"Thank you for saving these children. I work at this orphanage. My name is Anne."
With that, the woman—Anne—bowed deeply to Rei.
Currently, the only ones in the room were Rei, Anne, and a few other staff members.
The children were out in the yard playing with Seto.
Naturally, several staff members were also keeping a close eye on them, lest anything happen involving Seto.
"Don't worry about it. If a child had been killed while Seto and I were eating, it would have left a bad taste in my mouth. Besides... even if I hadn't stepped in, I'm sure Seto would have saved them."
That was something Rei could say with certainty.
Seto showed no mercy toward hostiles or anyone Rei held animosity toward, but otherwise, he was fundamentally affectionate with people. And just as in Gilm, he recognized children as playmates.
Given that, if he saw children about to be killed, there was almost no doubt he would intervene.
"Even so, there's no mistaking that you were the one who saved them, Rei-san. To think those children would do something like sneak out of the city..."
"Please don't be too hard on Camila. He did it because he wanted to feed the younger children until they were full. ...Well, what he did was still reckless, though."
At Rei's words, Anne wore a sorrowful expression. She likely believed it was her own inadequacy that had driven the children to endure hunger.
"Maybe if I sold this necklace..."
"You can't. That's the only thing your parents left you, isn't it?" the other staff members told her as she muttered, her hand drifting to the necklace around her neck.
A memento of her parents—or so it appeared. But even to Rei, who had no expertise in such matters, the necklace didn't look like anything valuable.
He didn't know exactly how many orphans lived here, but the ones currently playing with Seto in the yard alone numbered over ten.
In Elgin, where the value of human life was incomparably lower than in Japan, orphans were an inevitable reality.
Most likely, there were a fair number of orphans in this facility besides the ones outside with Seto.
Given that it was visibly a cheap necklace, even if it was precious to Anne, it would probably fetch only a pittance if sold. It was questionable whether it would even cover a single meal for everyone.
If it were truly a life-or-death situation, that would be another matter entirely. But under the current circumstances, the other staff members were quick to dismiss Anne's talk of selling it.
"Well, putting the necklace aside... I've got a fair amount of wolf meat. It might be borderline whether it's enough for everyone to eat their fill, though."
"Eh? Um... are you sure?"
Anne and the others were likely wondering why Rei would do something like this for them.
For Rei, wolf meat inevitably tasted inferior compared to monster meat. Combined with the fact that abandoning it would leave a bad aftertaste, he had no problem handing it all over.
"Yeah. Besides, these wolves are the ones that attacked Camila and the others. In other words, you could call it their achievement."
For a moment, even he couldn't help but think that might be a stretch. But in reality, if Camila and the others hadn't been attacked by the wolf pack and fled to where Rei and Seto were, the wolves never would have been killed. That much was certain.
In that sense, while somewhat exaggerated, he wasn't saying anything strictly incorrect.
Anne had already heard from Camila and the others about being attacked by wolves, so she accepted Rei's words. Though she undoubtedly had her own thoughts about the matter.
"The children are hungry, right? Go ahead and feed them."
Saying that, he produced the butchered wolf meat.
When it materialized out of thin air and was placed on the table, Anne and the others stared in astonishment.
If this were Gilm, many people would know that Rei possessed a Misty Ring, and plenty had seen him use it with their own eyes. Or if they were adventurers, it wouldn't be strange for them to know about the Item Box.
This town, however, while reasonably large, was more of a provincial place. Moreover, this wasn't the Guild or anything of the sort—it was a room inside an orphanage, and the people present were orphanage staff, not adventurers.
Given that, it wouldn't have been surprising for many of them to be entirely unfamiliar with the concept of an Item Box.
"Come on, the Misty Ring doesn't matter right now. More importantly, the meat. I was the one who butchered the wolves, so it's not as clean as what you'd see in a shop. But since you're not selling it and just consuming it here, that's fine, right?"
Rei's butchering skills had improved compared to before, but he still couldn't manage the kind of meticulous, presentation-conscious work seen at a proper butcher's. Compared to store-bought cuts, his work inevitably ended up rougher. That was likely the difference between an amateur and a professional.
"Are you sure... it's alright for us to take all of this?"
Anne asked timidly.
For her and the others, having this much wolf meat would undoubtedly be a lifesaver. They would be able to prepare enough food to fill the children's bellies.
"Yeah. I'm not particularly fond of wolf meat anyway. And... you'll need these too, right?"
Next, Rei withdrew wolf pelts from his Misty Ring and placed them on the floor rather than the table.
Since they had been butchered using Rei's skills, there were spots where meat and fat still clung to the hides here and there. But fortunately—truly fortunately—there was no damage such as tears in the pelts.
In that regard, Rei must have been careful when dismantling the wolves.
"These pelts are from wolves, as you can see. You can tan them and use them yourselves, or sell them somewhere for money."
Rei said that, but he figured they probably wouldn't sell them.
It was still late summer, but autumn would arrive soon, followed by winter.
