The battle between the bandits, Rei, and Lindy ended anticlimactically.
Then again, with Rei present—someone also known as the Bandit Eater—the bandits never stood a chance to begin with.
"Alright, everyone's in one piece, at least."
"......I'm amazed you can use the words 'in one piece' looking at this," Lindy muttered in exasperation as she surveyed the bandits' condition.
In truth, just as Lindy said, most of the bandits were already incapacitated and unable to move.
Given their state, whether anyone could honestly nod in agreement with Rei's assessment was...... frankly, debatable.
"They're not dead, so they're safe, right? That's beyond dispute."
"I think that's stretching the definition a bit, but...... well, fine. It's enough to get information out of them, at least."
Lindy didn't press the matter any further and turned her gaze toward the bandits.
"Now then. Based on how things just played out, I trust you understand why we kept you alive? ......Actually, questioning you for information here would be inconvenient. How about you guide us to your hideout instead? That way, we won't have to deal with the hassle of other bandits showing up."
For Rei, more bandits appearing would simply mean more earnings—that much was certain.
However, this bandit hunt was strictly for the purpose of obtaining information.
If other bandits attacked while they were in the middle of extracting that information, it would become extremely troublesome.
Granted, if a separate group did show up, they'd be able to gather that much more intelligence, so it wasn't an entirely bad thing.
"By the way, consider this a warning, or rather, a piece of advice—don't lie to us. If we find out it's a lie......"
Rei paused, then withdrew Death Scythe from his Misty Ring.
A massive, overwhelmingly ominous scythe.
Seeing it, the bandits finally understood who was standing before them.
A scythe possessed overwhelming visual impact, but at the same time, it was a notoriously difficult weapon to wield.
Someone who used such a weapon and possessed this level of overwhelming power...... in other words, the Bandit Eater—the adventurer spoken of in rumors among bandits.
The bandits' first stroke of misfortune was that Rei hadn't brought Seto along.
If they had seen Seto, the gryphon, the bandits would have immediately known who stood before them.
Had that been the case, they never would have dared attack Rei—they would have turned and fled at full speed.
Their second stroke of misfortune was that Rei had never operated around Egginis before, so they had let their guard down.
Alternatively, if any of them had connections to gather intelligence within Egginis, they might have learned of Rei's existence from the fact that he walked around with Seto to familiarize the locals with the gryphon's presence. That alone would have told them who he was.
However, most of the bandits who came to Egginis in its current dangerous state were either optimistic or simply didn't think at all.
That was precisely why, without bothering to gather so much as a shred of information, they had drawn the short straw of encountering Rei.
"B-Bandit Eater......"
"Crimson......?"
The bandits stared at Rei and muttered with naked terror in their eyes.
Rei smiled and nodded back at them.
"Now that you know who I am, I'd appreciate it if you quietly guided us to your hideout."
Judging that further resistance would only make things worse for them, the bandits nodded, their faces twisted in despair.
"Not much of value here."
That was Rei's assessment upon seeing the bandits' hideout.
In truth, there was nothing particularly valuable inside the cave that served as their base.
At best, it was probably loot stolen from merchants.
However, even those goods weren't anything expensive—they were what you'd call daily necessities.
"Um...... we only arrived in Egginis recently......"
One of the bandits offered, clearly finding it difficult to speak.
That was likely because, as bandits, they felt ashamed about not possessing the kind of valuables they ought to have had.
"Bandits" and "Rei" were both broad generalizations, but just as there were many who fell under the category of bandit, each naturally had their own way of doing things.
......Though for Rei, that sort of detail wasn't of much interest.
"Well, fine. Even this stuff will bring in some money if you sell it. Or maybe Lindy can just take it as is?"
"Huh? Is that okay? I mean, if you're offering, I'd be happy to take it."
For Lindy, money was of course something she wanted.
But daily necessities could be sent directly to the orphanage and put to use immediately.
The only real downside was that since they were daily goods rather than coin, shipping them would cost a fair amount.
"Yeah. Honestly, there's no point in me taking this kind of stuff."
The various everyday items Rei used were already stored in his Misty Ring.
Even without that, since Rei didn't have financial troubles, if he needed something, he'd simply buy it.
Given that, he had no desire for the daily necessities sitting in the hideout.
"If there'd been a Magic Item or something, I would've been somewhat interested...... but there aren't any, are there?"
"No, there aren't."
The bandit immediately shook his head.
Incidentally, all of the bandits had their hands bound behind their backs, tied together in a single line connecting each of them.
Since they were bandits, there were probably some among them who possessed Rope Escape techniques...... but Rei had explicitly warned them beforehand that any such attempt would result in death. No exceptions.
On top of that, having seen Seto fly directly overhead several times, the bandits couldn't possibly entertain any thoughts of running.
"For now, that settles the spoils...... Lindy. I'd like to move on to gathering information soon, if that's alright with you."
"Yes, I have no problem with that."
For Lindy, securing spoils was significant, but even more important than that was, after all, information.
That was the whole reason she had come along on this bandit hunt with Rei.
"First question......are you aware that the bandits operating around Egginis lately have been suddenly disappearing?"
"Huh?"
At Rei's question, one of the bandits wore an expression that seemed to ask what on earth he was talking about.
At first, Rei thought it might be a bluff to conceal information, but from what he could tell, the man genuinely seemed puzzled from the bottom of his heart.
