Even if Rei intended to lend Lindy the money, they first needed to know how much Anne was being sold for—and more fundamentally, which slave trader had taken her in.
Egginis was large enough to be called a quasi-city, and naturally, it had the population to match. Given that the golem industry drew in nobles and wealthy merchants, there were correspondingly many people doing business to serve them. And since slave trading was one such business, there wasn't just a single slave trader in Egginis—there were several.
"But what should we do? Are we going to go around to each shop one by one and ask whether Anne is being sold as a slave? I think that would take far too long. Besides, I don't know all that many slave trader shops myself."
Having finished lunch, Rei and the others were walking through the city. It had been a lunch where serious matters were discussed, but that only applied to Rei and the others; Seto had been able to eat delicious food to his heart's content and was thoroughly satisfied, currently carrying Camila on his back as they moved.
As they walked, Lindy brought up the topic.
As an adventurer based in Egginis, Lindy had a reasonable understanding of slaves as well—but only to a certain extent. She knew several slave trader shops, but she didn't know every single one. If Anne happened to be at a shop Lindy knew, that would be one thing, but what if she wasn't? Naturally, they would need to find out which slave trader had bought Anne and where she was being sold.
It would have been convenient if Camila, who had brought this information, knew the details, but unfortunately, he did not. Given that was the case, they first needed to search from there.
Even so...
I'm not exactly knowledgeable about slave traders and the like, either.
It was true that he had captured the bandits in the mountains near Egginis and sold them as criminal slaves. But strictly speaking, Rei had sold them through the guards; he didn't know which specific slave trader they had been sold to. In that case, he first needed to gather information.
"How about asking Roger? To be specific, one of Roger's guards."
It had been one of Roger's guards who had known the approximate location of the Fusetsu base. Given that someone like that knew such things, they were probably at least reasonably knowledgeable about shady matters. If they asked Roger's guard, they might find out—or so Rei had reasoned.
Asking Roger might yield some understanding of that area, but Roger was currently analyzing golems—investigating whether golems made using human materials truly became high-performance. Given that, Rei honestly didn't want to interrupt Roger if it could be helped.
Leaving aside the vanished bandits, there was also the possibility that the matter of the missing Golias was involved, so Lindy didn't want to interrupt Roger either.
"Right. Let's go to the workshop Roger belongs to. ...The Jalis Workshop is one of the largest in Egginis, so it's a little intimidating to approach."
Even as she said that, Lindy was willing to do whatever it took to reliably obtain information about Anne.
Should I just try commissioning Fusetsu? But Fusetsu is an assassin guild, not an organization that specializes in gathering information. Besides, my ties with Fusetsu were officially severed when Blood Blade was destroyed.
He was currently having them investigate the potions and poisons, so his connection with Fusetsu wasn't truly severed. However, if he were to request that they investigate where a slave—and not an illegal one at that, but one who had presumably been enslaved through legitimate means like Anne—was being sold, Fusetsu would undoubtedly be outraged, thinking they were being taken for granted.
What's more, there were more than a few within Fusetsu who were displeased that they—the largest assassin guild in Egginis—had been used in their dealings with Rei. Or more precisely, that Rei had used them as he pleased. Since the raid on Blood Blade's base had resulted in casualties that were by no means small on Fusetsu's side, this was especially true.
It was a fact that Fusetsu was the largest assassin guild in Egginis, but Blood Blade had also been an assassin guild of considerable scale. Even though they had launched a surprise attack on Blood Blade, Blood Blade hadn't simply been slaughtered one-sidedly. On Fusetsu's side, a fair number had died, and the number of injured was several times that of the dead. Knowing that outcome, there were many among Fusetsu's assassins who resented Rei.
If he were to request that they investigate a matter involving a slave, there was a very real possibility that those individuals would protest. Among those in Fusetsu who understood the reality of the situation, it wouldn't be strange for them to recognize this as an opportunity to earn a favor from Rei.
In that case, would it be easier to gather information by asking someone like Ridon instead?
As a Neutral Faction noble, he was a friendly presence for Rei, and he had the financial means to stay at the Star River Inn, one of the finest inns in Egginis. With that kind of means at his disposal, he was likely knowledgeable about the slave traders in Egginis as well. Or so Rei reasoned.
It wasn't as though being part of the Neutral Faction meant they abhorred the very existence of slaves. In this world, slaves were a given. As if to demonstrate this, in Gilm, the territory of Daskar who led the Neutral Faction, there were shops that dealt in slaves as a matter of course. Naturally, illegal slaves were another matter entirely.
"Roger's Jalis Workshop, huh. The question is whether they'll let us see Roger right away when we show up."
Although the Jalis Workshop had now been surpassed by the Dolan Workshop, there was no doubt it still possessed some of the highest-tier technology in Egginis. Given that, if Rei and his group showed up without an appointment and asked whether they would be granted a meeting with Roger, who possessed the greatest skill within the Jalis Workshop... honestly, it was a questionable prospect.
However, Lindy opened her mouth and said it would likely be no problem in response to Rei's concern.
