Once it was decided that Rei would head to Buldan, where the orphanage was located, the first order of business was reuniting with Seto and Camila.
Since traveling to Buldan required Seto's strength, that was only natural.
Fortunately, Seto was nothing if not conspicuous.
If Rei and Lindy went to the main street, they would be able to find him immediately.
"Ah, Lindy! What happened to Anne!?"
Camila had been eating skewers on Seto's back, but the moment he spotted Lindy, he immediately fired off the question.
Naturally, his behavior drew meaningful glances from the people around them, but Camila seemed completely unconcerned as he fixed Lindy with an expectant gaze.
Lindy, however, approached him and shook her head.
"We went to the largest slave trader's shop in Egginis, but Anne wasn't there. Still, the shop owner was kind enough to offer to gather information on our behalf."
In reality, cold calculation rather than kindness was the stronger motivator—but she must have judged there was no need to tell Camila that.
"Really!? Then we'll find Anne, right!?"
"Probably. I'd say the chances are high. At any rate, Anne's situation is more or less settled for now, and Rei is heading to Buldan, so I'm going to write a letter. ...Listen, I'm going to include the fact that you came to Egginis on your own. Be prepared to be scolded when you get back."
"Ugh."
Lindy's words dealt a very painful blow to Camila.
It was only natural for him to dread what would happen when he returned to the orphanage.
Given everything that had happened, there was no question he would be severely reprimanded—perhaps more harshly than in any of the countless times he had been scolded before.
In truth, Camila's arrival was what had allowed them to learn about Anne's situation and respond so quickly. But even taking that into account, the fact remained that he had been reckless.
There was no doubt Camila had been trying to do something about the orphanage's predicament, and his actions had succeeded in alerting Lindy to Anne's situation. Combined with the lucky coincidence that Rei had been present, they were now receiving help from Egginis's largest slave trader.
Viewed in that light, Camila's actions were by no means a mistake.
However... even so, it would not have been strange for the adults at the orphanage to imagine the worst possible outcome.
Thinking of it that way, there was no avoiding a severe scolding for Camila.
"Don't worry... though I'm not sure it's my place to say it. When I get to the orphanage, I'll tell them we were able to search for Anne because Camila came to let us know. That should cut the lecture short, at least a little."
"Really!?"
For Camila, those words were the greatest relief imaginable.
Given the current situation, he had no choice but to rely on Rei—and both of them knew it.
"Yeah, really. So ask Lindy to include your words in the letter she's writing. If you can write, you can do it yourself."
Even as he said it, Rei suspected Camila probably could not write.
The literacy rate in this world was reasonably high.
For Adventurers, for instance, being unable to read meant having to ask someone what kind of requests were posted on the Request Board.
But first thing in the morning, when fresh request forms went up on the Request Board, no one had the luxury of time for that.
Everyone gathered at the Guild wanting the best-paying work, so that was only natural. They would even shove aside other Adventurers to claim a job.
That meant either someone in the party could read, or, after the busy morning rush ended, they would have no choice but to ask a Guild Staff Member or someone else to read aloud whatever requests were still left on the board.
But naturally, if a request remained unclaimed, there was a reason for it. The pay was low, the danger was high, or it was extremely troublesome.
A skilled veteran might judge that a high-danger request meant higher pay to look forward to, but an Adventurer who could not read was generally a Low-Rank Adventurer who had only recently registered.
All things considered, whether they wanted to land slightly better-paying requests or avoid failing a job because they had misread the contents, Adventurers had every reason to learn to read and write.
Their livelihoods—sometimes their very lives—depended on it. They took it seriously.
It was a level of desperation entirely different from students studying back in Japan.
That said, that applied to Adventurers... or rather, to adults. Rei did not expect a child like Camila to be able to read and write.
In the first place, Camila's personality was far better suited to running around outside than sitting at a desk studying.
As expected, Camila obediently nodded and asked Lindy to write on his behalf.
"Alright then, I'm off. I'll deliver the letter without fail, so don't worry. I plan to be back in Egginis by the end of the day, assuming nothing comes up over there."
In front of Egginis's gate, having completed the procedures to leave the city, Rei addressed Lindy and Camila, who had come to see him off.
Lindy nodded with a serious expression.
In her heart, she still wanted to go to Buldan herself.
But the Seto Basket was conspicuous. If using it caused trouble for the orphanage, she could not deploy it so carelessly. And holding onto Seto's legs mid-flight, as Rei had suggested, was simply out of the question.
At worst, Lindy might somehow manage. Camila, however, would be hopeless.
Knowing that, she had resigned herself to staying behind for this one.
The fact that she could entrust Rei with a letter detailing the circumstances was also a significant factor.
"Please. Take care of everything."
Rei nodded to Lindy, then set off for Buldan with Seto.
