"Honestly, I was pretty confident in my acting skills. ...How did you figure it out?"
Saying that, the maid removed the ornament holding her hair gathered at the back.
As she did, her hair—which fell to the middle of her back—cascaded down in beautiful waves.
The man beside Rei reddened faintly at the alluring smile on the maid's face and her visibly soft hair.
The woman's features were well-proportioned, so it was hardly strange for him to be captivated by her beauty.
However... Rei's gaze was fixed not on her face but on the hair ornament in her hand.
That was because a sharp needle was extending from its edge.
(A hidden weapon, huh.)
Hidden weapons—a term for concealed arms. Understanding them as assassination tools wouldn't be far off the mark. Rei's own Eye of Nebula technically fell under the same classification.
...Though if he applied that logic broadly, then every weapon Rei carried was a hidden weapon, since the Misty Ring prevented opponents from ever realizing he was armed in the first place.
"You're an assassin, aren't you? Who hired you?"
"Really now. Do you think an assassin would willingly name their employer? Let alone a first-rate one like me."
"First-rate? For all that, you directed your killing intent at this man instead of your actual target—me. And I sensed that killing intent from inside my room."
"Ugh... that's..."
The woman's expression soured at Rei's words.
Seeing her reaction, Rei confirmed his suspicion—this assassin had come to kill him.
There was a possibility—a remote one, but a possibility nonetheless—that she had actually been targeting the man rather than him. The thought had crossed his mind.
But given their exchange just now, there was no mistaking it. Her target had been Rei.
That said, for Rei it was merely a simple deduction. The possibility she had come to assassinate the man outside his room versus the possibility she had come for him. Weighing the two, the latter was far more likely.
"So. If you came after me, you obviously don't expect to walk away from this in one piece, do you?"
"Who knows? Even if you're Crimson Rei, do you really think you can handle a fight against an assassin? This isn't a head-on duel, you know."
"Yeah, no problem. ...What, you didn't know? I may not look it, but I've fought more assassins than I can count."
The woman looked taken aback.
"Eh? Really?"
She had clearly known Rei was strong, but she apparently hadn't been able to dig into the specifics of his past activities.
Of course, something as conspicuous as the war against the Bestia Empire would be common knowledge. But events that rarely surfaced publicly—specifically, incidents where Rei had been targeted by assassins—she evidently hadn't uncovered.
(It wouldn't be strange for her to know through connections between assassin guilds or something similar... or maybe the assassination request only came in after I arrived, and there simply wasn't enough time to do proper research before carrying it out?)
Rei mulled over these questions but decided he could extract the details once he had the woman in custody and made her talk.
After all, he had been attacked on only his second day in Egginis.
The most likely explanation was, as expected, connected to the bandits' disappearance.
He had no idea where the information had leaked from, but if someone was involved in making those bandits vanish, then Rei and Lindy would be obstacles to them.
Or perhaps it wasn't about the bandits at all, but about Golias.
Reaching that thought, a realization struck Rei like a bolt.
(If I was targeted... then Lindy might be in danger too!)
Whether it was the bandits or Golias, if someone had dispatched an assassin because they were snooping around, then naturally they wouldn't just send one after Rei. They would send one after Lindy as well—she had been right there beside him the whole time.
That was bad.
Rei himself was fairly accustomed to being targeted by assassins, and repelling them was straightforward enough.
But Lindy?
He knew she had decent skill as an adventurer. But that was exactly it—decent, nothing more.
Working as an adventurer in Egginis meant she dealt with human opponents far more often than adventurers in Gilm did—bandit subjugation, escort jobs, and the like. But assassins were an entirely different matter.
Unlike opponents who attacked head-on, assassins used poison, struck from behind, set traps... above all, they prioritized killing over fighting.
A High-Rank Adventurer would have ways to handle such foes, but at Lindy's level, it would be nearly impossible.
"Tch. Sorry, but I don't have time to play with you anymore."
"That almost sounds like you think you can win. I don't appreciate that!"
She shouted and kicked off the floor, closing the distance between them.
That shout—or rather, the crash from when she had been thrown into the wall by the force of Rei kicking the door open—had already drawn the guests from the rooms on either side. They peered out, wondering what had happened, but Rei paid them no mind.
Anyone staying at an inn like this would have hired guards of considerable skill, and Rei judged that those guards would never let their charges wander out into a commotion like this.
"Haah!"
The woman lunged, trying to drive the needle extending from her hair ornament straight into Rei.
An assassin's needle weapon. That alone made it virtually certain that something sinister was coating it.
Poison, or perhaps something else entirely—either way, it wouldn't be surprising for the needle to be laced with something.
He couldn't help but question the choice of a poisoned needle hair ornament as a weapon, but precisely because she was an assassin, she likely carried an antidote for emergencies.
The last thing Rei wanted was to take a hit like that. He would have preferred to incapacitate her safely... but right now, checking on Lindy took priority.
To end this as fast as possible, he sidestepped the needle's thrust and drove his fist toward her torso.
If Rei had been an ordinary adventurer—the kind you could find anywhere—she might have dodged the blow, or even driven the needle into the hand reaching for her.
