Rei stated that he wanted to see Garby, and the guards went into the building to relay the request.
Rei had been fully prepared to force his way inside if they refused him an audience. But the fact that they so readily announced his visit came as something of a surprise.
(Though there's no telling whether Garby will actually come out quietly.)
Rei didn't know a great deal about Garby.
Still, considering the incident at the orphanage and the fact that Garby had ordered his subordinates to steal Seto, there was no way he could regard the man as an honest merchant.
For that matter, an honest merchant wouldn't have cut off support to an orphanage in the first place, so arriving at that conclusion was only natural.
Rei waited quietly for Garby to appear, but unlike Rei, there were those who continued making a fuss.
Specifically, the thugs—tied together in a daisy chain and reduced to something of a public spectacle.
Just getting here had already made them a spectacle for countless onlookers.
For thugs who prided themselves on saving face, their current situation was anything but tolerable.
They had complied up to this point only because there was an opponent they could absolutely never defeat—Rei.
Well, to be precise, they had been loudly voicing their displeasure the entire time, so "quiet" wasn't exactly accurate.
Still, they only made noise; none of them attempted to flee.
Not that they could have, even if they tried. Their hands were bound behind their backs and their torsos were tied together in a chain, so the truth was that running wasn't an option regardless of what they wanted.
In any case, they had reluctantly followed Rei this far, but apparently they believed that now that they had arrived, things would work out somehow.
They shouted at Rei even louder than before.
"Hey! We came all the way here, so that's enough! Hurry up and let us go!"
It was precisely because this was their territory that they could shout so boldly.
Rei, however, merely glanced at the noisy thugs and went back to stroking Seto, showing no particular concern as he waited for the person who had gone inside to return.
That attitude only irritated them further.
The thugs kept shouting after that...
"Shut up."
With those words, he gave a light tug on the rope binding the thugs together.
"Light," however, was strictly from Rei's perspective. To the thugs, it felt as though they had been pulled by an overwhelming force beyond anything they could imagine.
Caught off guard as they were, the thugs naturally had no chance of resisting Rei's strength and nearly tumbled on the spot.
The only reason they somehow managed to brace themselves was that Rei had truly pulled only lightly.
Thanks to that, the thugs barely avoided falling over.
Naturally, they were about to voice their complaints to Rei for such treatment... and then they caught his eyes.
It wasn't as though he was radiating any particular bloodlust—though the thugs wouldn't have been able to sense it anyway—nor was he glaring at them.
It was simply a steady gaze, looking directly at them. But the instant they met it, the thugs found themselves unable to utter a word.
It wasn't that they had grasped the sheer magnitude of Rei's strength. Rather, they had felt an overwhelming, incomprehensible presence that left them speechless.
Rei, who had been watching the thugs, had no idea why they had suddenly fallen silent.
He didn't know, but since they had gone quiet for the time being, he judged there was no problem and resumed stroking Seto.
A tense atmosphere spread through the surroundings, but Rei himself, who had created it, remained oblivious... no, he deliberately ignored it and continued doting on Seto.
After about ten minutes passed, the man who had gone inside earlier finally emerged from the building.
"Garby will see you. Only Rei may enter."
Seto was implicitly making it clear that he shouldn't be allowed inside the building, but Rei had no intention of bringing Seto in anyway.
Given the size of the building, Seto could probably fit if he tried.
But forcing his way in would only make it cramped and difficult for Seto to move freely, and there was no need to go out of the way to use the Size Change skill.
In the end, leaving Seto outside to wait had been Rei's plan from the start. However...
"Since I'm going in alone, Seto will stay out here. But... I don't think I need to spell this out, yet if anyone tries to mess with Seto, you understand what will happen, right? If Seto kills any of you in self-defense, I won't have a single thing to say about it."
Normally, if a tamed monster caused an incident, the master would bear responsibility.
In that sense, if Seto caused trouble, Rei would be the one held accountable.
However, even if it was an incident, if someone attacked Seto trying to claim him as their own and got counterattacked, naturally the attacker would be the one arrested by the guards.
In Roger's case back in Egginis as well, if Rei had reported the matter, Roger would have actually been arrested.
Of course, Roger was known as a highly skilled alchemist in Egginis.
Even if he had been arrested, it probably wouldn't have escalated into a major incident.
In that sense, even in Buldan, considering Garby's influence, it wouldn't be surprising if a similar situation arose.
"U-Understood. We'll keep watch to make sure no one here does anything stupid."
At Rei's words, the guards hastily replied.
For the guards, that response was a given.
They had no idea what Garby was thinking, ordering an attack on Seto.
...Well, they could at least understand that he had simply judged it would be profitable. But even so, ordering an attack on an A-Rank Monster was something they simply could not believe.
In the first place, what was the point of sending thugs who weren't even adventurers to attack an A-Rank Monster?
Of course, even if they had been told to go themselves, they would have absolutely refused.