The orphanage wasn't that old of a building, but they would still need firewood to keep warm. Buying firewood, of course, required money. Alternatively, they would need to gather firewood from the grove where Rei had encountered Camila and the others.
But as Camila's group had been attacked by wolves, the grove was clearly not a safe place.
Given that, the orphanage would want to avoid using firewood as much as possible.
If they tanned the wolf pelts and turned them into clothing, they would undoubtedly make warm garments. That being the case, the orphanage's choice would almost certainly be to use them rather than sell them.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, same as the meat—I have no use for them. ...Actually, there's something I'd like to ask you. If you can answer, I'll pay with additional monster meat as an information fee. What do you say?"
"Eh? Well, um... that doesn't necessarily mean we'd have the information you're looking for, Rei-san."
"It's about Egginis. I'm guessing it's not too far from here."
Anne blinked in surprise, clearly not expecting the name to come up here.
In fact, the distance from this town to Egginis shouldn't be that far.
...Though "not that far" applied only when traveling by air on Seto. Going by carriage from this town would take a considerable amount of time.
Even so, the fact that this was one of the towns located near Egginis remained unchanged.
"That's right. Carriages heading to Egginis depart regularly, but there are few passengers. If anything, it's mostly merchants coming to buy food and various daily necessities."
From Anne's explanation, Rei surmised that for those traveling from Egginis, this area functioned like a back road. There was likely another route that served as the main highway.
In Rei's case, having Seto meant he could largely ignore roads entirely, so it didn't matter much to him.
(Wait, huh? Hold on a second. I definitely traveled along the highway, right? Then shouldn't I have been on that main highway?)
Rei puzzled over this. He could guess that he had probably taken the wrong direction at a fork in the road.
He could figure that much out. But the fact that he had made it this close to Egginis suggested that while he had indeed taken a wrong turn, it was likely only a short while ago.
Otherwise, he could have been heading in a completely unrelated direction, and it wouldn't have been strange at all.
(Safe. Barely safe. No matter what anyone says, safe.)
Since he had at least made it near Egginis in one piece, he hadn't gotten lost. He firmly convinced himself that neither he nor Seto had a poor sense of direction.
"Is something wrong?"
Anne asked, curious—Rei had suddenly looked troubled, only to show relief a moment later.
Rei shook his head to indicate it was nothing, then spoke again.
"Since I asked about Egginis, you can probably guess, but I was on my way there. From here, I could see the flower field beyond the grove, and it was beautiful, so I was having lunch there when I ran into Camila and the others."
"I see. Heading to Egginis."
The fact that Rei was traveling to Egginis didn't particularly surprise Anne. She naturally knew that Egginis was a town large enough to be called a city, and she had visited it herself on a few occasions.
To be precise, since Egginis was the closest other town to this one, any mention of "another town" essentially meant Egginis. Though there were also cases of people passing through Egginis to reach destinations beyond.
"Yeah, I heard Golem development is thriving there."
"That's true, but, um... high-performance Golems are, as you'd expect, quite expensive, you know?"
"I figured. I'm counting on that much."
High-performance goods came with high prices. That was a matter of course for Rei.
The same applied to Magic Items—the good ones were pricey. Of course, there were exceptions. Sometimes a high-performance Magic Item could be found at a bargain. For instance, something made by a newly minted Alchemist that happened to turn out exceptionally well, or crafted by a skilled Alchemist who happened to be in poor standing with someone influential. Or perhaps an item that was high-performance but carried some sort of flaw.
There were various reasons why such items existed. But as a general rule, high-performance Magic Items were expensive.
...Though some were expensive in a purely fraudulent sense.
"You could probably tell from the exchange at the gate earlier, but I'm an A-Rank Adventurer. I also hold an alias, despite how I look. I can afford to buy a Golem."
"I... see..."
At Rei's words, Anne briefly showed a complex expression. For someone barely scraping by to keep the orphanage running, hearing Rei talk about having money must have struck a nerve.
However, she quickly composed herself. She had likely accepted that Rei's money was earned through dangerous requests.
That was largely true, though some of it had come from bandit hunting.
(Ah, come to think of it...)
The thought of bandit hunting reminded Rei of the items he'd obtained from the hideout he'd raided on the way here.
Most of it was treasure and unused weapons, but there had also been bags of wheat. The bandits had probably used it for baking bread, but it was by no means new—it was old wheat.
Rei's Misty Ring already contained a large quantity of bread—freshly baked bread from good shops—as well as a fair supply of new wheat for other cooking.
Given that, even if he held onto old wheat, the only use he could think of would be something like a dust explosion in an emergency.
Wheat was a raw ingredient, and even sealed flour had a shelf life of about a year. In Elgin, however, the concept of an expiration date barely existed. As a result, it was common practice to keep using old wheat until it ran out.
"Anyway, bit of a tangent, but I'll give you this too."
Saying that, Rei withdrew the old wheat the bandits had been using from his Misty Ring.