The next day, Rei left Egginis with Seto and walked through the surrounding mountains.
Lindy had wanted to come along, but since she operated as part of an adventurer party, she couldn't simply abandon them on a whim.
If it were truly necessary, she might have taken such measures, but the situation hadn't reached that point yet.
She was looking into the matter of Golias, but as an adventurer, failing to complete requests meant she wouldn't have enough money to live on—let alone to send funds to the orphanage.
Given those circumstances, Lindy couldn't afford to set aside her work to help Rei today.
"Seto, let me know if there are any bandits nearby. There are supposedly a lot of bandit hideouts in these mountains."
"Gruu!"
Rei and Seto were currently in the mountains, a short distance from Egginis.
The same mountains where, just days earlier, Rei had gone bandit hunting with Lindy.
Ultimately, he had concluded that if he wanted information about the vanishing bandits, the only way to get it was from the bandits themselves.
He had left the intelligence gathering regarding the nobles to Ridon for the time being.
Rei had no way of knowing exactly how much information Ridon could obtain.
Even so, he had decided to trust him with it, given that he was a Neutral Faction noble.
At any rate, what Rei could do right now was search for bandits—and, if the assassin was still targeting him, use himself as bait.
The assassin had infiltrated the inn disguised as a maid, so the fact that Rei was out in the mountains would make him an easy target.
...Though in reality, Seto was with him. Deceiving Seto's senses and getting close would require exceptional skill, and based on what he'd seen of the maid assassin's abilities, it seemed virtually impossible.
(Not that I sense any sign of an assassin right now, though.)
Rei being alone—or rather, with only Seto—meant that, unlike at the inn, he could wield his weapons freely.
Both the Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear that Rei carried were long weapons.
Since they weren't the kind of weapons that could be used inside a building, an attack at the inn would have prevented Rei from performing at his full potential.
If an assassin were to attack in these mountains instead, Rei would be able to use both the Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear.
For an assassin whose goal wasn't to fight fair but simply to kill their target, they wouldn't want to face Rei under those conditions.
Of course, there were assassins confident in their own abilities, and such individuals might exceptionally try to kill him head-on.
(I wouldn't mind if someone like that showed up in a place like this, but I wonder.)
Egginis was an autonomous city thriving on the golem industry.
That being the case, it wouldn't be surprising if there were people willing to cause trouble for their own profit.
And when such people wanted to eliminate a nuisance—or when they didn't want someone interfering with their selfish schemes—hiring an assassin was one possible last resort, but not particularly uncommon.
Taking that into consideration, it wouldn't be strange for the assassins in Egginis to be highly skilled.
Most people who visited Egginis were wealthy and brought bodyguards.
There might be cases like Rei where an adventurer came seeking a golem of their own, but nobles and merchants still made up a far larger proportion.
Since they would be assassinating such targets, it stood to reason that they would need to employ capable hands.
(That said, the one who attacked me wasn't all that strong.)
Recalling the assassin disguised as a maid, Rei mused...
"Gruu!"
...when Seto suddenly let out a purr.
"Did you find something?"
Based on past experience, Rei judged that he had most likely spotted an enemy—bandits, specifically.
The size of the bandit group was something he wouldn't know until he actually got there.
With that in mind, Rei asked Seto to carry him toward the bandits he had found.
"Seto, take me to them. Head toward the ones you spotted."
"Grururu!"
Seto purred in response and broke into a run.
The mountains were thick with trees and overgrown brush.
For someone unfamiliar with the mountains, just walking through would have been difficult.
Even for someone reasonably accustomed to mountainous terrain, moving at Seto's speed would have been all but impossible.
Rei himself had grown up playing in the mountains near his home back in Japan, so he prided himself on being more experienced than average at navigating mountain paths. Yet even from his perspective, Seto's running speed was astonishing. The gryphon maintained that pace for about ten minutes before finally slowing down.
"Are we here?"
"Gruu."
Seto gave a short purr in response.
After dismounting from Seto's back, Rei surveyed the surroundings—and without even needing to look, he understood what Seto had found.
There was no mistaking that Seto had found bandits.
However, it wasn't just bandits...
"Damn it, a golem!? How the hell are we supposed to fight something like this!?"
In his line of sight, a bandit clutched a longsword and grumbled in despair.
As the man's words indicated, the bandits were fighting a golem.
It stood about three meters tall.
Judging by size alone, it was similar to the golems that had fought in the Wild Matches, but its movements were several times sharper.
Of course, it was still slow compared to a high-rank adventurer—but that was only relative to high-rank adventurers.
Given that these bandits were clearly weak even in Rei's eyes, a golem opponent would be more than they could handle.
(These bandits were probably recent replacements, too.)
The bandits fought desperately against the golem.
Some of them tried to target the alchemists who appeared to be controlling the golem, but adventurers—likely hired as escorts—stood around the alchemists.
