In the end, the bandits could not withstand Rei's interrogation—more precisely, the one using Pain Burst, a skill of Death Scythe.
Even a light slash to the skin was enough. Pain Burst at Level 4 inflicted sixteen times the normal amount of pain.
And it was not simply a matter of feeling pain more intensely.
Normally, the pain of having one's skin slashed was not all that severe. Even multiplied sixteenfold, bandits like the ones Rei's group had taken down could very likely have endured it.
Of course, if it involved not just the skin but flesh being carved into and bone being broken, that would be an entirely different story.
Ordinarily, if someone's skin were slashed, they could gauge roughly how much pain to expect based on past experience.
But when Pain Burst inflicted agony far beyond what they had braced themselves for, that sense of scale shattered.
As a result, the bandits crumbled under completely unexpected pain.
An eerie, incomprehensible terror—it would be fair to say that was what truly broke their spirits.
"I see. So there's a boulder south of here, and near that boulder there's a hole leading underground. Is that right?"
"Y-yeah, that's right. So please, no more!"
The man whose face Rei had slashed first—and whose skin was subsequently cut about ten more times, each time making him scream in the face of unknown terror—directed a pleading gaze at Rei.
"Any other bandits you know of?"
"I... I don't know! I really don't know anything beyond this! I swear!"
Rei looked away from the man screaming at the top of his lungs and turned his gaze to the other bandits.
The bandits on the receiving end of that look seemed to understand what Rei wanted even without him opening his mouth.
They frantically shouted that they knew nothing either.
Judging that they were genuinely newcomers to Egginis with no worthwhile information—bottom-tier bandits—Rei stored Death Scythe in his Misty Ring and looked at Lindy. But he was puzzled to find her behaving as though she had just witnessed something unbelievable.
"What's wrong?"
"What do you mean, what's wrong? What on earth did you do? I can't believe they spilled information so obediently just from being slightly hurt."
Rei knew the effects of Pain Burst, and the bandits had experienced it firsthand.
Unlike them, Lindy had only watched the exchange from a distance.
Honestly, she had no idea what had happened to make the bandits so cooperative.
"Don't worry about it. Just think of it as that kind of skill. More importantly, what do you want to do? You heard the conversation, so you know I managed to extract the location of another bandit hideout. That said, if we head there, we'll have to figure out what to do with these guys."
For Rei, bringing the bandits along was out of the question—no discussion needed.
The risk of them alerting the other side to Rei's group... given that their spirits were completely broken, it probably was not a concern. But even so, there was a real chance they would become a liability in combat.
From the other bandits' perspective, they would not hesitate to attack the captured men if it meant hindering Rei and Lindy's movements.
These bandits and those bandits had no friendly relationship whatsoever.
In that sense, there would be no hesitation about attacking them either.
"You're right. If possible, I'd like to keep them all alive and bring them back to Egginis."
Lindy replied to Rei's words.
However, this did not stem from compassion.
For Lindy, every bit of money she could send to the orphanage mattered.
To increase her remittances, she needed to obtain money from somewhere.
And if they kept the bandits alive and handed them over to the guards, they could be sold as criminal slaves.
Her words were driven by not wanting to miss out on that money.
...That said, from the bandits' perspective, being marched through the mountains and encountering other bandits meant a high probability of being caught in the crossfire and killed.
Looking at it that way, it was only natural they would prefer the option that let them survive, even as criminal slaves.
"For what it's worth, we have Seto too. Even if the bandits at the boulder come out, we could always use Seto to break their spirits all at once. Want to go that route?"
Rei suggested, but Lindy thought for a moment and shook her head.
"Let's not. Considering worst-case scenarios, I want to approach at full readiness. There's also a chance they might have clues about Golias."
"Got it."
Rei yielded without argument.
This entire matter was being led by Lindy, with Rei in a supporting role.
That being the case, if Lindy made that call, Rei had no choice but to agree.
Naturally, if Lindy's opinion were clearly off the mark, that would be another matter entirely—but in this case, she was not wrong.
Seeing Rei nod, the bandits concluded they would not be dragged into any fighting and breathed sighs of relief.
"Then, the paperwork is complete. Thank you for your work this time."
Upon receiving the documents Lindy had prepared, the guard spoke those words.
Now, when selling bandits as criminal slaves, there were several methods available.
Selling them directly to the guards. Selling them to a slave trader through the guards. If one had a trusted slave trader, negotiating directly. Or, in some cases, even putting them up for auction.
Selling directly to the guards meant immediate payment, but the price would be below market rate.
Selling through the guards to a slave trader meant fees would be taken, and time would be needed for negotiations to conclude.
When negotiating directly, a skilled negotiator could sell above market rate, but a poor one would be haggled down to a rock-bottom price.
Auctioning meant troublesome paperwork and the burden of looking after the slaves until the auction began. And since it was an auction, there were times they fetched high prices—but when the bidding went low, they neared rock bottom... or sometimes went unsold entirely.
Weighing all these factors, Lindy ultimately chose to sell directly to the guards.
Taking a price below market rate was a significant blow for her.
Even so, being able to obtain money on the spot carried tremendous weight in this situation.
They were about to head straight back to the mountain to capture more bandits.
The judgment that this was no time to waste was clearly a factor.
"Alright then, we're heading back to the mountain right away. Are you ready?"