"You handed over materials from an unknown monster, didn't you, Rei? Then I think if you mention that, the Jalis Workshop will treat you courteously. From the Jalis Workshop's perspective, if Roger uses those materials—it was Orc Naga, I think?—to develop a new technique, it might not be a dream to overtake the Dolan Workshop."
Wondering whether it would really go that smoothly, Rei nonetheless decided there was no harm in trying, and headed for the Jalis Workshop.
"That was unexpected."
Muttering that, Rei drank the tea that one of the Jalis Workshop's craftsmen had served him. Hearing Rei's words, Lindy floated a confident smile, as if to say See?
Beside the two of them, Camila was desperately eating the cookies served as tea snacks—or rather, sweets that were closer to bread dough, like hard-baked hotcakes—with intense focus.
The orphanage was so short on money that Camila and the others had resorted to trying to procure food on their own. Rei had left behind a certain amount of food, and Lindy had been sending money back, but even so, they weren't in a position to eat sweet treats. If they absolutely wanted to eat something sweet, the only options were to go outside the city and gather fruit and nuts, or to attack hornet nests to obtain honey.
Naturally, that such a thing wasn't easily done was clear from the fact that when Rei first met Camila and the others, they were being attacked by a pack of wolves and were in mortal danger. That was why, given the opportunity to eat these sweet treats, Camila didn't want to let it slip away. It wasn't as though there was no internal conflict about whether it was right for him alone to eat sweet treats in this situation, but even so, being a child, he couldn't resist the sweets placed before him.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. ...Hm? Who's the child?"
Roger, who had entered the room, asked upon seeing a child he didn't recognize, seemingly puzzled by the sight. Rei explained the situation to him. Explaining the situation alone could have been done by Lindy instead of Rei, but given the nature of Anne's situation, a major reason was that it was uncertain whether the person directly involved could explain the circumstances calmly.
"A slave, huh. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about that sort of information, so why come to me about this?"
"To be precise, not you, but your guard. You know, the one who told us roughly where the Fusetsu base was, right?"
Those words made Roger understand what Rei was getting at, and he immediately instructed the servant—or rather, the valet waiting outside the room—to bring one of his guards.
"Sorry, Roger. You really wanted to analyze the Dolan Workshop's golems, didn't you?"
"Nnh..."
At Rei's words, Roger's face took on a shade of irritation. Seeing Roger like that, Camila shrank back slightly, but Roger wasn't the type to take his frustration out on others.
In the first place, Roger's irritation stemmed from the fact that even after analyzing the Dolan Workshop's golems, he had been unable to find the target technology—the technique that would improve a golem's performance by using humans as materials. Even so, not much time had passed since Rei had told Roger about the matter and they had parted ways. Even factoring in the lunch break in between, demanding that he fully see through the Dolan Workshop's technology in this short a time was an unreasonable expectation to begin with.
"From the look of it, it seems we can't ask about the analysis progress yet."
"Indeed. As of now, we haven't found any suspicious areas yet. That said, if the Dolan Workshop possessed such technology, they would naturally want to keep it out of sight as much as possible. Considering that, the current state of things isn't all that strange."
Even as he said that, Roger couldn't hide his bitterness. It was probably galling for him to have it demonstrated that his own skills didn't match those of the Dolan Workshop's alchemist.
"Excuse me. Roger, I heard you were calling for me. What is it?"
Saying that, one of Roger's guards—Rugana, who had told Rei where the Fusetsu base was located—made his appearance.
At first glance, Rugana had a very intimidating face. This was likely intentional on Roger's part as a guard, serving as a deterrent against anyone who might try to cause trouble. Because of that, Camila shrank back slightly when he saw Rugana. Lindy patted Camila on the head as if to say it was alright... and seeing the two of them like that, Rugana was somewhat hurt.
He knew he had an intimidating face, and he certainly didn't expect to be popular with children. But even so, when asked whether he felt nothing about the current situation, the answer was naturally no.
"Rugana, you also knew about the assassin guild's base in the Slum District, didn't you?"
"Huh? Well, yes, that's true... but that doesn't mean I'm all that knowledgeable about the underworld, you know?"
Understanding from Roger's words that he was going to be asked about that sort of thing again, Rugana put up that defensive line. In truth, Rugana wasn't intimately versed in the affairs of the underworld. He had only known about the Fusetsu base at the level of rumors heard from a friend of a friend. For that matter, he had known that the location was an assassin guild's base, but he hadn't known that it was the Fusetsu base.
Most information of this kind was typically rumors or misinformation, but perhaps it was a stroke of misfortune within misfortune—just this once, it had been accurate. And because of that, he had been singled out as someone who might have information for Rei, which was decidedly not a pleasant thing for Rugana.
"Even so, just the possibility that you might know something makes it a lead."
Taking over from Roger, Rei told him that.
Judging that he couldn't escape any further, Rugana eventually opened his mouth as if giving up.
"Understood. If it's information I already know, then fine. So, what kind of information do you want to know exactly?"
"Rest assured... well, I won't say that's the best way to phrase it, but as far as this particular matter goes, there's nothing illegal about it. To the extent of your knowledge—even if it's on a very small scale—I want you to tell me about slave trader shops."
Rei's words were apparently unexpected, and Rugana opened his eyes wide in surprise.