Having finished dinner, Rei lightly stretched in the living room while musing about the food.
Despite the assault the previous night, every dish served today had been reasonably tasty.
He had assumed that even bread, cheese, and salt-cured meat would have been a welcome luxury, but...
When he asked the others, he learned that the meals served today—lunch included—had been substantial throughout.
This was Rei's first time eating dinner in this living room, and it was surprising enough.
(This is probably because we're paying them properly to shelter us. Given Orban's personality, it wouldn't be strange for him to think that receiving payment obligates him to provide commensurate treatment. If that's the case, relying on Fusetsu was definitely the right call.)
Bearing their current circumstances in mind, Rei thought this to himself.
It was true that his group had eaten proper meals, but he was a little curious about what the other Fusetsu members had been served.
Given that they were an assassin guild, they were probably eating more modest fare than his group.
(Or perhaps they're serving elaborate meals to boost morale... is that a possibility too? Given Orban's personality, it wouldn't be strange for him to do something like that either.)
As he was thinking along these lines, Ilunara, who had finished eating and was resting on the sofa, walked toward Rei.
What does he want? Rei wondered, but he was able to guess the nature of his errand immediately.
Tonight, Rei was heading to the mansion of a figure connected to the Dolan Workshop—someone who could be called the mastermind.
For Ilunara, who had deep attachment to the Dolan Workshop, he surely wanted to believe that the Workshop's current corruption—the mainstream faction's inhumane actions—were due to that person's orders.
"Rei..."
"I'll tell you now: if you're about to ask me to take you along for tonight's operation, that's not happening."
Before Ilunara could finish what he was saying, Rei preempted him with that declaration.
"Ugh..."
Rejected before he could even finish speaking, Ilunara groaned.
As expected, he had wanted to ask to be taken along.
Rei felt that cutting him off ahead of time had been the right call.
If he had let Ilunara say everything, the conversation would probably have dragged on.
However, unlike Rei, who judged the matter settled at that, Ilunara had no intention of meekly accepting his flat refusal.
"Even so, I want you to take me along. This matter is deeply connected to the Dolan Workshop. In that case, wouldn't there be no problem with me going?"
"There's a huge problem. We're not going there to have a discussion. We're going to use force without hesitation, you hear? There's no way I could bring someone who can barely protect himself to a place like that."
If Ilunara had brought a golem with him, he might have been deployable as a combat asset to some extent.
However, naturally, Ilunara did not have a golem with him right now.
To be precise, this was because Rei had destroyed them when he infiltrated the Dolan Workshop.
In that sense, it wouldn't be unreasonable for Ilunara to resent Rei—but given the situation at the time, Ilunara couldn't have told Rei not to destroy the golems, nor could Rei have been told not to attack Ilunara.
When Rei and Ilunara had encountered each other, they had been in a hostile relationship.
Thinking about it that way, there was no way Rei could bring Ilunara—useless as a combat asset in their current situation—along on a raid.
(The golem cores, which are the most important part, are fairly well stocked in my Misty Ring. I brought some parts too. If I used these, it might have been possible to build a new golem. Though there's no point in saying that now.)
Since this was Egginis, a city that flourished thanks to the golem industry, it wouldn't be strange for even an assassin guild to have some alchemy equipment.
Moreover, since Fusetsu was the largest assassin guild in Egginis, it wouldn't be strange for them to have equipment that other organizations lacked.
(It was fortunate, for now, that Ilunara didn't notice that. His muscle soreness probably hasn't healed yet either, so maybe he was just focused on that.)
Even so, Rei stared fixedly into Ilunara's eyes.
If he yielded to Ilunara here, Ilunara might end up coming along for tonight's operation, so he couldn't afford to look away.
Thus the two of them locked eyes—or rather, it became a semi-glaring contest.
The onlookers in the living room watched them with concern, wondering what would happen.
If Ilunara insisted on going and tried to attack Rei... there was no need to even consider what kind of fate Ilunara would meet then.
The only saving grace was that in this situation, Rei would almost certainly not be the one to raise a hand first.
For several minutes, the two exchanged not a single word as they held each other's gaze—and eventually, it was Ilunara who let out a heavy sigh.
Perhaps realizing he could not persuade Rei, he said nothing more and dragged his body, still aching from muscle soreness, back to his room.
Once Ilunara was gone and the tension dissipated, those who had been watching the proceedings in the living room showed visible relief.
From Rei's perspective, this was something he could never have accepted under any circumstances.
In that sense, the outcome was only natural.
"I'm sorry, Rei-san. I've said it a few times before, but Ilunara has deep feelings for the Dolan Workshop. Given that we're in this situation now, I think he wants to somehow be involved in resolving this matter himself."
The Female Alchemist, one of Ilunara's companions, offered those words of apology to Rei.
Rei shook his head at her, telling her not to worry about it.
"Even if I were in Ilunara's position, I might have done something similar. Considering that, this outcome is only natural. I don't intend to say anything else about it, so don't worry."
"Thank you very much."
The Female Alchemist showed relief at Rei's words.
She had apologized partly because she didn't want Rei to misunderstand Ilunara, but also because she hoped their relationship with Rei wouldn't deteriorate.
Though they were currently being sheltered by Fusetsu, it was Rei who had arranged for that and who was paying their fees.