"Yes. ...Take care of things, Seto."
"Gruu!"
At Lindy's words, Seto purred as if to say "Leave it to me!"
The distance from Egginis to the mountain where the bandits operated was fairly considerable.
If it were just Rei, he could have flown there on Seto and arrived in no time. But with Lindy along, that was not so simple.
However, that limitation only applied to flying through the air. If they rode on Seto's back and ran along the ground, there was no problem at all. In fact, while not as fast as flight, Seto still possessed overwhelming speed compared to any ordinary horse.
And so Rei and Lindy rode Seto back to the mountain once more.
"Thinking about Seto's speed like this... it makes traveling normally feel ridiculous."
Upon arriving at the mountain, Lindy muttered, half in disbelief.
For Lindy, she usually traveled on foot.
If money allowed or she was in a hurry, she might take a carriage, but fundamentally, she walked.
Because of that, Seto's movement speed went beyond surprising her—she could only stare in dismay.
"In my case, I'm used to Seto's speed, so ordinary carriages feel pretty slow to me."
Seto running on the ground was fast, but once accustomed to his flying speed, walking went without saying, and even carriage travel felt remarkably slow.
If the carriage were a Magic Item like the one Elena owned, then while it bore the name "carriage," it was in reality a room—no, something closer to an entire house—so there would be no dissatisfaction traveling in one.
But naturally, such carriages were not commonplace.
Elena's carriage had been specially commissioned from Magic City Ozos by Duke Kerebel, purchased for a sum that even a ducal house could not easily produce.
If anything, it was a carriage so extraordinary that one would not be surprised to hear Elena was the only person in this world who possessed one.
"Anyway, first we'll head to the hideout of the bandits from earlier, and from there move toward where the boulder is. No issues with that, right?"
"Yes. ...If possible, I hope the next bandits have some information about Golias..."
Lindy murmured this, but Rei suspected it probably would not be the case.
In the first place, whether the bandits' mass disappearances and Golias's vanishing could even be linked was questionable.
In terms of having disappeared, they were the same. But bandits and adventurers... bandits operating outside Egginis versus an adventurer working within it.
If asked whether those two could be lumped together, Rei could not honestly nod in agreement.
That said, if they were searching for some kind of lead, the truth remained that the bandits' mass disappearance was the only thing even resembling a clue at present.
"Grurru?"
As they walked through the mountain, Seto purred as if asking, "What about me?"
The mountain path was reasonably wide, but not enough for Seto, whose body exceeded three meters in length, to move around freely.
Moreover, above all else, Seto possessed an extremely powerful presence.
If among the bandits Rei's group was about to approach there was someone skilled at detecting presences, it would not be strange for them to pick up on Seto's.
With bandits like the previous group—amateurs in name only—the likelihood of someone skilled at presence detection was low. But with bandits who had been operating around Egginis for a considerable time and had not yet vanished, detecting Seto's presence could prompt them to flee immediately.
"Seto, I need you to keep watch from the sky. If they try to run, handle the ones who flee."
"Gruu!"
Given a role of his own, Seto purred happily.
Seto then departed from where Rei's group stood and soared into the sky.
"...Is that okay? Letting him roam that freely. I understand from what happened earlier that Seto is your Tamed Monster, but still, isn't that too much freedom?"
Watching Seto fly through the air, Lindy murmured with concern.
Rei did not understand why Lindy was worried to that extent, so he brought up the encounter with the previous bandits.
"Even when we ran into those bandits earlier, Seto was operating at a distance, right? Then it'll be fine this time too."
"Even so..."
The reason she could not honestly accept Rei's words was likely largely due to the fact that there were no adventurers with Tamed Monsters in Egginis.
Well, perhaps there were some, but it was also possible Lindy simply did not know of them.
"Seto is smart. No matter what happens, he'll carry out our requests without issue, so there's no need to worry about that. If anything, there's a chance he might accomplish something we haven't even thought of."
That was not entirely baseless.
In fact, there had been many times when Seto, acting separately from Rei, had proven remarkably helpful.
Seeing Rei speak with such confidence, Lindy stopped pressing the matter further.
From what she could see, it was abundantly clear that Rei believed in Seto from the bottom of his heart.
Looking at Rei, Lindy realized that her anxiety over Golias's absence had been displaced onto the question of whether she could trust Seto.
Or more accurately, she had been convincing herself of that so she would not have to think about her worry for Golias.
"More importantly, look. The hideout from earlier is coming into view. We're heading from here to where the boulder is, so get your head back in the game. There's no time for unnecessary worrying."
At Rei's words, Lindy nodded.
Then, as if to pump herself up, she slapped both cheeks with her hands.
A loud, sharp sound echoed through the surroundings. But having done so, Lindy must have reset her mindset with that action.
She no longer showed any signs of hesitation.
And so, from in front of the cave, Rei and Lindy set off toward the boulder.
Partly because they had extracted information from the bandits, and also because Seto flying overhead was subtly guiding them, they advanced without losing their way. But then...
Abruptly, Rei caught a sharp, high-pitched metallic ring—kiin—and came to a halt.
"What is it?"
It was a sound that Rei, with hearing superior to an ordinary person's, had barely caught.
Lindy had not heard it and could not understand why Rei had stopped.
"It sounds like a fight is happening in the direction we're heading."
At Rei's words, Lindy's expression tightened sternly.