Rei had watched the Wild Match for a while, but in the end, he never saw a golem whose performance satisfied him.
He had heard plenty about the city of Egginis from Lindy and Roger, and now he could somewhat understand why the Wild Match had never come up in those conversations.
Granted, Roger had confidence in his own skills and simply chose not to mention it, but in Lindy's case, it was possible she had been so preoccupied with worry over Golias that it had simply slipped her mind.
"Well then, what shall we do now? It seems the Wild Match was not quite to your liking, Rei," Maruka said from atop Seto's back.
She looked slightly disappointed—she had brought him here expecting him to enjoy it, only for that assumption to miss the mark.
Though it wasn't really meant as consolation for Maruka, Rei shook his head.
"As entertainment, it was reasonably enjoyable. I learned there are all sorts of golems beyond just the humanoid ones. That was plenty for spectating, but from the perspective of actually buying one, it left something to be desired."
That was genuinely how Rei felt—no exaggeration, no lie.
In terms of finding a golem to purchase, the visit had been pointless. But as pure spectacle, it had been reasonably entertaining—that much was true.
When I think about it that way, maybe the golem I'm looking for is even more high-performance than I expected?
What would he do if the golem he had commissioned Roger to build didn't perform the way he hoped?
Harboring that doubt, Rei walked through the city streets.
Then, perhaps wanting a change of atmosphere, Nicky spoke up.
"Milady, Rei's Brother—hey, look at that. Something unusual's going on over there. Looks like a crowd's gathered, so how about we take a quick look?"
Rei looked in the direction Nicky indicated. A large number of people had gathered in what appeared to be a vacant lot, cheering or jeering at whoever stood at the center.
With such a sizable crowd assembled, Rei couldn't tell exactly what was happening. Still, from the demeanor of those gathered, it was clearly no brawl.
While fistfights could be entertaining to watch, it wasn't uncommon for some people to find no enjoyment in them. There were always those who simply couldn't stomach watching humans fight each other.
...Then again, there were also people who frequented arenas, so that sort of thing varied completely from person to person.
"Hmm, you're right. Let us go have a look. Is that fine with you, Rei?" Maruka asked.
"I don't mind. I don't have any particular shop I want to visit."
When he thought about what he actually wanted to do, the first thing that came to mind was naturally the disappearances of the bandits and Golias.
With so few acquaintances in Egginis at present, bandits aside, Golias was the only vanished adventurer Rei knew of—but if he investigated more thoroughly, there might be others.
That said, looking into it would require gathering information through inquiries, and Rei didn't expect to find any such intelligence at whatever event Nicky had spotted.
However, the possibility remained that some kind of attraction was underway, that watching it together might lead to friendly contact with someone, and that this person might have useful information. He couldn't rule that out.
With that reasoning, Rei and the others headed toward the crowded vacant lot.
At first, those who hadn't noticed the group's approach felt an unusual presence behind them and turned to look... only to find Rei and his companions standing there.
In reality, it wasn't Rei himself that startled them, but the sight of Seto beside him, carrying Maruka on his back.
The reason it didn't turn into a commotion was partly because Seto was well-behaved, but more than that, it was likely because a cute girl like Maruka was riding on his back.
Even without knowing Maruka's true identity, people figured that if she was riding, it must be safe—and seeing Seto didn't alarm them quite so much.
Even so, his presence was surprising enough that people naturally made way. One person stepped aside, another wondered what was happening, looked back, and then also cleared the path... until, without doing anything in particular, Rei and the others reached the very front.
"A golem... huh?"
That was Rei's first impression upon seeing what stood in that place.
Given that people had gathered like this in Egginis, a golem was the most likely answer—but this golem had a considerably different character from any Rei had seen before.
If he had to describe it, it was like a sandbag-like object protruding from atop a pedestal. Something along those lines.
What kind of significance this golem held, Rei half-intuitively guessed from past experience.
Could it be a punching machine?
There was a department store not too far from the high school Rei had attended. In the past, it had housed a proper arcade, and inside that arcade was a punching machine.
Back in middle school, punching machines had enjoyed a brief boom in popularity, and Rei remembered challenging them with his friends.
...Thinking about it calmly, he wondered whether it was really the kind of thing that should have caught on like that—but it had, so there was nothing to be done about it.
These days, of course, that department store's arcade was no longer a proper arcade, with coin games making up the bulk of it.
Perhaps noticing Rei watching the golem with evident interest, the alchemist standing beside it called out to him.
"Young Master... um, little miss?"
"I'm a guy."
Rei currently had the hood of his Dragon Robe up, so the alchemist apparently couldn't tell at first whether he was male or female. If Rei had a build like Nicky's, there would have been no need to hesitate—but given his small stature, the alchemist's confusion was understandable.
"Young Master, huh. You look mighty interested in my golem, Young Master, but can you tell what kind of golem this is?"
Thinking to himself that it was indeed a golem, Rei answered.
"Probably a golem designed to measure the force of a punch, right?"
"Wha..."
Whether because Rei had blurted out the correct answer so suddenly, the alchemist lost his voice in surprise. But he quickly recovered, broke into a broad grin, and nodded.
