonder. If Antelme were affiliated with the Gilm branch, we might be able to get something out of them, but according to our intelligence, he isn't. Rather, since they're both nobles, couldn't Elena or Ara pull some strings to get information?"
"Don't ask for the impossible. Truly impossible."
"Ara is right. If Antelme's family were Noble Faction nobles, we could gather information on our end, but since they belong to the King's Faction..."
"So it's impossible."
"Yes. It's true they have ties to the Zolgela Count House that employed him this time, but..."
Hearing Elena's response, Rei lamented the lack of any pipeline into the King's Faction. Strictly speaking, he did know a few King's Faction nobles personally, but since none of them were currently in Gilm, there was nothing he could do.
"Hm? Then how about getting information from the King's Faction nobles who are in Gilm? Normally, they'd never leak intelligence about their own faction, but given the current situation, it wouldn't be strange for them to share what they know, would it?"
Under ordinary circumstances, a member of the King's Faction leaking information about their own group would be an act of betrayal. It wouldn't even be unusual for them to be treated as a traitor. But precisely because Antelme was the kind of man who would casually murder even those within his own faction, the King's Faction nobles currently in Gilm would surely want him captured or killed as quickly as possible. Given that, it wouldn't be surprising if they were willing to share at least some information.
It was only natural for Rei to think so.
"Hmm. If we're talking about whether it's possible or not, then yes, probably. But... the real question is whether the information they have would actually be of any use."
"If they're in the same King's Faction, wouldn't they at least have some useful intelligence? Even something like his hobbies could end up being surprisingly helpful."
For instance, Rei's own hobbies were eating good food and collecting Magic Items. Because of that, if someone wanted to make contact with him, they would just need to stake out Magic Item shops, alchemists, or restaurants known for their cooking. Setting aside the first two, that last category—restaurants that served good food—was extremely broad. In Gilm alone, there were countless establishments that fit the description. Searching every single one would be enormously time-consuming... but compared to wandering around with absolutely no leads, it would definitely narrow the search.
That was why Rei felt that even something as seemingly trivial as a target's hobbies shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, but...
"I wonder about that."
For some reason, Elena shook her head at Rei's suggestion.
"You disagree?"
"It's a gray area. In the first place, Antelme has to be anticipating that his information will be leaked. Given that, it wouldn't be surprising if he's acting with exactly that in mind."
"Even so, I think people tend to unconsciously follow their established behavioral patterns."
"For an A-Rank adventurer, wouldn't you expect him to account for at least that much?"
When she put it that way, Rei had no choice but to concede. In reality, few A-Rank adventurers would make such a careless oversight—or so it seemed to him. That said, given Antelme's personality, there were clear signs he believed the world revolved around him, so the possibility that he wouldn't alter his behavior at all couldn't be entirely ruled out either.
"Well, I don't know where Antelme is hiding, but ultimately I think he'll come here to get Set. If capturing him were all it took, that would be fine, but..."
What surfaced in Rei's mind was the sight of the corpses at the Zolgela Count House mansion. He wasn't particularly shocked by the act of killing that many people in and of itself—Rei himself had taken lives before.
...That said, the lives Rei had taken were those of bandits and hostile combatants, which was fundamentally different from what had happened at the Zolgela Count House.
"So we need to find him before the collateral damage spreads."
Given Antelme's personality, it wouldn't be at all surprising if he killed innocent residents of Gilm simply because they were in his way. Naturally, Rei wanted to avoid that outcome if at all possible.
"With Nielson's situation and all, I didn't want to move too openly right now, but..."
"That's impossible."
Elena responded instantly, as though the words had left her mouth by reflex before she'd even had time to think. Ara nodded in agreement beside her.
Both Elena and Ara were completely unable to imagine Rei sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing.
...Though Rei himself would probably never admit it, the two of them had been traveling with him for a considerable length of time. Because of that, they could easily picture exactly what kind of action he would take. And if Rei did act, it was a certainty that it would turn into a massive commotion. Having it spelled out to him that way, Rei had no room to argue back.