The moment the invaders saw Fusetsu's reinforcements arrive, their morale completely collapsed.
It was only natural. Fusetsu was the largest assassin guild in Egginis, and its members were renowned as an elite force. Even when facing a small group like Rei, Crow, and Roaby's, they had been overwhelmingly outmatched in combat strength.
The only reason the invaders had barely—truly barely—maintained a stalemate was largely because their numbers were great enough to quickly replace anyone who fell.
In such a situation, the passage of time should have worked against the invaders. But for Fusetsu's reinforcements to arrive on top of that was fatal.
If the invasion point had already been destroyed, perhaps the invaders would have steeled themselves and focused entirely on attacking. But with an escape route still available, not many could bring themselves to do such a thing.
As a result, by the time Fusetsu's reinforcements arrived, many had already begun to flee.
For most, choosing survival when the possibility existed was only natural.
From Rei's perspective, launching an invasion only to immediately turn tail when things got dicey was rather questionable.
If even Rei felt that way, then Fusetsu's members naturally felt it even more strongly, and a fierce pursuit was launched against the retreating invaders.
Normally, subjected to such treatment, it would not have been unusual for the fleeing invaders to strike back rather than meekly take the attacks, or at least retaliate to slow their pursuers before making their escape.
However, in this case, the fact that multiple organizations and solo assassins were acting simultaneously worked in Fusetsu's favor and to the invaders' disadvantage.
Even when struck from behind during the pursuit, if the attacker was a stranger—or at most a casual acquaintance—no one would try to help. Rather, they would be grateful that the attack aimed at someone else wasn't aimed at them, and once that person fell dead to the floor, they became an obstacle.
Even better was when someone still alive after being attacked desperately tried to survive, gambling on a near-zero chance by counterattacking their assailant.
There was also the possibility of playing dead, but if Fusetsu discovered they were still alive, torture would surely await.
Escaping before being captured while playing dead was another option, but whether anyone actually wanted to try it was another matter entirely.
"In the end, there's nothing more for me to do here, is there?"
"You're not joining the pursuit?"
Perhaps hearing Rei's murmur, Crow asked him that.
Crow himself also showed no sign of joining the pursuit happening before his eyes. Though, what was visible were no longer the invaders but Fusetsu's assassins—specifically, only the backs of those who had been slow to join the chase.
Crow naturally had feelings about the invaders, but he was holding back because he judged that if he joined the pursuit in this situation, the narrowness of the corridors would work to his allies' disadvantage.
The area where Rei, Crow, and the others currently stood was a wide space, but beyond it lay narrow passages.
According to what they had been told, the invasion point was prepared at the end of those narrow corridors.
"Even if I joined, I'd just get in the way in that situation. ...Honestly, this is really a belated question, but how did you know there was an invasion point beyond this corridor? Don't tell me you actually went over there, saw the invasion point, and then got spotted by the enemy on your way back?"
When Roaby and Crow's group had headed toward Rei's fighting position, the invaders had immediately given chase.
Since they had followed the trail of corpses to get here, there was no mistaking that.
Given that, it was inconceivable that Crow had once gone to the end of the corridor and then come back.
"Ah, that. I just guessed from what those guys were saying. Judging by how things actually looked, it seems I wasn't wrong."
"That's..."
Whether boldness or recklessness was the more fitting assessment of Crow's actions, unfortunately even Rei couldn't tell.
That said, the fact that the enemy had wavered at Crow's words was undeniable.
"In that case, we should probably destroy the golem that dug through the ground as quickly as possible. If we waste time here, there's a chance they'll invade the same way again. Or rather, isn't the establishment of a method to invade Fusetsu's hideout a painful consequence of this incident? Golems that dig through the ground are quite expensive, so they probably can't pull the same stunt easily, but..."
"Yeah. But the higher-ups will handle countermeasures like that. Besides, who knows if anyone would actually try to invade again even with such a method established."
"That's... true, I suppose."
In reality, how many of the invaders this time had made it back alive?
Rei had killed a considerable number, but naturally, Rei wasn't the only one who had fought the invaders. The Fusetsu assassins who arrived as reinforcements had also achieved a fair share of the results.
In terms of pure hatred toward those who had invaded their own hideout, Fusetsu's members likely felt it even more strongly than Rei did.
In that sense, it was safe to assume that the majority of the invaders had been killed or captured.
Regarding this invasion, there was no doubt that the Dolan Workshop had invested considerable effort. Though they didn't match Fusetsu in scale, the fact that they had hired multiple assassin guilds of fairly large size made that clear.
With the majority of such people dead, even if a method to invade Fusetsu's hideout had been established, it was hard to believe they could easily pull off the same thing again.
(As for troublesome methods, they could just open a hole and pour in massive amounts of water, or pump in poison gas—methods like that. Being underground, that would be quite difficult to counter. There should be ventilation facilities, but who knows how effective those would be.)
Even so, Rei predicted that they probably wouldn't go that far.
From their actions so far, it was certain that the Dolan Workshop was trying to capture Rei alive somehow.
Given that, it was only natural that they would want to avoid any risk of killing Rei, even by accident.