If this was actually acting, the man could make a living as a stage performer rather than stooping to banditry—or so his demeanor suggested.
(A bust, huh.)
Rei made that judgment as he looked at the bandits, but since he had gone to the trouble of capturing them, he wasn't about to pass up the chance to extract whatever detailed information he could.
"It seems you didn't know, but apparently the bandits around Egginis have been abruptly vanishing lately."
"Is that...... true......?"
"Yeah. For starters, even as bandits go, you're not that large a group, right? And yet you were able to set up a hideout this close to Egginis. Doesn't that strike you as odd?"
At Rei's words, the bandit reacted as if he were only just realizing that fact for the first time.
Considering that most people coming to Egginis were wealthy, it was only natural that there should be far more bandits operating nearby.
......Well, in fact, there actually had been, until quite recently.
But those bandits had vanished one after another, or having sensed the danger after their acquaintances disappeared, they had fled. That was precisely why small-scale groups like the ones Rei and Lindy had just defeated were able to operate here at all.
It was something that would have been obvious with a little thought, but the bandits had apparently come to Egginis without thinking particularly deeply about anything.
(Then again, if they had the brains to think that through, they normally wouldn't be bandits in the first place.)
Bandits were treated the same as monsters.
Kill one, and you wouldn't be arrested by the guards or put on trial.
Even if captured alive instead, they'd be sold off as criminal slaves and put to work in harsh labor environments like mines or battlefields.
Of course, there were exceptions to everything—if someone was deemed highly skilled, like Egg and his crew, they might be hired by Underworld Figures instead...... but that was truly exceptional. It was precisely because it rarely happened that it was considered exceptional at all.
From what Rei could see, the bandits before him didn't come close to warranting that kind of exception.
They seemed to have been bandits purely on a whim, without any real planning whatsoever.
In fact, if they'd had even a modicum of planning ability, they should have snuck a comrade into Egginis to gather intelligence or something of the sort.
Had they done so, they might have learned of Rei's existence, and they certainly wouldn't have attacked the man known as the Bandit Eater.
"Let me change the question. Are there any bandits in this area besides your group? If there are, tell me where their hideout is and what kind of people they are."
At Rei's words, the bandits exchanged glances without saying a word.
Rei needed only that to understand that the bandits knew of other groups besides their own.
It was slightly unexpected, though.
From what Rei could tell, the bandits before him kept strictly to themselves and didn't seem like the type to take interest in others.
Of course, that was a different story if those others were potential targets.
"I'd suggest you just tell us honestly. If you try to hide it here, the guards will end up squeezing the information out of you anyway."
This wasn't a threat—it was a simple fact.
When bandits were captured by guards, information was extracted through harsh interrogation.
That interrogation was severe enough to instill genuine despair.
......Bandits were generally sold as criminal slaves, so in that sense, not being injured to the point of impairing their ability to work could be considered a silver lining of sorts.
Of course, being told to be grateful for that was an unreasonable demand, coming from the bandits' perspective.
At Rei's words, the bandits remained silent at first.
That was partly because selling out others who weren't quite comrades but were nonetheless fellow bandits felt like treachery, and at the same time, they simply didn't know whether Rei's words were true.
Haa.
Rei sighed as if it were a hassle and withdrew Death Scythe from his Misty Ring.
Inside the cave that served as their hideout, swinging a long weapon like Death Scythe was out of the question.
Even so, precisely because they were confined in the hideout, the bandits saw Rei's Death Scythe up close, and they involuntarily caught their breath at the sight of its massive blade.
"Wh-What...... are you going to do......?"
"What, you ask? Isn't it obvious? Torture...... oh, wait, no. My mistake. Interrogation."
Rei's slip of the tongue—calling interrogation "torture"—was likely because, to him, what was about to happen was both.
Whether the bandits understood that or not, they directed terrified gazes at the Death Scythe in Rei's hands.
(They've always used violence to make others submit, and now that the tables have turned, this is what it comes to.)
Exasperated by the bandits' attitude, Rei opened his mouth partly to reassure them—and partly as an added threat.
"For now, rest assured that none of you will die from the interrogation I'm about to conduct. That said, 'not dying' is all I can promise. I can't say how it'll actually feel."
"Huh?"
"Pain Burst."
The bandits raised confused voices at Rei's words, but he activated the Skill without paying them any mind.
Pain Burst—a Skill that amplified the pain inflicted on a target. While useful in combat, it was equally well-suited for situations like this interrogation.
Rei activated Pain Burst and lightly dragged Death Scythe's blade across a bandit's face.
He hadn't gouged out an eye, nor had he sliced through flesh or severed bone. It was truly just a cut to the skin.
Targeting only the skin with a slash required a certain level of skill, but it wasn't particularly difficult.
For a bandit, a wound of that degree—a mere nick to the skin—was hardly uncommon.
However......
"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Despite being nothing more than a cut through a single layer of skin, the bandit let out a shriek.
The other bandits around him could only wonder why on earth he was screaming like that.
Pain Burst was a Skill that multiplied the pain inflicted on the target.
And the current Pain Burst was at Level 4.
It inflicted sixteen times the normal pain.
Even cutting just a single layer of skin delivered overwhelming agony to the bandit.
"Come on, quit your racket. ......If you feel like talking, start spilling the information, yeah?"
Saying that, Rei activated Pain Burst once again.