"Anne!"
"Camila!? It's really you, Camila!"
Anne and Camila rushed toward each other and embraced.
If this had been the orphanage in Buldan, the sight would have been deeply moving. But this was not the orphanage in Buldan—it was a room inside the Fusetsu hideout in Egginis's Slum District.
Watching them embrace in a place like this, Rei honestly couldn't just nod and call it heartwarming.
Even so, Camila had desperately made his way to Egginis after Anne was enslaved, seeking help from Lindy... and from Rei, who happened to be by Lindy's side. In that sense, it was an undeniable fact that Camila's effort and tenacity had paid off.
"Alright, I'll leave Camila in your care here. You should be safe."
"Safe? Does that mean it was dangerous after all?"
Hearing the word "safe," Lindy pressed Rei for an answer.
To Lindy, the Star River Inn was the finest establishment in Egginis. Its reputation had taken a slight hit from the Blood Blade assassin's intrusion, but it still held considerable influence in the city. Despite having left Camila there, Rei had used the word "safe"—telling her not to worry about that would have been unreasonable.
"Yeah. Dolan Workshop people had gathered around the Star River Inn. They hadn't actually attacked yet, though, and I left before they could, so the inn probably won't take any damage."
Lindy looked relieved at Rei's explanation.
Most of the people at the Star River Inn were people she had hardly ever spoken to. In Egginis, as an adventurer—neither exceptionally powerful nor completely unknown, but rather one of the masses—she had virtually no contact with the kind of people who stayed at a place like that. Even so, if the situation she had dragged them into ended up harming them, it would be impossible not to feel a pang of guilt.
"I see. That's good. So, what happens from here? What will you do, Rei? We'll be hiding out here for a while."
"I'll be resting here today too. Tomorrow I'll head out into the city and see how things look. I'm also concerned about whether Roger is safe."
Roger had said he would be fine, citing his guards and the defensive device Rei had commissioned as a prototype golem. But was he truly safe? Whether his guards could handle the Dolan Workshop's pursuers was something Rei hadn't yet been able to confirm. Considering what lay ahead, it would be best to see things with his own eyes. He did want to check tomorrow in person. It was only natural for Rei to think so—their first meeting had been nearly disastrous, but by now Roger was fully an acquaintance, perhaps even a friend.
There was also the matter of what would happen to the golem Rei had commissioned if Roger suffered any harm. If it became known that the Dolan Workshop's golems used human souls, their standing would naturally plummet. In that case, the one to produce the highest-performance golems in Egginis to replace them would, again, be Roger.
...In reality, other workshops had been refining their technology during the Dolan Workshop's reign, so it wasn't guaranteed Roger would be chosen. But the possibility was there.
"I see. Then be careful. Also, I know the chances are slim, but if you happen to find Golias... could you look after him?"
"If I find him."
Lindy clung to a thread of hope, but from Rei's perspective, the odds of encountering Golias were low. If Golias had truly been captured by the Dolan Workshop, his soul might have already been harvested as material, and it wouldn't be surprising if he were dead. After all, Golias had been nowhere among the slaves in the basement where Anne and the others were confined. By that logic, his survival was hopeless.
Yet as a girl in love, having seen no body, she still believed he was alive.
(Come to think of it, after they harvest souls at that altar, what do they do with the bodies? Factor in the bandits too, and that's got to be quite a lot.)
Rei had no way of knowing exactly how many bandits the Dolan Workshop had sacrificed over the years. But according to what he'd heard from the bandits he encountered before first coming to Egginis, a significant number had been captured—though he hadn't known the Workshop was responsible at the time. Those people had naturally had their souls ripped away through the magic circle and altar powered by necromancy.
But the Workshop only needed the souls. The bodies were nothing but a nuisance. A single human body was a considerable amount of matter. One or two might be manageable, but with dozens—or possibly over a hundred—disposing of all those corpses would require tremendous effort.
"Anyway, I'll leave those two be. It's about time I get some sleep, though—is there anywhere I can crash?"
"We don't have much room. It's not a private room, but if you don't mind sleeping here, that works."
"Figured. Well, I don't mind sleeping here."
The rooms were originally all private, but now two or three people were crammed into each one. Naturally, there was no space for Rei. Even so, he was an adventurer. Sleeping on the floor was nothing if he put his mind to it.
(If there were space to set up the Magic Tent, I could sleep in that. Then again, with this many people here, would I have to take some of them in with me?)
He felt bad for the people sleeping in cramped quarters, but Rei preferred not to use the Magic Tent here.
"Then I'll just sleep somewhere around here. ...By the way, do you know what the food situation is?"
"They said they'd provide meals. That much seems fairly reliable. I think it's thanks to you."
"Even if you say that. The iron ingots I paid as compensation weren't something I bought myself, after all."