If Rei died, the altar used for necromancy rituals that the Dolan Workshop desperately wanted to recover would likely be lost forever.
If they abandoned recovering the altar and instead decided they had to kill Rei, it wouldn't be strange for them to connect an invasion point somewhere and try to deal with him using water or poison. But...
"Well, standing around here isn't doing much, so let's move too. I don't know if we can destroy the golem, but at the very least, we need to shut down the invasion point."
"Yeah. Roaby's group already went ahead, so let's go."
Crow agreed with Rei's words, and the two proceeded down the corridor.
All the corpses in the corridor belonged to the assassins who had invaded Fusetsu's hideout.
Of course, Rei didn't know the faces of every Fusetsu member, so even if a Fusetsu member were mixed in among the dead, he probably wouldn't have noticed.
(It would be easier to tell if they wore organization-wide uniforms or something. But then again, that would definitely lead to all sorts of complications.)
If an assassin could be identified at a glance as belonging to Fusetsu, that would by no means be a good thing for them.
If they were adventurers, especially ones not involved in anything shady, standing out as belonging to a particular party would have its merits. But for assassins, it was a different story.
"Crow, just to be sure—there's no one among these corpses who belongs to Fusetsu, right?"
"Huh? Ah... right. As far as I can tell from looking, I don't think any of my comrades' bodies are here."
Crow, who had checked the surroundings at Rei's words, stated that with certainty.
Rei felt relieved at those words and continued down the corridor with Crow.
At the end of the narrow passage, the space opened up again, and there, numerous corpses were piled high.
What stood out more than the corpses in that scene was, without a doubt, the giant hole in the wall.
If there had been some kind of door, one might have mistaken it for a facility within Fusetsu's hideout. But naturally, there was nothing like a door around the hole in the wall.
There was simply a large hole.
Seeing that hole and noticing the many assassin corpses scattered around, it was not difficult to deduce that this was the invasion point.
"They invaded from here, huh. ...Troublesome bastards."
What Rei had thought of, Crow naturally thought of as well. No—even before that, Crow lived in Fusetsu's hideout, so the moment he saw a hole in the wall, he must have judged it to be the invasion point.
His irritation plain to see, he spat out those words.
For Crow, these were people who had broken into his home and drilled a hole without permission, so it would have been impossible not to be furious.
In a sense, they were no different from burglars.
No, given that they were assassins, perhaps they were even worse than burglars.
"Rei-san and Crow came too. ...Take a look at this. What do you think we should do?"
One of the Fusetsu assassins who had been standing in front of the hole called out to them.
While showing a troubled expression, the fact that he didn't look particularly on edge was probably because they had actually found the invasion point.
That said, the reason he still didn't seem completely at ease was likely because he thought there might still be assassins hiding within the hideout.
His favorable attitude toward Rei was largely because Rei had played a major role in dealing with the invaders this time.
Indeed, most of the assassins present were directing favorable glances toward Rei.
Due to the Blood Blade incident, Rei was by no means well-liked among Fusetsu's members.
Even so, the reason no one had actively antagonized him was probably because they had been ordered from above—specifically by people like Orban and Nina—not to make an enemy of Rei.
Having destroyed Blood Blade because they didn't want to make an enemy of Rei, antagonizing him here was out of the question.
For that reason, it was only natural for Fusetsu's upper echelon to instruct their members not to antagonize Rei.
Rei, for his part, wasn't about to go picking fights with those who treated him amicably.
"Even if you ask what to do, wouldn't collapsing the hole be the only option? Or bringing in dirt to bury it. ...By the way, do you know what's beyond the hole? Since the invaders retreated, their base should be on the other side, right?"
"A few people pursued the retreating enemies, but apparently there was no one beyond this point."
"Huh? Is that so?"
The man's explanation was quite unexpected to Rei as well.
Given the current situation, he had assumed that those providing backup for the invaders were waiting further down the passage.
(No, that's wrong. When we were fighting, there must have already been some enemies who had fled. Considering that, it wouldn't be strange if someone had escaped through this invasion point before Fusetsu's reinforcements even arrived. If those people heard that this operation had failed, what would they do?)
Rei's prediction was that, wary of a counterattack, they would retreat immediately.
In fact, Fusetsu's assassins had pursued the retreating invaders, so that line of thinking wasn't far off.
If so, fleeing the moment the invasion failed was the only logical conclusion.
"If there are no enemies beyond this invasion point, further pursuit would be difficult. We know which organizations invaded, so I think Fusetsu will need to negotiate with them as an organization after things settle down."
At Rei's conclusion, Crow nodded, though he wore a somewhat displeased expression.
For Crow, he probably didn't want this incident to end with mere talk.
For Rei, that was less troublesome, but for Crow, who belonged to Fusetsu, it wouldn't be strange for him to think that handling things too leniently here would lead to Fusetsu being underestimated.
In fact, precisely because they were an illicit assassin guild, reputation held extremely significant meaning.
(How they handle that aspect is probably up to Orban, Nina, and the other executives. Being an assassin guild, it wouldn't be surprising if some among them wanted to resolve things through force. I wonder how they'll approach that.)
Thinking thus, Rei decided that if there were no further issues here, he would return to check on Lindy and the others.