When Rei revealed his identity — not that he had been hiding it — the merchant naturally received Rei and his party with a matching level of courtesy.
Specifically, he showed them to a private room in the back of the shop.
Under normal circumstances, those granted access to such a room would be nobles or prominent merchants.
Given the room's exclusive nature, the furnishings were correspondingly lavish.
The reason Rei and Lindy had been shown to such a place was undoubtedly Rei's status as an Alias Holder and A-Rank Adventurer.
An Alias Holder was someone treated as special on that fact alone.
Moreover, Rei had captured numerous bandits and sold them off to slave traders.
While he generally did so through the Guards, information of that sort was likely shared among slave traders as well.
Several minutes after Rei and Lindy had been shown into the reception room, the head of the slave trading shop himself appeared — not the clerk who had first guided Rei inside.
"Welcome, Lord Crimson, and your companion. Thank you for visiting my shop today. May I assume that your coming here means you are in need of a slave? Lord Crimson... no, Lord Rei has been very good to us, so I will do my utmost to accommodate you."
The man standing before Rei and Lindy was in his fifties.
The fact that such a man would adopt such a deferential attitude toward Rei, who was only in his mid-teens, meant he had judged Rei to be a truly exceptional figure — and perhaps sensed a major business opportunity.
Rei shook his head at the merchant.
"It's true I came to buy a slave, but not in the general sense. Someone I'm indebted to was enslaved for some reason and apparently brought to Egginis. If that slave is here, I'd like to buy her back. She's not an illegal slave, so I'll pay a fair price."
The merchant appeared to consider Rei's words for a moment.
It was not Rei's conditions he was mulling over, but rather whether the person Rei sought was actually present as a slave.
However, this shop — the largest slave trading operation in Egginis — had numerous slaves sold to it on a daily basis.
With only the information Rei had just provided, pinpointing the individual would be difficult.
"May I ask for the specific name? Could you provide that?"
At this point, the slave trader was already thinking that if the slave Rei was searching for turned out to be in his shop, he would sell her at a bargain price.
No — not merely a bargain. Depending on the situation, he might even hand her over for free.
That was how valuable it was for a slave trader to build a connection with someone like Rei.
Slaves were, of course, fundamentally high-priced goods.
Depending on the slave being sold, it was not unheard of for even a noble of ample financial means to find a purchase difficult.
But if the slave Rei was looking for was not priced that highly — if she was an ordinary slave — then handing her over to Rei would be no real loss.
After all, this was Egginis. And the fact that numerous bandits populated the nearby mountains was common knowledge.
If that was the case, doing Rei a favor here and having Rei sell his captured bandits to them would amount to a substantial overall profit.
Had Rei known what the trader was thinking, he likely would have recalled the old adage about taking a loss to reap a greater gain.
"Her name is Anne. She's from the city closest to Egginis... come to think of it, I've only ever known it as the city with the orphanage. What's its actual name?"
Rei had been about to tell the slave trader the city's name when he realized he had never actually learned it.
As he himself had noted, until now it had simply been "the city with the orphanage," and that had been enough.
Since that had always sufficed, not knowing the city's name had never been a problem.
"Buldan," Lindy supplied, filling in the gap.
Naturally, even if Rei didn't know the name of the city with the orphanage, Lindy — who had grown up in that very orphanage in Buldan — certainly did.
"Buldan, huh. A woman named Anne who worked at the orphanage in Buldan. If she's here as a slave, I want to buy her back."
"Anne from Buldan... you say?"
The slave trader appeared to consider Rei's words for a moment before eventually shaking his head with visible regret.
"I'm afraid not. Not only today, but over the past several days, no slaves have been brought in from Buldan."
As a slave trader operating in Egginis, he was naturally familiar with Buldan.
Given that, he had a firm grasp on the slaves brought into his shop.
And among them, there was no woman named Anne.
What a shame, the slave trader thought to himself earnestly.
From what Rei had told him, the slave named Anne was not a particularly exceptional individual.
Had she been an Elf, for instance, she would have fetched an extraordinary price. But if the woman named Anne was simply an ordinary slave, he could have handed her over to Rei without taking a single coin — exactly as he had just considered.
It was precisely because he thought this way that the lost opportunity stung.
(Still, why would Crimson Rei go out of his way to purchase such a slave? From what I can see, the woman seems more invested in this than he is. The information I've gathered never indicated Rei was the softhearted type...)
Indeed, among the information the slave trader had collected on Rei, much of it described a man who wielded his power without the slightest hesitation — even against nobles.
That was precisely why seeing Rei willing to act on someone else's behalf gave him pause.
Or perhaps Rei had a deep relationship with Lindy, who had accompanied him.
If asked whether Lindy was attractive, she was undeniably an attractive woman.
That said, even through the eyes of a slave trader well-versed in reading human relationships, the two did not appear to be close in any romantic sense.
Given that, what he ultimately concluded was that Rei was simply acting on a whim.
...In truth, that wasn't entirely wrong, either.
Rei's desire to help Anne stemmed partly from being indebted to her, but largely from a genuine sense of goodwill.
Goodwill in the sense of friendship — not romantic attraction.
