"Rei-san!"
Seeing Rei and Seto return to the orphanage, the director called out his name.
He had probably been waiting there ever since Rei left with the thugs.
It was late summer now... or perhaps early autumn was the better term for the season. Waiting outside wasn't unbearably cold yet, but given the director's age, it was still undeniably harsh on him.
Even so, he must have been worried about Rei and Seto... and above all, he wanted to know what had happened to Anne as soon as possible. That was surely why he had waited.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. What would you prefer? Shall we talk here?"
"No, please, let's talk inside. Out here..."
The director trailed off, but Rei understood the reason: the children gathered around them.
The older children understood clearly—or at least vaguely—what had happened to Anne.
For the smaller children, though, the return of Seto, who always played with them, was simply a happy event.
They headed for the yard to play with him.
Rei nodded to Seto, who was looking at him as if asking permission to go play, and then stepped inside the orphanage with the adults.
The children who knew why Anne had disappeared but couldn't join the adults' conversation looked visibly uncomfortable.
Then again, what Rei had learned this time was fairly shocking.
Given that, he felt it was best not to tell the children... and if they were to be told, it should be the orphanage staff who broke the news, not him.
Shown to the same room where he had first spoken with the director and the others, Rei got straight to the point.
For the orphanage staff, Anne's whereabouts were naturally a matter of urgent concern.
"First of all. Anne was enslaved, but she wasn't sold to a slave trader. She was sold directly to a certain party."
At Rei's words, most of the staff listening breathed sighs of relief.
They had likely been worried about what kind of treatment she might receive if sold to a slave trader.
But a few staff members and the director didn't look relieved at all. Their expressions turned stern.
They wore those expressions precisely because they understood what Anne's current situation actually meant.
If she had been sold to a slave trader, that would simply mean Anne had been sold as a slave—nothing more.
But being sold directly to a specific party rather than through a slave trader meant that the party in question wanted Anne as an individual.
"And... I hesitated about whether I should tell you this, but the organization that bought Anne is the Dolan Workshop."
"The Dolan Workshop!?"
The director and all the adults present naturally knew of the Dolan Workshop.
The only city connected to Buldan was Egginis, and the Dolan Workshop possessed the foremost golem manufacturing technology in all of Egginis. It would have been more surprising if they didn't know the name.
"Yes. It's exactly the Dolan Workshop you're thinking of—the one that manufactures golems."
"But why would the Dolan Workshop...?"
"There's a rumor that the Dolan Workshop uses human materials to manufacture golems. On a separate note, Golias, who was in Egginis, is currently missing, and Lindy is searching for him."
"The fact that you're telling us this here means..."
"Yeah. I think the Dolan Workshop is involved in Golias's case as well."
Strictly speaking, while the matter with the bandits was one thing, Rei didn't have definitive proof linking the Dolan Workshop to Golias's disappearance.
However, with Anne's case explicitly naming the Dolan Workshop, Rei concluded that it wouldn't be far-fetched to think Golias's disappearance was also their doing.
He had already suspected the Dolan Workshop, but there had been no decisive proof. Garby's testimony, however, was more than enough for Rei to feel certain.
Of course, Garby's testimony alone wouldn't be enough to take official action against the Workshop, but...
"Such a... what a terrible thing... Is Lindy safe?"
The fact that he asked about Lindy's safety here was surely because he knew how Lindy felt about Golias.
Lindy herself might have thought she was hiding her romantic feelings well, but unfortunately for her, the director... no, apparently all the staff present knew about it too.
That was why they were worried about whether Lindy was doing anything reckless over Golias.
"For now, I think she's fine. But with Anne's situation added on top, she'll probably reach her breaking point. When that happens, I plan to act alongside her."
"Thank you very much."
To the director, Rei was about the age of his own grandchildren.
But even so, Rei's strength was undeniable—clear from the incident where he had saved the children, and from this latest matter with Garby.
Furthermore, the director's long life experience told him that Rei was trustworthy and genuinely capable. His gratitude was born from that understanding.
The other staff members echoed their thanks as well, following shortly after the director.
For the staff of this orphanage, Anne was precious, of course, but so were Lindy and Golias—they were all family.
"It's not something you need to thank me that much for, so please don't worry about it. Things just unfolded this way... If I hadn't run into Lindy, things could have gotten quite troublesome on my end too."
That was Rei's honest, heartfelt opinion.
If he had never met Lindy, he wouldn't have known about Golias going missing. And in that case, depending on the circumstances, Rei might have purchased a golem from the Dolan Workshop—one made with human materials. Not just bandits, either, but people who had been forcibly enslaved, or individuals like Golias who had been abducted through some unknown means.
That would have been the worst possible outcome for Rei.
Even Rei, who collected Magic Items as a hobby, had absolutely no desire to use a golem made from human materials—especially humans turned into materials through illegal methods.
If he hadn't crossed paths with Lindy, Rei very well might have bought a Dolan Workshop golem.