Since they were taken from bandits, Rei didn't feel any particular regret over handing the iron ingots over as payment. The same went for the poisons and such seized from the Blood Blade hideout—they had never been his to begin with, and if it ensured the safety of Anne, Lindy, Ilunara, and the rest, he had no problem with it whatsoever. Of course, if there were some reason he actually needed the iron ingots or poisons, that would be a different story.
"...Thank you."
Words of gratitude slipped from Lindy's lips.
To Lindy, an alias-holding A-Rank Adventurer like Rei was normally an existence so far above the clouds that even speaking to him would be difficult. Yet Rei, as if completely oblivious to that fact, had been helping her through this whole ordeal. She was genuinely grateful.
"Don't mention it. I'm involved in this mess too. ...At worst, I might have ended up buying a Dolan Workshop golem myself. Thinking about it that way, this much help is no problem at all."
Whether Rei could have actually purchased a Dolan Workshop golem was uncertain, of course. He had offered to provide materials from the Crystal Dragon—an unknown dragon species—but whether the Workshop would even want them was a separate question. For golem manufacturing, materials from an unknown monster held significant value. All the more so if they came from an unknown dragon.
Even so, for a Workshop that applied necromancy techniques, Rei was a singular existence they would surely want to avoid getting involved with as much as possible.
...And yet, whether because they wanted the dragon materials or because Rei was investigating the bandits' disappearance, they had apparently ended up commissioning Blood Blade for his assassination.
"Anyway, it's late. Let's just sleep for now. Tomorrow will probably be busy from the morning."
With that, Rei pulled a cloth from his Misty Ring, spread it on the floor, and lay down.
In this world, where there was no custom of removing shoes before entering a building, floors were naturally filthy. Rei had no intention of sleeping on such a surface while still wearing the Dragon Robe. That was why he had laid out the cloth.
...He could have slept on a sofa or something, but he chose the floor thinking someone else might need those.
Seeing Rei settle in, Anne and Camila decided to continue their conversation in their own room and headed off.
His consciousness sharpening rapidly, Rei woke with ease.
"Morning, huh."
Normally, Rei was quite groggy upon waking—sometimes lingering in a daze for nearly twenty minutes. But when he was on a job or staying somewhere dangerous, his awakening was different, allowing him to spring into action immediately.
He had gone to sleep in a windowless room around midnight. He hadn't been able to confirm the exact time, but by his own sense, it had been roughly two in the morning.
That he could wake up instantly despite such little sleep showed he was worthy of being a high-rank adventurer.
Sure enough, not only the oversized living room—calling it that was a stretch—where Rei had slept, but also the other rooms connected to it showed no signs of anyone stirring.
(Can't blame them.)
As an adventurer, and as someone born and raised in Japan, Rei being awake in the middle of the night wasn't particularly unusual. But in this world, many people lived by early to bed, early to rise. There were certainly nobles and wealthy merchants with money to spare who stayed up late, but no one like that among those sheltered by Fusetsu.
(Ah, but Ilunara and the others might stay up late for alchemy... or rather, golem research. Still, being up until nearly two in the morning is probably a stretch even for them.)
Musing on this, Rei pulled some fruit water from his Misty Ring to moisten his throat.
Looking around, it seemed several people besides Rei had slept in this room—whether they were overflow from the room assignments or had simply decided it was better to sleep in this spacious living room than cram into a small one with others. Rei couldn't say, but for the time being, he used the provided water facilities to quickly freshen up.
"Now then. The question is what to do today."
If possible, as he had discussed with Orban the previous night, he wanted to meet someone among Egginis's leadership who could be called a moderate and secure their cooperation. But he understood that given the current situation, it wouldn't be that simple. Even as the largest assassin guild in Egginis, arranging a meeting with one of the people actually running the city would take a fair amount of time and effort.
(In that case, I don't have anything to do today. Going out into the city in this situation... well, I suppose that's an option too.)
Unlike the previous night, the city would be crowded with people during the day. Moreover, this was Egginis, where the golem industry thrived—it wouldn't be unusual to find nobles and wealthy merchants among those walking the streets. Because of that, the Dolan Workshop's pursuers and the guards shouldn't be able to do as they pleased out in the open.
(Then again, there might be someone who completely ignores that and just attacks, so I can't say for certain.)
People who wanted to rack up achievements as fast as possible. People who wanted to stand out. Those who thought along those lines, or convinced themselves without any basis that they could pull it off—it wouldn't be strange for someone to attack the moment they spotted Rei in the city. Naturally, if that happened, Rei would fight back, and collateral damage to the surrounding area was a very real possibility.
(Yeah, thinking about it that way, wandering around the city recklessly is a bad idea after all.)
That was his conclusion.