Having parted ways with the alchemists, Rei and Seto walked through the mountains once more, searching for bandits.
Even wandering aimlessly through the mountains like this, he might encounter ordinary bandits, but running into the cause of the bandits' disappearances was essentially unthinkable. Still, the bandits lurking in these mountains remained his most likely source of clues.
(Besides, I don't know who's making the bandits disappear, but if someone is doing such a thing and deliberately drawing in additional bandits, then the culprit needs the bandits to be here. In that situation, what would happen if I defeat the bandits one after another?)
There was a possibility they would realize that facing Rei was dangerous and choose not to lay a hand on him. But it wouldn't be strange for them to think that eliminating Rei would be the quickest solution, either.
That was what Rei was aiming for. ...Or perhaps, that someone was the assassin who had infiltrated his inn.
"Gurururu."
As they advanced through the mountains, Seto suddenly purred.
Understanding what that meant, Rei pressed deeper into the mountains alongside Seto...
"Whoa, is it a bust?"
"Wh-What the hell are you?!"
Looking at the scene spread out before him, Rei muttered in disappointment. What lay before him was a single hand-dug cabin that clearly looked homemade, and in front of it stood just one bandit, startled to see Rei suddenly appear—or more accurately, Rei sitting atop Seto's back.
In terms of stealing the treasure the bandits had hoarded, this would have been an incredible jackpot. However, Rei's objective was bandit hunting—reducing the number of bandits. Defeating one bandit here and stealing the treasure inside the cabin would not accomplish that goal. If he were simply hunting bandits as usual, it would have been easy in the sense that it saved him the trouble of a fight.
"The fact that you're here means you're the lookout. Surrender. Do that and you'll be spared a painful experience."
"Wh-Don't screw with me!"
Being treated as an inferior right off the bat and told he wasn't even worth defeating must have rubbed him the wrong way. In fact, this man was reasonably skilled even among the bandit group, which made it all the more galling.
However, that was only if he didn't have a sprained right ankle.
What happened when they encountered another bandit group in the mountains? If they were old acquaintances on good terms, that was one thing, but otherwise it wouldn't be strange for a fight to break out between rival bandits. Normally speaking, bandits needlessly antagonizing each other would only bring disadvantages, but bandits were fundamentally a collection of roughnecks. When someone they believed was stronger than themselves stood before them, they couldn't just quietly pass by.
As a result, a fight broke out between the bandits... and the man left behind here had suffered a sprained right ankle.
A few others had been injured as well, but those were only light cuts and arm bruises. Compared to those injuries, a sprained ankle was clearly a hindrance for a bandit who needed to travel through the mountains on foot.
That was why this man had been left behind as the house sitter.
...For Rei and Seto to appear at that very spot was nothing but misfortune for the man. Even so, the fact that he didn't cower or flee from Seto—let alone Rei—showed he had some nerve.
(No, that's not it. Is he simply so agitated that he doesn't know how to react in front of Seto?)
The bandit before him would calm down if Rei just knocked him out for now. Then he would recognize that Rei was an opponent he absolutely couldn't beat and would quietly spill information.
Judging thus, Rei dismounted from Seto's back and approached the axe-wielding bandit.
"Stop! Don't come any closer! Come any closer and I'll bash you with this axe!"
"Go ahead and try. If you can manage that, you might actually be able to escape from here."
From Rei's perspective, he couldn't imagine a man with an injured leg being able to do anything against him or Seto. No, given the bandit's skill level, he wouldn't be able to do anything even at full health. It was true that the man was a capable fighter among the bandits, but that was only within the context of the bandit group.
Whether the man understood from Rei's words that the person before him was an overwhelming powerhouse despite his small stature, he gripped the axe with a cornered expression, as if to say it was the last thing he could rely on.
"Surrender quietly and I won't kill you. I'll just capture you and hand you over to the guards."
That outcome meant only becoming a criminal slave, but considering that the majority of bandits defeated by adventurers were normally killed, it was at least some small mercy. That said, what awaited them afterward was working in the mines or being conscripted into battle... or otherwise, it was best to assume they wouldn't be able to live an easy life by any means.
The man understood that too, which was why, even while knowing he couldn't beat Rei, he desperately tried to think of a way to escape from this situation. If you can't win by fighting, you just need to escape.
...However, whether he could safely escape with an injured leg was another matter entirely.
"What'll it be? Dragging this out doesn't benefit me. Either you get knocked out fighting me here, or you surrender quietly. ...Oh, and I'd appreciate it if you could refrain from killing yourself if possible."
Rei told him this, but his casual demeanor suggested he wasn't genuinely concerned about wanting the man not to die. Rather, it was the kind of attitude that said he'd prefer it if the man didn't die if possible. However, that very attitude was enough to make the man understand that Rei was genuinely sincere about it.
"...I surrender."
No matter what he did, he couldn't escape from this situation. Having concluded that, the man ultimately gave in. For the man, he must have felt that there was nothing he could do given the circumstances, no matter how he acted.
In reality, that judgment was not wrong. The probability of the man escaping from here was absolutely zero.