...That said, many people wanted the Workshop's golems.
Thinking about it that way, there was no guarantee he could have even obtained one.
"Anyway, I need to let Lindy know about this. Given that, I'm planning to head back to Egginis soon. If you'd like to write Lindy a letter or something, I can deliver it. What do you think?"
"Thank you very much. I'll prepare one right away, so please give me a moment. Um... would it be alright for the others to write letters as well?"
The director probably felt that not just himself, but the other staff would want to write to Lindy too.
Rei had no problem with that, so he nodded readily.
"There's no burden on me, so the number of letters isn't an issue. But I can't take too much time, so I'd appreciate it if you could be as quick as possible."
Since he'd be traveling on Seto, some loss of time wasn't a big deal to Rei.
Still, to inform Lindy about Anne's situation as quickly as possible—and to infiltrate or otherwise act against the Dolan Workshop—the less time spent waiting here, the better.
At Rei's words, the director nodded and addressed the room.
"You all heard him. Anyone who wants to send a letter to Lindy, please start preparing one immediately. We must not keep him waiting."
"Yes, sir."
Listening to the director's words, every single person responded in unison.
That was somewhat surprising even to Rei.
He had assumed that even if some wrote letters, it would only be about half of them.
"Then, please excuse us. Rei-san, what will you do while we're writing?"
"Ah, I'll wait here. I've got a few things I want to take care of anyway. Don't worry about me—take your time."
The director looked puzzled at Rei's words, but judging that writing to Lindy was the top priority, he left the room with the other staff.
Once Rei confirmed he was alone, he pulled paper and a pen from his Misty Ring.
It was a quill pen, so it was useless without ink.
(Now that I think about it, there was a Magic Item quill pen that could convert magical power into ink and write indefinitely. It was supposedly quite expensive—not exactly disposable, but still a consumable.)
The tip of a quill pen naturally wore down with use.
That said, Rei didn't use one very often, so in that sense it would last him a considerably long time.
It would be convenient to have, so he made a mental note to buy a batch later, and began writing on the paper.
It was the information he had extracted from Garby.
Specifically, a list of people whom Garby had entrapped and sold into slavery on orders from the Dolan Workshop.
Rei had already hinted as much to Garby's subordinate thugs—not the rank-and-file, but clearly higher-ranking ones compared to those who had come to the orphanage.
Judging by their reaction, there would definitely be some significant movement.
But if possible, it would be better to have other ammunition to use against Garby as well.
Rei had promised not to harm Garby directly, but he'd never agreed not to leak information to others.
(Then again, considering the magnitude of Garby's influence in Buldan, even with this kind of information... destroying him would be impossible, I suppose.)
It would be nice if that happened, but he doubted it would.
Besides, whether Garby was destroyed or not, there was no guaranteeing that whoever replaced him wouldn't be even worse.
In that sense, Rei thought it might be more practical to simply chip away at Garby's influence, which was fairly deeply rooted in this town.
(But that's not my call. How to use this information—or whether to use it at all—is for the orphanage folks to decide.)
Simply possessing the information was a form of power in itself.
Though if Garby learned of it, he would undoubtedly try to seize it somehow... but considering Rei's existence, he wouldn't dare act recklessly.
Turning these thoughts over in his mind, Rei finished writing down everything he knew.
Having finished, and since simply waiting in the room was boring, he was about to head out to the yard where Seto was playing with the children when...
"H-hey. Rei-niichan."
One of the children spoke to him in a timid voice.
Rei turned toward the sound and saw a child he recognized.
One of the children he had saved from the wolves along with Camila.
"What is it?"
"Anne-nee-chan... she's going to be okay, right?"
"I wonder. Once I get back to Egginis, I plan to move as quickly as possible, but... even so, there are no guarantees."
"Hic..."
The child was clearly very attached to Anne. Hearing Rei say there were no guarantees, tears welled up in their eyes.
Still, Rei felt that offering empty comfort wouldn't be right, and so he spoke honestly.
"I don't know what will happen. But both Lindy and I will do everything we possibly can. Is that enough?"
For Rei, these were unusually gentle words.
Perhaps the child sensed that, because after hearing them, they nodded without hesitation.
"Yeah, okay. ...Please take care of Anne-nee-chan."
With that, the child ran off.
Watching the small figure retreat, Rei felt a wave of helplessness, and...
"Maybe I should have punched Garby a few more times after all?"
He muttered under his breath, more out of frustration than anything.
That said, it was easy to predict that to the Dolan Workshop, Garby was nothing more than a disposable pawn—cut loose at any time.
Given that, even if—however unlikely—Garby had refused the Workshop's request, they would have simply taken it to someone else.
"If that had happened, there might have been even more chaos in Buldan."
Thinking that perhaps things were better off this way, Rei headed out to the yard... and spent the time playing with the children alongside Seto until the director and the others returned.