But the one throwing that punch was an Alias Holder and A-Rank Adventurer—Rei.
The woman was struck in the solar plexus before she could even register what had happened. Her eyes rolled back, and she crumpled, unconscious in an instant.
Rei glanced down at her, then turned to the man who had nearly been killed moments ago.
"Keep this woman restrained. Calling the Guards would be a bad idea, so get the inn's private guards instead. I need to go help an acquaintance—another assassin may have been sent after her."
This was one of the finest inns in Egginis. Setting aside guests who brought their own guards, the inn employed dedicated security staff.
...And yet an assassin had still managed to infiltrate the building, so he couldn't place blind faith in them. Even so, they should at least be capable of holding an unconscious assassin.
For the inn's part, a guest being targeted by an assassin was the last rumor they would want spreading. Keeping it in-house was far preferable to bringing the Guards into it.
Of course, the fight had already been witnessed by the occupants of both adjacent rooms and the man standing in the hallway. Preventing the story from circulating was nearly impossible at this point.
Still, acting was better than doing nothing. It could at least reduce the volume of talk, or help steer the narrative.
The man would no doubt be grateful for Rei's consideration.
"I need to go somewhere else now. When I get back, I want to interrogate this assassin for information—let them know. Can you handle that?"
"Eh? Ah, but... that's not really my call to make..."
"If your master has business with me, I'll hear him out. I can't promise I'll fulfill every request, though. Deal?"
"Understood. In that case, yes."
The moment he grasped that it would serve his master's interests, the man answered without hesitation.
It was hard to believe this was the same person who had been fumbling outside Rei's door moments earlier.
But that was probably a testament to the depth of his loyalty.
With that settled, Rei had no further reason to concern himself. He left the unconscious assassin in the man's custody and bolted from the inn.
For a brief moment, he considered summoning Seto. But in present-day Egginis, Seto wasn't yet widely known.
Rei tried to keep Seto at his side as much as possible when walking through town, but given Egginis's size, plenty of people had never laid eyes on the gryphon.
Many had probably heard rumors... but that was all they were—rumors. If someone who had only heard stories suddenly saw Seto in the flesh, it would unquestionably cause a scene.
Rei understood that perfectly well, which was why he had decided to leave Seto behind today.
"The inn Lindy uses as her regular base is the Morning Glow Inn, right? ...Problem is, I have no idea where it is."
He should have asked while he had the chance.
Regretting it though he was, Rei weighed his options.
If it were a high-class establishment like the Star River Inn, it would be large and visibly grand—not hard to find at all.
But the Morning Glow Inn was where Lindy stayed. Lindy, who pinched every copper on food, scrimped on lodging, and sent as much money as she possibly could to the orphanage. Naturally, she stayed at a cheap inn.
...Even so, Lindy was a woman. She probably wasn't crashing at some communal flophouse but was at least staying at a minimal establishment. Even so, under the current circumstances, tracking down a place like that would be extremely difficult.
"Damn it. Should I go back?"
If it were a Star River Inn employee, there was a chance they'd know of a place called the Morning Glow Inn—being in the same business and all.
But he had already covered a fair distance since bursting out of the Star River Inn. Going all the way back now just to ask for directions felt like a waste of precious time.
"Can't be helped. She's staying there, so it can't be buried in some impossible-to-find back alley. I'll just have to trust that much."
With that reasoning, Rei scanned his surroundings—but the sun had already set, and most of the people wandering the streets were drunks.
When sober, asking for directions would be one thing. But with them in this state, there was no telling how someone would react if a person like Rei suddenly approached them.
If they were in a good mood, he might get an answer. But if they were belligerent or the type to pick fights, there was a very real chance they'd take offense at being spoken to and start something.
Weighing all that, he decided he'd be better off asking someone else entirely.
(Then who? An information broker? No—I still don't know what kind of brokers operate in Egginis, and even if I found one, I can't be sure they're trustworthy.)
The fact that "information broker" was the first thing that came to mind was proof enough that Rei was somewhat rattled.
A capable broker could be incredibly useful, but an incompetent one—or worse, a malicious self-styled one—was nothing but a liability.
"Hey there, friend. You alright?"
The voice came from a stall owner a short distance away.
Whether business was simply slow at the moment or the man's cooking left something to be desired... either way, there were no customers in front of the stall right now.
Rei wasn't sure if the owner had called out to drum up business or simply to pass the time. He opened his mouth to say he didn't have time to chat—then caught himself.
What he was looking for wasn't some Underground Organization hideout. It was an inn. A perfectly ordinary, aboveboard inn.
If that was the case, he didn't need an information broker at all. He just needed to ask where the Morning Glow Inn was.
With that settled, Rei walked over to the stall.
"Do you happen to know where the Morning Glow Inn is?"
"I do. What, you staying there? You get yourself lost?"
"Nothing like that. I just have some business there, but I don't know the location. Mind pointing me in the right direction?"
As an information fee, he slipped several Copper Coins from his Misty Ring and set them on the stall—making it look, of course, as though he had simply pulled them from inside his robe.
The owner cracked a smile and opened his mouth to reply.