With the bandits' level of skill, they had no hope of breaking through those escorts.
In that case, fleeing would have been understandable, but the moment a bandit tried to leave the battlefield, an arrow shot by one of the adventurer escorts pierced his head.
(Huh.)
Rei, hidden in the bushes, was impressed by that archery skill.
Rei knew his share of bow users, but that shot ranked among the best of them.
The time between drawing and loosing was short, and the fact that the archer could aim for the head meant their accuracy was pinpoint.
"Don't run! You won't escape even if you try! There's only one way you survive: defeat the golem we created! If you can do that, those of you still standing will be set free!"
One of the alchemists shouted at the bandits.
He was offering to let them go if they beat the golem, but judging by the alchemist's demeanor, he seemed confident the bandits couldn't possibly win.
In fact, the golem—made of stone—moved with surprising agility for its appearance, swinging its fists at the bandits.
Being made of stone, even unarmed fists served as ample weapons.
One swung fist struck a bandit's head, shattering his skull in an instant.
Both of the bandit's eyeballs popped out from the impact, but the golem showed no concern.
If anything, the alchemists were the ones who grimaced at the sight.
They surely had confidence in their golem-making skills and didn't mind coming out to the field for experiments.
But they weren't accustomed to seeing bodies burst open and people die with their innards scattered about.
It wasn't enough to make them cower, but grotesque sights and the thick stench of iron could certainly make them feel sick.
And so, the bandits kept dying one after another.
There was only one golem, and nearly ten bandits remained, but even so, Rei felt the outcome of the battle was already decided.
(The number of bodies... I can count about ten. That means this bandit group was of considerable size. As a result, it looks like they got a meaningful performance test out of it.)
Several of the bandits had already lost the will to fight.
They had been told they would be spared if they could defeat the golem, but they couldn't envision any future in which they actually beat it.
The bandits' attacks had no effect on the golem whatsoever.
To begin with, the strongest member among them—the Boss—had struck the golem with his axe, and even that blow had only managed to lightly scrape the surface of the rock composing its body.
That shouldn't have been possible.
Several of the bandits had seen their leader's axe shatter rock—or if not shatter, then at least deal significant damage.
And yet, the fact that the blow could only scratch the surface meant that, while the golem's body was made of rock, it was clearly different from ordinary stone.
The sight of their strongest fighter—the Boss—launching a confident strike that barely nicked the golem, his expression frozen in disbelief, only to have his skull crushed by the golem's descending fist in the next instant—that was more than enough to shatter the bandits' morale.
They had been fighting desperately to survive, clinging to the hope of making it out alive... but that hope was effortlessly crushed.
Once their spirit broke, there was nothing the bandits could do.
The golem slaughtered the fleeing bandits one after another.
Yes—"slaughtered" was the right word, not "killed." It was so one-sided, so mechanical, that it resembled butchery more than combat.
A few bandits tried to flee the scene, but they were naturally cut down by arrows from the adventurer escorts.
"Hmm. Against bandits, this is about all we get. I'd prefer to test it against stronger opponents to see its full performance..."
"That would be difficult, wouldn't you say? The bandits who've come through lately are all small fry. Honestly, hiring adventurers for mock battles might yield better data."
Rei could hear the alchemists' conversation from where he was.
They were some distance away, and the alchemists weren't speaking particularly loudly, so under normal circumstances their words wouldn't have reached Rei's ears—but his senses were sharper than those of an ordinary person.
Even at this distance, he could hear them clearly.
(Sounds like they're purely testing the golem. Can't say I approve, but I don't think these people are behind the bandit disappearances. In that case, it's a separate matter from what I'm investigating. If so, the other...)
"Someone's there!"
Rei had been about to move elsewhere. But before he could act, a sharp shout reached him.
He turned toward the source of the voice and saw a woman wearing what could be better described as goggles rather than glasses, staring directly at him.
(Glasses? No, goggles? She wasn't wearing them before, was she?)
Rei had observed the alchemists and adventurers when he first spotted the battle with the Stone Golem.
At that time, there had been no woman wearing goggles.
If so, she must have put them on after the battle ended.
The fact that she had spotted Rei and Seto so easily meant the goggles were likely a Magic Item of some kind.
What specific capabilities the item had, though, Rei couldn't determine.
At the same time, it was equally clear that now that he'd been discovered, he couldn't simply stay hidden here.
(What do I do?)
They were conducting performance tests on their golem using real combat against bandits rather than Wild Matches. Part of the reason was probably that you couldn't go all out in a Wild Match—destroying your opponent's golem wasn't an option—and more importantly, they likely didn't want to reveal the golem's capabilities to others even in a Wild Match setting.
Thinking about it that way, stepping out here could cause all sorts of problems, but he also judged that simply running away would create even more trouble. With that in mind, he stepped out of the bushes together with Seto.