"Well now. We arrived without a single incident. That was a bit unexpected."
Looking down at Buldan below, Rei muttered to himself.
Honestly, given his tendency to attract trouble, he had half expected something to go wrong on the way to Buldan.
Instead, they had arrived without a hitch. It was almost enough to leave him feeling slightly let down.
Not that arriving safely was anything but normal, when he thought about it.
"Grrrrru?"
Land? Seto purred, tilting his head.
Rei stroked Seto's back in affirmation.
Seto descended toward the ground.
The Buldan Guards spotted the enormous shape dropping from the sky and instinctively raised their weapons.
Monsters were not particularly common in this area, and wild animals rarely approached the town. But they were stationed as gatekeepers for exactly this kind of emergency. If an enemy was attacking from above, they had to respond.
"Enem—"
Enemy! That was what the gatekeepers wanted to shout.
But as they got a good look at the monster that had landed, they realized it was a presence they recognized.
No—not just recognized. Seto was a creature that, once seen, was impossible to forget, given the sheer force of his impression.
And with Rei riding on his back, there was no way they could fail to remember the man who had saved Camila and the other children not long ago.
"Um... you're Rei, right? And that gryphon is Seto. Do you have business here?"
One of the Village Gatekeepers lowered his spear and addressed Rei.
Had this been Egginis, there might have been a fair number of people waiting in line to enter. But Buldan, though a city in scale, was a rural town. The flow of people in and out was thin, and Rei's party would face no queue.
"Yeah. Some business at the orphanage."
Orphanage.
The moment the word left Rei's mouth, the two gatekeepers' expressions shifted—a tangled mix of sorrow, frustration, anger, and helplessness.
It meant they knew about Anne.
Reading the reaction, Rei pressed on with a question.
"Camila came all the way to Egginis to report about Anne, and I picked him up along with Lindy... but how did you let Camila through in the first place?"
By any normal measure, Camila was still a child.
It had been the same when Rei first met their group—how was it so easy for children to slip outside the city walls?
It was a genuine question.
And it struck a nerve.
One of the gatekeepers opened his mouth, looking troubled.
"It seems there are a few spots where you can get outside the walls. Kids are good at finding places like that."
"Ah... yeah. I see."
Rei could understand that well enough.
As a child back in Japan, he had found a gap in the fence around a factory near his elementary school. He and his friends used to sneak onto the grounds and build a secret base.
With that kind of experience under his belt, he grasped what the gatekeeper meant. He grasped it, but...
"Isn't that a serious problem?"
"Yeah, it is. Merchants or anyone carrying cargo can't use them—they're too small. But in terms of bandits or the like slipping into the city, there's more than enough chance of that happening."
"The way you're phrasing that... you've sealed them off now?"
"That's right. ...Still, did Camila really make it to Egginis in one piece...?"
One of the gatekeepers muttered, his voice heavy with relief.
The other nodded deeply in agreement.
A child leaving Buldan alone and traveling all the way to Egginis. Only someone who truly understood how slim the odds of success were—only a gatekeeper—could have spoken those words.
Rei nodded along with them.
"He's waiting in Egginis with Lindy right now. I wanted to bring him along when I came here, but circumstances on my end made that impossible."
"Even so, the fact that he's safe is something to celebrate. You've really saved us. Thank you."
Accepting their gratitude, Rei completed the entry procedures and stepped through the gate.
"Now then. First, the orphanage."
Rei's first destination upon entering Buldan was, naturally, the orphanage.
After all, he had come all this way to deal with Camila's situation, to continue the search for Anne, and to deliver Lindy's letter.
He also wanted to investigate what a man named Garby had been thinking when he did what he did.
Between the bandits' disappearance and the attack orchestrated by the Dolan Workshop, Rei already had his hands full.
But even so, he could not simply abandon Anne's case.
That was largely because he knew Anne personally, and that connection had spurred him to act.
"Grrrrrru."
Walking beside Rei, Seto seemed to understand they were heading to the orphanage, and purred in agreement.
Normally, Seto would have been looking forward to visiting a place with children eager to play with him, and his mood would have reflected it.
The fact that he was not his usual cheerful self suggested that even Seto understood this was no time for carefree joy.
They pressed on through the streets, drawing startled looks from the residents of Buldan, until at last the orphanage came into view ahead of them.
Hmm.
Looking over the orphanage, Rei felt a flicker of doubt.
The sound of children playing drifted from the yard.
He had expected them to be anxious and distressed over Anne's situation.
But the voices reaching him were unmistakably those of children at play.
Had they been wails or sobs, Rei would have understood that the children were crying over Anne's absence.
In that sense, it was not a bad thing that the children were not grieving. And yet—why weren't they? Puzzling over that question, Rei walked through the orphanage gates with Seto at his side.