Despite seeing Seto for the first time, and even though she had only helped the children, Anne had shown no sign of fear.
Or perhaps she had been frightened internally, but she had refused to let it show.
In that sense, it was hardly strange for Rei to hold goodwill toward Anne.
To put it in extreme terms, lending Lindy the money to buy Anne back was also partly motivated by his feelings for Lindy and Camila, but his goodwill toward Anne was an equally strong factor.
"I see. Then it can't be helped. I thought there was a good chance Anne would be here since this is the largest shop, but if that's the case, I'll move on to the next—"
"Please wait a moment."
Rei had been about to say he would head to the next shop, but the slave trader cut him off.
Not expecting to be stopped, Rei settled his half-raised hips back onto the sofa and spoke.
"What is it?"
"From your words just now, you intend to visit other shops one after another, starting with this one, to search for this Anne... am I correct in that understanding?"
"That's right. It's the best approach."
"No, it isn't."
The slave trader denied Rei's words without hesitation, yet there was not a trace of fear in his eyes.
That meant he genuinely believed it — and more importantly, his attitude conveyed confidence that he could offer something even more valuable.
"What are you getting at?"
"When it comes to matters between slave traders, it's far easier for us to gather information among ourselves than for an outsider to ask. Above all, the other shops would be far less guarded with us. ...I realize that doesn't sound flattering, but..."
Seeing the slave trader's hesitant manner, Rei understood what he was implying.
Rei was reasonably aware of the rumors about himself.
Given that, he understood those rumors included tales of how he did not hesitate to use force — and he also understood that not all of them were unfounded.
In other words, if Rei showed up at a slave trader's shop in person, there was a very real possibility that the other party would be too frightened to share information freely.
In that sense, what the slave trader was saying was correct.
"The way that sounds, you're offering to gather the information on your end in our place."
"That's right. You are not mistaken. When it comes to slaves, it's best left to slave traders."
At the slave trader's words, Rei turned his gaze toward Lindy.
He asked with his eyes: What do you think? After a brief moment of consideration, Lindy nodded.
Since Lindy — the one most invested in this matter — had given her nod of approval, Rei had no intention of opposing the slave trader's proposal. Still, he couldn't help but wonder why the man was willing to go to such lengths.
"Why are you doing this much for us? We're hardly your VIP customers."
"Not at all. Lord Crimson... no, there is no question that Lord Rei is a VIP customer. Setting aside the matter of buying slaves, in terms of selling them..."
Put that way, Rei could more or less grasp what the slave trader was driving at.
"In other words, the compensation for gathering information on Anne is that when we sell bandits as criminal slaves, we sell them to this shop?"
"Yes. If you would do that, we would be all the more motivated to gather information. Ah, and rest assured — I have no intention of lowballing you."
The slave trader looked as though his hopes had been perfectly met, and Rei nodded readily at his words.
"Understood. That's fine — just gather what you can on Anne."
"Huh? Wai— Rei, I know it's not really my place to ask, but are you really okay with that!?"
Lindy pressed forward reflexively at Rei's snap decision.
From her perspective, she had never expected Rei to accept those terms so readily.
But from Rei's standpoint, having a fixed shop to sell to didn't change much.
He would lose the option of putting them up for auction for the highest possible price, but even so, this shop was offering to buy slaves at a fair rate.
Given that, Rei actually found it welcome — it meant less hassle for him.
...In the first place, selling captured bandits as slaves was merely a bonus.
The most rewarding part of bandit hunting was not selling bandits into slavery, but claiming the treasure they had amassed as his own.
Given that, selling bandits as slaves could, in the broadest sense, be done at any shop.
Naturally, if a shop tried to buy at rock-bottom prices, that would be another matter entirely. But from what Rei could see, the slave trader before him did not seem the type to resort to such tactics.
That being the case, Rei's honest feeling was that he had no problem going along with the proposal.
"Yeah, I'm fine with that. Given the current situation, it's not a particularly disadvantageous deal for us."
Lindy looked surprised at his words, but accepted it with the thought that if Rei said so, then so be it.
"Understood. If Rei says so, I have no objections."
"Please do. If we're ever dissatisfied with the price, we can always sell to another shop. Alternatively, there's always the option of not enslaving them at all."
Those words served as an explanation for Lindy while simultaneously acting as a check on the slave trader.
In the first place, selling bandits as slaves required transporting the captured bandits from the location where they were defeated — in this case, the mountains serving as their base — all the way to Egginis.
That was undeniably a hassle, and when it was too much trouble, one could simply kill every last bandit during combat instead.
Doing so would eliminate the unnecessary labor — an undeniable fact.
Perceiving Rei's implied intent, the slave trader immediately shook his head.
"Of course, I would never do such a thing. Naturally, we will ensure a profit for ourselves, but that does not mean we intend to fleece you. You can rest assured on that point."
"Words alone won't convince me right away, but... fair enough. In that case, do your best to gather information on Anne from your fellow slave traders. Do that, and we'll trust you."
"Understood. Then allow me to put my full enthusiasm into this. It was Anne, was it not? Could you provide me with a detailed description of her appearance? The name Anne is not particularly rare, after all."
At the slave trader's words, Rei and Lindy nodded and began to explain.