After watching the last of the captured adventurers hurry away, Rei turned to Seto, who had been keeping watch on their surroundings, and offered his thanks.
"Thanks, Seto. We avoided a lot of unnecessary trouble because of you."
"Gruu!"
Seto purred happily at Rei's words.
In truth, Rei's gratitude was genuine—not flattery in the slightest.
While he had been gathering information from the captured adventurers, he had sensed someone approaching on several occasions.
Yet each time, those presences caught sight of Seto, apparently decided that picking a fight would be dangerous, and left without doing anything.
From Rei's perspective, this was undeniably fortunate. If someone had interfered while he was interrogating the adventurers, there was a real chance the captives could have ended up dead.
Being able to gather information without such interruptions was a genuine relief.
As he stroked Seto in gratitude, Rei suddenly remembered that he had meant to confiscate any weapons, armor, or Magic Items from those adventurers—but had completely forgotten.
"Ah, damn it. ...Well, whatever. Those guys will need their gear if they're going to act on their own anyway."
Since there was nothing he absolutely had to have, Rei wasn't particularly bothered. He'd only been thinking of it as a bonus if they happened to have something worthwhile.
"Anyway, I managed to get some useful information."
The intelligence that the guards harbored resentment toward the Dolan Workshop, and that golems might be deployed to search the Slum District—along with several other pieces of information that were important to Rei right now. In that sense, the interrogation had been a success.
"I should pass this to Orban... no, Nina would be better. Seto, let's head back. With things as they are, there's no telling what the Dolan Workshop will do next. ...If they actually send golems in, it'll definitely cause a major incident."
The only Dolan Workshop golems Rei knew of were the ones Ilunara and his group had created. Based on those, the golems were massive.
Given their overwhelming size compared to a human, moving them through a cramped, intricate area like the Slum District would inevitably cause a huge commotion.
The question is how the Slum District residents will react when that happens.
If they saw the golems, judged they couldn't win, and fled immediately—that would be fine. But if they attacked the golems, most of those who did would likely die.
And the residents of the Slum District tended to be an aggressive lot. If their homes were destroyed, they were far more likely to fight back than to run.
To prevent that scenario, Rei needed to relay this information to Fusetsu so they could properly disseminate it throughout the Slum District.
Ordinarily, Rei wouldn't need to worry about the Slum District to this degree. But this time, he was hiding in the Slum District precisely because it was beyond the Dolan Workshop's reach. Given that, he should avoid causing damage to the area on his account as much as possible.
With that in mind, Rei headed back to the Fusetsu hideout with Seto.
"Dolan Workshop golems, you say? If that came to pass, the devastation in the Slum District would be immense."
At the Fusetsu hideout, Rei relayed the intelligence to Nina.
Fortunately, Nina was still inside the hideout. When Rei said he wanted to share information obtained from the adventurers hired by the Dolan Workshop, she was able to meet with him right away.
He shared several other details as well, but the most critical piece for Nina—and for Fusetsu and the Slum District residents—was the matter concerning the Dolan Workshop's golems. If that plan were carried out, the damage to the Slum District would be considerable, easily predictable.
"Yeah. That being the case, if we're going to rein in the Dolan Workshop's movements, sooner is better. What's the status on the meeting with the influential figure running Egginis that Orban promised?"
"It's still being coordinated, but if that's the situation, we may need to push a little."
For Nina, Fusetsu was—and the Slum District where Fusetsu operated was—a place of great significance. It was only natural that she would want to prevent massive damage to the Slum District from the Dolan Workshop's golems as much as possible.
To stop that, they needed someone with strong influence over the Dolan Workshop to make a move.
At worst, I could storm the Dolan Workshop and destroy it myself... but if it comes to that, coordinating interests and all the political fallout would be a real headache. If this were Gilm—well, it doesn't even need to be Gilm. If it were a normal noble's territory, things would be different. But it's an autonomous city.
That was the most troublesome aspect of the current situation.
If destroying the Dolan Workshop would settle everything, Rei would have charged in with Seto right then and there. He could even assault the Workshop with Fire Whirlwind, the spell that had become his signature.
But doing something like that—unlike in a territory governed by an ordinary noble—would undoubtedly lead to complications.
At worst, since Rei's base was in Gilm, he always had the option of leaving Egginis before things got too messy. But if it came to that, there would be no telling what fate would befall Lindy, Anne, Ilunara... and many others involved in this matter.
"Anyway, if this business with the Dolan Workshop can be wrapped up cleanly, I'm willing to cooperate to a reasonable extent. For Fusetsu too, leaving things as they are isn't really an option, is it?"
"You're right. When I consider that we can live here peacefully, the Dolan Workshop continuing as it is... that's a bit difficult to accept. If possible, I'd like to see the Dolan Workshop crushed."
As if agreeing with Rei, Nina stated it plainly.
Those words were enough to catch Rei off guard. Nina had just said she wanted the Dolan Workshop destroyed.
Fusetsu wielded significant influence in Egginis. Naturally, it wouldn't be strange for some of that influence to be tied to the Dolan Workshop, an entity producing golems with unprecedented performance.