The guards lacked detailed information about Seto, but Seto was an A-Rank Monster gryphon and at the same time classified as a Rare Species that could use numerous skills, making him S-Rank equivalent.
In reality, this was the effect of Beast Magic... but regardless, whether the guards' ignorance of that fact was lucky or unlucky was hard to say. Or rather, for the guards, an A-Rank Monster and an S-Rank Monster were identical in that they couldn't possibly defeat either in a fight, so even if they had known, it was highly unlikely they would have acted any differently.
At any rate, the guards swore they would absolutely not do anything to provoke Seto here.
Seeing the guards' demeanor, Rei apparently judged that they could be trusted for the time being.
While stroking Seto, he spoke.
"Then I'll go meet this Garby fellow. If anything happens, Seto, you can act on your own judgment."
"Gruu!"
At Rei's words, Seto purred as if to say "Understood!"
Watching the exchange between Rei and Seto, the guards who had been listening swallowed involuntarily.
Saying that Seto could act on his own judgment meant that if someone tried to capture him, Rei was saying it was perfectly fine for Seto to kill them on his own call.
That might have been an extreme interpretation, but there was no mistaking that Rei was granting permission to go that far.
After glancing at the guards, Rei headed into the building.
Seto saw Rei off, then lay down a short distance from the building.
Some of the onlookers watching the situation felt that showing such carefree attitude in front of people who were actively targeting him was questionable. But as far as Seto was concerned, even if anyone here came after him, he could dispatch them with ease.
Since this was not the orphanage, there was no one he needed to protect.
With that in mind, relaxing like this posed no particular problem.
Also, while Seto lying down appeared to be asleep, he was actually ready to respond instantly if anything happened.
That was why the current situation was completely fine.
"H-Hey. Could you... untie this rope for us?"
One of the thugs, having confirmed that Seto had fallen asleep, called out to the guards.
Even now, with Rei gone and Seto apparently asleep, the thugs remained bound as a matter of course.
Given that, naturally they were still being watched by onlookers.
Being made a spectacle of was hardly amusing, so they figured that at the very least, they could have the rope binding them untied now.
With that thought, they asked the guards... but the guards, in unison, shook their heads at the thugs' request.
Perhaps not expecting such a response, not only the thug who had asked to be untied but the others as well directed questioning looks at the guards, wondering why they wouldn't undo the ropes.
But for the guards, it was obvious.
If anything, they even wondered why the thugs thought they would be untied in this situation.
Rei and Seto.
Both were opponents they could not defeat—and this was no exaggeration—even if more than a hundred of them challenged them at once.
If anything, they would simply be crushed by Rei and Seto, and that would be the end of it.
That was why they couldn't possibly do something like untie the ropes of the thugs who had provoked Rei and Seto.
"If we untie your ropes and Rei holds a grudge against us, then what? For that matter, if we tried to untie your ropes, there's no telling that the gryphon... Seto, was it? That Seto might not take some kind of action. And we absolutely cannot defeat Seto. Therefore, we will not untie the ropes."
Understood? The thugs were met with that look, but there was no way they could accept it.
Still, as long as they were bound by rope, there was nothing they could do. The only thing the thugs could manage was to keep making noise.
"Right this way."
While the thugs were causing a commotion in front of the building, Rei was being guided through the interior by a maid and had arrived in front of a door.
The maid said so and opened the door... but there was no one inside the room.
"Where's Garby?"
"He is currently preparing. He says he will be here shortly, so he asks that you wait a moment."
"I see. Well, I did come without an appointment, so that's only fair."
Rei murmured this, but the fact of the matter was that Garby had picked a fight with him in the first place, which was why he had come storming in.
Demanding that he make an appointment under such circumstances was unreasonable to begin with.
Of course, if they wanted to go there, Garby shouldn't have tried to steal Seto in the first place, and none of this would have happened.
A maid prepared tea for him, but Rei had no intention of touching it.
Considering what he had heard from the orphanage director and the thugs who had come to steal Seto, Garby was not someone he could possibly trust.
Given that, carelessly drinking the tea or anything else offered here was out of the question—there was no guarantee something suspicious hadn't been slipped into it.
(Then again, if I'm worried about that, I should probably be worried about this room itself.)
For instance, there was a very real possibility that some kind of drug could be pumped into this room as a gas while Rei sat inside.
Thinking about it normally, doing such a thing to someone like Rei would be nothing short of suicide.
But Garby's character gave the impression of a man who would do exactly that without a second thought.
There was no guarantee he wouldn't commit such a foolish act.
(If it comes to that, I won't hold back either. If they attack first without choosing their methods, then I have no reason to hold back either, and no one can complain.)
With those thoughts, Rei surveyed the room once more.
This reception room, while not quite in poor taste, was undeniably furnished with rather distinctive décor.
Good taste... no, "refined taste" would be the most fitting description for such a room.
Given the current situation, he couldn't exactly settle down comfortably in a room with such fine taste. And so Rei simply waited in silence for Garby to appear.