Moreover, Rei was not an assassin but an adventurer—and an A-Rank Adventurer with an alias at that.
For their relationship with such a person to sour could only bring to mind the worst possible futures.
Rei didn't fully understand all of the Female Alchemist's thoughts, but he grasped them vaguely.
Knowing that, he had said there was no problem.
"Well then, for the time being... no, there's nothing more that needs to be done, is there."
Almost the moment Rei muttered that, a knock came at the door.
"Well then, it's about time to sortie. Don't leave this room until I get back, any of you. ...Especially you, Camila."
"Leave it to me. I absolutely won't let Camila go outside."
At Rei's words, Anne smiled and said so, catching Camila as she tried to slip away from her side.
A short distance from Anne, the man who had a crush on her was trying his best to strike up a conversation, but Anne was entirely focused on catching Camila and didn't notice him at all.
And Rei, equally oblivious to such a delicate romantic entanglement, opened his mouth.
"Do your best."
He called out briefly and opened the door.
And standing there was...
"Crow? Why are you here?"
Yes, it was Crow, who had fought alongside Rei and accomplished a great deal the previous night.
Crow, however, opened his mouth with an exasperated look at Rei's words.
"I didn't think I'd be working with you again either. Anyway, I came to call for you. You've already heard about it, right?"
"Yeah. We're raiding the mastermind's mansion. If they'd acted sooner, they wouldn't have gotten hit with an assault like last night."
"It's because of last night's incident that we're moving tonight. Anyway, if you're ready, let's go. First, we head to the surface. We'll meet up with the others there and move out."
Prompted by Crow, Rei left the room, feeling the gazes of the people in the living room on his back.
Standing in front of the door, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, were two men serving as guards and lookouts.
"I'm counting on you for the guarding."
"Leave it to us."
After exchanging those brief words, Rei headed toward the surface with Crow.
"Huh, that's quite a turnout."
What Rei saw upon emerging to the surface was nearly fifty assassins.
Just as Rei said, it was a considerable force.
The fact that a single organization could field this many was proof that Fusetsu was the largest assassin guild in Egginis.
(Other organizations might be able to produce this many people, but in Fusetsu's case, this is after taking casualties—wounded and dead—from last night's assault. What's more, from what I can see, every single one of them has a certain level of ability or higher.)
Simply fielding this many people was something other organizations might be able to do as well.
However, that would be purely in terms of numbers, and in terms of quality, they would fall short of Fusetsu.
"This matter isn't someone else's problem for Fusetsu either."
The reason Crow said that was, again, because of last night's incident.
For someone to have prepared golems capable of digging through the earth and moving underground meant that it was something Fusetsu simply could not tolerate.
And the fact that such a thing had actually been carried out meant there was no guarantee it wouldn't happen again.
Of course, given that last night's incident had occurred, they would prepare countermeasures so they could respond if the same thing happened again—and indeed, when Rei had casually asked about it, Crow had hinted as much.
Thinking about it that way, they could probably manage if the same thing happened again, but just how much effort that would require was honestly beyond even Rei's knowledge.
(It's possible that in the worst case, they might have to change hideouts. After all, last night was a crisis where they were nearly wiped out.)
Last night, they had sent people in directly to capture Anne's group of former illegal slaves and, above all, to secure the necromancy altar that Rei had stored in his Misty Ring. But if they simply wanted to kill everyone, they could have poured in water or poison.
Even if it was an underground hideout, there were presumably some mechanisms for ventilation, but if they were seriously flooded with water or poison, countermeasures would be difficult.
Even accounting for that, it seemed to Rei that dealing with such a thing would be extremely difficult.
Or perhaps Fusetsu had a plan to manage it somehow.
As far as Rei was concerned, since they were sheltering Anne's group, he honestly wanted Fusetsu to be thoroughly prepared for worst-case scenarios.
"If we can eliminate the one who orchestrated last night's incident through tonight's operation, it can also serve as a demonstration of what happens to those who mess with Fusetsu, huh."
"That's right. I'd like to do exactly that. Since they picked a fight with us, they need to receive a fitting punishment."
"But even so, you can't solve everything with force alone. ...Right?"
The one who entered Rei and Crow's conversation was a single man.
It was a face Rei was seeing for the first time.
That said, it wasn't as if Rei knew every single member of Fusetsu, so seeing an unfamiliar face wasn't particularly strange.
However, while it was Rei's first time seeing the man, the same was apparently not true for Crow.
The moment he saw the man, Crow caught his breath.
It wasn't just that he hadn't noticed the man approaching—it was because he understood that the man was Fusetsu's strongest assassin.
"Gigalana!?"
For the usually calm Crow, it was rare for his voice to carry such a strong note of surprise.
Gigalana? Rei directed his gaze toward the man at the name that slipped from the startled Crow's mouth.
That figure was clearly a cut above the other assassins standing around.
If the assassins present here were individuals of considerable skill, then this Gigalana was surely someone of outstanding ability even within Fusetsu.
Inferring as much from Crow's demeanor, Rei called out to Gigalana.
"Sounds like you're quite capable. Are you the one commanding today?"
"That's right. That said, I have no intention of giving Rei-san orders or anything like that. Rei-san, you're free to move as you please."
Thus he declared.