Yet despite that, the words from Nina's mouth were exactly what she had just said.
"I never expected to hear that from you, Nina."
"Is that so? What matters to me is Fusetsu—not Egginis, and certainly not the Dolan Workshop. Of course, I understand that Fusetsu exists because of Egginis. But even so, I have no desire for Fusetsu and Egginis to destroy each other. In a sense, that's only natural."
"If you say so, then I have no objections. Either way, to settle this quickly, we need the people at the top to act. Can you ask Orban to expedite the meeting with whoever's pulling the strings in Egginis?"
"Given that it's already being handled as a top priority, going any faster than we already are would probably be difficult. ...However, the matter of deploying golems in the Slum District is important. I'll speak with Orban-sama about that from my end. Also... the information about the guards was extremely helpful."
"You mean how the guards are dissatisfied with being treated as the Dolan Workshop's errand boys? I'd have thought Fusetsu would already have that level of intel."
"Yes, we were aware there was such sentiment. But I had assumed that even if dissatisfaction existed, it wasn't that intense."
"So you misread the situation. ...What's your side going to do about it?"
Nina hesitated slightly at Rei's question.
Revealing what course of action they would take in this situation held no benefit for Fusetsu. But if she didn't give Rei at least some idea, there was a chance he might unknowingly interfere with their operations when he took action of his own.
Normally, one might question whether a single individual could disrupt an organization's plans. If that individual were an ordinary adventurer—someone like Lindy, for instance—it wouldn't be an issue. But Rei was an alias-holding A-Rank Adventurer.
With someone like Rei, Nina's concerns were not unfounded.
Better, then, to stop being cagey and clearly explain how Fusetsu intended to move, so they could ask Rei not to get in their way. She reached that conclusion and spoke.
"There are members within Fusetsu who have ties to the guards. We'll use those people to stoke the guards' dissatisfaction and spark infighting within their ranks, keeping them from getting involved in this matter."
She phrased it as "members with ties," but Rei suspected the reality was that Fusetsu had members embedded inside the guard force itself.
He suspected as much, but didn't press the point.
"Can you really pull that off? Looking at the current state of Egginis, there's got to be no small number of guards who'd decide it's in their interest to side with the Dolan Workshop."
Among the guards, there were certainly those who—as Rei had heard and as the intelligence confirmed—resented being treated as the Dolan Workshop's errand boys. But even with that resentment, openly defying orders from the Workshop and acting on their own initiative wasn't something most could easily do.
At Rei's words, however, Nina flashed a confident, bewitching smile.
"That much, we can manage depending on our approach. It won't be perfect... but close enough."
"Then why not spread the secret behind the Dolan Workshop's golems as a rumor?"
There had already been a rumor circulating that the Dolan Workshop's golems used human materials. But that rumor had no evidence behind it—it was simply gossip spread by those jealous of the Workshop.
Given that, if they now spread more detailed information—that the Dolan Workshop used necromancy to bind human souls into golem cores—the guards would surely be shaken.
That was Rei's reasoning, but Nina shook her head.
"That would be too provocative. At worst, the guards could split right down the middle and end up in a bloodbath. Half-destroying—or potentially annihilating—the guard force just to keep them from mobilizing... And if that happened, we couldn't rule out the possibility of bandits attacking Egginis."
"Ah, right. The bandits are still out there."
To the Dolan Workshop, bandits were sacrifices for creating golem cores. But the bandits themselves naturally knew nothing of this. If Egginis's guards were crippled or wiped out, there was a very real chance the bandits would attack, drawn by the rich prize that Egginis represented.
"But there are this many workshops here. If it's only bandits they're up against, couldn't the golems handle them? When I saw that golem deployment trial in the mountains before, they were using bandit subjugation as a test. Thinking about it, plenty of workshops would probably welcome bandits coming to them."
"There may be workshops like that, but there are also ones that aren't militant. And more importantly, depending on the number of bandits, there's a chance they could breach the city itself."
"...True enough."
That was a fact Rei couldn't deny.
Exactly how many bandits were out there, Rei didn't know. And while Egginis was classified as a city, it possessed a scale that could be called a quasi-city. Because of that, if the bandits truly launched an all-out assault... and not from a single direction but simultaneously from multiple points, mounting a defense would be difficult.
Of course, if they did something like that, the bandit side would also suffer tremendous casualties. In that sense, it would be an attack predicated on self-destruction.
"For that reason, while temporarily sidelining the guards is one thing, triggering a full-scale internal conflict among them wouldn't work in our favor."
"Right. It's not like I want Egginis destroyed either... Above all, if something like that happened, the Jalis Workshop where Roger is could take damage too."
Since Rei had commissioned golem production there, he wanted to avoid the Jalis Workshop being hit by bandits and that disrupting the manufacturing of his golem.
If that was the case, maybe he should go along with Nina's approach after all. As he was weighing this... a Fusetsu member approached and bowed to Rei.
"Rei-san, Orban-sama summons you. He says the meeting has been arranged."