...Well, in truth, it wasn't zero in the strictest sense. Perhaps an S-Rank Monster might suddenly appear here, a meteor might fall from the sky, or lightning might strike Rei—the possibility wasn't zero either.
Each of those was frighteningly low in probability. Low, but the possibility of such things happening still existed. After all, the monsters beneath the Treant Forest had even connected to another world.
That said... miracles don't happen that frequently. It's precisely because they don't happen that they're called miracles. In that sense, the possibility of the bandit man safely escaping from this situation through a miracle... was essentially nonexistent.
In the end, having resigned himself to the fact that nothing could be done, the man threw his axe to the ground as if letting go of a guardian deity. By disarming himself, he had shown with his attitude that he was surrendering.
"I see. Then first, I'll bind your hands so you don't try anything strange."
Using rope he took out from his Misty Ring, Rei bound the bandit's wrists behind his back.
Among bandits, there were those skilled in Rope Escape. By dislocating joints and creating gaps in the rope to slip their hands through. Or pulling their hands free from the rope by force, completely unconcerned even if the flesh of their hands was scraped away. Some even forcefully cut through the rope with raw strength.
That was why, when binding a bandit, one needed to be careful to prevent Rope Escape.
Turning to the bandit whose arms were now bound, Rei asked the most pressing question.
"So, when are your bandit companions coming back?"
"...They said they were heading a bit farther out, so today's out. I don't know how many days it'll be, though."
"Farther out? Aren't you targeting Egginis's clients?"
This mountain was located near Egginis. Given that they had set up their hideout in such a place, their targets were naturally those coming and going from Egginis... and among them, the opponents the bandits believed they could take on by themselves.
"There's no doubt we're targeting Egginis's clients, but since we're close to Egginis, they're still on their guard. But once they've moved a certain distance away from Egginis and think they're outside our attack range, their guard drops."
"I see."
Rei nodded in understanding, but if that were the case, did they really need to set up a hideout in the mountains near Egginis? Wouldn't it be better to establish a hideout outside the attack range of the bandits operating around Egginis? Such a question came to mind.
"Then why did you set up your hideout here?"
"Because we usually work near Egginis too. This time is just a trial, after all."
In other words, to test whether this spur-of-the-moment method would actually work, they had all gone out—which was apparently why no one else was here now.
For Rei, he harbored two feelings about it: doubt about whether something like that would really work, and a sense that, like Columbus's egg, it might actually work surprisingly well.
(That said, what do I do now?)
Rei's plan had been to capture the bandit before him and then, after waiting a short while, catch the whole bandit group at once when they returned to their base. However, that was based on the assumption that they would return today—within a matter of hours.
He couldn't possibly wait here for days on end. He had originally intended to return to Gilm tomorrow or the day after, which made that all the more impossible.
Thinking about it that way, this endeavor had to be considered a failure.
Rei judged so... and decided to at least take the bandits' treasure, heading toward the dugout cabin.
"Seto, keep an eye on him. If he tries to escape, just deal with it as you see fit."
"Guruu!"
At Rei's words, Seto purred as if to say "Understood!"
Rei could understand Seto's intent, but that was only because he was Rei. For the bandit, who had seen Seto purring right beside him, it was completely incomprehensible what Seto intended by doing such a thing. Depending on the situation, he might even think he was about to be eaten.
"H-Hey. You're sure this is gonna be okay, right?!"
The bandit man shouted at Rei in a panicked tone, but Rei floated a smile and spoke.
"As long as you don't try anything strange, there's no problem. ...As long as you don't try anything strange, that is."
That meant if he did try something strange, Seto's claws and beak would come after him.
Rei hadn't really intended to go that far, but for the bandit man, it felt like if he took any suspicious action, Seto would effortlessly kill him.
Leaving the man there as he nodded vigorously in silence, Rei opened the door to the dugout cabin...
"Is this all?"
There was almost nothing that could be called treasure. There were a fair number of spare weapons that the bandits presumably used, but with all of them being axes, they were useless to Rei.
And they weren't combat-type weapons—so-called war axes or battle axes—but ordinary axes of the kind woodcutters used.
Other than that, there was dried meat and nuts as food, but there was absolutely nothing resembling treasure.
Of course, Rei hadn't been expecting treasure... such as genuine gold, silver, and jewels, rare metals like Mithril, or Magic Items... or, considering it was a hideout near Egginis, things like golems.
He hadn't been expecting them, but it was only natural to still wish for something a little more treasure-like.
(Did these guys just arrive here? No, but this dugout cabin seems like it's been around for a while since it was built. In that case... no, rather than the possibility of these guys being old hands, is it better to assume that they're using this as a base simply because the dugout cabin happened to be here?)
Judging so, Rei once more looked around inside the dugout cabin and specifically checked the floor for any suspicious spots.
Given that it was a dugout cabin, it was nearly impossible to build a hidden passage in the walls. However, if it were the floor... beneath the ground, it wouldn't be strange to have some sort of basement.
He searched with that in mind, but unfortunately, there was nothing of the sort.
Deciding that it would be better to ask someone who knew the area rather than searching on his own like this... Rei stepped outside the dugout cabin for the time being.