"Correct! That's exactly right! This golem measures how powerful your punch is when you land one. How about it, Young Master—want to give it a try? The challenge fee is five copper coins, but if you clear a certain threshold, I'll give you a prize."
"Ah... you might want to rethink that..." Nicky said to the alchemist.
From the alchemist's perspective, Rei was small and didn't look like he had any strength to speak of. But Nicky knew exactly how powerful Rei was.
The rumors about Crimson were reasonably well-known even among the Royal Family faction, and Nicky had heard about Rei's abilities from Koan and Maruka, both of whom were currently away on business.
Moreover, Nicky himself possessed enough skill to be entrusted as Maruka's bodyguard in Koan's stead. Naturally, he could grasp just how formidable Rei was simply by looking at him.
That was precisely why he tried to stop the alchemist, who had taken one look at Rei's physique, assumed he was weak, and approached him thinking he was easy pickings. But the alchemist was so desperate to lure Rei in that he wasn't listening to a word Nicky said.
Judging from the alchemist's demeanor, Nicky concluded that any further warnings would be wasted. It was also undoubtedly true that being ignored hadn't sat well with him.
"Hmm, then why not give it a try, Rei? The man is going this far to recommend it. Would it not be fine to test your strength?" Maruka suggested.
"Oh my, is this... a young lady of the nobility? If a lady is recommending it, then as a man, the Young Master can't very well run away, can he?"
The alchemist seemed determined to get Rei to try the punch-measuring golem no matter what.
Since Rei understood that much, he decided it couldn't be helped. The challenge fee was only five copper coins, after all. If he could try it and win some kind of prize—and the other party was the one pushing for it—there was no need to refuse.
"Alright. By the way, what kind of prizes are there?"
"Oh, feeling motivated? Nice, nice. The prize gets more extravagant the more your strike's power exceeds the set thresholds. The higher the power, the better the item, so give it your best!"
Handing over the copper coins as the challenge fee, Rei stepped in front of the golem. Just as he was about to throw his punch, though, something bothered him, and he turned back to the alchemist.
"By the way, what exactly is the top prize?"
"Oh? Going for the grand prize? But that's a biiit difficult for you, Young Master, isn't it?"
"They say the attempt itself has value—or so I've heard somewhere."
While he asked, Rei could more or less guess what the man's prize would be, so he wasn't particularly invested. Since the alchemist had built this kind of novelty golem, the reward was probably something along those lines.
Or perhaps—if the prize were cleaning golems, that would have been ideal, since the more of those, the better...
"The top prize is a high-grade potion. And not just any run-of-the-mill high-grade item, either. It's a potion so premium and in such short supply that it's hard to come by even here in Egginis. But naturally, since it's that kind of potion, you can't just walk away with it so easily, you hear?"
The alchemist spoke with absolute confidence. He probably didn't think that someone with Rei's small frame could win the potion he had set aside as the grand prize, no matter how hard he tried.
In truth, that assessment wasn't wrong. Even in this world, with a few exceptions, punching power was proportional to body size. Magic, Skills, or Magic Items might be able to bridge that gap, but to the alchemist, Rei didn't appear to be that kind of opponent.
It wasn't an unreasonable assumption.
Not unreasonable—but the alchemist's misfortune was that the person he'd been talking to was Rei.
If the prize had been something Rei had no interest in, that would have been one thing. But a potion—and a high-quality one at that. Rei wouldn't go so far as to say he wanted it badly enough to reach down his own throat for it, but he still wanted to stockpile as many as possible in case of emergencies.
Especially now. Rei aside, it wouldn't be surprising if Lindy was also being targeted by assassins. And there was a possibility that when they found Golias, he would be injured badly enough to need potions.
"Alright, I'm in. So what exactly do I have to hit to get that high-quality potion?"
At Rei's ready response, the alchemist was struck by a brief flash of unease.
Could it be—
The thought probably crossed his mind. Had the alchemist possessed the ability to see through the concealing effect of the Dragon Robe Rei wore, he might have realized the truth.
But he didn't. Unfortunately, the alchemist lacked that level of discernment.
That was why he concluded Rei likely had only as much strength as his appearance suggested—and above all, reassured himself that the golem's own mechanism would be fine—and spoke.
"Just strike the target area. When you do, several rods behind it will rise according to the force of your punch. If all the rods stand up, the prize potion is yours, Young Master."
At those words, Rei nodded and clenched his fist in front of the golem.
The audience watching from around them looked on with interest, curious about how much punching power this small-framed young man could muster.
Thinking about it normally, nobody would expect someone with Rei's build to possess that kind of strength. Indeed, the alchemist had called out to him precisely because he'd judged a physique like Rei's to be no threat.
However.
Seeing the alchemist's confidence, Rei seized the opportunity and tightened his fist. If he could obtain a potion from a game like this, then that was exactly what he wanted.
"Here goes. ...Hah!"
He drove his foot into the ground, channeling the reactive force through his ankle, knee, thigh, hip, back, shoulder, elbow, and wrist in sequence—then unleashed his fist with all of that power behind it.
The strike landed squarely on the golem's punching pad, which slammed backward with violent force.
The measuring rods behind the target shot up one after another... and before he knew it, every single rod was standing.